I looked at William who was giving me side long glances, and I dropped my eyes to our entwined hands. His thumb stroking in a comforting gesture back and forth across my skin and I saw myself at a crossroads, with myself, with my dad, with a lot of things. I took a fortifying breath and did what I knew in my heart was the right thing. I willfully defied my father for the first time since… well since I could remember.
With a bravado I didn’t actually feel I braced myself inwardly and said, “Daddy, I’m a grown adult, I…”
“I said no, Chloe!” he cut me off. Just like I was eight years old and I froze, just like I was eight years old and had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar before dinner.
“Now, where are you? Where is that animal taking you?” I gasped. Holy shit. There was no way that was an accident, or a slip of the tongue.
“Daddy?” I asked, not really wanting to believe what I had just heard.
“I’m waiting Chloe.” His voice was cold, wintery on the other end of the line. I glanced at William, whose lips were pressed into a grim line so tight they vanished behind the short curtain of his goatee.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Chloe…”
“You did, didn’t you?”
“Chloe, now I mean it, you tell me–”
“You killed somebody, you killed William’s father,” I took the gloves off, “You killed their Alpha.”
Silence, although this one crackled with an electrified tension.
“They aren’t human. I didn’t kill anyone. To kill someone they have to be human. Now tell me where you are.”
I hung up the phone, numb. I ended the call and rolled down the window, pitching it onto the freeway rushing beneath the tires. I hoped the damned phone would shatter into a million pieces, just like my life, just like everything I had ever believed to be true. So many things about my father made sense now with this new light shining.
Somber brown eyes with deep flecks of amber in them met my own, briefly, before he had to turn his attention back to the road and I found myself clinging to William’s hand with the both of mine. At least William was proving to be something solid, at least he was
real
. He may not have told me what was going on in the beginning, withholding it from me, but at least he had never
outright
lied to me. Don’t even get me started on William’s lack of being a hypocrite, not like my dad… All this
time
.
All those lessons on integrity were just so much bullshit!
“Chloe…” William’s voice was as somber as his expression, yet still gentle.
“Just don’t ever lie to me William. Please?” I asked abruptly. “Just promise me.” I looked at him, fixed him with my gaze that I knew was too wide, a face that I could feel had gone pale, “You haven’t so far, and I really need you to promise me this. No matter how bad it gets, no matter what it is, just please don’t lie to me. Just tell me like it is, help me understand but no more lies. No more withholding information.”
William’s face shut down into lines of grim resignation before morphing into sheer determination. He nodded once, a gesture of finality and raised the back of my hand to his lips, brushing them across my skin.
“You’ve got it,” he said and swallowed hard. We drove another sixty miles or so before pulling off and hitting a drive through. He ordered his usual mountain of food and then some and took us further down the road to a roadside motel. I told him to eat and went to go to the front desk to check us in.
“You have to have ID,” he called and I returned to the car and dropped back into my seat dejected. I felt stripped of
everything
now. My life and now even my identity. This sucked so fucking hard. I closed my eyes and let my head drop back against the seat. He finished chewing and swallowing and went in to get us a room while I polished off a burger and fries that tasted so much like sawdust but I forced myself to eat them anyway because I needed to. I sucked down some Coke and he returned and took us around the building to our room.
“Take the food up, would you?” he asked and popped the trunk of the car. I nodded and he handed me the key card. I went up with the food and he brought up our things. I was grateful he wanted to finish eating in the room instead of in the front seat of his car.
“You shower first,” he said, and with as much food as he still had to go through, I didn’t argue. I just gathered my things and let myself into the bathroom. I showered, the temperature near scalding but I didn’t care. I was tired. I was a raw, open, and broken. I was wounded. My heart vulnerable and aching. Mostly because I knew I had to let go. That there was going to be no fixing this one when it came to me and my dad. It was just too fucking much on top of everything else.
I went through the motions, shampoo, rinse, condition, wash body, rinse. Stepping out of the shower I dried carefully and slipped on my nightgown, using the hotel’s little hair drier to defog the mirror and the brush William had bought for me on my hair until I could see to dry it evenly.
