Wild Wolf (8 page)

A growl sounded in Graham's throat, one so soft Misty knew only she could hear it. She took another lick of cream from the spoon. Graham sat so still he might have been carved into the chair, but his chest rose and fell sharply.

His face held the hardness of a man who'd survived on his strength alone for a long time, but Misty had always seen something in him besides the hardness. The tiny lines that feathered from the corners of his eyes, for example. He got them from laughing—Graham was a man not afraid to laugh. He could roar with it. Scars crisscrossed his cheekbones, and his nose had been broken, several times, he'd told her. His face was sunburned from their adventure today, but even that was healing, his skin settling into its usual liquid tan.

The sun-bronzing made his eyes stand out even more, the gray turning to silver as he watched her lick another bit of ice cream. She moved her tongue around the mound on the spoon and drew it back between her lips . . .

Graham snarled. With one flick of his big hand, he sent the ice cream bowl flying across the table to shatter on the floor.

Misty could form only the first syllable of his name in protest before he was up and out of the kitchen, striding out the back door into her small, walled yard.

As she leapt up to follow him, she realized the entire kitchen had gone quiet. Matt and Kyle were staring, their eyes round, spoons frozen in place. Xavier, across the room, was watching as well. He didn't smile, but there was a knowing look in his eyes. Only Reid was oblivious, still poring over the little book.

Misty darted out the back door, pulling it closed behind her. Graham was striding through her small yard, which she'd filled with desert and tropical flowers she carefully cultivated. He was stomping around, hands clasped on his head, the sun beating down on him. He was about to ruin the clump of autumn sage she'd nursed back from frost kill last winter—she'd finally got the plant bushy again, the bright red blossoms cheerful against the green.

Misty marched to Graham and grabbed him by the arm. He swung around, the look in his eyes so wild and empty that Misty had to take a faltering step back.

H
e couldn't do this. Graham couldn't be around this woman, who smelled like honey and spice, who curled her tongue around the light and dark ice cream as though it were the sweetest aphrodisiac.

He had a hard-on that wouldn't stop. Xav Escobar knew it, the asshole. Graham had recognized the smirk. Of course, Xav probably had one too. And for that, Graham would kill him.

“I can't do this,” he said.

“Can't do what?” Misty stood in front of him, hands on her hips. “Break my door? Smash my dishes? Trample my plants? You're like walking mass destruction.”

She wanted him to apologize, Graham realized. But Graham never apologized. You said sorry, and people felt smug and justified, and started to take advantage.

Hard to look into those sweet brown eyes and say nothing, though. “I'll fix your front door.”

“You bet your ass you will,” Misty said. “Now, are we going to talk about it?”

There she went again. Talking. Always talking. “I thought you were done with me,” Graham said.

“I am, but that doesn't mean I'm not still mad at you. Or not talking to you.”

“Then we're not done.” Not by a long way.

“Yes, we are.”

Graham turned from her, not liking how fast his heart was beating. Or how thirsty he was. He fought it, having learned to work through hunger and thirst a long time ago, but he knew he couldn't banish it entirely. The Fae magic had gotten to him, but he couldn't give in to it. If he did that, he was dead.

To keep himself from thinking about the thirst, he focused on Misty's yard. It was like her—compact, neat, beautiful. She hadn't simply stuck clumps of plants everywhere. The yard had been landscaped, sculpted almost, with low mounds of grass and gravel hosting small flowering bushes and plants that bloomed fiercely under the hot sun. A false wash of river rock cut through the yard, crossed by a small wooden bridge.

Stepping stones led to the bridge and across the yard on the other side. Between the stones were gravel and scatterings of plants, blossoms moving in the summer breeze. The ugly cement block walls, so common in Southwestern cities, were softened by stands of hot pink and white oleanders on two walls, with a line of rose bushes, sheltered from the direct sun, on the third.

A pretty garden, with chairs and tables set out so Misty and friends could sit and enjoy iced tea or whatever women drank on summer afternoons. Graham was out of place here, a hulking creature in the diminutive space.

Misty seemed to be waiting for something. Graham did not understand her—anything female, in fact. She declared she was finished with him, then she ran after him. She said she wanted to talk to him, then she expected him to do the talking, when Graham wasn't any good at it.

“What do you want me to say?” he ended up almost shouting. Yelling—
that
he was good at.

