The Mating Rite (Big, Beautiful Werewolf) (Werewolves of Montana) (17 page)

Tonight, HG had treated them to dinner at an expensive restaurant. She might as well have eaten cardboard, for all she could taste was Darius’ scent on her tongue.

Though she tried hard to suppress her Lupine instincts, being around Darius had awakened her wolf. His delicious, strong male smell of cedar and fresh rain teased her senses. His slow, sexy smile made her melt. And with his mop of ebony curls and piercing blue eyes, he looked like a wicked Cupid clad in an Italian silk suit, white shirt and cobalt tie. She’d turned into a big sucker for men in business suits and Darius was irresistible in one…

Oh. Wow. Yum.

Samantha resisted the urge to moisten her lips and stare at Darius as if he were her favorite chocolate chip ice cream. Although her wolf liked the idea of licking him from the top of his silky hair to the bottom of his toes…

What is it with all these licking fantasies
? She scolded her wolf.
Darius is not ice cream!

You settle for ice cream. I’ll take the guy
, her wolf answered.

All this Lupine had to do, and she’d seen it before back in their pack, was focus his intense cobalt gaze on a woman, giving her undivided attention, and she’d turn into clay in his elegant, capable hands. Hands that stroked and caressed and brought women to one exquisite peak of pleasure after another.

Images surfaced in her mind of a sinful night rolling between silk sheets, his wide mouth covering hers…

By the time the last fork had clinked onto a plate after dessert, Darius had agreed to the deal. And everyone wanted to celebrate, from Tom the sales director to Evan, the director of finance.

“Drinks on me,” HG said, wiping his mouth on a linen napkin. “There’s a good bar in town. Shall we?”

Sam felt depressed. Late tomorrow afternoon they were all returning to the city where Darius would sign the contract. And then he’d climb aboard a plane and leave. He had a life apart from her.

Darius smiled. “I’ll pass. It’s been a long day, but please, enjoy yourselves. I’m returning to the house.”

HG and Ken exchanged glances. “Samantha, could you be a dear and drive Darius back?” HG asked.

“Sure,” she muttered.

As they left the restaurant parking lot, thoughts swirled in her head. Deep inside, she was unhappy and did not want him to go. A hollow ache pulsed in her chest, an ache that only intensified when she thought about him returning to the ranch.

She pulled into the driveway and parked, and then shut off the ignition.

Darius turned and faced her. “Are you going back to town to join them?”

She thought about having drinks with the guys, celebrating her first big deal, the one that would land her a promotion. She thought about how her dream had finally come true. She’d become “one of the guys.”

And then she looked at Darius, at the quiet hope on his face, and remembered the good times they’d shared when she was in his father’s pack. She didn’t want drinks at a bar. She wanted the quietness of the beach house, the crash of the ocean waves upon the shore, and the delicious scent of Darius entwined around her senses.

“I’d rather stay here with you.”

A smile tugged his mouth upward. “Good. Let’s get out of these formal clothes, change into something comfortable. Meet me in the living room in ten minutes.”

After changing into jeans and a favorite red T-shirt, she went into the living room and sat on the comfortable sofa. Darius was behind the bar. He found a bottle of red wine and opened it. He snagged two glasses from an overhead rack and brought both along with the bottle to the sofa, setting them onto the cocktail table.

“You didn’t drink much earlier,” she observed.

“I never do with clients or business partners. I keep the upper edge.”

He poured the wine and handed her a glass, then raised his. “A toast. To Sam, whose beauty is matched by her stunning intelligence in business.”

The wine was heady and tasted of oak and cinnamon. Darius leaned back and flung an arm across the sofa’s back. He thoughtfully stroked his wineglass stem with a long finger. The grace in his hands brought a vivid image; Darius caressing the soft skin of her inner thigh.

Samantha clenched her legs and gritted her teeth.

“What now? Anything in particular you’d like to do?”

