What's New, Pussycat? (Wolf Mates Book 2) Page 11

  But he didn’t. He’d walked out. He’d been gone a long time, too. To love someone like that when he’d left them was, in Martine’s opinion, foolish and ridiculously hopeful.

  She decided again to be as honest as she could with Faith without revealing too much about her agreement with Derrick.

  She didn’t want to hurt these people, but she also didn’t want them to build something in their heads that just wasn’t going to be. “I like Derrick a lot. He’s been very kind. He’s a great cook. I like talking to him, but no. I’m not madly in love.”

  Faith began to speak, but Martine cut her off.

  “That’s not to say I won’t be…sometime in the future. I mean, who knows, right? But for now, we’re just getting to know each other. I hope you understand.” She reached a hand out, placing it on Faith’s arm. Okay, so it was a little lie, but if it made Faith more comfortable, she wanted to at least give her that.

  Faith nodded her head with a quick bob. “I understand completely. But give it time, won’t you? At least stay until the full moon? I wouldn’t be his mother if I didn’t ask.”

  “Because his life’s at stake.”

  “Ye-yes,” she said, her voice hitching, but she didn’t look away. Instead, she looked directly at Martine. “That I even have to say that enrages me, but yes. Derrick’s life is at stake, and you’re the answer. No pressure there, huh?”

  Martine looked her directly in the eye. “Then I promise you I won’t go anywhere until at least the full moon.”

  Faith took a deep breath and grinned, her eyes tilting up at the corners. “Phew. Now that I’ve made a plea for my son’s life, I think I can sleep again.”

  Martine laughed and let Faith squeeze her hand one more time before she began helping her gather firewood.

  As they giggled and chatted about nothing, it dawned on her that she’d laughed more in just the last two days than she had in a long time.

  Despite the fact that she really had nothing to laugh about.

  Chapter Ten

  As they strolled back to Derrick’s, he put his hand under her arm, guiding her over the strewn tree trunks and rocks. “Did my mother give you the talk?”

  Instead of pulling away, she leaned into him, liking the fact that he was near. He made her feel protected, cared for, maybe even a little less alone.

  She laughed at his question. “Well, not the talk, but she made her wishes clear. And fear not, Farm Boy. I didn’t give up our porn-ish arrangement.”

  “Phew. Because that would have been a conversation, huh?”

  “Um, yeah. Actually, I really like your mom. She’s very nice, and I’m guessing your cooking skills come from her?”

  He chuckled, a warm, rich sound that made her chest tingle and her knees melty. “She said that because of the curse and the dying bit, she was going to help us appear as attractive a catch as she could just in case.”

  Martine laughed again, shivering in the cold, clear night. “She’s a smart woman, your mother.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, she is.”

  The admiration in his voice made her smile. “She’s nuts about your dad.”

  Derrick stiffened, letting his hand drop from her waist. “Unfortunately.”

  Shit. Obviously a sore subject. Martine stopped in her tracks, kicking some freshly fallen snow with her loaner boots. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.”

  Derrick ran a hand over his hard jaw. “It’s fine. You were bound to find out eventually, the way my sisters all talk as if he’s still here. But my father isn’t here, and he hasn’t been in five years.”

  The sting of his words made her wince. Grabbing his hand, Martine held it tight, liking the way he curved his fingers around hers. “I’m sorry.” In this moment, she wanted to tell him she knew what disappointment with your father was like, but her tongue wouldn’t let her. The less he knew about her other than Escobar, the better.

  “Don’t be. It’s just a fact. That my mother still pines for him instead of moving on is just one of the many reasons I’m not a fan of this forever everyone’s so stuck on.”

  “I get it.”

  But Derrick’s mouth had become a harsh slash in his beautiful face. His disappointment, his hurt, radiated from him, and it stung her as a result. “If I ever believed any two people were meant for each other, it was my parents. They had a solid marriage. My mother still thinks they do.”

