A Werewolf's Valentine: BBW Wolf Shifter Paranormal Romance (8 page)

Nine

McKenzi

“Nate?” West exclaimed.

McKenzi looked anxiously from one to the next. Poor Nate looked like he was ready to bolt out the door if anyone blinked.

“Hey, Nate, what brought you up here? Are you okay?” West asked.

McKenzi let her breath out in a long trickle of relief. She’d half expected West to be pissed—she suspected she’d be pissed if someone she scarcely knew sprang Nate on her without any warning.

“Aunt Julia found him hanging around the hotel at the bottom of Main Street,” she said to West. “Nate told them he was looking for you, and Sheriff Odom was going to take him to the lockup, but Amelia’s boyfriend’s mom, who works at the hotel, called Mrs. Nixon at the Crockery, you know, my boss, and told me, and so . . .” McKenzi became aware that she was blurting yet again, and held out a hand toward Nate. “Um, here he is. I didn’t know what else to do,” she said again, in a low voice.

“It’s okay.” West gave her a sweet, distracted smile then up to Nate and clasped his skinny shoulder. “How’d you find me?”

“Sniffed your trail,” Nate said. “You mostly traveled wolf.” He chucked a fearful glance McKenzi’s way. “Um . . . ?” He turned his thumb out.

McKenzi tried not to laugh at Nate’s 100% futile attempt to be subtle.

“It’s okay. She knows about us shifters,” West said, and flicked a questioning look her way. “How about we get you cleaned up, get those clothes into the washer, and get a meal into you.”

Nate’s one eye closed, and he said reverently, “A shower? A
hot
shower? A hot shower, like, in that bathroom I was just in, with all that clean water?” He pointed behind him at McKenzi’s small bathroom, his attitude as awed as someone who had just discovered the Taj Mahal. “I haven’t had one of those since I sneaked into a pool party July Fourth, out in Escondido. They was all drunk. Got me some beer, too.”

He had a quick, nervous way of speaking, though his accent spoke of some kind of southern origin.

West turned toward McKenzi, who had been thinking rapidly. “Tell you what,” she said to West, and smiled at Nate. “I’ll take him to Kesley’s, and then I’m going to see what Rolf has that he can loan Nate.”

Though Nate was anywhere from nineteen to early twenties, he was desperately thin, and not much taller than Rolf, who still like to wear his jeans loose and sagging. He limped badly on one leg, as he kept turning his one eye anxiously toward West as if to check that he was still there.

Nate said nervously, “That would be mighty nice of you, ma’am.”

The entire world felt unreal, as if McKenzi had slipped sideways into a parallel universe.

She got Nate loaded up with towel, shampoo, soap, and the rest, left him at Kesley’s, then went to the ranch house, where the lights were still on. Late as it was, she knew Rolf, like many teens, was a night creature, and sure enough, she found him watching TV. She’d expected him to dig in his heels, as teens tended to be protective of their stuff and space, but as soon as he heard “West’s friend,” he said, “Okay, whatever.”

He dug out an old pair of jeans, an Avengers tee, and a beautiful, brand new flannel jacket that he never wore, as he and his friends’ social group uniform was hoodies. She took the clothes back to Kesley’s and left them outside the bathroom, from which came the sounds of splashing water. Nate had put his reeking clothes outside.

She held her breath, got them to the washer, threw in a double helping of powder, and retreated to her place, where she found West waiting in the living room pretty much where she’d left him.

“I’m sorry—” he began.

At the same time, she was saying, “I’m sorry—” She stopped. “
You
have nothing to apologize for.”

“I think I do,” he said, low-voiced. “My past turning up like that. But you certainly have no cause to apologize.” And he gave her a questioning look.

She shook her head. “I thought you might not . . . I don’t even know where to start. But when I heard through the grapevine—and this town could give lessons to the NSA for knowing each other’s business—that a vagrant was caught outside the motel, but he was asking for you, I don’t know, I felt like he was my responsibility. Especially when I saw him. God, West, that poor guy looks like hell. And it’s weird, but he reminds me of Rolf. Is he a wolf cub? No, not a cub . . .”