Let’s get naked.
The words danced on the edge of her tongue. Samantha bit her lip. Amusement sparked in his gaze as he watched her.

The wolf knew her thoughts.

“We can play billiards. Or watch a movie.”

“How about we sit and talk?” He studied her intently. “It’s been too long since we really talked, Sam.”

She thought of those conversations they’d shared years ago, so intimate they’d shut away the world. Pain rippled through her. When she’d lost Darius, she’d lost more than a potential mate. She’d lost her best friend and closest confidant, the only one who really understood her.

She tucked one leg beneath her, suddenly curious about his life since he’d left Maxim’s fold. “Tell me what happened to you? Where did you go after you left?”

His mouth curved in a humorless smile. “I stayed as close as possible to the pack. Hung out in the woods a hairline from Maxim’s borders. Stayed in wolf form and hunted, until one of his patrols spotted me and ran me off. The second time it happened, I left for good.”

It must have taken enormous persuasion to get him to leave. Darius was famous for his stubborn streak. Samantha thought of the rifles Maxim’s males took on patrol to scare off intruders.

“How bad was the gunshot wound?” she asked quietly.

Darius rubbed a spot on his muscular thigh. “You guessed it. Nearly nicked my femoral artery. I healed, but it hurt like hell. And I realized hanging around might jeopardize your safety. So I headed east, hitchhiked and took up odd jobs. Busing tables, working at a gas station. It was lonely, being on my own.”

“And your current pack?” He looked distant, a haunting sadness lingering in his eyes. She wanted to remove it and remind him of happier times.

“Aiden, our alpha, and I met at a bar in Billings. He was on a business trip to negotiate a bank loan for his ranch. We got into a fistfight.”

Well, this was different. “Arguing about a girl?”

“Arguing about last call. I was bartending. He wanted another drink. I refused.”

“And he won, because he’s the alpha.”

A deep chuckle that warmed her insides. “I won and threw him out. That’s when he asked me to join the pack he’d formed. Said he needed someone that strong and determined to control the males.”

She laughed, and he grinned. They talked and drank the wine. She told him about volunteering to teach reading to adults and taking a few online courses. He asked about the people at Comairise Energy.

“The company is small, and everyone is casual. They’re my friends. We’re all like family,” she told him.

Darius shook his head. “Don’t mistake business for your family, Sam. When it comes to money, they’ll cut you off at the knees every time.”

“They’re not like that. Ken promised me a promotion if I nailed this deal with you. He’s like an uncle.”

She didn’t care for his cynical expression. “An uncle who’d cut you out of the family will if he thought it would save him a dollar. Consider how much return on an investment you’re making with your time and energy with them. Ken told me at dinner that he’d just fired an employee for not putting in enough hours at the office.”

The firing had made her uneasy because Ralph often worked from home. But the official word was that Ralph had taken advantage of the situation. “They demand quality performance from their staff so they can give excellent service to their clients. It is business. And they’ve been good to me.”

“Not like pack, Sam. Nothing can replace the closeness and loyalty of pack.” Wineglass dangling from his fingertips, he gazed at the bay windows overlooking the ocean. “I learned that the hard way.”

When the bottle of wine was empty, Samantha glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel, stunned to realize they’d talked for two hours straight. Like old times. Oh, how she’d missed this.

“We always talked to each other about everything.” She watched as he put the empty bottle on the bar and washed the glasses in the sink.

Darius dried his hands on a paper towel and joined her on the sofa. “Not everything. We never did talk about this…”

Cupping the back of her head, he drew her forward and kissed her. Every nerve raged with need. She wanted him, badly.

And then common sense kicked her, hard, and she pulled away.

This was Darius, the Lupine who seduced legions of women. They were both leaving tomorrow. Samantha didn’t want to be another notch in his bedpost. The look he gave her was so tender and languorous, she wanted to melt into his arms. Samantha steeled herself against it. He possessed the power to hurt her badly.

