An American Werewolf in Hoboken (8 page)

“Why?”

“He invited me to have a beer. Next thing you know, he’ll want a blowjob and a mirror.”

“Hah!” Viv barked into the rapidly cooling night. “No, no, magic maker. I don’t get that vibe from him at all. He’s different, J. I feel it.”

“Maybe he’s just a differently wrapped dickknuckle.”

Viv squinted her eyes in the dark, grabbing JC’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “Nope. He’s definitely different. Can’t put my finger on it, but he’s got something. And if you think about it, I’ve never said that about a single guy you’ve dated. Not since high school when you went to prom with Matt Abramowitz. He was a keeper. And I was right about him because he’s now married to Sherry Ledbetter and has two kids and a nice house out on Long Island.”

JC shook her head, tightening her jacket around her waist. “Doesn’t matter. I’m off the market. Max is just a nice guy who offered his help because he saw how upset I was over Fluffy.”

“Who’s a nice guy?” Max leaned over the top of her shoulder to hand Viv a flashlight with a smile.

Viv inhaled hard and started hacking.

Max looked at her with concern. “You okay?”

Viv bounced her head, winking at Max. “I’m good.”

“So who’s a nice guy?” he asked again.

“My Grandpa Olsen,” JC offered with a chuckle, slipping her arm through Viv’s and removing herself from temptation.

* * *

Three hours later, defeated, with more tears staining her cheeks, JC ducked under Max’s arm when he opened their apartment building door and escaped to the warmth inside. “I’m sorry, JC,” he said, his eyes glowing under the ceiling light.

She let her hand stray to his arm without thinking and gave it a squeeze. “No, don’t be, really, and thank you. I appreciate the help, Max.” The thought of going back to her empty apartment without Fluffy there made her chest hurt.

She couldn’t bear the idea he was alone, maybe cold and hungry. Just like when he’d been abandoned or a stray or however he’d come to be on the streets of Hoboken the first time. Turning to head up the stairs, she shot Max one more glance. “I’d better go. But thanks again.”

He stuck his arm across the stairwell, placing his other hand at her waist. “Wait. Why don’t you come back to my place and we’ll have that beer? I bet you could use one after today. I know I could. And you have to eat, right? I might even throw in a pizza if you help me unpack.”

Max’s thumb made a lazy pattern across the small of her back and her spine arched into the digit willingly. Her nipples tightened sharply and heat began building in her off-limits-we’re-in-the-process-of-reevaluating spot.

The warmth radiating from his big muscles soothed and excited. JC couldn’t help but smile as she backed out of his reach and away from his magnetic pull. “Only a man could think of food and alcohol at a time like this.”

“We can’t make flyers and post for help on Facebook on empty stomachs, can we? What good will it do Fluffy if you collapse because you haven’t eaten tonight? You need fuel.”

She needed him to stop touching her, because all her talk of reevaluation and taking a break from men was crumbling like cookies in a toddler’s clutching grip. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Nope. I don’t. But I want to. Besides, I’m invested now. I want Fluffy to come home as much as you do. I feel guilty I didn’t know he was yours. I would’ve grabbed him and brought him home. So, come up to my apartment, and we’ll have something to eat and figure out what to do next.”

Oh, when he smiled that smile. It was like a gift. So unusual on a face so hard and rugged, it made everything he suggested next to impossible to resist. “You’re not just saying that because you need help unpacking, are you?”

Max shrugged his shoulders as he pulled her by the hand with a chuckle. “Well, yeah, I am. It’s part of my devious plan to get you to help me find a place for my paper plates.” His teasing eyes lit up.

JC shivered, ignoring all the signs that said she was doing the same thing she’d always done. Right now, she felt vulnerable and alone, and she didn’t want to go back to her empty apartment. “Is the pizza on you?”

He stopped on the top step. “Would I let a damsel in distress, one as pretty as you, pay for a pizza I invited her to have with me?”

She lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “Would you?”

“Okay. I might if she liked anchovies.”

JC wrinkled her nose. “I’d rather eat zombie flesh.”

“Then I’m buying,” he said with a wink of his luscious eye.

