Love Bites (Bitten Book 4) (9 page)

Ricki interrupted me then. “So the woman needs to bite the man before the mating is complete?” she asked. “I didn’t…”

Her voice trailed off when I opened the top two buttons of my shirt and pulled it to the side to reveal the bite marks she’d left on my pectoral. A bite like that should have healed within an hour, but instead it had turned into a puckered scar. The same trick of chemistry that made mates smell
right
to one another made it possible for them to leave scars on each other if the bite went deep enough, an outward sign of their acceptance of their mate. Even though Ricki was human, she’d managed to break my skin and leave a scar.

“I forgot about that,” she whispered, her eyes huge.

“Once you marked me and I marked you, that urge to be close to you kicked in. I had to see you. That’s why I followed you to the store and looked for you at Donna’s party. It’s why I had to bring you here with me. It’s been killing me to stay away from you.”

Ricki stared at me, her beautiful eyes growing cold. “What about other women? From what I understand, shifters are a horny bunch. I’ve personally seen you with two other women. Will you constantly be screwing other people and expecting me to turn a blind eye? Because I can tell you right now I won’t stand for it.” She surged to her feet and paced across the room. Whirling, she glared at me. “If you think I’m going to sit around while you go fuck other women, you’re damned wrong. You’re not the only one who can find other people to screw you know.”

I was standing in front of her before I could even process a thought. “No way in hell!” I snarled. When she flinched, I backed off. I hadn’t meant to lose my temper, but the idea of her with another male made me want to do some damage. Now I understood why she was so pissed off after seeing me with two women in the space of a week. If her feelings were even half as strong as mine, it had to be extremely upsetting.

I lifted my hands and backed away a little. “Look, I haven’t explained this part very well, so let me tell you exactly how mating works. When werewolves mate, it’s always monogamous. Always. Shifters don’t have affairs or fool around with anyone other than their mates. Once we’re mated, we literally don’t
want
anyone else. Mating is until death.”

She no longer looked as angry or frightened, though she didn’t exactly seem happy. “Until death?”

“When one mate dies, the other usually pines away. The pack will usually step in and try to care for the mate, but sometimes there’s nothing they can do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Without their mate, some wolves will eventually wither away to the point of death.”

Ricki stared at me, her eyes no longer cold, but her expression was unreadable. “So you’re saying that we’re mated until one of us is dead?”

I nodded. “I’m yours until my last breath, darlin’.”

I should have known by now that Ricki wouldn’t react as I anticipated.

“So you’re telling me that, assuming I believe this crazy story, you tied us together for life without even bothering to ask me if I was okay with that?” she yelled, pacing from one side of the room to the other.

Yeah, that’s not what I expected. I grabbed one of her arms as she marched by. “Ricki, I told you I didn’t intend to do that. The instinct was strong, too strong to resist.”

“I don’t care! You don’t do something like that without permission!”

The spark that I admired in her was back. She was no longer angry or withdrawn. Instead she was in my face, yelling at me.

“Don’t smirk at me like that,” she hissed, sounding a lot like her cat. “This isn’t funny.”

She was adorable with her face flushed and her wild hair practically crackling with electricity.

What else could I do but kiss her?

Ricki

W
hen Calder’s mouth
touched mine, I felt as though I were drowning in heat. The knowledge that he wanted me, only me, had broken down my resistance. I buried my hands in his thick golden brown hair and let myself go under. His lips tugged at mine until I opened my mouth beneath his.

I was vaguely aware of Calder moving backward, tugging me along. He sat on the couch and I straddled his lap. His hips surged between my legs, the hard length of his cock pressed tight to my center. All the muscles in my abdomen tightened as he moved his hand to my lower back and rocked my body against his, creating a friction that made my head fall back and a moan rise in my throat. Somehow, he knew exactly how to touch me to bring me to the edge.

Nipping my neck, Calder used his other hand to shove the hoodie off my shoulders. I struggled to pull my arms free as he lifted my t-shirt. Within seconds he stripped me down to my bra. He lowered his mouth to my chest, tracing the top edge of the bra with the tip of his tongue. The caress was so light it should have tickled but the contact felt electric. I tugged on his hair and he growled against my skin.

When his hands went to the clasp at my back, I hesitated. We were rapidly approaching the point of no return. If I didn’t want to do this, I needed to stop him now.

Suddenly, I heard a loud screech and Calder jerked beneath me.

“What the fuck?” he yelped.

I looked over my shoulder and saw that Pepper had sunk her claws into his pant leg. She looked feral as she attacked his calf, growling and biting. I scrambled off his lap to snatch her up.

“Bad girl! You can’t just go around biting people.”

The cat twisted in my hands and dropped to floor before shooting out of the room, her black tail twitching irately behind her.

I faced Calder. “I’m so sorry.” I realized then that I was sitting next to him in nothing but my jeans and bra. I made a quick search for my shirt and tugged it back over my head.

“I guess nothing kills the mood like an animal attack,” he muttered.

My smile was half-hearted. “Honestly, before she jumped on you, I was trying to decide if I wanted to go any farther or not.”

He stared at me, his eyes speculative. “Why?”

I shrugged. “Calder, I’ve said this before but we don’t know each other very well. You’re talking about having a serious relationship. I don’t even know if we’re compatible outside the bedroom!”

To my surprise, he looked almost…offended. “Of course we’re compatible in more than just a sexual way. We talked that night. I enjoyed it and I thought you did too.”

I nodded. “I had fun talking to you, Calder, but earlier you described something that’s a lot like marriage. A couple of short conversations aren’t exactly a good basis for a relationship like that.”

“Ricki—”

I lifted a hand. “One of the things you don’t know about me is that the idea of a serious relationship like marriage freaks me out.”