When I stepped out of the bath, William was coming back in through the motel room’s door.
“Where did you go?” I asked.
“Moved the car several blocks down, parked behind a bar. Didn’t want to advertise we were here.” I nodded and he sighed. We looked at each other for a long somber minute.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked and I shook my head. No, I didn’t. I wanted to sleep.
“Okay, I’m gonna grab a shower. Try and get some rest.”
I nodded and gathered what I’d need to change my Band-Aids while William disappeared into the bathroom. By the time the door opened again, steam gently billowing out, I was tucked in to one side of the too soft, queen sized bed, trying to sleep. It wasn’t really working out for me though.
I opened my eyes and watched William trim his goatee and shave the scraggly beard into something neater and more presentable, just generally taking care with his appearance, one of the white hotel towels wrapped around his waist, sitting low on his hips. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t admire the view. He had a gorgeous body. Fit and rippling in all the right places. While I understood the functionality of the loose or baggy clothing, I had to admit it was a damned shame. The man would look good in stuff that fit.
I closed my eyes and sighed out, and heard William still for a moment, before the small sounds one made while doing whatever it was he was doing, resumed. I sighed again, and tried valiantly to just go to sleep.
Chapter 9
William
I was stalling.
Damn it. I was fucking stalling!
There is a beautiful, strong willed, woman lying in a bed ten feet away from me and I’m dicking around with my fucking goatee! What the hell is wrong with me?
I thought angrily with myself.
I haven’t felt this nervous since Dad told me I was going to start training with the damn twins!
There’s only so much one can do when your facial hair is as short as mine is though. I shaved my cheeks, jaw, and neck and I ran out of excuses to waste time rather quickly after that. Finally, I ducked around the corner, snatching up a pair of loose basketball shorts, before going back into the small bathroom to shed my towel and pull them on. I might like my jeans oversized and loose but they weren’t comfortable to sleep in.
Climbing onto my side of the bed, I sank low into the mattress, creating a depression that Chloe naturally began to slide toward.
Damned cheap hotel mattress
. I griped silently.
“What the hell?” she cried. “How much do you weigh man? Jeez.” She struggled to stay toward her side of the bed but no matter what she did, I could tell she wasn’t entirely comfortable.
“I’m not exactly light,” I muttered, somewhat embarrassed. After a few more minutes of watching her struggle with finding purchase on the shitty sloped mattress, I sighed and slid over until I was in the middle.
“Come here,” I said and pulled her toward me. She let out a surprised squawk which caused me to grin and within moments we were finally situated. I lay on my back with her pressed tightly against my side, half sprawled across my chest.
“Are you comfortable?” I asked after a moment and she sighed again, sinking further against me as her muscles relaxed. It was as if her body were molding itself against mine, every inch of her pressed against me and I closed my eyes.
“You really are hot,” she murmured quietly and I snorted a laugh, a smirk twitching my lips. “I mean
temperature
wise,” she added quickly. “I mean you’re hot but… I… you’re very warm,” she muttered the last quietly, almost miserably and I could feel the heat of her blush coloring her cheeks where her face was pressed against my chest.
“I got it,” I chuckled. My right arm was wrapped around her, fingers trailing lightly up and down her back through the satiny material of her nightgown. I was beginning to regret letting her keep that damned thing.
“What are we going to do?” she whispered after another minute. She turned her head, placing her chin on my chest to look up at me. In the dim light her blue eyes shone, wet with unshed tears. Her cheeks still flushed a delicate pink. She was achingly beautiful…
“We’ll figure it out as we go,” I said. “I’ll do everything I can to protect you, Chloe. You understand that, right?”
She was quiet for a moment before she nodded, “I do.”
“You don’t still hate me, do you?”
She got a coy look on her face at that, “I don’t know,” she said with a toss of her bright red hair. “You
did
kidnap me, and you
did
make all kinds of threats.” The playful tone in her voice died fairly quickly as she spoke her next, and I felt a stabbing sensation in my gut. “And you did kind of turn my world upside down,” her voice was soft with hurt and I twisted on the bed, grasping her carefully by the arms. I pulled her up until she was straddling me, her nose inches from mine.
