The Beast in Him (33 page)

She dropped the remains of her cigarette—no more than a stub now—at her feet. “Mind if I give you a little advice, suga?”

“I’m relatively certain I could cut your throat and you still wouldn’t stop talking.”

The older woman threw back her head and laughed. A rich, deep, somewhat frightening sound. “You’re probably very right about that. Bubba always said nothing he loves and hates more about me than my directness. But I promise. Last bit and then I’m done.”

Shrugging, Jess knew she had to let the female finish. No matter what happened between Bubba Smith and his sons in the eternal Smith fight for dominance, Jess didn’t see Miss Janie giving over her mantle of power to another female anytime soon.

“Make him chase you down, suga. Make him hunt for you.” Miss Janie stepped toward her until they were barely a few inches apart and whispered, “Because we both know... you are just achin’ to be caught.”

Jess slowly looked up at the woman Smitty endearingly called “Momma.” They didn’t say another word to each other. They didn’t have to.

The automatic hotel doors slid open and four older She-wolves walked out.

“Janie Mae,” one of them called out, “I thought we were goin’ shoppin’.”

“Oh, we are. I’ve got Bubba’s credit card and miles of jewelry stores to explore before the night falls.”

“He’ll be mad,” one of the females reminded her with a smile, “when he finds out you spent money.”

“Guess he’ll just have to punish me then, won’t he.”

I could make a run for it. I might be able to lose them in the city traffic.

Miss Janie pointed at Jess. “Y’all, you remember little Jessie Ann Ward, don’t ya?”

The women stood around her now and Jess, at her cool five-nine, felt surrounded by giants.

“Of course!”

“How are you, darlin’?”

“Isn’t she just the prettiest little thing?”

Jess smiled and nodded and tried to wish them all away. Miss Janie must have seen it in her eyes because she suddenly walked toward the corner. “Come on, y’all.”

“They say a snowstorm’s comin’, Janie Mae,” one of them informed her.

“Then we better get a move on. I’m thinkin’ there’s a diamond necklace with my name on it.”

Miss Janie stopped at the corner and looked at Jess. She smiled. A big one and real. Almost warm. “Don’t forget what we talked about, suga. I won’t say being with a Smith is easy—” the older She-wolves snorted and laughed at her statement—“but it’ll be the best ride you ever have.”

CHAPTER 29

Smitty stood in front of the Kingston Arms. He couldn’t seem to track his little wild dog down, and she wasn’t answering her cell phone. He had to find her. He’d make her take his apology, although he still wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong. And once he had all that settled, he’d take her to the Ritz-Carlton tonight. Get her the best room his credit card could afford and he’d make her his. He’d do this right. She’d never regret being his.

“She’s gone.”

Turning around, Smitty stared at Johnny DeSerio.

“What do you mean she’s gone?”

“She left.”

“Went back to the den? Or the Long Island house?”

“Neither. The Pack has this little house in Jersey. The adults’ little love shack when they need some away time from the pups.”

“Where is it?”

The boy shrugged.

“You don’t know?”

“Oh, I know. I’m just not telling you.”

Smitty had his hand around the boy’s throat and had him slammed against the wall in less time than it took to say “Ow.”

“Listen up close, boy, ’cause I’ll only say this once. These dogs may protect you, but I’m wolf. Just like you. And we both know I’ll rip the flesh from your bones if you don’t tell me what I wanna know.”

A delicate throat clearing had Smitty looking over his shoulder even as he tightened his grip a bit more on the boy’s throat.

Kristan smiled up at him. “Take your hand off his throat,” she said softly.

If this had been one of the adults, he would have ignored them, but sweet little Kristan... well, he simply didn’t have the heart. So, grudgingly, he let the boy go.

“Here.” She took hold of his hand and wrote on his palm with a pink felt-tip pen that had a fluffy kitty on the top. “This is where Jess went if it’s the place in Jersey. But you didn’t get it from me because the pups aren’t supposed to know about it.”

Smitty stared at the address. “How do you know she’ll be here?”

“I heard her talking to my mom and Sabina.”

“Can you tell me why she left?”

“She said she needed some time to think, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Thinking’s good.”

