This Weakness For You (Entangled Select Otherworld) (Taming the Pack) (5 page)

Christa’s eyes widened and she stared. “Oh, well…” Then, she wrinkled up her nose and tilted her head. “You know, I’d actually considered that, but there’s no way to ask
that
without sounding insane.”

The black wolf stared. Jordan’s primal intelligence had been expecting panic and shock. This amused acceptance was…confusing.

His mate scooted farther back in the bed with a yawn. “So, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, can you stay?”

He didn’t move.

His female leaned forward and whistled while patting the bed.

There was a brief fight between his stubborn human intelligence and the instinctual desire to be with his female. Also…she’d just
whistled
. His pride couldn’t fight the altered primal mind-set.
Mine. Mate. Mine.
The black wolf jumped on the bed and lay down beside her.

“See, only you were making it complicated,” she said on another yawn before she leaned down and grabbed a blanket at the foot of the bed, which she pulled over them. “I hog the blankets, so you’ll need to steal them back if you want them.”

The wolf wrinkled up his snout and was content…and very confused.

Chapter Four

He woke up slowly and smiled. Waking up meant he’d slept…and he was energized, strengthened like he’d recovered from an illness. He felt like an Alpha. He hadn’t felt this great in a long time—maybe even two years, maybe never—like he could lift a truck over his head and throw it. He’d even had this incredibly sensual dream that was so real, he could almost taste it. Mmm.

Stretching required moving a head covered in soft, messy brown hair nestled on his arm—but what really caught his attention was the hand that slid down along his stomach as he stretched. Jordan’s eyes flew open.

Damn.

He’d been planning on leaving Christa’s bed after she’d gone to sleep—instead, he’d fallen asleep and shifted at some point…and his clothes were currently on the side of the bed.

Moving as slowly and silently as he could, he plucked her hand from his stomach and slid out from beneath the covers. If he was lucky, she’d slept all night, and he could get out of here without her waking up.

He turned his back on her to slide on the jeans beside the bed and felt the tingles of awareness from being watched. When he twisted to look, Christa’s green eyes were on him—very much awake.

Dane was going to castrate him.

Christa smiled unrepentantly.

“Enjoying the show?” he asked.

“Well, you’re going too fast and my view isn’t optimal, but yes, thank you for asking.”

He winced. Dane would be
justified
in castrating him.

Christa sat up and stretched like a cat—like her damn cat, which he’d agreed to keep for her. It was a small price to pay to get her out of here, but it’d also pull her into his life. It was going to be hard enough getting her out of his every waking thought, without having that cat between them.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen it anyway,” she said, smirking. “You’ve been here naked since around midnight when I let Lucifer out for a couple minutes—you sleep fairly deeply.”

“And apparently without covering up.”

“Oh, you had the blanket on, but I looked underneath it.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it when nothing came to mind. There was no one like Christa.

She was still openly meeting his eyes. He had members of his pack who’d
never
met his eyes. It was…bizarre.

“Your brother is going to have me neutered—you know that, right?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to hand him measurements and a map to accomplish it if that’s what you’re worried about. I didn’t look for
that
long.”

He slapped a hand to his head. His world was on its ass. He should have put her in her place, forced her to show deference. Instead, he wanted her place to be right where it was, in his bed. And he had this irrational need to please her. It felt all wrong and very right at the same time. He hadn’t felt this way about a woman since…ever.

He had things to do. Things that couldn’t be impacted by a tiny elfin girl who smelled like brown sugar. Someone had to pay for what happened two years ago. That hadn’t changed. He’d continue to do his penance, but he was dragging those bloody poachers down with him.

The last thing he needed right now was Christa.

But apparently no one had told her that, because she was here.

And he’d slept naked beside her.

Hell.

“Women are allowed to look,” she stated.

“And why is that?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Well, there’s that whole aspect of ‘being a gentleman’ where you’re supposed to turn your back when a woman is dressing, but there’s nothing like that to being a lady—we’re just supposed to sit with our legs crossed, have good table manners, and not use too much profanity…and hell, I manage that most of the time. I figure looking whenever you’re offered an opportunity is one of the perks of being female. It almost makes up for the PMS and the fact that we have to wear bras.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Yeah, you are, too. I mean, really, if ever there was a time to look under the blanket…”

“I’m going to be like this pelt on the floor that your brother kicks in the head when he walks by…”

“Hopefully it’ll be from when you’re a wolf, because even that’s a little gross, but otherwise, that’s like Hannibal Lecter levels of disturbing.”

