“Give me your phone. I’ll put my number in it.”
His face fell, and then his voice went gruff. “I…uh, lost it.”
My wolf stirred again. “You lost it,” I said flatly.
The stubborn look returned. “Not on purpose. I think it happened during the fight with Cross.”
With a sigh, I dug in Welch’s top drawer and pulled out a pen. “Here,” I said, “give me your hand.” When Caleb complied, I wrote my cell number across his palm. I met his eyes, which swam with renewed desire. “I want you to check in once an hour. You have a landline at the house, yes?”
He cleared his throat. “Yes.”
I stepped into him, grasped his nape, and kissed him. He moaned and worked his tongue against mine, pushing back just enough to hint at a battle for control. I squeezed his neck and plunged my tongue deeper. He capitulated with a groan, his head going back as he opened wider. When I finally pulled away, we were both breathing heavily.
“Four-thirty,” I said. “And you call me at the top of the hour every hour.”
His eyes glinted. “And if I don’t?”
I tilted my head. “Do you really want to find out?”
A beat passed. He touched the tip of his tongue to his lower lip, the flash of pink doing absolutely nothing for my self-control. “Maybe,” he said huskily.
I let my wolf rise just enough to make my eyes glow. His breath caught.
“Four-thirty,” I said again, softer this time.
His throat bobbed, and he dropped his eyes. “Four-thirty.”
Chapter
Eight
CALEB
By 6:40, I stood in my parents’ kitchen with my stomach in knots as I stared at the clock on the microwave.
“Do you think they went to dinner?”Jesse had asked when I called him during my 6:30 check-in. He’d been cool about me waiting, although he’d changed the check-ins to every fifteen minutes. As if he worried I was going to turn hairy and take out half the neighborhood.
I’d squeezed the phone’s receiver between my chin and shoulder as I’d stuffed the roll of cash from Nana into a small duffel bag I sometimes used for football practice.“Maybe, but it’s not like them. They’re never spontaneous. And my mom is weird about restaurant food.”
The one time I wanted to talk to my parents, they were MIA. My mother’s car was in the garage, but my dad’s SUV was missing. Normally, I’d rejoice at my good fortune. Right now, I just wanted to walk out the door and never look back. Leave it to my parents to sabotage my big “fuck you, I’m out” moment.
Jesse had waited a beat before answering.“All right. Give it another fifteen minutes and then go. I’m parked in a cul-de-sac one street over.”Another beat, and then his voice had dipped low.“And Caleb? If you’re late, you’ll apologize over my knee.”
The time on the microwave flipped to 6:41. But I barely noticed as the memory of Jesse’s promise flooded my head. It should have made me angry. Where the fuck did he get off threatening to spank me? I barely knew him. He had exactly zero right to throw down that kind of ultimatum.
Except he sort of did. Because I’d let him do it twice already. And I’d been a big, glaring green light today, my body flashinggo, go, goas he’d brought Welch’s paddle down on my all-too-eager ass. The soreness hadn’t lasted long. And when I’d reached the house and examined my cheeks in my bathroom mirror, my skin was back to normal—no trace of red in sight.
Jesse can fix that.My dick twitched as images of me slung over his lap materialized in my mind. It was undeniably stupid to trust him, let alone go home with him. But what choice did I have? He’d shifted his whole arm into a wolf’s paw, and I hadn’t missed his fangs today in Welch’s office. Then there was the whole thing where he’d spanked and fingered me to a Cat 5 orgasm. Maybe I hadn’t yet wrapped my mind around being a werewolf, but I understood pleasure. Jesse van der Meer made me feel good. So far, he hadn’t hurt me. He’d promised to help me. My life had been a downward spiral since August. If Jesse had answers, I wanted them.
And I wanted him. There was no use denying it.
Sweat prickled under my arms as I went to the junk drawer and pulled out paper and a pen. A big crystal vase of red roses trembled on the counter as I shut the drawer with my hip. I stared at the paper, which had “From the Desk of Natalie Lawson” printed across the top. My mother had probably bought it after she bingedDownton Abbeyor something.
Two minutes later, I was still trying to figure out how to tell my parents to fuck off in note form when the sound of the garage door drifted from the mudroom.
Fuck.
I shoved the paper into the drawer and hefted my duffel bag as my father entered the kitchen, my mother on his heels. Her lips turned down the second she spotted me.