  Martine paused for a moment, searching for the right response to something she didn’t believe in either. But for some reason, she didn’t want Derrick to give up hope. It was irrationally important to her that he kept the faith. “Maybe she knows something no one else does? Isn’t love like that, though? Doesn’t love involve hope? Doesn’t it involve faith in the person you fell in love with? Trust and understanding?” Didn’t it?

  “I’m sure it does. It doesn’t involve deserting your family.”

  She cocked her head, confused by how his words sat with her. Why was it okay for her not to believe in all those platitudes, but it wasn’t okay for Derrick? Why did that matter? “So you’ve never been in love…like that?”

  He shook his dark head, his eyes now on her. “Nope. You?”

  “No.” The moment the word slipped from her mouth, she felt a deep sadness, as though someone had planted a seed and she’d watered it and cared for it, but it refused to grow.

  “Then how can you defend him?”

  She flapped her hand up in the air, exhaling a breath into the chilled night. “Oh, I’m not defending anything, Farm Boy. I’m just not emotionally involved the way you are. It lends to a different perspective is all. To see your mother’s face light up when she talks about your father, and she only did so in the vaguest of the sense…she makes me believe, I guess.”

  Derrick chucked her under the chin, his expression lighter now. “Are you falling for the bullshit after only one conversation with my mother?”

  Was she? No. Never. “No. I’m saying your mother believes, and I’ve never loved anyone like that, so who am I to say it doesn’t exist? I’m no one, that’s who. So ease up there, Adams, and let your mom be.”

  It was equally important to her that Derrick let his mom have her dream. She didn’t understand the reasoning behind that either, but it seemed so important to Faith, she was willing to forgo her skepticism.

  Derrick’s jaw clenched then unclenched, his face changing from dark to light. “Whaddaya say we change the subject? Like, I was thinking…”

  Here it came. The dreaded explanation she was going to have to give him for last night. She mentally began to prepare by doing what she’d been doing—hedging. “About?”

  “What you said the other night about shifting and hating paranormals.”

  “I don’t hate them. I hate their stupid rules. That you’re a fan of them after this curse is a source of constant amazement for me.”

  He grinned—deliciously, mischievously. “Let’s shift. Together. Let me show you my world from my point of view.” Holding out his hand, he hitched his jaw toward the forest. “C’mon. It’s good exercise.”

  Martine smiled, shooting him one of her best smoldering yet coy glances. “Is this your way of saying I need a good workout?”

  “Hell, no. Believe when I say, I like you just the way you are. I’m saying let’s take a run together. Maybe I can show you what it’s like to be free enough to just be who you are. Who you really are. Not just who the human world sees. Also, if I do say so myself, the shift to werewolf is pretty amazing. Thought you might want to see it.”

  Her cheeks flushed at his words of approval.

  Flushed? Her cheeks never flushed. Nothing on her flushed over a man. Yet, here she was, flushing. And he was avoiding the subject of his father. But who was she to press a sore subject anyway?

  You mean like you’re stalling having that conversation you promised yourself you’d have?

  Shhh. It can wait just a little longer. Hot man wants to show me his hotness. “So like right here? Out in the o
pen?”

  Removing his coat, he dropped it to the ground and nodded. “Right here, right now. In fact, I dare you, Pussycat.”

  “You’re on,” she said, determined to try to see someone else’s value in this. More importantly, she wanted to see what Derrick loved so much about being a werewolf.

  Closing her eyes, she focused on morphing. It took more effort than she was sure was normal, but it wasn’t something she ever did very eagerly to begin with.

  It didn’t bring her the kind of peace it seemed to bring Derrick, but she was willing to give it a go. Rolling her head on her neck, the crush of bones twisting began, moving, shifting positions, realigning as her clothing melted away.

  Falling forward onto her hands, Martine’s eyes followed the swift change from skin to black fur covering her hands until they became much smaller paws. Her tail sprouted, long and winding, sensitive to the shift in wind, almost like an antenna. She gave her haunches a shake before sloughing off the last of her human form.