It drew a smile from his lips. It was the best night’s sleep of his life, but he’d be paying for it in spades. Then a horrible but also wonderful thought occurred to him. No…but…no…there was no way.

“I had this dream last night…” He trailed off, hoping she’d need him to fill in the gaps, but he knew from her smile—her wide, wide smile—that there were no gaps to fill in.

“Nope, we made out for a while in the middle of the night. But in my defense, you started it, and I thought you were awake up until you started talking about pancakes. You put up a good show of being awake.” She closed her eyes and moaned in a deep tone. “Ahhh, Christa, you smell so good. Mmm, yeah, Christa.”

Even her horrible impression of him was turning him on.

She opened her eyes and met his gaze…again. No one met his gaze when he looked at them like this—the outraged, long-lasting stare with eyebrows raised—no one. Even Vanessa, who sucked at showing deference, would have looked down. It made him more outraged and more aroused that she didn’t.

“You kept saying my name over and over—so that was good. It’d be weird if you were calling me by another name, but I also figured it meant you were awake.”

Then, she raised an eyebrow—this tiny female with her demon cat and her brown sugar scent held his gaze and raised an eyebrow.

“Because really, for the most part, we just met last night…so why would you be saying my name in your sleep?”

He closed his eyes. Aw. Hell. He’d been thinking over the last week that there had to be some mistake; the scent-match was flawed…because Christa couldn’t possibly be the alpha female intended for him. Christa couldn’t possibly
be
an alpha female—she was tiny, and obviously, her health would seem to suggest there’d be stronger females meant to be Alpha in the pack. But none of his previous choices for alpha female would have cut him off at the knees like that. When he opened his eyes, he could see she knew who’d won, too. Even if he hadn’t also lost their staring match, she’d clearly won.

He dropped onto the bed. “I am so screwed. I’m painting a target on my forehead for your brother. Maybe I’ll even load his gun.” His sigh brought more of her delicious scent into his lungs. “Hell, you smell good.” Closing his eyes, he shook his head. That was meant to be said inside his head, not out loud. Great.

The bed jostled as she crawled up behind him, pressed herself against his back, and put her arms around his neck.
Mmm
. He’d pull away in a second…when he dredged up some self-respect, when he wasn’t this whipped version of himself.

“You keep mentioning how I smell, which is flattering—I mean, it’s good that I don’t reek, even first thing in the morning, but what’s with that? Is it a wolfman thing or just a fetish?”

“Nothing. There is nothing with that.” His adamancy as good as proclaimed it was a lie. He might as well have shouted,
Christa, pay attention to this—because it’ll really bring me down.

“My brother was shouting something about a scent-match in the hospital—I mean, really shouting. I thought men with white coats were going to come in and offer to sedate him. And Vanessa and I kept passing looks back and forth like we wouldn’t complain if they did give him a little something, but Dane seemed fairly lucid.”

Her breath tickled his neck—and that damn scent-match worked against his inhibitions. He wanted to take her, own her, bind her to him. In that, the Alpha inside him was relentless and vicious. This need to possess her was shredding his will. And his ability to think clearly. Though the stroke of her thumb against his collarbone wasn’t helping. Blinking, he focused. He was an alpha wolf—he could do this. He could resist her…with her soft body pressed against his back. Damn, nature hadn’t short-changed her in curves, even if it had in stature.

Focus, Jordan.

“What did he mean by
scent-match
?”

“Uhh, it was nothing.” A hideous understatement, considering how that instinctual bond was making his muscles bunch as he suppressed it—and he’d been going without sleep for almost a week up until last night.

“No, I have a pretty good memory, and he said something like, ‘Oh, hell no, he didn’t just scent-match on my sister.’”

“Your brother was shouting things so we’d stay away from each other.”

“Huh.” She sat back. “So I guess I’ll have to go ask him. ‘Dane, so, Jordan and I slept together last night, and you kept mentioning a scent-match before…is that significant?’”

Jordan shook his head. “My hell, woman, do you ever attack with anything less than a full arsenal? I’ve fought bears and walked away without a scratch, but you’ve left me a bloody mess on the carpet.” He hit the bed with a fist as he threw a peeved glance over his shoulder.

“I tend to win arguments.”

“I don’t know why I’m bothering. Maybe you’d like to shoot the gun on your brother’s behalf.”