“I can’t apologize enough for what I’ve done to you, or your life. For altering your understanding of the world you live in so drastically, but it was always
there
. The world was always like this, you just didn’t know it.
“Your life up until now has been filled with lies. Now it’s all out in the open and that might not be considerably better, but at least it’s the truth. At least it’s
real
. Understand where I’m coming from?” I didn’t mean to be so intense. I could see a bit of fear in her eyes and I carefully kept my grip on her arms as light as I possibly could, mostly because I was afraid of causing anymore bruises on her fair skin.
“I get it, William, really I do… It’s just…” she scoffed, “I can’t get my mind off it. My dad
lied
to me. He’s been lying to me my
entire
life
. He’s
murdered
someone, killed them! After mom and…”
She turned her head to the side, away from me and closed her eyes, forcing back her tears. What she said got to me. She called her father, a man she had known and loved her entire life, a murderer. And she couldn’t forgive that, could she? She would never forgive murder, not after what happened to her mom.
And
what
was
I?
Little better. I’d killed my share of people in my time. I was an animal, wasn’t I? That’s what we did.
But her pain, her confusion, it hurt me in ways I couldn’t begin to explain and what I did next had no basis in logic. I just wanted her to forget. Even if it was just for a time. I wanted to take the pain away, even for just a little bit. I touched the side of her face lightly and she turned back to me.
One look from those true blue eyes of hers and I leaned up without thinking, my body moving before I realized what was happening. My lips brushed against hers in a touch so feather light that I don’t even think
she
was aware that it’d happened at first.
Her eyes widened, tongue darting out to wet her lips. She stared at me, for just a moment, eyes so beautiful, so wide, before she leaned down, just as I had leaned up. Our lips met, and I kept going, kept sitting up until I was sitting straight with Chloe straddling my legs. Her tongue darted at my lips, wet and hot and velvet soft. I pulled her tightly against me and she groaned quietly into my mouth as our tongues brushed against each other.
I always ran warm but at that moment the blood rushing through my veins felt like fire. My body burned and the only thing that occupied my thoughts, my senses, was the woman I held in my arms.
Her fingers trailed across my back, every touch searing my skin with a line of pleasant heat. I couldn’t hold back a groan as she shifted her weight and, I think, quite deliberately, she ground herself against me. I could still smell the peach body wash she enjoyed, but beneath that the heavier scent of her arousal, her desire. Her nipples stood out sharply through the thin material of her nightgown and I licked my lips, wanting nothing more than to ravish her breasts with my hands and mouth.
I was once again fully erect and straining at my clothes, the only barrier between me and her and it was maddening this time, like it had never been before. Still…
“Wait, wait, wait,” I hissed and put my hands on her hips, holding her still. She pulled back, a questioning look in her eyes and stared at me as if I had suddenly begun speaking in tongues.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“What?” she blurted, almost incredulously.
“Are you sure? I mean, you’re right, I
did
kidnap you, I
did
threaten you, and I have destroyed your entire view of the world…”
Her expression gentled, “And through all of that you’ve been the only one to tell me the
truth
. To protect me,
without
lying to me.” She smiled and bit her lower lip coyly before she ground herself against me again. I could feel the dampness between her legs begin to seep through my shorts and oh God, just when I thought I couldn’t get any harder.
Her voice, when it came was low and husky with seduction, “Unless you want to ruin this, I suggest you shut up and fuck me already.”
I smiled, that was all I’d needed to hear. A second later, the room was filled with a sharp tearing sound as I seized the neck of her nightgown in both hands and ripped it clean in half, letting the remnants flutter useless to the bed, leaving her naked and completely exposed on top of me. That first
real
view of her will forever be burned into my memory. The warm flush in her cheeks ran down her neck and across the tops of her breasts, her fair skin giving away what her words couldn’t.