“Miss me, Iz?”
I tore the covers away, a sheen of sweat covering my chest and the room feeling uncomfortably stuffy from the afternoon sunshine pouring through the windows. “Hawk? Where have you been? I tried calling you.”
“Pack your bags.”
“Huh?”
He yanked a suitcase out of the closet and stuffed it with his boxer shorts and dress shirts. “We’re moving.”
“Moving where? Wait a second. What’s going on? Some psycho has been following me around looking for you.”
“Yeah, that’s why we’re moving. What’s with all the dirt on the kitchen floor and ripped-up paper?”
I swung my legs over the bed and slipped on a T-shirt. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Not unless you tell me you’ve fixed whatever you messed up. I’ve always accepted you for who you are and haven’t interfered in your business affairs, but I’m not about to get mixed up with someone who has lunatic humans chasing after him. This isn’t the life I want.”
“I don’t give a shit what kind of life you want, Izzy. This is the life you get. So quit looking a gift horse in the mouth,” he said, backing me up to the wall. “You need to get it in that thick head of yours that life isn’t about good times and getting what you want.”
“Oh?” I said, doing one of those neck swivels that I’d only seen women on TV do. “And what is all this?” I waved my arms around the room. “A two-thousand-dollar sofa, Hawk. That’s insane! And what about the boat you never take to the lake, or the trips to the casino where you come back with a hangover and empty pockets? What about your fancy suits—”
“Really, Izzy? You want to bring up my suits when you dress like a hooker?”
I slapped him. I’d never slapped a man before, but Hawk brought out something venomous in me I didn’t like.
Neither did he.
Hawk wrapped his fingers around my wrist and gripped my neck with his right hand, squeezing hard. “Don’t ever do that again. I take good care of you, Izzy. I’m only saying you need to appreciate it, but it always feels like you’re holding out for something better. There is no better. I’m the best you’ve got and the best you’ll ever get. Maybe it’s time you show me some due respect.”
I fought hard to keep my snarling wolf at bay. The only way I could protect her from getting hurt by a pissed-off Shifter was to stay calm. “Let go of me.”
He laughed and released his hold.
“Take it back, Hawk. You know I’m a good girl. Maybe I work as a waitress, and maybe I like wearing shorts instead of gowns, but that doesn’t make me a whore. And the last thing I want is to sleep with a man who sees me as nothing more than a streetwalker. So take it back.”
He shook his head. “Fine. I take it back. Now pack your shit.”
“No, thanks.” I marched toward the bathroom with attitude in my swing.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not about to become an outlaw. I have nothing to do with whatever you’re involved in, but if I start running with you, then that makes me look just as guilty. I’ll pack my things and leave, but I’m not leaving with you.”
“And where are you going to go?” He followed behind and joined me in the bathroom.
I squeezed a dollop of toothpaste on my red toothbrush and began giving my molars a vigorous scrub. “You’re talking to a girl who has traveled through thirty-four states, hitchhiked with the best of them, and has always found a way to make it on my own. Do you think sleeping under a bridge scares me? Think again. I’ll do whatever it takes to survive in this world because I’m a fighter.”
He swept my hair away from my neck and rested his chin on my shoulder. “You’re too damn foxy to be living in a city full of Shifters without a pack. I can offer you the protection you crave and all the freedom you want. If someone gets wind that you’re a wolf…”
“They won’t.” I shuddered, because his words seemed like more of a threat than a statement.
“But if they do, then you’ll become nothing more than a pack bitch. When was the last time you were in heat?”
I shrugged him away and spit in the sink. “Don’t ask me something that personal, Hawk. We haven’t been dating that long, and I have no intention of mating with you.”
Going into heat meant hiding out for a few days, if not longer. Being aroused for that length of time was exhausting. Heat was the female’s body screaming to reproduce, and males responded. They could scent a bitch in heat, and male instinct kicked in to sate her animalistic needs. It helped having a boyfriend who could detect it a couple of days before I could. Then I’d make reservations at a motel to ride it out. I’d never been with another man during my cycle because it almost guaranteed pregnancy. I’d heard rumors about how exquisite sex was during heat, and some women said it shortened the time they had to endure it. Good for them, but I didn’t want babies with a man I didn’t intend to mate with.