An American Werewolf in Hoboken (10 page)

“Please?”

“Nope. Not until you open your eyes and look at me.”

“What will looking at you change?”

“Was this the first time you’ve ever done something like this?”

“You mean take my clothes off just because I was asked to?”

The rumble of his laughter seeped into her chest. “Made love because you wanted to—without all the other stuff muddying it up.”

“Other stuff?”

“Regret, remorse, the fear you’ll be labeled.”

“I don’t care about labels. I do care about thinking things through. So apologies if I’m all kinds of unsure about just who I am. This is my first one-night stand. Is it yours?”

“Nope. I’ve had a few.”

She squinted her eyes to peek at him. “So then you’re accustomed to feeling cheap and recklessly impulsive. Me, on the other hand—a newb to all this cheap—still sort of feeling my way around.”

Max made a gravely serious face, fighting a grin. “It just takes time.”

She opened her eyes all the way and rolled them at him. “To adjust to feeling cheap?”

He began to trail kisses along the side of her mouth. “Yep.”

She fought a smile and gave his heavy weight a shove, noticing for the first time the tattoo on his shoulder. Intricate in detail, red and black ink…it fit someone like him. But back to the matter at hand. Keeping her eyes closed. She slammed them shut again. “Thanks for the tip. Now, please get off me.”

“Not until you open your eyes and look at me. And definitely not until we talk about this.”

She clenched her eyes tighter. Did he want a blow-by-blow?
JC here, reporting from my hunky, brand-spanking-new neighbor Max’s kitchen table. Woot, baby, did I ever just do it with a guy I knew all of a couple of hours! Go Team Reevaluate Your Standards!

Max pressed closer, letting his weight rest on top of hers. Using two fingers, he popped one of her eyes open. As he came into focus, her heart lurched. God, he was so damn sexy with his cheeks ruddy from their lovemaking, his hair tousled, and his eyes clearly amused.

Max nudged her with his nose. “So this happened very suddenly, and the intensity of it scared you.”

Scared her? If he’d just let her up, she’d go home and rock in a corner. Yes. She was petrified at the intensity of their lovemaking—at her willingness to abandon her rules. JC pulled his fingers from her eye. “Yes.”

“I don’t do this as a rule, JC. And definitely not with someone I want to get to know.”

“But my sexy drove you to do it, right?”

He lifted his head and grinned down at her. “Bingo.”

“You mock.”

Max made a pouty face at her. “I don’t.”

“Look, it’s very gentlemanly of you to offer to talk this out. Probably rare in a one-night stand. Whoever taught you one-night-stand etiquette taught you right, but I don’t need reassurances or apologies.”

“I’m not apologizing. I’m just reiterating what I said before we made intense, wildly satisfying love. This is absolutely
not
a one-night stand.”

She gazed up at him, trying to read his eyes, see something beyond the surface, understand what all this meant. “I need to process this,” was all she could manage.

“Fair enough,” Max said, nuzzling her face with his lips, slipping down along her cheek to her ear, where he nibbled.

That storm of heat he’d evoked earlier flushed her cheeks again as shivers coursed along her spine, and her body, of its own accord, rose to press against his. She didn’t even have to think about it. One minute she was going home to process, the next she was all buttery limbs and screaming hormones.

Max’s sudden sneeze made her jump, the jolt of his body shaking the table.

He sneezed again, his eyes becoming watery. Lifting himself on his hands, he asked, “Are those silver earrings? Real silver?”

Her hand flew to the stud in her ear as her eyes scanned Max’s face, which was growing redder and blotchier by the second. She gripped his jaw, taking a closer look. “They are. What’s wrong?”

He pushed himself off her as fast as he could, swiping at his mouth with his arm as a series of more violent sneezes racked his body and red welts began to appear all over him.

Alarmed, JC sat up. Yanking her shirt down, she looked for a roll of paper towels and her cell. She grabbed a handful and shoved them in his direction while she dug her phone out of her purse. “Oh my God. Your face is covered in welts! What’s happening? I’m calling 911!!”

