Scratch the Surface (Wolf Within) (22 page)

“Oh, about a month after we met. Here at the safe house two and a half years ago.”

I flushed. They’d met during my interrogation.

“Well, I’m sure you gave my dilemma your full attention and weren’t too distracted with carnal thoughts while you were supposed to be listening to my story,” I muttered and she smiled at me brightly.

“It was strictly business between us, Stanzie. I did give your dilemma my fullest attention. And I’ve already apologized for coming to the wrong conclusion.”

“Well, that’s makes everything all right then, fine,” I snarled.

“I wish you would forgive me.” She set aside her half-nibbled cookie and regarded me fondly. “You’re so passionate about everything. I admire that about you. Everything’s life or death to you, isn’t it? Me, I’ve always been somewhere in the middle. I don’t experience the highs you do. Or the lows, thankfully. I try not to feel sorry for you.”

“Oh, well, thank you very much, Councilor Manning.” I pulled the plug on the tub because it was obvious she wasn’t going to leave me alone. I needed to run away from her. This was pure hell.

“I’ve insulted you when I was trying to express how much I admire you. I wish you would listen to what I’m saying instead of feeling sorry for yourself. You’re not the first person who’s had to act as executioner in this Great Pack of ours, you know. We have our laws. You know them, presumably.”

“He was supposed to go to Florida. His pack voted to exile him, not put him to death,” I snapped as I reached for a towel.

Kathy Manning ran her slanted elfish gaze across my nude body and I felt unaccountably self-conscious. I was a huge stork in comparison with her. Why did she have to be so petite and perfect, damn her?

“The Great Council and the Regional Council of New England outrank the local pack. There was a secret vote, as you well know, and he was condemned to death. You broke no laws doing what you did. You performed a service to the Great Pack. It was also your right, considering the fact that he caused the death of your bond mates.”

“I thought you said you knew I know our laws.” I gave her a dirty look as I wrapped the towel around my body. “Why do you have to lecture me about them if you know I know them?”

“Because you’re acting like you don’t,” she said with another patented Manning smile.

I briskly toweled myself dry while she watched me.

“So I didn’t break any goddamn laws,” I all but shouted at her. She was impossible to ignore. “It doesn’t make what I did any easier to take. Maybe for you! Maybe for someone who doesn’t experience any highs or lows, maybe you’re the ones who ought to be the fucking executioners in this Great Pack of ours. Maybe people like me make sucky executioners.”

“I would think for someone who sees only black and white, up or down, right or wrong, this would have been a piece of cake for you.” Kathy Manning regarded me as if I were a bug squirming on the end of a pin just before expiring.

“Yeah, you’d think,” I said bitterly. I stomped into the bedroom to find clothes to wear.

Chapter 14

Murphy and Allerton sat in the front room when I clattered down the stairs. Allerton was drinking wine as he read a book on the sofa. Murphy stared out the bay window at the snowy darkness. He had a glass of wine too, but it was full and I half suspected he’d forgotten he even held it.

The wine bottle was on the glass-topped coffee table with an empty glass and a plate of cheese sticks that did not come out of a box but had been twisted together by Kathy Manning. The woman was relentless.

That didn’t stop me from scooping up a handful of the damn things. They were light and crunchy and melted in my mouth. Cheddar cheese and herbs—simple things but she managed to make them taste like magic.

I poured myself wine and ignored Allerton’s blue eyes as he stared at me above his book. Murphy didn’t turn around from his contemplation of the snow.

“I want to go back to Boston,” I said to Allerton then took a huge gulp of the wine.

“There’s the funeral to attend first,” he replied.

My jaw dropped. “I’m supposed to go the funeral of a man I murdered?”

“You didn’t murder him,” Murphy snarled from behind me.

“I suppose he was just the slightest bit complicit in his own death. He watched me pour the poison into his cup and he drank it anyway, but he still died by my hand. That makes me a murderer.” I helped myself to another handful of cheese sticks and took them to the farthest corner of the room where I could get away from Murphy and Allerton.

“You were acting as the Hand of the Great Council,” Allerton explained to me.

“I heard all this upstairs from Councilor Manning. You can make it sound as flowery and noble as you like, but it doesn’t change the fact I killed him.”

“It’s our law. It’s our way.” Allerton sighed and set aside his book. He picked up his wine glass and walked toward me. I had nowhere to go—my back was literally against the wall.

“You accepted the task, Constance.” His handsome face loomed closer and closer until I felt trapped and wanted to hit out and scream, but instead I took another big sip of wine.

“He said he was grateful that he got to die with someone he loved. Can you believe that shit?” I muttered, swiping my free hand across my eyes. They burned with tears but I did not want to cry. I so did not want to cry.

“You were compassionate, Stanzie,” said Allerton and that did it. I had not been compassionate, I’d been awful and paralyzed and accusatory and bitter and mean and, shit, the man had killed Grey and Elena. He’d been lucky I hadn’t torn him apart with my fingernails.

I burst into ugly tears. Allerton took my wine glass away and put it somewhere. The next thing I knew he was holding me, his arms strong and supportive around me while I wailed into his shoulder.

The second Allerton knew I had control again, he let me go and stepped back. His expression was grave and full of empathy and I felt ashamed of myself.

“I can’t do anything right,” I complained and he took hold of my chin so I was forced to look him in the face.

“You did fine. You did exceptionally well.”

I almost started crying again, only that’s when I realized Murphy had left the room.