“He’s a coyote shifter.”

“Well I got the canine part right. He just looked so hopeful and afraid I would kick him, all at once, I couldn’t leave him outside. I couldn’t. I realized you don’t have a cell phone, and Kesley and I don’t have land lines and it just seemed mean to leave him there. In the rain.”

West’s smile softened to tenderness. “If I’d been an asshole about him, what would you have done?”

“I don’t know. Probably stuck him at Kesley’s at least for a night, and fed him and given him my tips to get him going.”

West took her hands. “McKenzi, I think—” But then he stopped, and glanced to the side, his shoulders tense.

She said, “What is it—?” She caught herself almost saying
Darling
. She never used that kind of language! Ever! Yet the word hovered right there behind her lips, urgent as the need for a kiss.

He turned his head, the light casting shadows under the hard edges of his cheekbones, and his eyelashes painting a feathery shadow on the delicate skin under his eyes.

“Maybe it’s too late at night for this conversation. Because I’m not sure of myself.” He met her gaze, his gray eyes like the sea in winter. “I’m too used to running whenever I smell trouble, or dealing with . . .” He flexed his hands. “With teeth, or fists. I don’t know where I am. Except when I’m with you, somehow everything seems right. Centered. In a way I can’t explain.”

“I feel exactly the same,” she said, and slid her hands around his waist, pulling him to her. She felt a tremor run through him, then some of the tension leave his muscles as she said into his shoulder, “I’ve never felt like this before. About anyone. It’s like I’m Rolf’s age again.”

She lifted her face and kissed him—but then came a soft knock at the door, and they stepped apart. But she saw promise in his heated gaze, and knew he was reading the same from her.

Nate entered cautiously, as if he half expected a hand grenade to be lobbed at him from behind the door, and jumped half a foot into the air when the rain-soaked door banged shut behind him. Rolf’s pants hung baggy on his scrawny hips, though ridiculously short about his ankles. His ratty tennis shoes would have to go, she thought, but the rest of him had cleaned up . . . fairly civilized. Nate was never going to be handsome, but his one good eye was a soft brown, his smile tentative and shy.

“Who do I owe thanks to? I don’t know the smell.” Nate indicated the flannel jacket.

Rolf’s clothes had been clean. McKenzi had forgotten how good canine noses were.

“You’ll meet Rolf, my nephew, tomorrow. Go ahead and use the bed back in that cottage. Or would you like something to eat first?” McKenzi flicked on the light and moved straight to the fridge, and began taking out fixings for a sandwich.

“I can wait,” Nate said, but his face betrayed him—he looked exactly like a dog hopeful of scraps, nearly quivering with silent desire. “Thanks. A warm bed sounds mighty fine, ma’am.”

“Please, ‘ma’am’ sounds like my mom. Nobody under thirty wants to be ma’amed, especially when they are closing in on thirty,” McKenzi said as she put about ten pieces of bacon into the microwave, and began cutting up a tomato and thick slices of cheese. “Call me McKenzi.”

Nate seemed unable to speak as the aroma of bacon filled the room. He actually swayed.

West guided him to the nearest chair, then poured him a glass of milk as McKenzi finished putting the BLT together. Soon they stood side by side watching Nate . . . well,
wolf
it down. ‘Coyote it down’ didn’t sound quite right, McKenzi thought with an inward laugh as she set out the rest of the leftover scones, and then watched those vanish, too.

He finally seemed to be filled, and looked just tired. “Off to sleep,” West said. “We’ll talk in the morning, okay?”

Nate ducked his head, opened the door, wiggled it, frowned, then said, “Got a hammer? Tools?”

“Uh, there’s some stuff in the garage up at the house,” McKenzi said wonderingly.

“It’s this door. It ain’t hung right,” Nate said shyly. “I could fix it in a jiffy, if you want.”

“Let’s talk about that later,” McKenzi said. “It’s late, and everyone’s tired. Or at least I am.”

