Little Wolf (40 page)

For someone so sexy, Nathaniel was way too excited about getting to jerk Tim off, not that Tim was complaining. The only thing he had to complain about was not getting much of a chance to do the same to Nathaniel. He had ideas about where he’d like to put his mouth and in what order. As soon as Nathaniel calmed down and stopped taking such crazy delight in making Tim come every five seconds….

Tim lost his train of thought. He realized he was staring into space and smiling like an idiot, and focused on Carl. Carl was practically cackling.

“Still invested too much in my sex life, I see,” Tim responded loftily. He scrubbed at his cheeks and set about straightening up the counter in preparation for the day’s business. Everyone was still glancing his way. Some of them were starting to smile too. He had no idea why and was not going to ask, not about that anyway. Carl was back to looking at the paper. “Tell me something,” Tim said to stop him. “What would you have done if Nathaniel
had
done anything to me against my will?”

Carl was, as far as Tim knew, completely human, and not Wolf’s Paw’s lone practitioner of magic. He wore his veteran’s cap with pride, but it was from a war decades ago. Even with a gun, he’d have difficulty inflicting any real damage to Nathaniel.

Carl snorted, taking Tim away from his chilling thought of Nathaniel being
damaged
.

“I would have had the pack deal with him.” Carl said it so easily. Tim had no response for a few minutes. He poked at the stack of receipt paper for the register waiting to get put away and wondered when he’d finally start understanding this town.

Weres healed. They were big. Many were fierce. In a fight they could be relentless, and a pack fought as one. No one person could withstand that. But Tim had never heard of a pack ever turning on a leader, no matter what the crime. Maybe his uncle hadn’t wanted him to know. It wasn’t something to be taken lightly. But if the town decided it wasn’t a matter for the law, human law, they might go ahead and do exactly what Carl was implying they would.

Tim touched his fingertips to his hickey. “Just for this?”

“Boy, stop pretending to be stupid.” Carl rapped his knuckles against his table and then cut his hand through the air. He almost knocked over his coffee. “You know damn well I meant a lot more hurt than a bruise. He’s a powerful man, and there’s some powerful men who take what they want, with or without asking first. The kind that don’t think about how their power could influence a person to say yes who might not want to.”

Tim swallowed and put his hand flat on the counter. He had accused Nathaniel of that in this very café. Carl might have been present for it, although Tim hadn’t known him then.

“Sometimes people offer things to the powerful. Sometimes they offer themselves.” Tim met Carl’s stare. Nathaniel had taken great pains to make sure that wasn’t what Tim was doing and to make sure Tim knew it too. “I’m not like that. And you know he’s not like that.”

Carl picked up his coffee, his attitude unsurprised, though he let out a small sigh. “I know. But I wasn’t sure you did, yet.” Carl slurped at his coffee, and one of the relief waiters came over to top off his cup before hurrying away again. Carl sniffed his too-hot coffee like a human who spent a lot of time around weres. “I thought maybe that weird brain of yours might have gotten confused. Glad to know I was wrong.”

Tim could have used some caffeine. A lot of it. He tuned out the rest of the restaurant until he realized he was focusing on the steady, reliable beat of Carl’s heart.

“You’d really have done that? For me?” Tim hesitated. His eyes were prickling. He had forgotten the pack wasn’t just wolves; it was everyone who made Wolf’s Paw their home, including Carl. And himself, he supposed, although Tim didn’t really live here the way they did. He’d never had any intention to stay. They knew that.

“Of course.” Albert joined in as he walked behind the counter to sign his timesheet. Tim twisted around to study him and then abruptly remembered having Albert’s dick in his mouth. He bit his lip and ducked his head, then realized this made his hickey even more obvious, which seemed rude. But when Albert noticed it, he let out a short laugh before he slapped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry. Not to laugh, but wow. You weren’t kidding yesterday.”

“Kidding?” Tim was having conversations with people, but it was like they were all talking about something else.

“Do you think it’s okay if I work with you today, or should I disappear before lunchtime?” Albert ignored Tim’s confusion to focus on his understandable reluctance to encounter Nathaniel. Although Nathaniel was the one who had told Tim to go out with Albert, and Nathaniel had not seemed in the mood to kill or maim anyone when Tim had left him.