  Derrick’s eyes on her felt somehow intimate. No one had ever watched her shift before. As a child, once she learned it was of value to her father, she’d flat-out refused unless she was alone and the pressure became too much to bear.

  As an adult, it was never a very pleasant experience. The urge to run often came hard and heavy with the shift, but finding somewhere to run freely in Manhattan without ending up caught by Animal Control or having things thrown at her wasn’t a treat. So she suppressed it as often as possible until she couldn’t suppress it anymore.

  Yet, Derrick watched with approval. She caught his eyes gleaming in the dark just before she’d dipped her head and allowed the full change to take over.

  When Martine lifted her gaze, Derrick had begun his shift, too, and it was magnificent to watch as rippled muscle turned into a solid set of legs covered in thick fur or a barrel chest, wide and strong. He stole her breath when he, too, fell forward on his paws and his face began to change.

  It was so swift, one blink of her eye and she would’ve missed it, but she forced herself to watch—to see why this appealed to him so much.

  As if Derrick could be anything else, he was gorgeous in shift, majestic, as black as coal, enormous and regal. On soft paws, he approached Martine, using his nose to nudge her.

  She stuck one of her paws out from beneath her fallen jeans and tripped over the pool of clothing until Derrick used his teeth to pull them away and free her.

  He looked toward the forest and the field beyond and then he began to run, glancing once over his shoulder, his eyes red and glowing, as if he were challenging her to a race.

  She was awkward at first, stumbling and very un-catlike until she found her footing, until the ground became not just frozen and uncomfortable, but part of her, its energy surging through her. Her eyes stayed on his backend, mesmerized by the power in his haunches as they ran through the woods, between trees, over hills, while the quarter moon shone down on them.

  Peace. That was what she felt. Not just in her surroundings, the vast acreage the Adamses called home, but from within, creeping along her spine, rustling through her fur.

  Snow began to fall, but she almost didn’t notice the pelt of large, icy flakes—this was too exhilarating, too overwhelming, too amazing.

  Suddenly everything was different. She wasn’t hiding in some alleyway to relieve the pressure of the shift, avoiding humans and their angry words when they chased her away.

  She was running and life was flowing through her veins, singing in her blood. Her heart was thumping, the cold air was ruffling her fur, invigorating her. Flying. It was almost like flying, and there was no one here to tell her she couldn’t do it.

  It was euphoric.

  Well, that is until she ran smack into a hand that snaked out from a bush and grabbed her by her scruff, hauling her upward and stealing all this newfound freedom right out from under her.

  The. Hell.

  Martine didn’t think. She didn’t pause to see who’d grabbed her. Instead, she reacted like a poked bear, reaching with her paws and swiping as much flesh as she could possibly scratch, howling, twisting, biting until she tasted soft skin between her teeth and the coppery tang of blood.

  It was a man—she smelled him, sensed him, but Martine didn’t stop to figure out who or why. Instead, she scrambled atop his head and began to tear at his scalp, forcing her paws into his thick hair and ripping at him with sharp claws.

  He reached upward with a grunt, grabbing for her fur, swinging his head forward then thrusting it back to knock her off.

  No! No one was going to snatch her up against her will again!

  The owner of the hand yelped, cursed, tore at his head until he got a hold on her and threw her to the cracked, icy ground with a snarl, leaving her dazed when she smacked her head on a rock.

  Just as footsteps thumping against the ground began to fade, a low, threatening growl hit her ears.

  Derrick nuzzled her with his cold, wet nose, running it over the top of her head until her eyes popped open. His eyes held a question as she tried to stand, but her legs wobbled and her paws felt numb.

  She hadn’t had a workout like that in quite some time. Coupled with assault, it left her feeling a little weak. Leaning against him, she panted, attempting to reorient herself.

  Derrick didn’t wait to see if she could walk back with him. He grabbed her by her scruff, keeping his jaw slack, and began to run with her toward his house, the lights from his front porch fast approaching.