“Let’s do something else,” she suggested.

“What?”

“We could watch a video. Though the most entertaining ones I left in my apartment. They feature you with several women.”

Darius’ gaze turned wary. “What are you talking about, Sam?”

“The videos of you getting laid. Definitely popcorn worthy.”

“What videos?” His tone was dangerous and low, edged with anger. But she didn’t care.

“You enjoyed sex with other women.”

His mouth flattened. “How much did you pay this private detective to spy on me, Sam? Did you get your money’s worth?”

That hurt, but she pressed on. “I got an eyeful, and more. Movie of the week! More expensive than renting a porno flick for the night, but the positions were quite interesting. Never knew you could be so acrobatic, Darius.”

Nostrils flaring, he gritted his teeth so hard his jaw turned to steel. “I can be quite flexible. Let’s go to my bedroom right now and I’ll provide a little demonstration.”

“So I can be another conquest? No, thanks.”

Gone were the charm and the sexy smiles. He’d turned lethal as a honed dagger. “I marked you as my mate. It’s not the same. My affairs with other women meant nothing.”

“It was pure hell for me,” she whispered. “Do you realize how painful it is to see the man who promised to return for you, to bring you out of the hellhole you’ve been living in, making love to another woman?”

Do not admit vulnerability
. But a shadow darkened his expression.

“Sam, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you had to see that part of my life. All those times I had sex, and it was sex, nothing more, you kept coming to mind. The only way I could deal with the pain was by trying to forget you. But I never could. Never did. You were always there, your smile, your clear laughter. I missed you so much I wanted to die.”

“Right.”

Darius blinked, the shadow of guilt flickering in his eyes. “It’s a two-way street, Samantha.”

He’d never called her Samantha before. Ever. “You hired a Skin to find me, and you found me. You couldn’t have come to me and shown your face, asked for an explanation?”

A fist squeezed her heart. “I did.”

He stared, waiting.

“It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. When the detective told me you were staying at a resort in Glacier Park, I made up my mind. A resort was safe and public if you rejected me.”

He watched her, his shoulders tense. “I’d never reject you, Sam.”

“I flew to Montana and rented a car. Spent money at the hairdressers to put my hair up, sprayed on perfume I knew you’d recognize, put on my prettiest dress and I… I…”

Darius leaned forward. “You what?”

Humiliation crawled through her. “I sat in the lobby, working up the courage to knock on your hotel room door. Kept telling myself I could do this. And then the elevator doors opened and I saw you, with a beautiful, busty blonde I’d seen in one of the videos. You came closer to the fireplace where I sat, so close I could smell you, your scent so delicious and sharp, your hair all tousled and your smile so sexy and inviting…”

She fisted her hands. “You looked right at me, and then passed me by. Not even saying a word. You looked through me, Darius, as if I were a ghost.”

Blood drained from his face. Clearly shaken, he fell back against the sofa. “
Fuck
,” he said softly.

“I was invisible to you.”

Darius dragged a hand through his hair, and she looked at him. Really looked at him and saw him tremble.

Uncertainty filled her. If Darius truly had forgotten her and never wanted her again, why was he acting like this? Maybe her own insecurities had clouded her vision. Maybe he had formed his own layers of protection against the sharp hurt of losing her.

Searching his stunned expression, she realized the truth. “You saw me but didn’t recognize me. Because in your mind, I was dead.”

“You were a ghost,” he said quietly. “I did see you…and thought my mind was playing tricks. I even smelled your fragrance, but thought that was my imagination. After Ellen told me you’d died, I’d started to see you everywhere, because I wanted so much for you to be alive. I smelled you everywhere, heard your laughter each time I turned a corner. I saw you in town at the bar when I went there for a beer with the guys. I saw you at the grocery store, the airport, the city, hell, I even saw you at the goddamn rodeo, riding in the barrel racing competition.”