Mist on the Meadow (17 page)

His eyes locked on hers and he held up a
second condom. Damn if he wasn’t ready to go again! Marissa tore
open the wrapper and rolled the new condom on. Her body pulsed
beneath his touch and her brain fired rockets of celebration when
he slipped inside one more time.

Love is about more than sex
, her
mother always said.
Love?
Marissa’s eyes popped open and she
stared into pools of dark chocolate. Her fascination was mirrored
in Wolf’s eyes and she saw his thoughts as clearly as her own.

I don’t ever want to stop feeling like
this
. And yet she sensed his fear. She witnessed the war that
raged within Wolf from inside his head. As he reveled in each
thrust, each sensation, every ripple of pleasure that coursed
through him, he struggled with his lack of self-control.
This
isn’t what I came here for
. But he’d had condoms at the ready,
and he was moments away from exploding into the second one. He
clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes closed. A corresponding
thrill traveled through Marissa. The ability to share his thoughts
was so intimate, so personal—seductive.

Marissa dug her nails into his back and held
on as the wave washed over her. And then Wolf groaned as he pushed
deep inside, swelling with his final release.

He rested his head on her shoulder, their
bodies and minds intertwined. While Wolf ravished her mouth with
his, she sensed the war that continued. He seemed afraid to let her
go while at the same time afraid to hold on. Marissa would have
been content to share her body with Wolf over and over, through the
day and into the night. The intensity between them was
all-consuming, enticing, addictive.

Another timer buzzed and Wolf backed away.
Marissa hopped off her desk and crept behind the prep tables,
keeping them between her and the door to the front of the shop on
the way to the oven, where she pulled out a batch of coffee cakes.
When she got back to the office, Wolf didn’t meet her eyes. He
readjusted his boxers and pulled on his pants. Marissa redressed
and turned toward the kitchen.

“I—” he hesitated, “you—”

“Suppressed emotions,” she said quietly. At
least that’s what she told herself. He’d lost his grandmother,
she’d lost Uncle Balt. Together, they’d seen what killed his
parents. They needed something good to counterbalance the pain.

Wolf stuttered. “I hope you don’t think that
I—”

“Seems as if I kissed you first.”

“That didn’t give me the right to jump you
like that.”

Marissa retrieved her shirt from the kitchen
floor and pulled it over her head. “I started it. Blame me.”

“Marissa . . .”

Wolf shrugged into his coat while she stared
at him, his sentence unfinished.

She’d seen sunshine and children and nights
in Wolf’s arms. It was one thing to
know
they were meant to
be together, and another to see their future in the mazes of his
mind.

Evidently, Wolf had a hidden legacy of his
own. How else could he ease the discomfort that came with her
so-called gift? And he’d seen her thoughts as clearly as she’d seen
his.

She’d never thrown herself at a man
before.

“I swear I didn’t plan this,” he said.

“I know.”

“It’s like you’re inside my head.”

“I know.”

“I want to spend more time with you, and I
don’t want to wonder why.” His face screwed into a pained
expression.

She nodded.

“I’ve never . . . . ever . . .”

He prided himself on his control
. “I
started it,” she repeated. “Sorry. I’m not quite sure what came
over me.”

He kissed her again, fiercely, possessively.
“I came over you. What the hell am I doing knocking on your café
door an hour before opening time?” He scrubbed his face with his
hand. “I started it by showing up. I had to see you.”

Marissa giggled. “Well you saw me.” She waved
her hands over her body. “All of me.”

Wolf grinned. “Not quite.” He moistened his
lips. “And I can do better.”

At that Marissa laughed. Her body tingled
with anticipation. “I don’t know about that. That was pretty damn
hot.”

“If I don’t get out of here now, you won’t be
able to open the café.” He gave her a chaste kiss. “I want to see
you.” He rolled his eyes. “And not like this. I want to sit across
the table from you. I want to walk in the park with you.”
I want
to have children with you
.

Did he realize that as long as he touched her
she could still see into his thoughts? Intimacy much deeper than
what they’d done on her desk, and infinitely more seductive.
Marissa pulled away.

Would this heightened sensitivity accompany
every time she read someone’s mind? That would be one hell of a
side effect.

