Werewolf Wedding (21 page)

“Posturing.”

“Right. And then there’s always the one gorilla who sits off to the side, watching and waiting. And have you noticed which one the others go to for problems? Have you noticed which one of them is
obviously
in charge? Do I need to continue with this metaphor, or are you getting it by this point?”

Jake let out a soft laugh, the first I’d heard that sounded like a pure one. I could tell from the look on his face that he was sick with worry, but I think I got through.

“That might be the first time anyone in the world has complimented someone by calling them a gorilla.” That smile could have taken me to the stars if things weren’t so desperate and dangerous. “Delilah,” he said, twisting his hands around and grabbing mine. “We were meant for each other. Whether or not you believe in fate, or luck, or whatever you want to call it, I feel it deep in my soul. Every second you were gone, I ached to feel you next to me, to taste your kiss, to inhale your scent.”

“And that is where my knees go weak,” I said, smiling languidly and laying against him where he was on the desk. My body slid right against his, it fit perfectly. He was right, I knew, no matter how much I wanted to argue. Something about us
was
perfect. “I’m terrible at talking about my feelings, and I’m awful at not making jokes at totally inappropriate times.”

“I’m the leader of a pack of werewolves,” Jake said. “That
must
be at least as complicated as... five character flaws?”

“No,” I said, “it makes you perfect. You just said you were the leader. You’re not giving up on them.”

When I looked into his eyes next, his cheeks were a little flushed. “I can’t, Dilly,” he said. “I just can’t. I want to keep you safe, I want to make sure my brother pays for what he’s done, but the pack is my family. It’s my duty.”

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said. “So before Dane appears and makes a big show, would you care to figure out what the hell we’re going to do about him?”

“There’s always murder,” Jake said with another of those damned smiles that could have stripped the hair off a donkey’s ass. “But I think that’s probably not the best idea.”

“The best idea,” I said, “is you kissing me and then throwing me across that desk and having your way with me like this was some kind of secretary roleplay scene in one of those movies that comes on Cinemax really late at night.”

The heat of his chest against mine burned through my flimsy, torn up tee. He breathed, inhaling me through his nose and then shuddered as he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. I kissed his neck, relishing the warmth of his skin and the leathery, musky scent he wore.

Next I knew, his hands were on either side of my face, thumbs running along my cheekbones. He kissed me so hard, so urgently and hungrily that my head tilted back with the force. He ran his tongue around my lips and then between them, making me groan as he drank me in.

“I have no idea,” Jake said, his tongue running along my jaw to my chin where he nipped me softly and kissed again. “I have no damn idea what I’m going to do about him.”

“He thinks I’m under his control,” I said in between gasped breaths. “He thinks he sent me here to show me off and brag about how he won your little bet.”

“Yeah?” Jake laughed, kissing my neck and then sucking at the hollow of my throat. “How does this look for winning?”

I moved in between him and the desk, and wrapped my legs around his waist. The hot bare skin tingled between my thighs. “I don’t know when he’s going to be here,” I whispered as I nibbled Jake’s ear. “I don’t know what he’s going to do.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jake growled. “We have each other.”

I felt his thickness against my sweetest place and yearned to let him have me. Everything in the world I wanted was right there, stripped down to the absolute naked necessity. That longing I felt in my soul was sated, the pain I felt when he was gone? Vanished. As long as we were together, everything felt
right
.

“We can’t do this,” I said, putting my hand flat against his chest and pushing softly. “The only thing we have going for us right now is that he thinks he’s got me brainwashed.”

Jake’s mouth hovered an inch from my skin. I felt his breath curl against me, and my nipples puckered in reaction. I felt hot flushes, and then a tingle go up my spine and between my legs. “I gotta go,” I whispered. “As much as I hate this, as much as I don’t want to, it’s the only chance we have. We keep him thinking he’s in charge, and then we spring a trap. What trap, I got no clue.”

A look of revelation went across Jake’s face, like a lightbulb flashing so brightly it exploded. “I have a plan,” he said.