Not in his case. In that moment, Smitty realized this would be his last chance to get Jessie Ann. If he didn’t make her his now, he’d lose her to the Sherman Landrys of the world. “Thanks, Kristan.”

He walked toward the valets in order to get his truck when Kristan called to him. He looked at her and she held up both thumbs. “Good luck!”

Smitty smiled. Johnny DeSerio didn’t stand a chance with this one. “Thanks, darlin’.”

Hands on hips, Kristan turned around and glared at Johnny, one foot tapping. She could see the bruises on the idiot’s throat, and she knew he’d be wearing them proudly for as long as they lasted. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

Johnny smirked, embarrassed, and said, “Well, it kind of made me feel like, ya know... a wolf. It was cool.”

Kristan rolled her eyes and, walking away, sighed out, “You’re an idiot.”

Jess paused her game and pulled off her headphones. Someone was knocking.

She yawned and dropped the headphones on the desk, pushing her seat back by bracing her hands against it and shoving. The chair rolled back and then spun around. She stood and headed toward the front door.

Assuming the groceries she’d ordered had arrived, Jess pulled open the door and stared.

“Afternoon, Jessie Ann.”

Wow. Apparently his mother had been right. Especially with that barely controlled anger on his face. He even had a whole ticking jaw thing going on. She’d seen Smitty annoyed, exasperated, frustrated—but never pissed. Not like this.

Smitty didn’t even wait for her response, he simply walked in.

“What are you doing here?”

“Came to see you.” He looked around the hallway and whistled. “Y’all have the nicest homes.”

Jess closed the door. “You weren’t invited.”

“Wolves rarely are, darlin’.”

He turned and faced her. “You look real casual.”

Her sweatpants had holes, as did her nearly twenty-year-old Raiders of the Lost Ark T-shirt. She wore heavy socks to keep her feet warm and, for some unknown reason, had put her hair in two pigtails.

“I wasn’t expecting company.” This soon.

“Then you shouldn’t have opened the door without asking who it was.”

Jess bit back her retort and watched Smitty wander off down the hall and into the kitchen. She followed and found him staring into her refrigerator.

“You sure don’t have much,” he chastised. “And there’s a storm coming.”

“I know. I’m waiting on a grocery delivery. And I know there’s a storm coming. That’s why you should get back to the city before you get trapped out on the road. ’Cause you’re not staying here.”

Smitty sighed, loudly, and slammed the refrigerator door shut. “I have to say, Jessie Ann, I am running out of patience.”

Jess laughed. “Really? Are you?”

“I’m not leaving, Jessie Ann. Not until we talk this out. Nice and proper.”

“Nice and proper? Uh-huh.” She turned and headed back up the hall.

“Where are you going?” he demanded from behind her.

“If you won’t leave—I will.”

She found her discarded sneakers by the couch and reached down to grab them, but big fingers wrapped around her bicep and yanked her up.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m not?” Jess pushed up against him. “And how are you going to stop me?”

He let her go so abruptly, she stumbled back a bit.

“No, we’re not doin’ this. When you’ve calmed down, we’ll talk.”

She followed him to the front door. He snatched it open and marched outside.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said with a glibness she didn’t feel. Not when the only man she’d ever love was walking out of her life. Maybe forever. “Go on and run.”

She watched him walk down the stairs and toward his truck. “I guess your daddy was right all those years ago—you are afraid to take what’s yours.”

He froze beside his truck, his body one rigid line of rippling muscles. And in that instant she knew she’d said the one thing that might push her wolf over the edge.

Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, Smitty opened the passenger side of the truck. He took off his baseball cap and tossed it inside. Then he did the same with his heavy winter coat, shrugging it off his big shoulders. He carefully closed the door shut and turned to face her. All Jess saw were cold wolf eyes and fangs.

That’s when she made a run for it.

He never expected her to shift, but it didn’t stop him. He simply shifted to wolf and went after her. Wild dogs and wolves were equally fast, but wild dogs could run for hours before running out of steam. Wolves could run for miles and lope for hours. But the weather worked in his favor. Wolves could maneuver in the snow easily; wild dogs not so much. They’d been built for hunting in grasslands, not the uneven terrain of North America. He’d take advantage of that weakness. Because nothing would stop him now. Nothing would hold him back.