Likely Wolf would come to his senses soon
enough and realize she wasn’t one of his picture perfect model
types.

From his car, Wolf caught an occasional
glimpse of Marissa inside the café. She’d rocked his world, but he
had yet to determine if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Marissa was not a one-night stand, or one morning, as the case may
be. He needed to get a grip.

I started it
. And he hadn’t done a
thing to stop her. Who was he trying to fool? He had the condoms in
his pocket. Not his wallet. Not the glove box of the car. In his
pocket.

Another car pulled into the lot. Angela. She
raised her head to glance his direction when she got out of the car
and went in through the back door. Now he’d have to go inside and
at least get a cup of coffee. Otherwise she’d wonder what the hell
he was doing lurking in the parking lot.

What was he doing?

Five minutes later, Angela unlocked the front
door and waved him in. Seven o’clock. Another car squealed into the
lot and he recognized the girl with the braids when she ran in the
front door.

Each time he saw Marissa, it grew more
difficult to maintain control. She was balm to his wounds, salve to
his heart, peace to his mind.
Fire in his soul.
Could he
trust himself to go inside the café? But there were people around.
Certainly he could control himself with people around.

Wolf took a deep breath and went into the
café one more time.

“Coffee,” he ordered.

“Gettin’ to be a regular,” Angela said. “Want
a roll to go with your coffee?”

Wolf fought back the laughter bubbling in his
chest. He’d already had his ‘roll.’ “No thanks. Just coffee.” He
handed over a five and took his coffee. “Keep the change.” Time to
go. Fast, before he saw Marissa again.

At the door he overheard the next customer
ask about Uncle Balt and Wolf hesitated.

“The wake is from five ‘til eight tonight,”
Angela said. “We’ll be closed tomorrow for the funeral.”

Wolf pushed through the door. He’d go to the
wake. Right now he had family business to attend to.

He drove around the town square to his
uncle’s house. Chuck, doubtless still asleep, was about to get a
rude awakening.

Aunt Corrine opened the back door when he
knocked. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I need to speak with Chuck,” Wolf said as he
pushed past her, taking the stairs to his cousin’s bedroom two at a
time.

Chuck was splayed across his bed, eyes
closed, mouth wide open. Wolf grabbed his t-shirt. “Time to wake
up, Chuckie.”

Chuck sputtered and squinted at Wolf. “What
the hell?”

“We need to have a little talk, Cousin.”

Uncle Pete appeared in the doorframe. “What’s
going on?”

Wolf didn’t bother to acknowledge his uncle.
Marissa said Uncle Pete knew, not everything, but enough. His uncle
took a step into the room and Wolf turned his head. Evidently he
looked worse than he felt, because his uncle back-stepped.

“I wanted to have a conversation with my
cousin,” Wolf said through clenched teeth.

“At this hour of the morning? Aren’t you
going into the office?”

Wolf shook his cousin free and Chuck fell
back on his bed. Wolf slammed the bedroom door shut in his uncle’s
face.

“Now.” He rounded on his cousin again.
“You’re going to tell me why you haven’t said anything about your
friends.”

Chuck held up his hands and crept back
against his headboard. “Back off, Wolf. I swear, I didn’t know he
was stealing from the company.”

He
? One of his friends? Wolf’s eyes
grew large. Rudy had been drafted by the Bears after college. But
Elliot—Uncle Pete had hired him right out of college to work in the
R&D department. The same Elliot who flipped off Wolf’s father
right before sending him to an early grave. Apparently Chuck had
all kinds of secrets. This was going to be better than he expected.
The bastard was ready to hang himself and tell Wolf everything Wolf
didn’t know.

“But you know now, don’t you?” Wolf fisted
his hands at his sides. “And you didn’t say anything?”

“I couldn’t.” Chuck had gone pale. “Wolf,
we’re family. Isn’t that why you came back Christmas day? We need
to stick together.”

“Not when you protect your friends over your
family. Do you realize your father is going to be out of a job?
That the family business is about to collapse because of your
friend?”

Chuck’s shoulders relaxed, but the whites of
his eyes still showed the frightened pig that he was.

“Why?” Wolf asked.

Chuck looked away. “I can’t.”

“Because of the accident?” Wolf grunted. “You
weren’t the one driving, Chuck. What do they have on you?”