Misty glared. Did she know how edible she looked in her body-hugging tank top, the shorts that stopped mid-thigh? She'd put on sandals, which showed her bare legs all the way to her toes. Misty wasn't a stick, thank the Goddess. Some human women starved themselves down to skin and bones and thought it looked good. Insanity.

Misty had round breasts, arms that were plump from shoulders to elbow then tapered into soft wrists and small hands. Strong hands—she worked hard in her store, carrying plants, heavy pots and baskets, armloads of flowers, buckets of water. Her legs were sturdy and curved, calves soft and kissable.

Her face—the one all screwed up with her scowl—was round, her nose in perfect proportion. Her eyes were a little too big for a human, but Graham didn't mind. They were soft brown and surrounded by thick black lashes.

Watching Misty tongue the ice cream had made every cell of him scream in need. She had a little bit of cream on her lips even now.

To hell with it. Graham closed the space between them, jerked her against him, and brought his mouth down on hers.

Misty made a little surprised sound in her throat, and fists contacted his shoulders. Graham tightened his grip, pulling her into him, and licked the cream from her lip in one firm stroke.

Misty stopped fighting. Her lips softened, hesitated, then formed to his.

Fire. Her mouth was heat and everything good. Graham laced his fingers through her hair, pulling it out of the ponytail she'd dragged it into. Soft goodness flowing over his hand.

He sucked her lower lip into his mouth, and Misty made another soft noise. No more protests, no more fists. No more
talking.

Misty's body fitted to his, breasts tight against his torso. He moved his hand down her back, callused fingers catching on her cotton tank. The fabric was so thin he could feel the heat of her skin plus the strap of a bra, tight against her back.

Graham could savor her all day and all night. He licked into her mouth, finding a bite of spice. Thirst went away as he drank her.

Her small hands caressed his shoulders then moved to the back of his neck, above the Collar. She liked to hold on to his neck when they kissed for some reason. Not that Graham minded. She also liked to run her fingers through his short buzz of hair.

Graham kept on kissing her. Misty's mouth was a joy, her breath warm, her body pliant against his. His cock hadn't gone down; in fact, it had grown even more rigid. Misty tasted like sunshine, felt like a soft cooling breeze.

If it could be just you and me . . .

We'd unmake the world.

Graham made himself ease the kiss to its end. Misty gazed up at him, eyes warm, her lips parted. Her anger had been erased for now, and what he read in her was desire. Moisture lingered behind her lower lip, and Graham licked it away.

It took all his strength to relax his arms around her, to let go. Misty had been on tiptoe, and now she thumped back on her heels. She stared up at him, unblinking, her lips slightly swollen.

Graham pointed his finger at her face and ended up touching her lightly on the nose. “You and me,” he said. “We're not done.”

He turned and walked away. Killed him to do it, but you didn't say an exit line and then not leave the stage. You didn't even look back to see if she stared after you, longing in her eyes, no matter how much you wanted to.

 • • • 

G
raham wouldn't go home. After his searing kiss and the parting shot, Misty expected him to be long gone when she came back inside the house, but no. He was talking to Reid in the living room, his loud, harsh syllables drowning out Reid's quieter ones.

Xav had cleaned up the broken bowl and given the cubs more ice cream. The two little ones could sure put it away. They'd discovered that licking the ice cream from the spoon was even more fun than licking it from the bowl. They could lick the spoon all over before they scooped up more. After all, Aunt Misty had been licking it from the spoon. So it was all right, wasn't it?

When they finished, Kyle or Matt said, “Can we play outside, Aunt Misty? We didn't go out before, because you and Uncle Graham were kissing.”

Xav laughed from where he sat at the table, and Misty's face went hot. “That's fine, but don't mess up my plants. They get hurt easily.”

Matt and Kyle agreed they'd never do anything like that. They half wrestled each other trying to be first to the door, then they started yanking off their clothes.

Before they finished stripping down to their skin, they were shifting, fur rippling, tails popping out. Two fuzzy cubs barreled out the door they'd already opened, yipping all the way.

“They don't have Collars,” Misty said out loud. She hadn't noticed that before, but when they'd shucked their T-shirts, she'd seen that their necks had no slash of black and silver Collar to mar them.

“They don't take Collars until they're older,” Graham said, coming into the kitchen. “'Cause they're damn painful. Even humans couldn't bring themselves to be that cruel.”

Misty let out a breath. “All humans are not that bad, Graham.”

