Page 14 of My Blind Date is a Werewolf

“And your Beta thinks he should be the head honcho?”

Adrian shook his head. “No, he knows his place in the pack and is happy about it, but there are some who say he should have been Alpha instead of me. And because of that they’ve been acting like a bunch of spoiled brats, questioning my leadership and orders at every turn. If they keep being insubordinate, I’ll have no choice but to kick them out of the pack.

“What they’re doing, challenging me every chance they get, it’s starting to cause discord within the ranks. I can’t have anyone thinking that I am a weak Alpha, or that could mean serious trouble for us. We’ve managed to stave off other packs from encroaching into our territory for years, but if rumors start spreading about dissension within the pack, the wolves will literally come sniffing around. And not all packs are as peaceful and harmonious as ours—the bloodshed will not be contained to just us shifters.” His mouth and eyebrows were set in a grim line.

I so desperately wanted to say something worthwhile to him, or better yet knock whoever was trying to sabotage him upside the head, but we’d pulled into my driveway, the headlights of his car illuminating the outline of my Colonial-style, two-story home.

“Here we are,” he hummed in his deep voice, turning off the headlights and engulfing us in darkness since I’d forgotten to leave the porch lights on.

“So we are. Before I go, I just want to say, don’t feel guilty for making decisions for the good of your pack. You can go down the route of amicable discussions with your naysayers, but if they still refuse to fall in line and stop causing problems for everyone, then you have all the right in the world to exile them from the pack. At the end of the day, they’re adults who can handle the blowback of their childish tantrums. The fault lies entirely with them.” I reached out across the console and covered his hand with mine.

Before I could snatch it away, he’d flipped our hands over and ran the rough pad of his thumb across my knuckles and laced our fingers together. Every brush of his thumb on my hand arrowed straight to my heart, and the intense concentration in his eyes as he stared at our intertwined hands was not helping.

I tried to snatch my hand away. Adrian’s nostrils flared as he took a deep breath and a low growl filled the cab, telling me that he could already scent my arousal in the air.

“Olivia,” he growled, staring me right in the eye, not bothering to mask the depth of his desire. I don’t know who moved first, but one second I was buckled into my seat, and the next the constraining belt snapped loose and Adrian’s lips were a hair’s breadth away from mine. His warm breath brushed across my face, smelling faintly of scotch and mint gum. He was so close that I heard him swallow and saw the movement of his throat muscles as he did. I could pick out the individual flecks of brown and copper swimming in all that golden amber of his eyes.

A braver, more confident woman would have closed that small gap and claimed Adrian’s mouth in a kiss. In fact, I had a sneaking suspicion that he was waiting for me to finish what he had initiated. But I was Olivia Louise Michaels, the biggest coward and idiot ever.

“Thank you for the ride, Adrian. I’ll get back to you about the renovation plans as soon as possible,” I whispered and gave him a soft peck on the forehead instead. “Goodnight.”

“Sweet dreams, Liv,” I heard him say when I practically ran out of the car. My hands trembled when I tried to unlock the front door, dropping the house keys and missing the keyhole twice before finally pushing the door open and shutting it behind me. Slumping on the ground with the door at my back, I waited for my heart to stop its thunderous gallop and to hear Adrian drive away before dragging myself upstairs.

When the rumble of the engine didn’t come, I crawled over to the front porch windows and peeked outside. The truck was still idling in the driveway. Actually, it was parked there, and Adrian was nowhere in sight.

“What the—” I rushed to the front door, thinking that something might have happened to him, and pulled the door open in time to catch a streak of a huge red wolf rush down the street at the end of the cul de sac and disappear into the woods beyond.

***

Later that night, I tasted the wind in my dreams, felt the ground beneath me as my paws pounded on the hard ground and then pushed off it in long powerful leaps. There were others running beside me, their joy at being out in the open and running wild under the brilliant silver light of the moon making my blood sing with the same. The world zipped past me as blurry streaks, my heart raced, and there was a euphoric burn in my muscles. Even though I was pushing myself to go harder and faster, I was barely out of breath. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled. Another joined in, and then another, and so on and so forth until the cacophony of howls joined together to create one harmonious tune that filled up my lungs and heart and poured out of me when I released one of my own to join the masses.

This is what Pack was all about. The bonds and camaraderie, the intangible magic that joined us all to each other. Pack was one. Pack was all. And yet my beast was not satisfied because it had found the other half of its soul, but it couldn’t claim him yet.

We had to bide our time and wait. We had to be sneaky as cats and make her fall for us without realizing it until it was too late for her to run from us.

I woke from that strange dream sometime after one in the morning.

“What was that?”

I clutched my head, trying to grasp at the remnants of my dream, but it was slipping away so fast I could only remember bits and pieces of it. By the time I woke up again two hours later to get ready for work, the dream was nothing but jumbled flashes of memory tucked into the recesses of my subconscious memory, and Adrian’s car was gone from my driveway.

CHAPTER 9

I had outdone myself. Jumpin’ Beans looked like a different cafe altogether. The Alice in Wonderland decorations had finally come in and I’d spent all weekend setting everything up—with help from Peter, Wendy, my sister, and her husband. Creepy Jabberwocky, Mad Hatter, and Queen of Hearts motifs filled up the room, and jack-o-lanterns carved to resemble the Cheshire cat’s creepy smile were centerpieces on the tables. I’d switched out the usual table linens for checkered tablecloths, amongst other things, to give it a more fall feel.

Between setting everything up, interviewing potential chefs to take over during the lunchtime shifts, and my duties as manager and primary baker, I didn’t have time to think of anything else…of anyone else. I’d caught fleeting glances of Adrian when he came into the cafe, sometimes alone and other times with his crew or his brother, Carter, and I’d always made sure to retreat into the kitchen or my office when I saw him coming.

That stupid dream had plagued my nights ever since the charity benefit on Thursday and the near kiss that followed. Adrian’s amber eyes were the last thing I saw when my head hit the pillow at night, sometimes in wolf form, but mostly it was the man peering down at me, his massive body pinning me down and peppering kisses down my naked body.

The things Adrian and I did in those dreams left me empty and aching when the morning came. Four mornings in a row, I woke up with my sheets tangled around me and my body coated with sweat.

I was driving myself crazy! Of all the men to rouse my slumbering libido, it had to be Adrian. I didn’t want to upend our friendship with…something more. How much longer could I avoid him without making it obvious that I really did want something more. His sister, Talia, had left a voice message on my home phone. Adrian must have told her that I would be coming in soon.

I began to wonder if these feelings would go away if I walked over next door and gave Beverley the go-ahead to set me up on her bloody blind date. If I met this supposed perfect man, I should—theoretically—be more attracted to him instead of Adrian, right? I should just go on the stupid date so I’d stop having horny dreams starring Adrian Cooper and the world would tilt back into its rightful place.

“Olivia!” Wendy yelled my name, her hand on my shoulder as she gave me a jarring shake. “Jeez, boss! I called your name like five times in a row and you were just staring at the same spot on the wall. I thought you were possessed or something.” She backed away when I shrugged her hand off me.

Blinking owlishly at her, I tried to remember what I went into my office for in the first place and drew a blank. “Do you need me for something?” I asked Wendy, getting up from my seat, needing to move, to work off the excess energy nipping away at my body. My pulse was pounding an angry beat in my throat and my thoughts were scattered all over the place. The day had passed me by while I was all up in my head and it was already almost midday.

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