I arched my eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Can you convince him to go to your studio and pose for a statue?”

I started giggling. “You sly bastard. You’re thinking what I’m thinking, aren’t you?”

“About the gorillas. Yeah. If I had a statue made, everyone would laugh and think how silly and ironic it was. But him? The only thing more offensive to a pack of wolves than being called dogs is being made to grovel.”

“You’re a genius,” I said. “Or I am, because of the whole gorilla thing. He gets a statue made, and it looks like some idiot playing at being a god. He’ll be shooting himself right in the ass.”

Jake cracked a smile. “Right in the ass. Get outta here. Wait,” he grabbed me, pressing his lips to mine one last time. “Stay safe. He’s stupid, but he’s dangerous. Don’t give him any clue that this is anything other than him being the biggest, baddest, most amazing wolf on the planet, and you just wanting to worship him the way he should be worshipped.”

“See you soon,” I said, stealing one more kiss.

That last one was quick, it wasn’t deep or hot or hungry, but it was the sweetest I’d ever tasted.

And walking away from Jake? The worst pain I’d ever felt.

––––––––

“W
hat the hell do I need a statue of myself for?” Dane asked.

It had been a few days since my chat with Jake, and my forced mate was taking things in stride. He was comfortable that he was completely in charge, and that I was totally subject to his whims. One night, we were sitting around the lavish mansion watching
All in the Family
on one of the four local broadcast stations he could pick up, and it struck me as funny that I had somehow become Edith, and my Archie was a less racist, and a werewolf, but he
did
hate humans.

That one kept me entertained for a while. The things that can keep you going in the face of abject despair can be really odd sometimes, I’ve learned. Another is that we were in an actual mansion, and had to use rabbit ears to pick up a shitty signal on the seventeen inch TV set.

“Seems stupid,” he continued. “I mean, why do I need a big model of myself? I’m right here, baby! Everybody who wants to see Dane Somerset in all his glory can see him right here!”

The fact that His Royal Highness the would-be alpha was sitting around in a tank top and torn sweatpants didn’t seem to affect his ego any. Our whole plan was slightly stupid. Get him to make the statue of himself, which would hopefully convince the rest of the pack
how dangerous
it would be to have this psycho as an alpha.

It was a long shot, but to be honest, every shot we had was like hitting a bull’s eye at a hundred yards with a non-compound bow. In the snow. With a lot of wind in your face.

Then again, if werewolves took their independence as seriously as Jake seemed to think? Maybe convincing Dane he was the next best thing to Ramses the Great coming back to life and walking the planet
would
work.

“It’s not that you
need
it. It’s that you deserve it. Think about all the kings and the pharaohs and the emperors and—”

A smile spread across his lips.
This is going to be easier than I thought
.

“I get what you’re saying. Great kings, great alpha. But I don’t know if I’m quite ready for this step. I mean, I still
do
have to actually take control of the pack. It won’t take much effort, except that my obnoxious brother refusing to honor the challenge means I have to fight instead of just moving into the mansion.”

What I wanted to say is that Jake doesn’t
need
to fight, or move into a mansion, or even posture at all. All he has to do is lead and people listen. I decided that maybe taunting this idiot wasn’t the best idea. Looking back on it, I wondered where the idea for that gorilla analogy came from, but damn if it wasn’t genius.

“How much interaction did you have with the human world?” I asked, seemingly from out of nowhere. I’d slowly been testing my boundaries with Dane. At first he was really prickly and kind of defensive whenever I’d ask anything, but after a couple of days he started opening up and letting me, you know, talk, without permission.

He shrugged. “Not much. Well, aside from the hunting I did when I was away. Have to stay on top of the food chain and all that.”

My stomach turned. Just knowing that he was some kind of half-crazed murderer was bad enough, but when he started talking about how wolves were superior and humans were weak or whatever, it really made me want to put a knife in Dane’s temple instead of pretending to be his loyal and subjugated woman trophy.

“Why?” he asked a moment later.

“Well, there’s this thing people say. Psychologists, marketing people. They say that you shouldn’t act like the job you have. You should act like the one you want.”

