Rebecca's Wolves (Wolf Masters Book 6) (15 page)

She wiggled in his embrace to break the contact, but he ignored her and held her tighter. “Baby, we need to talk about this.”

“What’s there to talk about? I need you guys to take me home so I can clean up and get back on track. I have to work tomorrow, and if I don’t get started on my run soon, I’m going to be up very late.”

Miles leaned his elbows on the table. “Love, you can’t just leave.”

She opened her mouth, but Griffen cut her off, scooting his chair back and hauling her into his lap where her bare ass landed against his jeans, making her hyper-aware of his cock against her hip. His hands circled her body. He nuzzled his face in her hair and then nudged it away from her neck to kiss behind the ear. “Rebecca, we’re going to work with you. I know this is important to you, but hear us out.”

She chewed on the corner of her upper lip, narrowing her gaze at him. She wanted to put her foot down, but that was difficult seeing as she was about to melt against him. Her mind said get the hell out of there. Her body said turn around, straddle the man, and thrust down on his cock.

She wiggled again at the image.

“Mmm.” He closed his eyes as he lifted his head to face her. “That’s the sexiest image you’ve projected yet.”

She cringed. “Oh my God. You’re invading my brain.” How humiliating.

He appeared to fight against a smile. “Baby, you’ll learn to block us. Trust me. But it’s hard at first, especially for a human mate. Everything is so foreign to you, it’s difficult to add blocking to the list of accomplishments. Give it time.”

“That’s a relief.” She pushed against him. “In the meantime, you have to let me go, Griffen. I’m serious.”

He didn’t budge. “I’ll make you a deal. Miles has to work today. I do not. He’ll drive us to my place, and I’ll take you home. On one condition.”

“What’s that?” She narrowed her gaze at him. She wasn’t sure she was going to like his plan.

“You let me go with you.”

“To train?” Her voice rose a few decibels.

“Yep.”

She hesitated. “Seriously? That’s whacked, Griffen. I’m a big girl. I run by myself nearly every day of the week. Why do you want to go with me?”

“For many reasons, not the least of which is your safety.”

“Why did I know you were going to say that?”

Miles interrupted. “Rebecca, we don’t take this mating lightly, love. I know you don’t fully comprehend yet, but you mean the world to us. And your safety is always going to be our top priority.”

She stared at him, mouth open.

Griffen stroked a hand up her side, grazing the edge of her breast.

She swatted his fingers. “Stop trying to distract me. This is serious. You can’t possibly mean to insinuate you intend to start following me all over the place. It would suffocate me. And I would resent you in a heartbeat.”

Griffen stiffened beneath her. “Baby, we don’t want you to feel suffocated. That’s not our goal at all. We do want you to be safe, and for right now, I’m going to have to agree that until we understand better about this possible spirit thing, we don’t want you running all over creation unprotected.”

She spun to face him better. “No.” She shook her head. “You can’t. I’m not a child. I’m a grown woman. I need a fifteen-mile run today. I don’t need company. I need my iPod with some uplifting tunes, not a sexy wolfman alongside me distracting me from my workout.”

He gave her a coy grin. “I’ll stay one pace behind so you can’t see me, and I won’t say a word.”

She pursed her lips. It didn’t seem like she was going to win this battle. Not today anyway. She was concerned, however. This couldn’t become a habit.

She slumped her shoulders. “Fine. You sure you can keep up?”

He chuckled, his hands quickly spanning her waist and lifting her to spin her around so she straddled his lap. “I think I can handle it. Now, before we go, what about that vision you had of fucking me in this chair?”

Things did not go according to plan.

After Rebecca jumped off Griffen’s lap, insisting they didn’t have time to screw around yet again that morning, she spun on her heels and left the room. Minutes later, she returned, dressed in some of the limited clothes she had in her backpack. They’d done laundry Sunday evening so she and Griffen would have clean clothes, but she would have preferred to be at home where she could select something different.

Miles, now dressed and ready to go see his patients after he took the pair back to Griffen’s house, grabbed his keys off the counter and led them outside.

And then froze. “What the fuck?”

Griffen came to his side and followed his gaze. All four tires on his truck were flat, completely deflated.

Miles threw his arm out when Rebecca squeezed between them. “Back in the house, love.”

She inhaled sharply at his side. “Jesus, Miles, do you have enemies?”

He glanced around the clearing. He did not. Or at least none that he knew of. Still, he wasn’t taking any chances. If someone was hanging around trying to piss him off, he didn’t want Rebecca in harm’s way.

She grabbed his arm.

He shrugged free and took quick strides to get to the truck and assess the damage.
“You got her, Masters?”

“Yep.”

Miles glanced back to find Griffen had wrapped both arms around Rebecca and backed her up to the door. After rounding the truck and examining all four tires, he was beyond perplexed.

“Shit.” He stomped back to the house, this time aiming for the garage and an air pump, grateful he’d decided it was important to own such a thing living so far from the nearest mechanic.

“What?” Griffen asked.

Miles swung the garage door up and rummaged for the pump, not responding until he came back out. “Far as I can tell, there’s no damage. Nothing. They aren’t slashed. And the caps are all in place. It’s crazy. Who would deliberately let all the air out of every tire and then put the caps back on?”

“That can’t be good,” Rebecca said.

