Midnight Moon: A Paranormal Werewolf Romance (Roadside Angels Motorcycle Club Book 2) (6 page)

She gave him an odd, assessing look, as though she knew what he was doing, and then she nodded.

“Right this way, Miss Gibbs,” Bear said, and turned to leave.

“Thank you, Patrick,” she said with a smile.  “And you can call me Tammie.” 

Lex watched her walk through the door with his friend, and was glad he had suggested that she come and stay with him.  She’d be as safe with Bear as she was with him. 

Chapter 3

“I hunger for your sleek laugh and your hands the color of a furious harvest. I want to eat the sunbeams flaring in your beauty.”
  ~ Pablo Neruda

Bear called Lex as he drove back to town, telling him that Tamara had followed him to the room they had set aside for her, but had returned to the living room because she said she wouldn’t be able to sleep till Lex got back home.  He said that the last time he checked, she was on her laptop working on her article.  He laughed when Bear added, “She’ll be asleep soon, I guarantee it.  She’s drooping badly.  Reminds me of my May.  She never went to sleep till I got home no matter how I begged her.”  He chuckled, and Lex’s heart eased.  Bear rarely talked about his dead mate, and usually with great heaviness.  This time, he had mentioned her without sounding as though his whole world had collapsed.  Maybe bringing Tamara home with him would be good for Bear, too.

“There’s nothing like that feeling, Lex, when the woman you love shows you you’re as important to her as she is to you.”

Bear sounded wistful instead of wounded, and Lex breathed a silent prayer of thanks to whoever heals broken hearts.  While he wasn’t prepared to admit to loving Tamara just yet, he chose to keep that to himself.  He cared about her...that would do for now.  He hung up, thanking his friend again for looking after his mate.  For now, he needed to see what new madness Dave had to share with him.  By the time he got to the station, he had a dreadful premonition that things were going to take a drastic turn for the worse, and he wasn’t wrong.  There had been a vicious fight out by the enclosure, Dave told him, and one of his boys, and two of Lancaster’s were filling up the jail cells. 

Lex went back with Dave to talk to Jeff, who was lying on the cot, his hands behind his head, one leg crossed over the raised knee of the other. 

“What happened?” he asked, standing just inside the cell door.  Jeff was bruised and bloody, but he could imagine how the other two in the cell down the hall looked.  Jeff was one of the other bear shifters, and he was a scrapper and a bruiser of a guy, who gave no quarter when he was riled.  Lex was surprised no one had been killed in the brawl.

“We were patrolling, after that argument we called in,” Jeff said, not turning his head or in any way acknowledging his leader’s presence. 

Lex could sense the depth of the rage roiling inside his friend, and also the need for distance, till he got it under control.  He respected that, and knew Jeff was not being insubordinate or disrespectful.  Lex trusted him to get control, so he focused on the story.

“On the last go round, as we were going by the wolves again, we noticed there were two more than there had been before, and I knew they were shifters.  The natural wolves were skittish, as though the shifters were riling them, but they also seemed to be reining in their aggression, which was clearly a sign things weren’t right.  We stopped and went in to investigate.  That’s when we were jumped.  The shifters were using the naturals as bait and we fell for it.”

Lex heard the disgust in his voice.  “How many of them jumped you?”

“Four.  Two weren’t shifters, and the other guys took care of them.”

“How, Jeff?  How exactly did they take care of them?”

For the first time, Jeff looked at Lex, his eyes burning with rage.  “How the hell do you think?  They’re here, aren’t they?  They’re not dead.”

Lex reined in his own anger.  His men were trained to avoid confrontations at all costs, especially as they were not all human, for precisely the reason that had landed Jeff in jail.  He sighed and turned, waiting for Dave to let him out.  The best place for Jeff at this point was this jail cell.  Lex knew his friend wouldn’t try to escape, though he could, with no effort.  The last thing the club needed was more attention, and Jeff knew how important staying off the radar was for the members who were shifters.  He would take the time to cool off...he was the shifter into New Age things like meditation, so he knew what to do.  Come morning, they could figure out where to go from there.

“What’s likely to happen, Dave?” he asked the chief on his way out.

“Desk appearance for disorderly conduct for all of them.  Because honestly, I don’t know who could have called it in, and by the time we got there, these guys were the only ones there, passed out from whaling on each other.”

Lex had an idea he knew who had called it in, but the reason still escaped him.  One more puzzle to solve. 

“Well, thanks for calling me, Dave, “I’ll be back in the morning.  Jeff’ll be fine.”

When he finally got back home, Lex found Tamara in his armchair, her legs curled up under her, her hands under her head.  She looked like the kid sister he had had to leave behind more than one hundred fifty years ago in the Prime Council Territories -- innocent, beautiful...his.  He inhaled her scent, turning to find Bear at the door watching them.  He walked away, beckoning his friend out so he could bring him up to speed.   Bear’s thoughts mirrored his, and they decided they would both go into town in the morning, Bear so he could gather the other club members together for an unplanned meeting after they dealt with the Jeff issue.  Then Bear said goodnight and went off to his side of the house, to his den as he liked to call it with a mischievous grin, and Lex went back to scoop the still sound-asleep Tamara into his arms.

