Page 379 of Flirting with Darkness

“But we are putting our lives, our pack’s lives in your hands. Please don’t quit on us.” His hands stroked up and down my back in a soothing manner that made me tingly in all the right places.

I sighed and pushed away from him, this time he let me. “Fine. I will give it another shot. But I need a bit more of a heads up than you gave me about your sister. This is a lot harder than I thought.” I giggled and wrapped my arms around myself, then felt the wetness on my dress. My nose crinkled up and I held my hands out to my sides.

Cooper peered down at the dress now almost to my knees but still soaked through. “Yes, we need to find you something else more dry to wear before we continue this charade.”

“Actually…” I shot a look around us and then waved a quick hand over my front. The material dried up as if it had never happened. “There.”

“Well, that’s a nice trick there,” Cooper commented with a jerk of his head. “But I wouldn’t be waving that magic around while you’re Laurie. Or else we will have more than a few questions that will need to be answered.

6

“So Friday night we have a pack meeting,” Cooper explained from across the dinner table at his condo on Wednesday. Jax and Duke sat on opposite sides of the table, their plates heaped full of so much food that I wanted to barf just looking at it. At least Cooper had the decency to only put one serving on his plate. There was no shame in seconds but ew.

“And this will be even harder than a one on one with our parents,” Duke said between mouthfuls of food.

“Exactly,” Cooper pointed a finger at his brother before returning to his own food.

I pursed my lips. “Why will this be harder? Don’t your parents know Laurie best?”

Jax snorted and laughed. “Our parents only see what they want to see. As long as we put on a good face for the rest of the world they don’t give two shits about what we are really like.”

I frowned down at my plate, pushing the food around on it. “That sounds kind of lonely.”

Duke shrugged. “We’ve always had each other so it’s not too bad. Besides, aren’t all parents that way?”

I put my fork down and placed my hands in my lap. “I wouldn’t know. Mine died when I was a baby. My grandma raised me.”

My heart clenched at the thought of my grandma. I really needed to go see her soon. Not that she would be lucid enough to know who I was. Most of the time I was lucky if I got five minutes with her before she fell asleep or her meds took over.

Duke reached over and placed a hand close to me with a soft smile. “I’m sorry to hear that. I bet she’s a great woman.”

Jax scoffed and picked up his glass to take a drink while we all stared at him. “What?” he dropped his glass down and glowered. “I just mean, how great of a woman can she be if her ward turned into a stripper.”

I narrowed my eyes into slits at him and let out a low growl. “Take it back.”

Smirking at me, Jax leaned forward on his elbow and taunted me, “Make me.”

Magic crackled in my veins and my vision went red. I was two seconds away from flaying the bastard when Cooper snapped out, “Jax. Apologize now.”

Jax shot a glare at his brother and even I could feel the pressure of the older brother’s voice. I knew the alpha wolves had power over the lesser ones in the pack but this seemed a bit too real for me.

Fighting against the command, Jax’s movements turned jerky and forced. Jaw clenched, he shifted his gaze to me and bit out, “I apologize.”

I sighed, letting my magic disperse. Picking my fork back up, I stabbed a piece of meat before lifting it to my mouth. “You know, it doesn’t really matter what you think. Because the truth of the matter is that you need me. So whether or not you think my job is worthy of anything, you still came to me.” I popped the meat into my mouth with a self-satisfied smile.

Jax snarled and shoved back from the table, stalking out of the dining room and to the elevator.

“He’s a bit of a sensitive one, ain’t he?” I asked, chewing my meat slowly.

“Don’t mind Jax,” Duke pushed back in his chair letting it balance on the back two feet. “He’s had a stick up his ass for as long as we can remember.”

Cooper frowned at Duke but didn’t object.

“Seems like someone needs my other services,” I winked at Duke. I wiped my mouth and cleared my throat before pushing away from the table. “Well, as fun as this is, I'm going to go take a shower and wash this day off. Night.” I practically skipped from the table on the way back to my bedroom.

Today didn’t go exactly the way we planned but I still felt as if something good came of it. I got Jax’s panties in a twist, something that made me feel great since he’d been nothing but an ass to me since the moment we met. And while I still felt kind of weird about it, someone had gotten me off just for the sake of making me feel good and not because they wanted it in return. A rare occurrence in my line of work.

Closing the door behind me, I lifted one foot and took the heels off one and then the other and they dropped to the floor with a thud. Laurie might have great taste but she had huge feet. I was swimming in her shoes. I reached behind my back and unzipped the dress or tried to. It caught about half way down.

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