Carl was back to frowning at the two of them like he had the day before, but Carl was pretty human about a lot of things, and evidently one thing he did not approve of was Tim slutting around with Albert. Tim considered explaining to him that Nathaniel had suggested it and how it had made Tim examine his feelings for Nathaniel.

The feelings Tim was not going to think about in public, the feelings only getting worse right now in the presence of two people offering to seek justice on his behalf, even if it meant defying Nathaniel. It wasn’t necessarily about him. This town had a history Tim needed to know more about, but not now. At the moment Tim had other problems.

He was warm all over. It wasn’t like blushing or how he’d felt in the shower with Nathaniel. It felt like being a wolf and standing in the glow of the sun.

He turned to Carl. “I like you a lot, old man.” The confession escaped, and all the biting his lip in the world couldn’t stop it. Since he was already screwed, he kept going. “You remind me of my uncle. Not completely. But sometimes you have a way of making me work out solutions for myself and… not that he ever gave me the full story.” Tim frowned, noting that he had both Carl’s and Albert’s full attention. He’d never talked about his uncle to anyone, not like this. “He was protective too, I think, I hope, I guess. I don’t see why he would have trained me if he hadn’t wanted me to do well. But then he didn’t tell me anything.” Tim glanced over. Carl seemed to have forgotten his coffee. “Carl, if I ask you something, would you answer honestly even if the answer wasn’t something… well, if you thought it would hurt me?”

Carl mulled it over. Tim liked that about him too. Giving no blind agreements was the sign of a wise man. “If I thought you needed to know and I didn’t mind answering,” Carl committed at last.

Tim sucked in a deep breath. “You care a lot about your wife, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Carl didn’t hesitate, although Albert made a strange, quiet noise.

“It’s a good thing?” Tim stayed focused on Carl and lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. “You don’t feel, like, weak? Weakened?”

Carl pushed the coffee away and laid down his newspaper. He twisted in the chair to meet Tim’s eyes directly. His voice was clear. “Putting yourself in the hands of someone who can hurt you more than you’ve ever been hurt isn’t weak. Learning another person isn’t weak. It takes guts.”

“Oh.” Ice went down Tim’s spine. He couldn’t meet Carl’s gaze any longer. Carl thought Tim should be braver. Tim coughed. “I grew up in a fortress, so I don’t get these things.” The house wasn’t literally a fortress, more like a castle in the mountains, far away from the city, guarded by security teams of weres. All it had needed was a moat.

Tim gave a start as Robin’s Egg swept into the room to give him a coffee, topped with whipped cream of all things. As far as he knew, fairies could not read minds. But she patted his chin and told him he was “radiant” and then floated into the café. Tim pushed the coffee at Albert, who leaned down to suck the whipped cream off. The slurping noise was surprisingly comforting. It let Tim move again.

Albert wrinkled his nose at the actual coffee and slid it back. Tim supposed making out with someone meant sharing drinks was okay. Or maybe Albert was treating him like one of the other baby wolves now. He didn’t know which, but he accepted his drink.

“So your wife doesn’t mind you spending half the day in here?” Tim was going to ignore his personal revelations in order to tease Carl. Albert gave him a significant look.

Carl fiddled with his paper. “It’s good to have some distance too. Most mornings after I retired, she shooed me out of the house.”

“Oh.” Tim was getting repetitive. He took that as a sign to stop. He picked up a dust rag and the spray to clean the shelves. Then a display caught his eyes, and he grabbed some lube and set it aside to buy later. His discount should be good for something.

Albert came closer to whisper, as if that would prevent any were in the café from hearing him. “I don’t get it. Why are you asking about this? I thought… after last night….”

“Well,
I’m
obvious.” That shock Tim had felt upon seeing Nathaniel for the first time had probably been
love
, and knowing Tim’s luck, Nathaniel had sensed it immediately. He’d been sniffing love from Tim for months now. Tim wished he could say the same. “I was wondering about the smell. You said you didn’t smell, um, love on Nathaniel before, so that means things like that must have smells.”

“The sheriff isn’t a Seer.” Carl, the busybody, was still listening in. “He doesn’t know everything.”

