“Perfume of the damned.” I tried prying her hand loose. Mistake. Her palm pressed flat against my stomach, branding through cotton.
She laughed—a wet, broken sound. “You’re warm. Harrison always felt…” Teeth sunk into chapped lips. A shudder ran through her slight frame. “Cold. Like money.”
My wolf thrashed against its chains.Kill him. Bury him. Make her ours.
Her touch wandered higher. “Bronc…”
Every cell screamed to cover her body with mine. To lick tequila off her collarbone. To bite until she understood ownership.Instead, I gripped her wrist almost hard enough to bruise. “Sleep.”
“Don’t want to.” She rolled onto her knees, sheets pooling at her waist. Moonlight through cracked blinds painted stripes across her delicate features. “Want you. Even if…” Her throat worked. “Even if it’s just tonight.”
The dresser mirror reflected our tableau—her trembling against the headboard wrought iron, me standing like a fucking monument to restraint. My knuckles whitened around her bones. “You’re pickled, Little Wolf.”
“So?” Defiance warped into something jagged. “Afraid I’ll regret it? Newsflash—every damn choice I’ve made since turning eighteen tastes like battery acid. At least this…” Her free hand traced my jaw. “… would burn less.”
I released her like scalding metal. Six steps to the door. Five more would take me through drywall and into blessed nothingness.
Her whisper hooked between my ribs. “Please. I need to know what it’s like…to be with someone I want.”
The floorboards groaned as I leaned in. Her breath hitched when I caged her face in my hands. Our foreheads touched—whiskey and tequila still lingered on her breath in the scant space between lips.
“Listen good.” My thumb brushed the racing pulse in her neck. “When I fuck you? You’ll be sober. Begging. Certain.”
Her lashes fluttered. “Arrogant ass.”
“Realist.” I forced myself backward, muscles screaming. “We got rules. Codes.”
“For mechanics?”
For wolves.“For men who don’t prey on wounded things.”
I reached the doorway as her laughter fractured, sharp edges cutting the dark. “Wounded, right.” The mattress springs wailed as she collapsed. “Run along then. Leave this broken thing where it is.”
The living room was neat as a pin. As I’d expect from the meticulous Juliet Bettencourt. Control what you can control. For her, it seemed wasn’t goddamn much. What in fuck’s name was I going to do with a 25-year-old girl? I laughed to myself. Claim her. That’s what.
At 4:17 AM, she whimpered.
At 5:02, another glass shattered.
By 6:45, dawn threatened sunny lace curtains. I lay staring at the ceiling, rehearsing truths that could make or break us.
Your real name’s Juliet.
I know some of what he did.
You’re one of us.
I left to get fresh coffee. I needed to be awake for the conversation to come.
Chapter 9
Juliet
The alarm clock’s red numbers burned through my eyelids before I remembered I hadn’t set one. My tongue clung to the roof of my mouth, cotton-dry and tasting of stale tequila. I rolled onto my side, quilt bunching beneath me, the wrought iron bed frame creaking as my stomach lurched. Through the haze of nausea came the memory of large hands slipping the shirt over my head, calloused fingertips brushing my collarbone.
“Shit.”
I bolted upright, vision swimming. Bronc’s aftershave lingered on my pillowcase, cedar and leather. The living room couch sat empty behind the half-open bedroom door, indented leather cushions still holding the shape of him.