She tipped forward and rested her head on his shoulder while she wrapped her arms around his midsection. “I’m a pacifist.”

It made him laugh and look over his shoulder again…which she took advantage of and captured his mouth with hers. He should have pulled away—gotten up and walked away. Instead he twisted and grabbed her, pulling her onto his lap. They kissed in long, wet, openmouthed kisses that increased his pulse to a velocity that sprinting through the woods in Lycan form had never accomplished.

Mine.

No.

He twisted his fists in the back of her shirt to keep them in place. She was Dane’s kin. Not Jordan’s mate. He couldn’t allow this go beyond that point of no return.

Even as his heart pounded, her soft moans as they kissed silenced the beast in him. The rage and vengeance quieted. The guilt slipped to a background noise. The need to prove his power was assuaged. Those soft sounds of pleasure were the music soothing the savage monster.

He was at peace, and it didn’t feel as foreign as it should have considering how rarely this occurred.

Finally, she pulled back and asked, with her mouth wet and red from kissing, “The scent-match?”

“The scent-match is something Lycans—that’s what I am—experience when they meet their mate. Their mate’s scent becomes intoxicating, and they’re meant to be with that person. Usually, it’s a fellow Lycan.” He winced. “My last scent-match was with a fellow Lycan.”

She’d been smiling up until that last bit, but there were reasons—good reasons—why they shouldn’t be together, and he wasn’t going to build up this fantasy for her and lead her on. He cared about her. It was more than the scent-match—he was already strangely devoted to this vixen of a girl.

Vanessa had thrown herself in front of him the first time he’d tried to kill Dane. He’d throw himself under a bus for Christa, and it wasn’t just instinct—there was something there. She was tenacious and funny, and she was thin but in a waiflike way, not a starving supermodel sort of way. There was some good, honest, hot-as-hell attraction there—which he’d never be acting on.

Well, not again, anyway.

So he wasn’t about to let her believe in a fairy tale about a scent-match.

“Oh, so it’s just like a sign of attraction?” she asked.

“No, it’s a sign of compatibility—and for most scent-matches, it’s something that will last forever, and they’ll only want to be with that individual.”

“But it didn’t last forever for you…and this previous scent-match?”

“She’s dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Her sweet bow-shaped mouth puckered as her nose wrinkled.

“Your brother killed her.”

Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. “That’s why you tried to kill him!”

He shrugged. It’d been instinctual and not rational. “She’d already murdered two people and was trying to kill Vanessa. Your brother was right to kill her.”

Her gaze finally dropped from his, and she stared at his chin while chewing on her lip thoughtfully. “So, you must have cared about her a lot if you’re still grieving for her—and you tried to kill my brother over her.”

This was where it got tricky. “I didn’t know her. I’d said…maybe a dozen words to her the entire time we’d known each other.”

She went still in his arms.

“It was instinct to try to save her because I’d scent-matched with her, but that’s what the scent-match is—it’s instinct—it’s our nature siding against our rational mind. And that’s why I don’t trust it. There are realities it can’t overcome. My previous scent-match hated Lycans and being a Lycan. I’m Alpha of the Glacier pack—the leader. It would never have worked. Now, there’s you: you’re human, your brother and I have this history, and…I’m not the mate you deserve.”

Her head snapped up, and she scowled at him. It was so sudden that he nearly dropped her from surprise.

“That’s a load of crap—a bunch of lame excuses.”

With a matching scowl, he stood up, turned, and dropped her on the bed. “Also, I don’t want to deal with this again.” Something had to burst this rosy bubble of hers. He finally felt like an Alpha again today, and nothing was going to control him. Not again. If he could make her see that—see that the scent-match was wrong—they’d both work on staying apart, living their lives.

She held his gaze again, glare for glare. “I’ll accept that my brother is an issue, but you could be the pope, and he’d still question if you were good enough for his baby sister. He’s insanely overprotective. I thought my prom date was going to run for it while I went to grab my coat.”

“Yeah, but I’m not the pope, and even if I’ve lived like a monk for the last two years, it doesn’t make up for the rest of it. I lived an indulgent and entitled life up until then. I had the power to command about seventy individuals. My needs were paramount. My word was law. If I wanted a female, she was mine, and it was seen as an honor I bestowed. My hubris, my ego, cost three Lycans their lives and almost killed Vanessa and your brother.”