Shifting the Night Away (50 page)

His mouth honed in and rational thought transformed into a slippery, tricksy thing impossible to hold on to.

Baron buried his face between her legs. She slid down the tree he had her locked against until she straddled him, her knees on either side of his head.
 

He licked, sucked, bit, and pulled every inch of her.
 

Her orgasm built. She
 
felt it pressing against her inner walls as surely as she felt his tongue.
 

But that wasn’t the only thing pressing.
 

Baron snuck his hand around until he managed to shove two fingers inside her.

Three.
 

And they weren’t just pressing. They were massaging, hooking to hit the area that turned her muscles to mush.

“Please, Johanna?”

“Huh?”

He mumbled something back about ‘mouths,’ but she was too far gone to make it out. She pushed and rocked until it hurt. Her core burned, screaming for relief. If it didn’t happen soon, she’d explode. When her body had nothing more to give and her chest burned, Johanna’s thighs quivered and she screamed out her release into the man between her legs.

Best. Lunch break. Ever.
 

“Are you okay?”

“What?”

“I need you to tell me that you’re okay, Johanna.”

“Yes.”

“Good girl.” Then he leaned forward and told her every single thing he wanted to do to her. She might have begged for it.

He might have laughed.

But he also pulled away, keeping his eyes on her while he handled his erection.

“You don’t have to do that. I mean we can…”

“When I make love to you for the first time, Johanna, it won’t be in the woods.” He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth before pumping and spilling himself on the grass, seeding the air around them in an aroma of sweat, need and lust. He crawled on all fours to her and together they fell against the trunk of the tree in a jumble of arms and legs.

Satisfaction? Yep.

Fear? A little.

Regret? Nope.

He spoke first. That was good. She was aware that things called ‘words’ existed, but in her bliss had no clue of how to put them together right now.
 

“Two things,” he said, rubbing his head against hers. “First, I got hung up on licking in one place. We’ll have to try the head to toe thing later. Second, ditto for the run.”

Chapter Five

“Who does the damned walk of shame in the middle of the workday?”

Johanna readjusted her dress. “Shut up, Tony.”
 

“You dirty little whore.”

“You say one more thing—”

“…Of Babylon. Whore, whore, whore,” he said, tilting his head back in unrestrained laughter. His pen tapped against the counter and his eyes twinkled with delight. “I mean, damn girl.”

“We went out for lunch.”

“I can figure out what he ate.”

She hated life.

Bullcrap. She loved life, but this was embarrassing.
 

Bullcrap again.
 

This was awesome.
 

Well, a fairly grin-inducing mix of the two.
 

She was incredibly late, but a business meeting kept Belinda tied up and no one else seemed to care about the whens as much as the hows and whats.

She gave them nothing, even though the little devil on her shoulder did cartwheels each time someone asked what happened.

She spent the next half hour going back and forth to the bathroom to pat herself clean and convince herself to stop smiling. Both efforts repeatedly and ultimately failed.
 

Closing time couldn’t come fast enough. In exchange for her coworkers’ silence, she agreed to do the closing on her own tonight. She’d take that deal any day. By the time the cleaning crew arrived, she wanted nothing more than a glass of wine and a bed…with a wolf in it.

She fingered a spot on her neck that he’d paid such glorious attention to. Would he call her? Should she call him? Nothing worse than looking desperate, but her hand itched to reach for the phone. He had her address now, would he stop by? Maybe he’d even be there when she got home.

No.

Stupid.

In between the hemming and hawing, she grabbed her keys and headed for the door, sensing the object of her lust before she stepped outside. “You’re back?”

“Should I leave?”

“No! I just thought that, you know…”

 
He pulled a small bouquet of red and orange roses from behind his paint-smeared pants. “Time got away from me. It was either change clothes or not catch you before you left. Sorry?”

Her concerns about Baron getting free milk didn’t work against these roses. She dipped her nose into the petals and kicked away the last twinges of doubt. “They’re lovely.”

“I wasn’t too rough with you today, was I?” He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, then took a sudden interest in staring at the sidewalk.
 

She toed his sandaled foot with the tip of her flats. “No. I’m just happy I didn’t suffocate you.”

“Can’t imagine a better way to go. Um, about that. I came back to invite you to dinner. A tasting. You didn’t exactly get to eat during our lunch. I did but…”

She elbowed him in the stomach and turned toward the garage, pausing a half second for doubt to set in. But neither it, nor its frequent companion, indecision, reared their ugly heads. “I haven’t moved my car in two days because of you. Do you promise to bring me back to it tonight?”

“I promise to do whatever you want, remember? So what about dinner? I’m willing to beg.” He shot her the dopiest puppy dog look ever. One quite impossible to resist.

“I suppose I can schedule you in.”

“Awesome, because I’ve got most of it on standby. Had a feeling you’d say yes.”

“Getting comfortable already?” She winced at her own words, but he let it go with a shrug and led the way.
 

His restaurant wasn’t very far, less than six blocks. One might consider that convenient if they were dating.
 