Miles looked around. “Might as well help me. Whoever did this isn’t here now.” There was no place to hide in the area. He supposed someone could be lurking around on foot, but how did they get there? Unless they were a shifter… Dammit. In any case, he would scent someone in the area, and there was no lingering scent of a soul, human or shifter.

It took half an hour to get the truck tires pumped back up, and then they monitored them for another twenty minutes to make sure the pressure held.

Rebecca stood close by, nibbling her lips. She didn’t say anything.

Miles knew she was stressed about the time, but she wasn’t unreasonable. There wasn’t anything they could do about this inconvenience.

Finally, they climbed in the truck and started driving.

Miles scanned the area as they went, leery. He made his way back to the main road and then slammed on the brakes. “Son of a bitch.”

Rebecca screamed as they came to a stop.

“What the hell?” Griffen threw his arm over Rebecca between them to keep her from whipping forward into the windshield.

Miles had his arm in the same position on top of Griffen’s. “You have got to be kidding me,” he said as they skidded to a stop.

An enormous tree had fallen over the road, completely blocking their path.

“Was there a storm in the night?” Rebecca asked.

“Nope. Not even a breeze.” Miles popped his door open and jumped down to wander closer.

Griffen did the same on the other side. “Stay here, baby.”

Miles kicked the bark. “Fuck. This is crazy.” He ran a hand through his hair and turned to Griffen. “Convinced yet?”

“I’m convinced, dude, but I’m not sure of what.”

“Me neither,” Miles muttered. “But something or someone is trying to make a point.”

Rebecca wandered up behind him. He could sense her before he felt her hand on his back. She obviously wasn’t keen on staying in the truck.

At this point, Miles was so confused, he was glad for her presence. She was the only thing bright happening on this ridiculous Monday morning. He wrapped his arm around her and hauled her close, kissing the top of her head.

She had gathered up all of her glorious hair and braided it down her back; the long tail fell over her shoulder as he hugged her tighter.

Griffen stated the obvious. “Okay, so there’s no way in hell this tree should have fallen for no reason on a calm night in fucking July.” He sauntered to the other side of the road and leaned over the trunk. “It came out by the roots. No one cut it.”

“And then there’s the tires,” Rebecca added. She shivered in Miles’ arms. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know, love, but I think we need to pay my grandmother a visit.”

•●•

Rebecca wasn’t super stoked about trekking to grandma’s house and facing the crazy woman’s wrath again today, but Miles seemed to think it was the only option they had.

“How far is it to your grandmother’s?”

“About five minutes. She lives on this same side of Sojourn. We’re west of the center of town.”

“I’ve never been there.” She’d been in Cambridge two years, and she’d heard about Sojourn. There was a hotel and casino there. She knew people who liked to go for a weekend.

“You’ll like it. We’ll go into town one of these days. It’s larger than Cambridge,” Miles said as he turned the truck around. Sure enough, in about five minutes he pulled off the road again and up to the front of another small ranch house similar to his own. It might have been older. Or perhaps it just hadn’t been updated in the last fifty years. That option seemed most likely.

The woman was not standing on the porch this time, which almost shocked Rebecca. However, when Miles opened the front door without knocking, she called out from somewhere in the back of the house. “’Bout time you got here.”

Rebecca smiled. Of course.

Wearing another equally stifling dress for the summer weather, the tiny little woman emerged from what was probably the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron. “Lunch is almost ready. What took you so long?”

Rebecca glanced up in time to catch Miles rolling his eyes.

“Well, come on back and have a seat. Chicken just needs another minute or two.”

Shock at how strange things were every time she was in this old woman’s presence made Rebecca speechless. There weren’t enough hours in the day for her to ask the questions piling up in her mind.

Apparently the woman really did have some sixth sense. When the three of them rounded the corner to the kitchen, the table was already set and steaming bowls of food were piled high all over the surface.

The smells were amazing. Several vegetables, a salad, mashed potatoes, and warm bread already adorned the table.

“Sit,” the woman repeated, nodding toward the table.

Rebecca was stunned. She glanced at her watch. It was eleven fifty-five. Uncanny. Was the woman truly psychic? Or had Miles called her earlier without Rebecca knowing? That made her even more uncomfortable, as though he were setting her up, trying to scare her for some reason.

She flinched and jerked her hand free of his.

“Rebecca, look at me,”
Miles commanded into her head.

She lifted her gaze, confusion wearing on her. Aggravation also, for not keeping her thoughts to herself.

“I swear on my life you aren’t being set up. Why would I go to all this trouble?”

“I don’t know, to keep me from leaving?”
she communicated intentionally for the first time. She didn’t want to argue in front of his grandmother any more than he did.

He rolled his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Love, you’re a sure thing. Trust me. I won’t need to tie you to my bed to keep you from leaving. The claiming is done.”

“You are by far the cockiest bastard alive.”
She twisted to glance at Griffen.
“With one possible exception.”

“Rebecca, I’m not trying to sound cocky. I’m just stating the facts. We’re extremely connected now. I know you’re fighting it, but at the same time, you can’t deny your heart is pounding, your panties are soaked, and your breasts are uncomfortably swollen with the need to be touched.”

“Jesus. How the hell could you possibly know that?”
He was right. Fuck him.