“Ohmigod, you know.” Chuck sprang from the
bed and cowered against the wall. “I wanted to say something,
honest. But then Grandma kept saying no good could come from a
scandal. She didn’t want me to tell. You know she didn’t.”

“She knew?”

“She knew everything, didn’t she?”

A fistful of t-shirt tore in Wolf’s hand.
“How much did she know?”

Chuck shrugged again. “I don’t know. We
didn’t talk about it. She did that thing, you know, where she
stared in my eyes and asked me to tell her the truth. I couldn’t.”
His lips quivered and tears filled his eyes. “But she knew. She
always knew, didn’t she?”

“It wasn’t enough for Elliot to kill my
family, now he wants to bankrupt the company?” Wolf threw Chuck
against the wall and turned, unable to look at that fat, traitorous
face. “Why?”

“He didn’t do so well at college and he
couldn’t get a job.” Wolf’s sloppy sloth of a cousin sobbed. He’d
always been a spoiled crybaby. “He asked me to get him a job—no, he
demanded I get him a job at Harper Electronics. After the accident,
Elliot made us swear not to tell anyone what happened, and then
when Grandma—” he paused to catch his breath. “I figured that was
the end of it until Elliot came back.”

Wolf folded his arms and Chuck flinched. Did
he think Wolf would hit him? “No, I’m not going to kick the shit
out of you. At least not yet. Don’t quit now. What happened when
Elliot came back?”

Chuck slid down the wall and buried his face
in his hands. “He didn’t do so well in college.”

“So you’ve said.”

“He said if I didn’t get him a job, he and
Rudy would tell people I was the one behind the wheel, that I’m the
one who ran your dad off the road and that I’d threatened
them
to keep the secret.” He glanced up at Wolf. “At the
very least, I’m an accessory to the crime.”

“But it was Rudy’s car. He’s the one with the
most to lose in all of this.”

“The two of them were gonna say I was the one
driving Rudy’s car, pin it all on me. And who’s gonna believe
me?”

“What a worthless piece of shit,” Wolf
grumbled. “So you hand over the family business?”

“Honest to God, Wolf, I was just doing him a
favor. I thought that was the end of it, until I heard about the
missing inventory.”

Wolf grabbed Chuck by the collar of his
t-shirt. “C’mon, asshole. We’re going to the police to put an end
to this once and for all.”

“No! Don’t you get it? They’ll put me in
jail. And the Bears’ll drop Rudy like a hot potato.”

“Your sorry ass will probably get off easy.
You’re going to make this right.”

Chuck shrugged out of his t-shirt, a mess of
fat and man-boobs. “I don’t think you understand, Wolf. Elliot’s
involved in some bad shit.”

“Then the sooner we lock him up the better.
Get dressed.” Wolf stormed out of the room and stopped short to
avoid a collision with Uncle Pete.

“I told her to leave it alone,” Uncle Pete
said quietly.

Wolf stopped and rounded on his uncle.
“Her?”

“Marissa Maitland.”

Wolf’s heart stopped. “And when did you do
that?”

“Nothing good can come from this after all
these years, Wolf.”

Wolf inclined toward his uncle. “Excuse me?
You were at the board meeting yesterday. If we continue to ignore
the thefts, we lose the company. How long are you going to let that
waste-of-space son of yours sit home and play video games while he
collects a paycheck for doing nothing? And to top things off, you
let that fuckwad friend of his in to rape the company, the business
you helped my father build. If we do nothing, you lose your
retirement. Your source of income.” He rolled his eyes and stared
at the ceiling. “You don’t care at all, do you? You’d protect your
stupid, useless son whatever the cost?”

“Watch yourself, Wolf. You’re talking about
your family.”

“My family?” he shouted. “My cousin watched
while his friends killed my family, and then he said nothing.
Nothing! For eleven years he didn’t say a fucking word. Is that
what family does?” He walked back into Chuck’s room and grabbed his
cousin by the collar of the oversized flannel shirt he’d put on.
Chuck hopped along, pulling on slip-on shoes.

“Wolf, you need to stop and think a minute,”
Chuck said. “I know you’re mad, but you need to understand what
you’re dealing with. Who you’re dealing with.”