Which they weren’t.
 

Must not forget that.

She remembered the site as a Mexican joint, but Baron had a different vision if the smells wafting out from the newspapered windows were an indication. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“Actually, I did. I wanted to get a feel for the equipment. Might as well have some fun while I do it. This was a turnkey operation, but you’ve gotta test stuff out, ya know? So, look, picture a 1920s speakeasy. That’s what I’m shooting for. The interior brick walls will still work. I won’t have to change anything but the paint trim and the menus.”

“And the décor and the furniture.” She tried wobbling the wooden table. “These are fine I guess, but you need new tablecloths, or at least refinish them with a wash of gloss. Your project manager’s handling that I guess.”

“Stop.” He popped open a bottle in a chiller on the next table and poured her a glass. “Take seven and a half minutes to write down everything you think needs changing. I’ll finish cooking and be right back.”

Five minutes in and she had a list sixteen points long and growing. She grabbed it, her wine and headed to the kitchen. Baron leaned over an industrial sized stove, flipping over various slabs of chop licking meat. He had one a half apron and stained towel over his shoulder.

Her Baron.
 

Mate.

She shook that nonsense out of her head. He was just a man like any other. One who shared her wolven secret. One who her made her feel like the hottest thing on the planet. One who smelled
right.

And one who looked at her with unabashed pride at what he’d put together here.

“My nose is loving this, Baron.”

“Me?”

“The food! You’re not bad though. I can’t wait to try it.”

“Me?”

“Hush.” She waved her list in front of his nose. “Everything in the back of the house looks good, I guess. I don’t know, but the front is another story.”
 

“I can agree with that. This equipment’s old, but solid. Makes no sense to change it. But what don’t you like out there?”

He looked good here. A natural, blending in like a wolf in the woods, as if this was as much his environment as any place else. She had to know more. What had made this wolf so…him? “Tell me about yourself. How did you get into this?”

Impossibly, the rascally grin deepened. “I’m the middle of five. Not old enough to be catered to and not young enough to be babied. If I hadn’t learned to cook, I wouldn’t be half the strapping man you see before you.”

“Five, hmm? Quints?” It wasn’t uncommon among their kind, but he shook this off.

“Naw. The eldest is forty-two, the youngest is twenty-one. Quite a spread. Daddy’s proud.”

“I see. So you went to culinary school and here you are. But not directly. You’re a little too old for that.”

“I’m choosing not to take that as a dig. I’m from Montana. Born there, went to school here in New York, then moved to Wyoming for a bit. I had to leave and make a fresh start.”

“Getting out from Papa’s wing, or did you break the wrong heart?” Baron’s cheek twitched and she clapped her hands in delight. “Nailed it! You naughty boy. Tell me about her.”

“She died.”

“Oh.” She felt about as tall and as important as a pile of chicken shit and wished for a portal to whisk her away.
I’m sorry,
didn’t sound close to being enough, but she said it anyway, face burning with embarrassment.

“It’s fine. We weren’t serious and stopped seeing each other weeks before she passed.”

Johanna sat down her glass and tried to lay a comforting hand across his shoulder, but he stepped back to address some shrimp, then turned to the roasting vegetables, careful to shield his face.

“According to the police report, the cause of her death was labeled a suicide, but I know better. We broke it off on good terms and went our separate ways. She wasn’t hurting.”

“Women are good at hiding hurt.”

“Trust me, she’d moved on. Anyway, the place was a small town and as I was the most recent outsider, I got a lot of looks thrown my way. Didn’t need the hassle. You know how humans can get.”

“New subject?”

“Please.”

“How about the list, yeah?” That seemed safe enough. “I’ve decided we’ll
keep the tables, but not the chairs. They aren’t exactly comfortable. Also, new window treatments and…”

She rattled on happy to see the cloud lift from his face. He ducked to peer between the cut-through separating the dining area from the kitchen whenever she pointed at something and he made little notations on the paper as she spoke. He didn’t always agree, but where he didn’t, she deemed the conflict an issue of vision, not stubbornness.

The place had been closed for a month. Real goods, everything from forks to toilet paper, had been a part of the last owner’s lot. Baron only needed people and product to get this thing moving. With his background and obvious passion, he could be sitting on a goldmine.

“I put an ad in the paper for waitstaff and line cooks. It’ll start running in two days. The food and liquor licenses are transferrable, so no problems there. I do need to check out local wine vendors. Tomorrow, I’m meeting with a bloodsucker who owns a cattle business outside of town. He’s going to lend me his refrigerated van for the rest of the month too. Things are going well, Johanna. I feel it. But with all the running around town I need to do, I’ll need help. You want the job?”

“Me?” She tried to avert her gaze, but too late. She’d seen them – the big ol’ begging eyes again.
 

“I’ll pay you well. In fact, you’d be saving me money. You could help decorate and, well, you’re obviously good with money.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I have a job.”

“That you hate and are going to leave anyway. Why not let this tide you over until you find another one?”