* * *

JC was busily rearranging Max’s kitchen cabinets when the pizza arrived. He set plates out for both of them at his scarred-oak kitchen table and lit a candle.

He dropped a stack of flyers on the table with Fluffy’s picture and information on them, shooting her a smile of sympathy when he saw she began to tear up again.

JC traced Fluffy’s profile with a finger and took a deep breath. He had to come back.

Max gave her shoulder a squeeze and pulled a chair out for her, motioning for her to sit. “You okay?”

“I just keep thinking about him out there alone. Maybe hurt. He’s frightening and growly. What if he scares the wrong someone and he gets hurt? I guess it’s just the not knowing that’s the worst.”

“I get it. He grew on you quickly, huh?”

She nodded. “He did. I just want him home safe.”

“C’mon, you’ve been working hard on those cabinets. Sit and relax. Let’s talk for a little while and take your mind off things. I want to get to know my new neighbor.”

Please say you mean in the biblical sense.

Jesus, JC. Where did that come from?

But she had to give herself a small break. While she’d unpacked some boxes in his kitchen, and Max made flyers for Fluffy, she’d watched him. Max was sumptuous, rippled, artistry in motion.

Any woman with even one hormone left in her body would find him swoon-worthy.

In fact, every time he’d brushed past her in the kitchen—to grab a glass, or find ink cartridges for his printer—her nipples had taken on a life of their own and the downstairs portion of her body felt as if it had gone through the rinse cycle of a washing machine.

She’d sized him up as though he were the last straight man alive, her eyes constantly straying to the tight press of his jeans against his bulky thighs. He’d also wooed her with his offer to help. Doing something proactive took her mind off the fact that Fluffy was gone, and he might not come back.

Sitting across from him now, an urge to run her tongue over those luscious lips prompted her to sit up straight in her chair and attack her pizza with vigor.
Find focus with the cheese, JC.

Max smiled at her over the glow of the candle. “So tell me about JC. Is that your full name?”

“No. My full name is Jacqueline Christine, but I was such a tomboy as a kid, my dad joked they should have named me JC. I guess it stuck.”

“Have you lived here in Hoboken long?”

JC shrugged her shoulders and wiped her mouth. “About five years in this apartment. I moved here when my folks moved to Florida to retire.”

His eyes probed hers. “Do you miss them?”

When her parents announced they were moving to Florida, JC had kissed them on the cheek and waved goodbye. She loved them, but her life and her business were here. “I do. They’re great parents, but they moved to a retirement village, and I’d already invested in my salon.”

He chewed on his pizza, a gooey string of cheese escaping from the side of his mouth. “You own a salon?”

“Co-own. My partner’s an old friend from high school. She’s married now, so she works much less, but I rent space to hairstylists.”

“Siblings?”

She shook her head with a smile. “Nope. Just me. You?”

Max grinned. “More than I care to count. A nosy, interfering lot.” His mouth said “nosy,” but his tone was full of affection.

Sometimes she wished she had siblings. Someone to talk to. Someone to share her fears about her parents aging. “So where do you come from, Max Adams? Somewhere here in Jersey?”

“Yep. I come from a very small town hardly anyone knows about. Cedar Glen.”

She cupped her chin and sighed. Country living. “Sounds quaint, but I’ve never heard of it.”

Max’s chuckle was fond. “Not many have. It’s beautiful. Lots of meddlesome neighbors, plenty of potluck dinners, made-up events to celebrate for no particular reason, and all the stuff small towns are made of.”

His voice held a hint of longing, which made her wonder why Hoboken? “What brings you to this part of Jersey?”

He tipped his head back and took a swig of beer before saying, “Business.”

Vague. All of a sudden, Max Adams was very vague. But for the moment, the notion became lost in her lust. She was too busy watching him drink his beer to remember how evasive his answer was. His lips worked the bottle, the muscles of his throat convulsing as he took a long pull before smiling at her with satisfaction.

When her cheeks flushed red, she stuffed more pizza in her mouth to keep it moving. Between bites she asked, “So you’re here on business? What kind of business?”

“A little bit of this and a little of that. Mostly preservation. Wildlife preservation.”

