Shift Happens(16)
“Hungry?” Wick asked, his earlier tension gone. His lazy expression caused me to hesitate. “For food,” he clarified. Then he winked at me and shot to his feet in one smooth move.
“Starving,” I managed to say without looking at his dick.
I stood up. It must’ve been a little too fast for my brain to follow because the room tilted. I staggered and started to topple over. A firm hand gripped my upper arm and stabilized me, kyboshing my feeble attempt at a falling tree impersonation.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have been so vigorous.” Wick grimaced. He eyed me critically, momentarily pausing on my breasts, before wandering back to my face. “This has probably set your healing back a few days. Your right shin’s got a killer goose egg. I could play golf with it.”
“Yeah. Sparring was a good idea.”
“How do you figure?”
“It will postpone my little date with Lucien.” And it told me three things about Wick. One, he’d kick my ass in a real fight; two, he had the body of a god and I wanted to lick it all over; and three, the potent attraction between us went both ways and I could potentially use it to escape.
All playfulness seeped out of Wick’s face at my answer. His hand dropped to his side. “It delays the inevitable.”
I shook my head. “A lot can happen in a few days.”
Wick gave me a pained expression. “Please tell me you’re not going to do something foolish like attempt to escape.”
“If I told you, would you drop the guards?”
Wick shook his head. “I am forced to follow Lucien’s orders.”
“But I’m not.”
“Not yet.”
Chapter Seven
I ran. The sound of wolves howling filtered through the trees. The white light of the full moon illuminated the path. Leaves scattered in the wind as my paws sank into the soft soil, propelling me forward through a night smelling of lilacs and sweet jasmine.
Ears back, I ran faster.
The yips and growls grew closer, their hot breath on my feet and their sharp teeth chomping at my legs.
My foot snagged on a fallen log when I attempted to leap over it. Sprawled in the leaves, I twisted around.
A wolf stood over my quivering body. His icy yellow eyes bore holes into mine. Dylan.
“Easy,” a deep voice resonated in my head.
My eyes snapped open. Dark room. Stale air.
“You’re safe.”
Yellow eyes met mine. I flinched, and then attempted to bolt. Sheets weighed me down. I paused and assessed the situation. Wick, not Dylan. Bedroom, not forest. I released a long stuttered breath.
“You were having a nightmare,” Wick explained.
No shit. The sheen of sweat clung to my skin, illuminating my arms in the dark. I turned under the sheets, sticking to them a bit, and looked Wick square in the face.
He lay on his side, on the sheets, not under, wearing an old t-shirt and gray sweatpants—a Were paperweight, keeping me prisoner under the bedding. I would have to roll off the side of the bed if I wanted to escape.
His hand rested on my hip. Heavy and large, it made me aware of the heat emanating from his body through the sheets.
He’d shaken me awake.
I eyed him suspiciously. What was he doing in my bed?
“Why Grandma, what big hands you have.” When fear clung to me, like it did now, I found it best to bluff nonchalance. Fake it till you make it. I’d heard the slogan once on a TV show involving models.
“Better to hold you with, my dear,” he said, surprising me. I didn’t think he would get the reference. Then again, the wolf story was based on a true Werewolf. He should know it.
The nightmare still clung to me like a silk bath robe after a shower. Those eyes haunted my sleep. If I closed my eyes again, I’d see them, crystal clear, as if they were real. Transported back to the hell I tried to forget, I looked into Wick’s deep brown safe eyes, dark portals in the dim light, and relaxed. Tension flowed from my body. Wick’s white teeth flashed in the dark in response.
“What big teeth you have.” I chuckled.
Wick’s grin grew. “I’m not sure you’re ready for me to reply to that.”
Hot damn! I didn’t think I was ready, either. I needed to get this conversation on a different path before it rolled completely in the gutter. “Taking your guard duty a little far, don’t you think?” I waved a finger at his body next to mine.
“I don’t trust you alone in the room.”
Truth, but it seemed like a pretty lame reason to me. “The windows are locked,” I pointed out. “And Were-proof.”
“Ah, but you’re not a Were. And locks can be broken or picked.”
“That hadn’t occurred to me,” I said.