Max shook his head as he scooped up his T-shirt and rubbed his eyes with the bottom of the fabric. He put a hand on hers to keep her from dialing. “It’s okay. I’m—” He sneezed hard again. “Allergic to silver is all. It passes. Just give it a sec.”

Her panic began to subside as the welts all but disappeared, leaving only a residual redness on his face and arms. She pulled her jeans back on and went to the kitchen sink to wet some paper towel. Max grabbed her around the waist with one arm and wiped his eyes with the other.

She pressed the cool towel to his eyes, her brow furrowing. “I’ve never seen anyone react so violently to silver. My mom’s allergic, too, but she just gets an itchy rash. I’m so sorry. If I had known…”

He looped his fingers around her wrist and smiled. “That’s what happens when you don’t know anything about the man you just slept with.”

JC made a face at him. “Well, from here on out, rest assured, I’m going to have a form at the ready so all my future one-night stands can fill it out.”

Hauling her against him, Max looked down at her again and smirked, winking his bloodshot eye. “Good thing you won’t have to worry about having any more of those.”

“One-night stands?”

“Yep. There’ll be no more of those for you.” Now he slipped both arms around her waist and began walking her back toward the kitchen table.

Should she rail against his possessive tone? Tell him to fuck off for daring to have the audacity to think he had any say whether she had another one-night stand?

Yet, the words he spoke didn’t reek of ownership; they rang of something she couldn’t define. There was also something else. Shouldn’t she be afraid she’d just slept with a man who might have some sort of mental issue? Who made statements as bold as Max did unless they were two Twinkies shy of a case?

Still, when she looked at him for any sign of crazy, her heart told her that didn’t jive.

But the feminist in her decided she had to be sure he was clear on the bigger picture here. JC pointed a finger at his chest. “You have no say in what my future holds, Max Adams.”

Empowerment, would you please stand up?

Max dropped a kiss on her nose, pulling her tighter. “If you say so, Jacqueline Christine Jensen. But you’ll see.”

JC found her body had its own ideas on feminism and crazy as it molded to his. Heat assaulted her in sharp pinpricks, and she knew she had to leave before she clung to his thigh like a contestant on
Survivor
clung to a granola bar. “I have to go,” she said firmly.

“Kiss me goodbye properly. I won’t just be loved and left like so much stale bread. I will
not
go to bed feeling cheap and used.”

JC couldn’t help but giggle. He really was adorable. “Just one, and then I’m out.”

Max responded by crushing his lips to hers and sliding his masterful tongue into her mouth. Nothing had prepared her for the surge of electricity that passed between them when he’d first kissed her, and this kiss wasn’t any different.

Her tongue dueled with his, meeting him stroke for stroke until she found her arms wrapped securely around his neck once more, standing on tiptoes to taste as much of him as she could.

The firm slide of his mouth and the insistent press of his hard shaft made her head spin—made her want to give in before giving herself time to think this over. Max groaned when she ran her nails over his scalp, pushing against her, awakening a fresh wave of deep desire.

No. She had to go home and catch her breath.

JC tore her lips from his, their breathing ragged in the quiet of his apartment. She planted a hand on his chest to hold him back, finding it hard not to admire his thick thighs and gleaming skin. “Home. I’m going there. I need—”

“To process. I get it.” Grabbing her hand, he kissed the tips of each of her fingers before dropping it to her side and strolling over to the corner of the kitchen to grab her purse.

He held it out to her with a smile—totally naked, totally beautiful.

JC plucked it from his hand, suddenly irritated with how sure he was of himself. How amazing he looked naked. How
everything
he was.

Max popped open his door and stood behind it with a smirk, the grooves on either side of his mouth deepening when he tilted his head toward the hallway. “So out with you. I’ll see you tomorrow night when you get in from work.”

JC gave him her best affronted glare. “Maybe I have plans.”

Max’s eyebrow rose, but he chuckled. “We’ll see. G’night, JC,” he said, shooing her out with a hand.

“Goodnight,” she called over her shoulder, escaping across the narrow hallway to her apartment and jamming the key into the lock.

She yanked open her door, taking one last peek over her shoulder to find Max still smiling. He wiggled a finger at her and winked before his face disappeared inside.

JC closed the door behind her and leaned up against it, just breathing. Her phone vibrated against her leg with a text.

