Insatiable Craving: 2 (Insatiable Nights) (2 page)

The smile had vanished. Aria now looked hurt—the legitimate kind of hurt. The kind of hurt that made Ginny feel as if she’d just kicked a newborn puppy.

Great.
Guilt on top of humiliation. She so needed to get home.

“I’m sorry,” Aria said. “I-I thought—”

A deafening crack sliced through the air, and before Ginny could make heads or tails of what she was seeing, the medallion around Aria’s neck flashed green, and not the sort of green resulting from a tacky light-up feature.

No, the material itself seemed to glow.

Forget left field. The night had officially blasted off planet Earth. Hell, at this rate, Ginny was careening toward Jupiter.

I’m losing my mind.

“No one speaks to my Arianna in such a manner!” a deep, masculine voice bellowed from nowhere in a frightening, literal
there was no man in sight
kind of way. “No one—”

“Draken!” Aria hissed, scowling and grasping her amulet.

Ginny’s heart crashed and before she could blink, gravity had vacated the scene. Something hard pushed at her chest and then the wall was at her back, her stomach dropping before her head cracked against plaster.

She hadn’t seen whatever pushed her, but it didn’t matter the next second. Her senses melted, Aria and the funky green medallion the last things she saw before the world faded to nothing.

* * * * *

Of all the women Aria could have approached, why in the world did it have to be her? The woman whose mere presence stirred something in his chest that both growled for recognition and terrified him out of his skin at the same time? Whose face haunted his dreams, whose scent he could pick out with ease even in a large, sweaty crowd.

His siren. His mystery girl.

She’d driven him crazy for weeks, and Razor had no idea why. There was no reason—no earthly justification as to why she should call to him as potently as she did. She was cute but he’d seen cuter. She was also skinny where he liked women skinny and full in other places, but in his world, girls with her looks were a dime a dozen. She didn’t have a supermodel face or body—she looked real. Round eyes, full cheeks, generous breasts, a kissable mouth…

Razor’s wolf hadn’t been tempted like this since Natalie, and even then, there was no comparison.

That scared him out of his wits.

At present, the pretty stranger was also unconscious and stretched across the sofa in his office.

This fact currently topped the lengthy list of things making him uncomfortable.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the thought,” Razor said, swallowing hard and doing his damndest not to choke on his words. “But I typically prefer them awake.”

Aria scrunched her face up like a kid who had tasted something sour. “It wasn’t my fault,” she said, her right hand clutching the ornate emerald medallion that hung around her neck. “Draken’s spidey senses went off at the wrong time and he came to my rescue.”

Razor appraised his friend with a long look, one of his eyebrows arching. “Your rescue.”

“Yes.”

He nodded at the sleeping brunette. “From her.”

“I didn’t say he was right. Heck, Raz, when is Draken
ever
right?”

“He’s sure batting oh and nothing right now.”

“Exactly my point.”

“Which brings me back to our guest.” Razor crossed his arms. “What’s the story?”

Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Aside from the animal under his skin growling to stake its claim, Aria had the same look on her face she wore right after telling him she’d cursed him to eat nothing but bean sprouts for a week. By the end of that particular sentence, he’d wanted to tear her pretty little throat out. And she was quite fortunate he’d restrained himself. Wolves weren’t known for their patience.

Something Razor had learned the hard way.

“Don’t be mad, but…” Aria looked down, suddenly fascinated with her fingers.

“Nothing good has ever followed those four words.”

“I kinda-sorta-maybe told her that you were kinda-sorta-maybe interested. In her. Maybe.”

Razor grumbled. “Aria—”

“And you are! I’ve seen you eyeballing her every time she comes in.”

“How many times do we have to go over this?”

She huffed and waved a hand. “Seriously, what’s the freakin’ harm here?”

“You can’t seriously be asking me that.”

“And yet, here I am. Serious.”

“How many times do I have to say it?” Razor grunted and pushed away from the sofa into a long stride across the floorboards. Apparently he hadn’t been clear enough the first few thousand times—not that he could begrudge the girl. In the end, he knew she had only his best interest at heart, but she went about a damned sure annoying way of showing it.

“It’s not natural,” Aria whined. “You’ve been a total ass all year. Why not blow off some steam? Why not
meet a girl
and blow off some steam?”

“Because I don’t blow off steam with people. I blow off steam on stage.”

She snickered and planted her hands on her hips. “Yeah. How’s that been working out for you?”

“Just fine until you start shoving goddamned groupies at my dick!”

“I didn’t shove her anywhere, asshole! I… Gently nudged. Implications were made.” Her eyes narrowed and she pointed an accusatory finger at him. “And don’t pretend like you haven’t noticed her. I watch you. I watch you watch her! Every time she comes in, she’s all you look at. I chose her for a reason.”

“Sacrificial lamb?”

“Dammit, Razor, it is
not healthy
for you to keep all this shit bottled inside.”

“I don’t recall there being any health benefits to ripping a girl into tiny pieces, do you?”

Aria had the audacity to roll her eyes, which only fueled Razor’s outrage. Dammit, she knew what this meant for him. What it meant
at all
being in the open. And while she’d been a steady, reliable friend most of the way, her tendency to get on kicks where she swore she knew what was best for him was one of her more annoying qualities.

Though honestly, everything Aria had said or done as of late had been annoying.

Razor stole another glance at the brunette. The way his wolf craved her, getting her up close and personal would be the worst of all bad ideas. No matter what he wanted—he’d given up his right to see through his own desires a long fucking time ago. Aria wanted him to get laid. She’d chosen the right person to tempt him with but for all the wrong reasons.