Smitty looped around and came at her from the front. She spotted him and made a fast change, her small paws slipping slightly on the snowy ground, losing momentum.

He quickly backtracked and looped around again, cutting her off from the new angle. She dashed off in another direction and he stayed right behind her, pushing her through the woods.

For a moment, he thought he had her. His front paws slamming against her hips. But she easily spun and slapped him with her paw, ripping into one side of his muzzle.

Jessie didn’t even stop, merely ran off in a different direction. Smitty turned and followed. Again pushing her where he wanted her. This time toward snow-covered rocks.

She leaped up but couldn’t keep her footing and slid across, then off the big stones. She quickly scrambled to her feet, but she’d lost precious time. Smitty tackled her from behind, shoving her hard to the ground. She kept fighting him, though. Her paws slashing at him as she tried to get out from under him, her jaw snapping at his. Not a fake fight. Not a show of a struggle. She fought him like her life depended on it—because it did. Her future life. Their lives together. Which was why he didn’t give up. He’d never give up where Jessie Ann was concerned.

It took some doing and a lot of slashes to his chest and side, but he finally forced her onto her back. He immediately wrapped his maw around her throat, the additional fur protecting her throat tickling his nose. He bit down hard and shook her.

Jess wiggled, trying to get out of his grasp, but he growled and bit down harder, shaking her one more time. Making his intentions, his demands, very clear.

Jessie Ann stopped moving, stopped fighting. She panted. She waited.

He held on a little longer. Long enough to make sure she wouldn’t run again. Not merely at this moment, but ever.

She let out a sigh and her body relaxed beneath his. That’s when he knew.

Smitty unhinged his jaw and nuzzled her neck, licking the blood off where he’d buried his fangs.

At the same moment, they shifted back to human. She had faint bite marks in her throat and blood on her cheek where it had dripped from his face. Her claws had ripped a rather healthy chunk out of his flesh. He dragged his hand across his cheek, wiping off the blood. He ignored the rips in his chest—they weren’t that deep.

It hurt, what she did to him. Physically, it hurt like a bitch. But emotionally, it only proved what he’d already known. Only Jessie Ann could push him like this. Only Jessie Ann could bring out the wolf inside him and face it head-on. He’d been fighting it so hard, for years. Afraid that by letting out the wolf, he’d be letting out the Smith. But he wasn’t his daddy. He wasn’t his brothers. He was Bobby Ray, and he’d be damned if he didn’t take the woman he wanted, who loved him more than anything, and make her his the only way predators could.

No wonder she’d been so mad. A Smith courting must have seemed an insult to her when she’d known damn good and well how Smiths took their mates. They didn’t call it a Smith mate-maul jokingly.

But that’s what she’d deserved. Because no one else matched him as perfectly as Jessie Ann. As different as they were, they still belonged together. She’d challenge him again, and next time... hell, next time she’d probably win.

Jess forced herself not to wince when she saw how badly she’d fucked up his face. Thank God the Smith wolves weren’t so much pretty as hot. The scar that would leave might make some guys look less attractive. Not Smitty. It would make him look even hotter.

As he flashed his fangs at her, Jess felt no fear. No regret. Nothing but a need to be fucked and marked by her mate that went deeper than anything inside her had before.

He turned her over roughly, forcing her onto all fours. Nope. There’d be no going back to the bed for this coupling. There’d be no romance, soft lights, jazz music, and high threadcount sheets. There’d be no condoms.

She wasn’t in heat and she was on the pill. Chances were low to nonexistent she’d get pregnant. But that didn’t matter. Not to the Smith males. When they claimed a female, they claimed a female. And like the canines they were, they’d do it out here. In nature. Something both of them were elementally a part of.

Smitty leaned over her, his lips dragging across her back, his tongue licking her spine. One hand slid beneath her and rested against her stomach, holding her in place; the other hand braced Smitty above her. Like most things when it came to Smitty, he didn’t rush this. Her wolf took his time. Brushing his head against her shoulders, his nose against the back of her neck. Strong, powerful thighs pressed against the back of hers and she could feel his hard cock resting against her ass.