I had to change it a little from “dress for the job you want” since he got sensitive if I critiqued his fashion choices. All he needed was a big, gold male-symbol pendant to complete the look. I smirked to myself, but killed it so he wouldn’t see. I had to oversell this thing like hell if he was going to buy it.

At first I’d tried subtlety, but as it happened, Dane’s mind – as fierce and strong and powerful as he was – had about the level of subtlety as a locomotive that went off the tracks and then fell off a cliff. And then hit a tree and a nitroglycerine truck.

“So... make this clear for me. Human psychologists think you shouldn’t act like you want your job, you should act like you want a different one?”

It was really hard not to sigh. I could roll my eyes silently, as Dane’s gaze was fixed on the episode of
Antiques Roadshow
we managed to pick up with only mild image distortion, but if I sighed, he’d hear, and then he’d go on another tear about respect or whatever 1950s male bullshit he could think up.

I thought for a moment, carefully choosing my words for maximum deference. “Close,”
I’m talking to him like a fifth grader
. “What they mean is that if you’re not happy where you are – like how you are waiting to be the alpha – then you have to
act
like you already are that. People, or wolves, or whatever, they’ll start to think of you as already having that position. Make sense?”

“Yeah. Hey! Look at this hick on TV! He found a bunch of ugly paintings and thinks they’re worth something. What a moron.”

He stood up and flicked off the set.

The ugly paintings he’d chuffed at were a Monet, a Van Gogh sketch and a couple of things I couldn’t name off the top of my head but knew were from the same period. I’d shoot myself if I had to deal with this kind of snorty, sweaty creature for the rest of my life, and I’m no snob.

Dane sighed and sat back in a comically small recliner. It squeaked a little under his weight. “What’ll it look like?”

“The statue?”

I stared at him blankly for a moment, not realizing he actually asked that. “Well... it’ll be of you. I can make it really big.”

There wasn’t a lot of time, I knew, so I’d somehow have to pass his brother’s sketched out statue for his own. Dane would almost certainly notice, but maybe he’d like it even more if... yeah, he
definitely
would.

“I can have it done in a few days. Your brother was having one done, but he’s,” I laughed. “Well you know how irrelevant Jake is,” and then gave another
psh!
for emphasis. “May as well use it for some real purpose, you know?”

The idea of slighting his brother apparently appealed to Dane just the way I figured it would. “Could you have it done in time for the marking?”

I accidentally let out a sigh. The official ceremony was in four days – that coming Saturday night. That was when it’d all come down. If I went through with the whole thing, it would be official – Jake would be exiled, Barney and Jeannie would be set free from their house arrest, and I would be vita to a werewolf alpha so filled with machismo that it smelled a little.

I swallowed hard. “Yeah,” I said, “I can have it done. But I’ll have to work all the time. I won’t be around to make your meals.”

He started growling.

“But Dane! Think about how embarrassing that’ll be for your brother. Think about the look on his face when we pull back the sheet and show
your
statue that replaced his. He will absolutely flip out.”

“And it’ll leave no question who the boss is,” he was scratching his chin, deep in thought. “He’ll look like such an idiot.”

I nodded. “He will look like a complete idiot. And then you can take over, you can start your war, whatever it is you want to do. You’ll be in charge, Dane. You’ll be the alpha and you’ll have the company and you’ll have me.”

When I said that, he shot his eyes in my direction. “I’ll have you now, if I want you.”

This, I hadn’t considered
. Before then he hadn’t really shown much interest in consummating our relationship, but I might have accidentally set him off. “Aren’t we supposed to wait until the marking is official before we...”

“You didn’t wait with my brother,” he said, a growl tickling Dane’s throat. “You let him ravish you straight away. Why should I have it any different? Why should I have any less?”

Sweat popped up on my forehead. Thinking quickly, I came up with a thousand excuses, but none of them would do much more than insult Dane. And that would be a
bad
thing. “Tradition,” I spat, more for something to say than anything else, but as soon as it was out of my mouth, I was fairly proud of myself.