Getting that close to someone he wanted so much could only end badly.

“She’s not my type.”
Cop-out.

“If she wasn’t your type, you wouldn’t go all cartoon coyote every time you look at her.”

“I’m more afraid of going real coyote.”

“Raz—”

“She’s not my type. End of story.”

Granted, it had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to seriously consider the fairer sex enough to give
his type
any reflection. Once upon a time, his type had been sorority girls who had a habit of leaving their panties at home. What would have been called his college years had been his sexual awakening, as it was for most normal people. But most normal people didn’t have the tendency to leave bits and pieces of their girlfriend strewn across a dorm room.

Yeah, life stopped being normal then.

Razor ran his hand over his jaw, his fingers combing through four days’ growth of beard.

“Look,” he said slowly, doing his best to keep the reins on his temper. “I know you think you’re helping, but trust me when I say—”

“You’re full of shit?” Aria offered. “Raz, if you were gonna fly off the handle like some homicidal flying-off-handle guy, you would’ve done it already. How many times have I irritated the living piss outta you?”

His lips quirked, a reluctant chuckle climbing up his throat. “Too many to count.”

“And how many times have you torn my throat out?”

“In my head or in reality?”

“That’s not funny.”

A domineering presence filtered into the room, and before Razor knew it, his feet had been dragged along the floor and his back was against the wall. A crunching pressure found its way to his throat.

Draken.

“Do not,” commanded the irate god, “speak to my Arianna in such a way!”

Aria rolled her eyes again. “Oh brother.”

A gargled hiss climbed up his throat but died before it could know air. Razor gasped and heaved, his arms flailing uselessly and his legs kicking out but never meeting their target. Hard to meet a target who didn’t have corporeal form—a target confined to an amulet. How Draken had managed to master telekinesis when he wasn’t even supposed to know English was a major point of contention. Razor had intended to petition Aria’s coven for months now to get the insipid god under control.

Especially as the wolf in his chest never failed to smell a challenge and rear up for a fight.
Goddamn Draken.
Anytime anyone muttered anything the beast overheard and didn’t like, he’d stir in his bejeweled prison and start bellowing threats. Apparently centuries trapped inside an emerald hadn’t done much for the god’s social skills.

And Draken, for whatever reason, had never taken kindly to Razor. Saw him as some sort of a threat or something.

“Draken!” Aria screamed, eyeballing her emerald ineffectively. “Let him go!”

“This insolent little man threatened you!” the god snapped.

“He did not!”

“I heard him—”

Razor gagged and thrashed, the growls from his inner wolf growing louder as the seconds ticked by. Damn, he had done his fucking best to keep himself in line, but no one knew how to push said line more than Aria’s damned pet. A flash and he—

“You’re a monster!”

Razor shook his head and kicked at the air. He’d never get used to feeling his windpipe close. If Draken were ever expelled from the amulet, there’d be a reckoning.

“I should’ve taken you out when I had the chance.” Natalie wiped her tear-stained cheeks with one hand, gripping her silver bullet-loaded gun in the other. Razor’s gaze darted from her face to the door, a roaring swell rushing against his ears, pounding his temples, blurring his sight and—

God. The wolf…

Razor’s ass met the ground with enough force to knock his tailbone halfway up his throat. He blinked away stars and looked up in a daze just in time to see Aria complete her binding spell. There were only a handful of incantations that could harness the god, but determining which one would work on any given day was damn near impossible.

Fortunately, whatever spell Aria had chosen today had done the trick. She grasped the emerald around her neck, heaving deep breaths, and shook her head. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “He’s been…really touchy lately.”

“Mhmm.” Razor winced and fought to his feet, doing his damndest to ignore the whine of pain edging through his body. Pain was the wolf’s greatest motivator—that and fear. He’d learned to suppress it as best he could on his own, but damn, with Aria’s self-appointed protector using every viable—and usually just plain fabricated—excuse to thrash the living piss out of any and everyone, the wolf’s growls became more difficult to contain.

Aria sighed and released the hold on the amulet. “And,” she continued, “if you wouldn’t make so many veiled threats—”

“How the fuck was that a veiled threat?”

“With the tearing out of throats? I can’t imagine how that must’ve sounded to him.”

Razor craned his neck, his fingers curling inward and outward. He blew out a steady breath, did the count to ten, then shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re taking
his
side. When are you gonna pass that buck, anyway?”

All signs of argument fled Aria’s face but her hand returned to the emerald. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Callie just turned eighteen. It’s her turn to play babysitter.”

“Callie doesn’t know how to handle him.”

Razor arched an eyebrow. “And nearly letting him crush my windpipe is your definition of handling him? He’s a fucking god, Aria.
You
can’t handle him.”

She jutted out her chin. “I’ve done pretty well, thanks.”

“Again with the crushing of my windpipe.”

“Oh, stop whining. Your neck looks fine.”

Somehow he doubted it. The skin at his throat was raw enough Razor suspected he’d sport one bitch of a bruise over the coming weeks. Draken did nothing half-assed. If he weren’t such a holy pain in the balls, Razor might almost respect that in him. Almost.

“And,” Aria added, gesturing to the sleeping girl again, “you’re just trying to change the subject.”

His eyes narrowed. “How the hell did she sleep through that? Did you—”

“Small enchantment. I figured this conversation would get loud and…and loud, and I didn’t want her waking up and freaking out.”

Razor stared at the blonde for a long moment before breaking off with a curse. “So, let me get this straight.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You accosted a fan without my permission, tried to sell me off on a date I didn’t want, showed the girl your pissy god—”