She squinted at the phone. Viv checking on her. She’d promised to call the local shelters about Fluffy on her behalf. Rescues and shelters across the tri-state knew Viv well. They knew her donations well, too. Sometimes shelters were difficult when it came to doling out information about strays over the phone. But if Vivienne Hathaway called, no one messed with her and her generosity.

Called all my contacts at the local shelters, but nothing on Fluffy. I’m sorry, honey. Where are you? Are you okay? Need me—just yell.

Okay. Was she
okay
?

Was she?

Jesus, how would she ever explain to Viv that Max wasn’t even in the building more than a few hours and she’d been all over him like she was mayo to his baloney sandwich?

Her face flushed when she remembered Viv’s words.
That’s just not you, J
.

It probably wasn’t a good idea to tell her friend what really happened.
I’m great. I just had the most earth-shattering, mind-altering orgasm I’ve ever had—but you know, that’s just not me.

She shot Viv a quick text, letting her know she was okay before dropping her phone on the table by the door and wandering into her dark apartment.

The silence, thick and still, was just as silent as it had ever been.

Fluffy. Her heart clenched when she saw a piece of the food he’d taken such displeasure with lying in the middle of her living room.

She hadn’t had a pet in many years, not since high school, but she’d forgotten how easily she became attached, how much she’d anticipated coming home to her last dog.

JC sat on her couch, pulling a pillow into her arms just as the tears began; hot and salty, they slipped from her eyes.

In the space of one day, she’d lost a potential furry companion and knocked around a kitchen table with a man she barely knew. Exhaustion seeped into her bones as she threw the pillow to the end of the couch then stretched out and buried her face in it.

A cold, wet nose pushed at her hand, demanding her attention.

Her head popped up to find Fluffy staring at her with his trademark stoic gaze.

As though he hadn’t scared the life out of her—like he’d never been gone.

But she didn’t even care that he was staring at her as if
she
were the offender. She wrapped her arms around his gargantuan neck and hauled him up on the couch, planting kisses on his muzzle. “Where were you? How did you get back inside? The window? I could have sworn I shut it. Tomorrow, we get a lock buddy. A big lock, so no one can ever get in, and you can’t ever get out.”

Fluffy put a paw on her shoulder, one of the rare times he responded in any other way but detached.

Her heart melted. “Don’t you ever, ever, ever do that to me again, Fluff.
Ever
,” she whispered with a sniffle. “I don’t know where you were or how you got out, but you’d better never scare me like that again. You belong here with me. What if Animal Control got ahold of you again and I didn’t find you in time?” She shuddered, squeezing his neck harder. “You stay in this apartment until I get home, you hear?”

Fluffy licked her ear in response—then backed away so fast, he fell off the couch.

He gave his head a fierce shake.

Just before he sneezed.

Chapter Nine

JC knelt beside Max on the steps leading up to the vet’s office, wrapping his leash around her hand, probably so he wouldn’t bolt—which he would, given half the chance. “We have to do this, buddy. Please don’t make this any harder than it has to be. I’m doing this because I love you, and I want you to be healthy and happy,” she said in his ear.

Max stiffened, balancing his weight in order to keep his paws rooted to the concrete underneath him.
Nuh-uh.

It was one thing to travel all the way from Cedar Glen to Hoboken, looking for your life mate. Still another to end up in a shelter, on
death row
no less, because you got caught with your pants down in full shift while searching for said life mate.

Setting aside the humiliation of eating kibble, and being forced to wear a yellow raincoat and matching booties when it was misting outside and JC didn’t want to have to deal with his unruly hair, he’d had it. Enough humiliation and humbling himself before this curse was enough.

So,
this
—this next phase was absolutely out of the question.

JC tugged his leash again, rubbing that spot on his ear he liked to have scratched when he was in shift to butter him up. “Fluff, c’mon, buddy. It’s just a quick trip to the vet. No big deal. Just a checkup.”

Her gaze had avoided his in the same way when she’d left his apartment two weeks ago, after they’d made love. She was skirting the real reason they were here just like she’d avoided talking about getting to know each other when the sparks were done flying.