He gave her that look that said he'd lived a hundred years in the harsh wilderness, and she didn't know what she was talking about. “Yes, they are,” he said.

“Then why are you still here?”

Another look. “Because a Fae is after you, and an ex-cop with bullets isn't going to stop him.”

“And a Shifter is?” Reid leaned in the doorway. He still had the book, but he held it closed in his hand.

“Shifters won the Shifter-Fae war,” Graham said. “Remember? We kicked your asses. You lost all your Shifter pets.”

“That was more than seven hundred years ago,” Reid said mildly. “I wasn't born then. And
dokk alfar
had nothing to do with Shifters.”

“I know; I just say it to piss you off. Point is, this Fae targeted her—and me—and I'm not going to sit at home waiting for him to come get her.”

Why did that make Misty feel better? She should want Graham gone. Out of here.

Instead she went to the sink and filled up a glass of water. Las Vegas tap water tasted terrible, but who cared? She needed the water, needed the cool wetness inside her parched mouth.

“This book.” Reid held it up. “Where did you get it?”

Misty explained about the flea market. “I had it valued, but even though it's a first edition, it's in too bad a shape to be worth much. I kept it for the interest.”

“Whoever wrote it knows much about the Fae.” He flipped to the title page. A nice frontispiece with an etching of an heirloom rose faced it, the plate guarded by a thin piece of vellum. The title page itself didn't have much information.

“The author didn't put her name on it,” Misty said. “Or his. They didn't always back then. This book has a date but no publisher or author.”

“Maybe a Shifter wrote it,” Xav suggested.

“Doubt it,” Reid answered. “The spells in here against Fae are subtle but show a good understanding of Fae magic. Shifters are cruder when dealing with Fae.”

“He means we just rip their heads off and spill out their insides.” Graham strode to the back door and yanked it open. “Kyle! Get out of that damned tree! You're not a cat.”

Kyle stopped squirming in the branches of the fruitless mulberry that overhung Misty's yard from her neighbor's, and dropped to the ground. He yipped once when he landed, then he trotted off, none the worse for wear.

Misty tried to memorize what he looked like, so she could try to tell them apart, but once he joined Matt, she gave up. The two, as wolves, were identical.

“Are you babysitting them?” Misty asked when Graham came back inside.

“Their foster mother dumped them on my doorstep,” Graham said. “I was on my way to hand them to Nell and her bears when the dream hit.” He regarded Reid speculatively. “You and Peigi have a bunch of foster cubs at your house. Kyle and Matt like them.”

“No,” Reid said quickly. For the first time since Misty had met him, Reid looked less like a mysterious being and more like an ordinary human. A worried human. “Peigi's got too much to deal with—the cubs, the other Shifter women from Mexico . . . You weren't here when we rescued them. They went through hell, and Peigi as their alpha feels the worst of it. Leave her alone.”

Graham scowled at him a moment longer before he relaxed into a grin. “Why don't you just make the mate-claim on Peigi and get it over with?”

Reid looked embarrassed. “
Dokk alfar
don't do mate-claims.”

“You'd better start. Shifters need females, and she's fair game. Even my wolves are eyeing her. They're going to start to Challenge for her, and they won't care if you're
dokk alfar
or tree bark. They'll use the Challenge as an excuse to kill a Fae, and won't care you're one of the good ones.”

“I'll keep it in mind,” Reid said, recovering his calm. Graham didn't seem to frighten Reid, and neither did other Shifters, Misty had noticed. Most humans, even Xavier sometimes, could grow nervous around Shifters, but never Reid.

“So we wait until moonlight?” Xav broke in.

Misty shrugged. “I guess.”

“I guess we do.” Graham moved back to the door, opening it again to watch the cubs. He wasn't about to leave, she saw. Misty would have to sit here with him for the next few hours, her nerves making her crazy, the sensation of his hard kiss lingering on her mouth. “Got any beer?” Graham asked over his shoulder.

“I told my guys to bring some,” Xav said. “And we'll get pizza.”

At the word
pizza
, high-pitched yips sounded in the backyard. One cub popped up from the riverbed, an eager look on his face. There was no sign of the other cub.

“Matt!” Graham shouted. “Get
out
of there.”

The second wolf scrambled out from under the bridge. He gave Graham and Misty an innocent look, or as innocent as he could with a clump of Angelita daisies drooping from his mouth, their yellow heads bobbing in the sunshine.