  He made a hard right around the side of the porch and headed toward a doggy door, pushing his way through into a utility room she’d somehow missed in her explorations.

  Derrick set her by the washer, laying her on a towel he knocked off the shelf with a paw. His shift back was rapid and blurry, leaving him standing naked in the middle of the floor. Then his hands were tucking the towel around her, stroking her spine. “Are you okay?” he asked in a tone so sweet, so tender, her shift was almost thwarted.

  The crunch of her bone and the modification of her muscles happened easily this time, far more easily than it ever had before, leaving her sprawled on the floor beside him.

  Derrick hauled her against his chest, and she buried her nose in it, unashamed that she was freaked out. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. One minute we were running—and FYI, you were right. That was pretty great. The next, some guy grabbed me.” Had it been one of Escobar’s minions? He had them. She knew he did. Still, she was almost positive it wasn’t Escobar.

  Derrick stroked her hair, pulling the towel around her. “Did you see him?”

  Martine scoffed. “No. I was too busy trying to scalp him. Did you?”

  He brushed the wet hair from her eyes. “No. You got a little behind me in your freedom journey there, so I thought I’d let you enjoy it. Next thing I know, you’re not behind me anymore but I can hear you howling like you’re being skinned alive. So I doubled back to get you.”

  To rescue her. God, he was so damn chivalrous and this close to irresistible, she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from saying so.

  “Okay, look. I know we said no personal stuff, no questions, but I’m not going to stand by and let someone hurt you, Martine. Clear? This has happened twice now, and I’ve damned well kept my mouth shut, but this isn’t some coincidence. So either explain or—”

  “Or?” When she asked the question, her voice wavered and her pulse raced. Would he kick her out into the cold and risk dying for the kicking? She struggled with that notion, and it wasn’t just because she had nowhere to go…

  “Or we’re going to have to rethink this arrangement. Maybe keep someone with you twenty-four seven. I don’t know. I just know I deserve an explanation.”

  Her heart melted into a puddle of goo. He wouldn’t kick her out. But that was only because she had what he needed, right? She looked up at him, searching his face, trying to read it, knowing now was the time to tell him everything.

  Derri
ck’s eyes were soft when he asked, “Are you in some kind of trouble with someone? If you’ll just tell me what the hell it is, maybe I can help? I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  She shook her head, pushing away from him and pulling the towel over her chest. “You can’t help me, Derrick. No one can help me.” Unless he knew someone who could break a spell.

  He cocked a suspicious eyebrow. “Why don’t you tell me what the problem is and let me decide?”

  She gulped, fighting an irrational need to sob. “I’m afraid to put you or your family in danger.”

  “You’re already in danger. The danger is here in Cedar Glen. The point is moot, Martine.”

  Her stomach muscles clenched. “Do you want me to go somewhere else and wait out the full moon?”

  “No!” he yelled, his mouth becoming a thin line of anger. For all the yelling everyone said he did, this was the first time he’d yelled at her. “I’m not just doing this because you’re my ticket to living, Martine. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  She put a hand on his chest, pressing it against the place where his heartbeat drummed. “And I don’t want to see you or anyone in your family hurt because of me. So, yes, we have to talk.”

  He pulled her to her feet and popped the utility room door open. “First we put some clothes on, then we talk. And I mean that, Martine. I want to help. You just have to let me.”

  She followed him down the hall, watching his completely naked, utterly delicious ass until she came to her room, veering off into it to grab one of the nightgowns JC had loaned her and throwing it over her head. Blowing out a pent-up breath, she headed back toward the living room where Derrick had already begun to build a fire.

  Slipping to the couch, she sat, her heart racing as she waited.

  It was go big or go home.

  Derrick turned to look at her, his muscled arms crossing over his chest. “So the full story. I’d like to hear it. Who are you and what’s going on in your life that you’re disappearing into thin air and people are trying to snatch you from the woods?”

  Martine tucked her knees under her and looked up at him, her tongue thick, her throat tight.