More vague. “What kind of wildlife are you preserving in Hoboken?”

Max didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned across the table and pulled some cheese from her chin, gently pushing it into her mouth. The tip of her tongue grazed his finger briefly before he removed it, the pad of his thumb sliding over her lower lip.

She shivered in response.

And that was when their eyes locked.

Every once in a while, like when he’d apologized for not finding Fluffy, or when he was listening to her answer a question, his gaze swallowed her whole with a familiar quality she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

JC gulped, but she couldn’t pull her gaze from his. His eyes mesmerized her, dragging, consuming, pulling. There was a palpable thrum of heat between them, an electric current burning a hole in the moment.

When he spoke, it was low and harsh, his eyes flashing dark in the flicker of the candlelight. “I have a confession.”

JC licked her lips. Suddenly everything had a serious tone. “Just so you’re aware, I suck at keeping secrets.”

“I don’t necessarily want it to be a secret.”

“Confessions aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”

“And sometimes, honesty is the best policy.”

The air in the room became heavy with her unexpected disappointment. “You’re gay, aren’t you?”
Boo-hiss.

“Nope.”

“Out on parole?”

“Oh, you’re this close,” he teased, low and husky, squeezing his forefinger and thumb together.

Her chest tightened. “You live in your mother’s basement back in Cedar Glen?”

Max slid his chair closer to hers. “My
grandmother’s
basement.”

“Where you make dolls out of your victims’ skins?”

He barked a laugh, grabbing the edge of her chair and turning her to face him, their knees touching. “I was joking.”

“About the skin of your victims?”

“No. About my grandmother’s basement. The skin thing is real.”

Now she laughed, too, but it was punctuated by anxiety. “I’m all out of ideas about what you could possibly have to confess to someone you’ve only known a few hours.”

“Do you mind honesty?” he asked, sort of growly and low, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees, leaving them at eye level.

Hadn’t she just said to Viv she was tired of the game? The cat and mouse of it? The promises men made just to get you into bed, only to fail you in every other aspect? “Name one woman you know who minds honesty?”

“How honest do you like
your
honesty?”

Now she really couldn’t breathe.
Yeah. How honest do you like it, JC? Do you want to hear him tell you he only wants to sleep with you? Can you handle that? Will it hurt your widdle feelings?

Because she had to know where this was going, JC fought to form words around the lump in her throat. “I like it very honest.”

Max’s gaze captured hers and this time, there was no looking away. “I’m having a really difficult time keeping my hands to myself right now, JC. I’m trying to remember you’re in a vulnerable state because Fluffy is missing, and you’re worried about him. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

Okay, fate, here comes temptation.
“But?” She clenched the sides of her chair and waited.

Max’s eyes flashed, his jaw growing tight. “But sitting here, looking the way you look, is making it damn hard not to haul you out of that chair and make amazing love to you. I want you, JC Jenson. I figured you should know.”

Chapter Seven

Ah. The bat-over-your-head brand of honesty. Refreshing.

“So you want to have a one-night stand with me?”

There was that stare again. Unflinching. Dark. Delicious. “I want to do a lot of things with you—
to
you, but none of the things I want have anything to do with just one night.”

There was nothing now but Max, just inches from her. His heat. His warm palms, suddenly on her thighs, his amber-flecked eyes drinking from her depths. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He cupped her jaw, caressing the flesh with the rough pads of his fingers, creating a storm of fresh emotions, a new, intense fire burning low in her belly. “I mean I don’t want you for one night, JC. I want you for many nights. Maybe all in a row. Maybe more than once.”

“More than once a week?” she squeaked, her lips sticking together.

“Once a
night
,” he growled all rumbly.

A wave of dizzying anticipation gripped her. Maybe this was the way to go. Have an arrangement whereby both parties stated what they wanted and negotiated their needs. Lay it all out on the table from the word go. “Do you mean an arrangement? A sexual agreement?” she asked, her words hitching, her heart racing.

“No.”

“I’m lost.” Lost and dazzled by his magnificence, dazed by his big hands now at her waist, stroking the curve of her hip.

“I don’t just want to make love to you. I don’t want a one-night stand, either.”