Page 23 of Fixer
I gritted my teeth, but he was right.I forced a smile.
Mrs.French was the last to leave.She waved her notepad under my nose.“Got a list of contacts.We’ll find out who the landlords are for the next two blocks.We’ll trust you and your Dustin to make good use of the information.”
Your Dustin.Was that like “your Alpha” or “your Second,” just a mark of pack?I pretended it was.
“Let me make sure this space is secured,” I told Dustin when we were alone.“Then we can talk more.”I did a quick survey of the rooftop, collected a coffee mug Vicky had left on the parapet— even if I hadn’t smelled her perfume on it, I’d have known whose it was— and ushered Dustin inside, making sure to flip the latch behind us.
We stopped on the fourth floor to return the mug.Vicky thanked me, laughed at her absentmindedness, and tossed her long red hair over her shoulder.“Hey, you two want to come in for some coffee?Life’s boring since I got let go from work.”
I wasn’t crazy about the way she scanned Dustin up and down and pursed her lips.
“No thanks,” I told her.“Gonna go brainstorm how to address this problem with the building.”
“Well, sure.Invitation’s open if you need a break.”She leaned against her open doorway in her tie-dyed top and miniskirt, and I felt her gaze on my back until the stairwell door shut between us.
Dustin murmured, “She’s pretty, and she’s clearly interested in you.”
“Not my type,” I told him.Vicky was nice enough, but she went through boyfriends like a Labrador retriever went through toys.She must’ve been single again, but I’d never felt any attraction to her, only worry about her lack of self-preservation.Not enough worry to let her have Dustin, though.“It was you she was looking at like you were the last donut in the box.”
He chuckled.“So, Wade, whatisyour type?”
I tripped over the third-floor doorsill, which was pretty damned embarrassing for a werewolf, and led the way back to my apartment.Passing Nina Young’s door, I heard the shrill yips of her Chihuahua, Foxy, and Nina frantically shushing her.We were supposed to be a no-pets building, fortunately since animals donotlike wolves.Foxy was technically a forbidden secret, but I wouldn’t tell.Nina sometimes brought me cookies to unnecessarily bribe me to silence, and never seemed to wonder why her rat-dog barked at me the most.
“I bet even that little yapper is a protected part of your pack, huh?”Dustin joked under his breath.
I turned the key in my lock, twisted the handle, and opened the door by shoving Dustin against it, hard.He laughed and retreated far enough for me to shut the door again and turn the deadbolt.We stood there in my darkened apartment, staring at each other.
Wolf blood gave me the hearing to notice when Dustin’s heart picked up speed.It let me detect the shift in his scent, from travel-stale sweat to something deeper and muskier.Dustin didn’t move forward, didn’t retreat, just watched me, his dark eyes unreadable in the low light.His chest rose and fell in a deep breath.Was he scenting me too?What did my body tell him?
Did he know I was teetering on a precipice?
I swallowed hard.“You weren’t completely wrong.About me.”
One corner of his mouth curved up in the shadows.“I know.”
A bolt of heat cut through me at the voice, the words, the little smirk I could barely see.I lunged at him, reaching for his head.A millisecond of wondering if I’d misread him and was about to get punched evaporated as he grabbed my shoulders and yanked me against him.For a moment, he had me trapped by his bulk, then he spun us so I had him pinned with his back to the door and the empty room behind me.
That sign that he was thinking of my comfort, giving me the space and control, burned away whatever doubts I’d had.I craned my neck enough to mash our lips together in a rough kiss, unfamiliar with being on the short end of a four-inch height difference.He bent to meet me.His mouth opened over mine and he tilted his head so we fit just right, his lips warm, his teeth hard, his tongue driving against mine.
I’d kissed people before, but mostly women.I liked women, and they were easy to be with.Those were soft kisses, teasing and asking, leading somewhere.Not explosive heat like this.The rare times I’d been with a man had been hurried encounters, with kissing and foreplay mostly off the table in favor of coming as fast as possible.I’d kissed a couple of men as we jammed our hands down each other’s pants, but it’d felt secondary, something to do with our faces while we jerked each other to oblivion.
Dustin’s kiss wasn’t secondary.He pressed his mouth to mine over and over, between nipping my lower lip and slipping his tongue inside with a rhythm that made my cockhard.Two minutes of being kissed by Dustin had me ready to drive nails.I gripped his hair tighter and tried to do the same back, shoving my whole body against his.When he opened for my tongue, I almost came, just from the way he let me take his mouth.
I gasped and broke away.
He stayed put, his shoulders to the door, peering at me.“Okay?”
“I’m twenty-nine years old and I would like to last more than two minutes,thankyou.”
Laughter shook him and his voice lost its tension.“What a terrible problem to have.”
“Speak for yourself.”I took a deep breath which didn’t help, bringing me the rich scents of our mutual arousal.
“Is this your first time with a man?”
“No,” I snapped, then admitted, “There haven’t been many.I do like women.”
“I bet that’s been useful.”