Nate thanked her again and left, and she sighed with relief. Then stopped short. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I forgot. Listen, before the whole Nate thing, Bud Carson, who owns the Surf—that’s the bar across from the Primrose Hotel. Anyway, he heard through the grapevine I mentioned, about your singing. He lets people come perform on weekends. Friday and Saturday are already out, of course, but there’s tomorrow. He doesn’t pay, but you can put a tip jar out. If you’d like to do that, I mean. Earn some money. For . . . whatever.”
Blurting! Stop.

West lifted his chin, his face relaxing into a smile. “I’d like that.”

“Good,” she said. “Then I’ll take you over there tomorrow before I start my shift.”

As they climbed into bed, and reached for each other, she wondered if part of her reluctance to offer to stand him to a new outfit was fear that he would think she was trying to tie him down, that he would take off.

She didn’t want him to take off. She wanted him to stay . . .

Skin to skin quickly became heat to heat. Words, so unsafe, touch, so definitive: she traced circles over his body, loving the cut of his musculature, how his breathing changed. How responsive he was, and how trusting as she kissed her way down his chest, pausing to tease his pebbled nipples, and then down.

She reveled in her power over him, and used it with happy abandon as her hands caressed his hips, abs, and thighs, and then scratched lightly inward to where all those drew together to the part of him that was so instantly, delightfully responsive.

Her sense of power grew as his cock thickened into rigidity. She felt like a goddess as she ran her fingernails along his length, then closing in on the sensitive tip with her lips, her tongue . . . and her teeth.

He let out a yip that made her laugh, but then he rose. It was her turn for fist-tightening, head turning, gasping speechlessness as he knelt between her legs, his hair rasping the tender insides of her thighs before he probed her deeply with his tongue until she was frantic. Then he brought up his cock and slid in where she was ready, waiting,
wanting
.

They rocked together as she scored her nails up his back and buried her fingers in his short hair as he kissed her. She tasted herself on his tongue, a blending of him and her that drove her wild. He grazed his teeth along the inside of her neck until they shot upward to climax, one, then the other, their bodies thrumming in a divine chorus, and ecstasy showered all around them.

When she had her breath back, they lay together, arms and legs entwined. Before she slipped into dreams, she thought,
I don’t ever want this to end
.

That thought was still with her when she woke.

She slipped out of bed, her mind already filling with a list of things to see to. At the head of the list was talking things out with West. As she set about whipping up a batch of muffins and hash browns with onions and sausage, she realized how many conversations with West she ran through her head when she was away from him. This was such new territory, this caring what he thought, what he felt. It was new and dangerous and compelling, but she did not want it to end.

That thing he’d said last night—he was clearly as uncertain as she was. New territory for them both. No expectations, no promises, was turning into . . . what?

She had learned never to trust any of the commercial burble that always seemed a heartbeat away from emotional manipulation. What, she had wondered, did true love even mean? How can you really promise someone “forever” without seeming to hold them hostage to your own feelings?

Kesley’s managed it
, she thought. For the first time, McKenzi believed it. The love her sister had found was true and real. But look how many times she’d gotten hurt before she found it!

McKenzi winced, not wanting to go down that road of what-ifs.

At least, not alone.

“We’ll talk,” she promised herself.

But that turned out to be impossible, beginning with Nate’s soft knock at the door before West even woke.

Of course he’d be up bright and early.
He
hadn’t spent half the night having fantastic sex. “West awake?”

“Not yet.” She forced a bright smile, invited him in, and scarcely had he sat down then Rolf showed up—door banging behind him. “West up yet?”

McKenzi closed her eyes and sighed.

“Give me ten,” came a masculine voice from the other room.

“Breakfast will be ready by then,” McKenzi said as she brought out the eggs and began cracking shells.

She’d always liked baking, but cooking was just something she did—until she had three hungry, super appreciative guys sitting in her kitchen. It surprised her, how fun it was to see her little table crowded elbow to elbow, and the enthusiasm they expressed for her food.