“Why?”

God, the answer to that question was so complicated. I sighed. “Let’s just say my father had an eye for the ladies and often disappeared for days or even weeks at a time.”

Calder studied me for a few moments. “So that’s why.”

“Why what?” The longer we talked, the more anxious I became. This underworld was so different from what I was used to and I was ignorant. I knew nothing about his pack and not much more about vampires.

“Why you were so upset when you saw me with Chloe and then again after Brittany pulled her stupid stunt.”

I inched away from him, pulling my knees to my chest so that my feet rested on the sofa cushions. “Well, how would you feel if you had just slept with me and you saw me half naked with another man? Or if we were talking on the street and another man walked up to me and kissed me?”

Calder’s eyes flashed and he snarled.

I smirked slightly and nodded. “Exactly. You can’t blame me for having the same sort of reaction that you just did. Especially after seeing what….” I trailed off. Dammit, I didn’t want to talk about my parents’ fucked up marriage or my unstable childhood right now. Too heavy, too soon.

“Seeing what?”

I flinched slightly when his fingers curved around my calf beneath my pants. Spikes of heat ran along my leg as his thumb caressed the bones of my ankle. “The things my father did, they, well, they destroyed my mother. It took years, but that bastard finally drove her into an early grave.” I forced myself to meet his gaze. “I won’t let any man do that to me.”

The hypnotic motion of his thumb stopped abruptly. “I understand.” After lightly squeezing my leg, he released me. “Why don’t we watch a movie?”

I blinked at him in confusion. “Huh?”

“I can see you need time to think and I understand that. In fact, I think it’s better if we just spend a little time together over the next week and get to know each other. Do you agree?”

I chuckled. “Do I have much choice?” I asked dryly. “I mean, I don’t exactly have anywhere else to go.”

With a shrug, Calder stood. “I’m going to grab a beer. Do you want something to drink? I think there’s some white wine in the fridge.”

Okay, now he was really confusing me. One minute, he’s coming on all hot and heavy and the next he’s talking about getting me something to drink and watching movies. I was almost offended. Then again, I wanted to take things slow. I
needed
to take things slow. I had to be sure that he wasn’t like my father, a black heart full of lies, hidden behind a handsome, charming facade.

“That sounds nice,” I answered softly.

He nodded. “There’s a collection of DVD’s in the cabinet with the TV. Why don’t you pick something out?”

I couldn’t take my eyes off of him as he left the room, trying to figure out if he was playing an angle or if he really did care for me. It was so hard to trust him, or even myself. For a long time, I believed the lies my father told my mother and I was blind to his true nature. Then, when I thought I found a man who was honest and decent, Craig revealed himself to be a snake.

I knew that not every man cheated. I’d witnessed it with my friends over the years. There were good, honest men, in the world. Only it seemed none were destined for me. Some days I wondered if I exuded some type of pheromone that attracted polygamists and pathological liars. Kerry once joked that I was a bum magnet and I often thought that maybe there was some sort of scientific reason behind that, like my DNA or hormones.

I shoved those thoughts aside. They weren’t constructive. As much as I would like to take Calder’s word over everything he told me, I couldn’t. I would have to do some of my own research. First, I needed to call Kerry and pick her brain. In our group, she was the most well-versed on the supernatural community. Well, since Calder ground my phone into dust, I would have to get another cell before I could do that. I made a mental note to ask him for another phone tonight. Maybe he could get it for me by tomorrow afternoon because I had a feeling he was willing to let the conversation go for now, but his patience wouldn’t last for very long.

I heard a cabinet door shut in the kitchen and realized he would be back in the living room shortly, so I got up and started looking through the cabinet that housed the television. It was extremely disorganized, so it took me a few minutes to find anything worth watching.

Then I saw it.

“Oh. My. God!”

“What’s wrong?”

I jumped at the sound of Calder’s voice so close behind me and banged my head on the shelf in front of me. “Dammit! You have got to stop doing that!” I yelled, rubbing my forehead.

“Doing what?”

I glared at him over my shoulder. “Sneaking up on me. I mean it when I say you’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”

He smirked, a beer in one hand and a glass of white wine in the other. “Can’t help it, darlin’. I’m light on my feet.”

“Well, then I may just start throwing things at you every time you scare me like that.”

Calder chuckled and sipped his beer. I took the wine he offered me, murmuring my thanks. “So what did you find?” he asked.

I grabbed the box off the shelf. “You have the complete
Firefly
series, including three unaired episodes!”

He frowned at me slightly. “Huh?”

“You’ve never watched
Firefly
?” I asked him incredulously. “Then why do you even have this?”

“It was probably a gift from one of the other pack members. I don’t usually watch a lot of TV, unless it’s the news.”

“Well, I feel sad for you, because you’ve been missing out on some awesome stuff.” I shook my head and straightened from my crouch. “Then again, you are getting up there. I mean, most men approaching fifty probably haven’t heard of this show either.”

I yelped when his hand connected with my ass in a playful swat.

“Watch the old remarks, okay?” he groused.

Laughing, I took the first DVD out of the case. “Okay, Grandpa.” I managed to dodge the next swat directed at my bottom but just barely.

After I got the disc loaded and Calder found the remotes, we settled on the couch together. When I curled up in the corner of the sofa, my shoulder pressed into the junction of the arm and the back, he reached out and pulled me closer, leaving his arm around me.

At first, I felt a little uncomfortable, but as soon as the first episode started, I lost myself in another world. The characters seemed more like old friends to me than fictional entities because I’d watched this series in its entirety several times. Calder watched with apparent interest, not speaking at all and keeping both eyes on the screen as he sipped his beer.