* * * *

Murphy didn’t come to dinner. It was just Kathy Manning, Allerton and me seated in the Colonial dining room. They made small talk between them while I silently devoured two bowls of chicken soup and five pieces of bread. I drank water instead of wine because I didn’t want to get drunk. I’d fall apart for sure even worse than I already had if I got drunk.

There was hot apple cobbler for dessert with a scoop of real vanilla bean ice cream on top. When I tasted it I knew Murphy would have loved it. He had a sweet tooth, Murphy did. I loved to watch his face when he tasted something especially sweet and delicious because the most incredible smile of contentment drifted across his mouth as he chewed and swallowed.

Halfway through, I put my spoon down and excused myself from the table.

Allerton and Kathy Manning watched me leave the room but didn’t say anything.

Murphy sprawled across the bed upstairs—one arm curled around his head, the other straight to his side. He stared at the ceiling and didn’t look at me when I walked in.

I was incredibly tired. All the adrenaline in my blood had deserted me and left me weak and disjointed. All I wanted to do was crawl onto the bed beside him and curl up against him so I could sleep the rest of my life away.

But then I remembered that a dead man lay across the hall and I gulped back dismayed tears. If I hadn’t been so goddamn tired, I would have punched something.

“I can’t sleep here in this house,” I whined to Murphy, who had yet to even acknowledge me. “I can’t do it, Murphy. Give me the car keys. I’ll sleep in the car.”

“You’ll freeze in the car,” he said, still staring at the ceiling. “Stanzie, it’s about twelve degrees out there. Be serious.”

“I am serious. I can’t sleep here.” My voice wobbled and grew very high pitched. “I’m so tired and I can’t sleep here!”

“I’m tired too. I think I’ve gotten about four hours of sleep the past two nights. If that.” He cast me a bitter look. “It’s stupid, but I can’t sleep without you in the bed with me. That’s so goddamn dumb.”

“It is nice to have someone to sleep with again,” I allowed. “I’d forgotten how much better I sleep with somebody else in the bed with me. It’s the same for you too, huh?”

Another bitter look followed, this one tinged with something almost akin to hate. “I’ve never slept in the same bed with anybody else before you. I guess that’s another lie I’ve let you believe, isn’t it? That Sorcha actually deigned to sleep in the same bed with me? Oh, we had sex, Stanzie. But always in my bed and she always left afterward. Said she didn’t like sharing, getting too hot, being crowded.”

I stared at him, aghast. “That woman was so cold. How the hell did you fall for somebody so cold? You’re not cold, Murphy.”

“Yeah? I’m intellectual. I analyze everything. I don’t feel. Those are words you’ve said to me, remember?”

“I said the only time you let yourself feel was for her. And now I understand even better why you’re so closed off now. But you’re not cold.”

“Closed off is better than cold?” He gave me a sardonic look then returned his gaze to the ceiling. “Good night, see you in the morning.”

Jesus. I did not want to sleep alone. I was so tired I couldn’t think and I didn’t want to sleep alone. I stared at him for a moment, but, of course, he didn’t say anything, so I left the room and went across the hall to the bedroom next to Grandfather Tobias’s. My hand closed around the doorknob but I couldn’t make myself twist it open.

The door was cold against my back as I slowly sank to the floor and drew my knees up to my chest. I covered my face with my hands and sobbed as quietly as I could so the whole goddamn world wouldn’t hear me. Would this fucking day never end?

Murphy’s door opened a few minutes later and I smelled his cologne mixed with his remorse and frustration.

“Stanzie, come back in here. You don’t have to sleep alone. I’m sorry. I’m so goddamn tired, I’m being an asshole, I know.”

I lifted my tearstained face. He reached out a hand.

His fingers were warm against mine as he helped me to my feet.

“Will anything ever be the same again?” I asked him and he gave me a sad smile as he shook his head. He didn’t know either.

In the bedroom, he shut off all the lights and turned the gas fire down. I stripped off to my underwear and crawled beneath the covers, shivering a little even though it was not cold. I curled up on my side and shut my eyes.

The mattress sank beneath his weight and he was beneath the covers too. His arm stole across my waist and I wriggled backward until my body fitted against his.

We both sighed then everything, for me at least, went dark.

Chapter 15

Ten hours later I woke to the pleasurable sensation of Murphy’s lips against the back of my neck. I wriggled against him so I could fit the hard length of his erection against my ass. I bit my lip when he moved his hand between my legs. He slipped a finger beneath my panties and stroked me until a rush of desire made me wet.

With practiced ease he removed my panties and slid into me from behind. We both groaned aloud as he penetrated deeper and deeper until he was all the way inside me. I couldn’t see his face, and not being able to see his expression was erotic somehow. One of his hands was tangled in my hair to hold me still while he kept the other between my legs so he could tease me with his fingers.

At first he moved slowly, very slowly as I braced myself on my knees and reached out for the headboard to stabilize myself. When he knew I was steady, he moved faster, harder and I could hear him panting, his breath hot in my ear. He bit my earlobe and I moaned because that always drove me crazy.

He skimmed his hand up my body, gliding his fingers across my belly and then he undid the fastening to my bra and tossed it away. He let go of my hair so he could cup my breasts with both his hands as he moved his mouth to my neck.

Murphy talked in Irish to me as he fucked me. I had no idea what he said, but it was sexy as hell. I was so goddamned in love with him.