“Be that as it may.” Tim raised his voice. “I’m not a Seer either. I don’t know what he’s feeling. I don’t have any idea. Maybe it’s something weres always do and I don’t get it because I’m….” Tim trailed off there. Albert’s eyes fell to Tim’s neck. Carl sighed. “Okay!” Tim admitted. “Yes. We had sex. We fucked. He fucked me and it was amazing.” And Tim had howled for it and spread his legs in ways he shuddered to think about, and he couldn’t decide if it was the worst part or the best part that he was going to do it again. “But Nathaniel has had sex before. He had all those summer flings everyone
had
to tell me about. So I’m his for a few months. I’m okay with that. Really. Forget I asked.”

Albert put his hand on Tim, then slowly drew it back. “Love is more like a collection of scents.” His expression evened out into something adult when Tim looked up. Then Albert lifted his eyebrows. Just like that he was young and easily impressed again. “You didn’t know already when you went home last night? Whoa.”

Tim couldn’t help gauging Carl’s reaction. Carl was reading again, or pretending to read, but smiling. He finally approved, of what Tim didn’t know. Tim went over to shelves and dusted for a few moments. He found it slightly horrifying to know his emotions had been noticed by the entire town in addition to Nathaniel, but it was hardly anything new. What made it different was realizing that everyone had assumed Tim had known the scent of love this whole time, or at least had recognized it in Nathanie—

“Oh my God.” Tim dropped the dust rag and turned around. “But I’m not loveable. I’m an asshole.”

“You’re just spiky,” Albert informed him sympathetically and patted his shoulder. “Sorry, but you know we can tell when you mean the things you say and when you don’t, right?” Somehow Tim didn’t think Albert was referring to were senses. Carl wasn’t disagreeing. No wonder Tim never intimidated anyone. “It’s fun.” Albert was teasing him now, Tim was fairly sure. “Werewolves can’t really lie, not to other wolves, but it’s almost like you’re lying to yourself. Graham says it’s a defense mechanism.”

“I don’t… I’m rude,” Tim interrupted to set the record straight. “And it’s
a series
of defense mechanisms, not just one.”

“You got me a job,” Albert countered. All this time he had seemed so innocent, but he was as bad as Nathaniel when it came to teasing Tim.

“That wasn’t on purpose!” Tim hissed at him. He had a reputation to maintain. He had not come to this town to make friends or influence people. That wasn’t why he’d stayed.

Albert shrugged. “You let me keep the job, then. You trained me. You listened to me and didn’t make me feel stupid.”

“Stupid?” Tim’s heart was racing. “You know more than I do!”

Carl sat back. “Is this the ‘Embarrass Little Wolf’ game? Can I play?”

“You are both terrible. Ugh.” Tim bared his teeth to no avail and finally put his face against the counter. He flung himself upright again at the unexpected appearance of Cosmo outside of the kitchen.

Elves were only slightly smaller than fairies but appeared so delicate they made even Tim feel huge. “Phone,” Cosmo announced shortly, buzzing with annoyance as if he had announced it before and no one had heard. Tim stared at him. Cosmo waved his hands around. He was holding a stirring spoon, and brown gravy hit the floor. “Telephone. Line three. For you.” Evidently done, Cosmo spun on his heel and headed out through the café.

Tim eyed the phone. He didn’t get calls. And even if he had, he wasn’t supposed to answer the phone in the gift shop unless the café was swamped. Usually the lines lit up and he ignored them since there was no ringer. He reached below the register and picked it up with one hand wrapped around his charms.

“Tim?” Nathaniel’s voice came to him over the faint noise of car travel and an imperfect connection. Tim smiled down at the floor. Carl was probably smirking right now about the expression on Tim’s face, but if he was, Tim was not going to acknowledge it.

He twisted the old-fashioned phone cord around his finger before he answered. “Yeah?” Tim sounded like he’d been running for miles. He didn’t remember being this out of breath that morning, well, except for when Nathaniel had stared curiously at him while Tim had been yawning and making toast. Tim had finally demanded to know what was bothering him, and Nathaniel had wanted to know why Tim wasn’t more annoyed at being woken up early.

“Well, the wake-up sex was highly enjoyable,” Tim had told him through another yawn. Really, the whole night’s worth of sex had been highly enjoyable, which he had also said before grabbing his toast. Though he could have slept for hours more. He’d been worn out and raw in weird places and stretched in even weirder and better places, and recovery was taking a lot of energy. “But I don’t feel tired, even with the yawns.” That had been the truth, but it hadn’t been what had made Nathaniel finally offer him such a beatific smile. “If they called you in, they must need you, right? They’d better. Because if they called you out of bed for something any deputy could have done….”