He took her to her room, but the movement as he walked roused her, and by the time he was easing down to sit with her while he moved the covers aside, she woke up.

“Hey,” she said drowsily, smiling up at him as she tried to sit up in his arms.

“Hey yourself,” he answered, kissing her on the forehead, as he would his kid sister.  “I’m just pulling the covers off so you can go to sleep in a bed.”  He put her gently next to him and stood up to do as he said. 

“Okay, get some sleep,” he said when the sheets were clear.  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Wait, but what happened?” she protested, resisting his gentle urging to get into bed.  “Why did the chief want to see you?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning, Tamara.  It’s nothing significant.  It can wait.  But it’s late now, and you should go back to sleep.” 

Tamara could not know how much it was costing him to be restrained when all he wanted to do was shove her down into the sheets and screw her brains out.  Her scent was driving him wild, but he had not reached two hundred years old without having learned how to exert iron control over his lusts when he needed to.  And he needed to now, more than ever before.  He knew who she was to him, and he and his wolf were in agreement that he must claim her soon, for her own protection, and for his sanity’s sake.  But he couldn’t do that until he told her who he was, what he was.  And he was worried that when he did, she would not be able to accept him, and he would be a broken creature.  So he tucked her in instead, and watched her settle herself till she was comfortable enough to fall asleep again.

Down the hall in his bedroom, he thought about the way they met, the moment he knew she was his mate, the feelings he had been battling since the first time he had laid eyes on her.  And since he’d marked her with his scent, being anywhere near her was exquisite torture.  A torture that could only be relieved by claiming her fully, and leaving his mark on her.  He walked into the ensuite bathroom, dumping his clothes in the hamper while the water temperature adjusted to his liking.  Then he washed himself quickly and walked back into his bedroom naked and wet, letting the cooling desert air dry his skin as he stood by the picture window staring into the pitch black night. 

Eventually, he threw himself onto his bed, wishing for sleep to take him.  But his wolf was restless, knowing its mate was in the same house with him, and still unclaimed.  He remembered how they had been wild for each other, how he had taken her over and over, how she had made him lose all control as he took her and she took him.  He remembered how he had almost shifted each time he came.  She was the spark to the flame that never went out inside him.  He resisted the urge to go to her, and lay with her all night, because he hadn’t told her that she was more than just a passing affair to him.  He wanted her safe, but he knew the deeper she got under his skin, the less safe she would be.

Eventually he must have dozed off, but he didn’t sleep soundly, and something woke him soon after.  Hearing a noise, he sprang out of bed, dragged on a pair of sweats, and cautiously made his way along the hall, listening and scenting the air.  No sounds emanated from anywhere outside, and the only scent, aside from his own, was his mate’s.  He found her in his kitchen, making hot chocolate. 

Watching her for a moment, her small body draped in a long, loose gray sleep t-shirt that missed her knees by a few inches, stopping at mid-thigh, his hunger for her rose like a wave inside him.  Her scent perfumed the air, innocently seductive, endlessly arousing.  To stop himself from growling with need, he spoke, giving his vocal chords a much more mundane task.

“Are you okay, Tamara?  Is everything all right?”

She turned slowly, as though she had known he was standing there and was not surprised.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she answered with a quick smile.  “I’m sorry, Lex, I didn’t mean to wake you.  I just needed something to help me go back to sleep.”

“You didn’t wake me,” he demurred, watching her pour hot water from the kettle.  He wanted to be the one to look after her, to see to her comfort.  The growl escaped this time, a mixture of desire and frustration, and she heard it.

“What was that?” she asked, turning startled eyes up to his face.  “Do you have a dog?”

“I have two,” he answered, glad of the distraction her question provided.  “A Rhodesian ridgeback and a wolfdog.  But they’re both at the vet’s overnight.  I’ll take you with me when I go to get them later, okay?”

She nodded, but didn’t rise to the bait.  Sometimes, for a split second, he forgot she was a journalist. 

“So what was that sound I heard?” she persisted.

“I don’t know.  I didn’t hear any sound,” he lied, and turned to walk away, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Wait.” 

Her voice stopped him in his tracks.  It was full of need and hunger, and it stoked the fire in his gut.  She wanted him as much as he did her.  The knowledge was a brand in his heart, keeping him where he was, making him turn back to her.

“What’s up?” he asked, striving for casual, hoping that was how it sounded to her.  It sounded like hunger to him.

“Apparently you couldn’t sleep either, so have a cup of hot chocolate with me,” she offered, and handed him a cup. 

He hated hot chocolate except once in a while when it was added to coffee, but he accepted the drink and sat at the kitchen counter.   He tried to keep his eyes off her long, sexy legs, and failed completely.  They were round and shapely, and his wolf was howling again, urging him to take her, to claim her.   He sipped the hot drink, grateful for the cloying taste of it, as it distracted him from the clawing need to grab her and kiss her senseless, and then drape her over the counter before taking her from behind, doggie style, so he could watch her cheeks bounce with every slap of his hips against hers.  

She came and stood next to him, placing her cup on the counter while she climbed up onto the stool.  Her scent washed over him again, more pungent an aphrodisiac than any he had ever had, making his hands tremble, and forcing him to put his own mug down.  He lost the struggle to keep his hands off her, reaching out to pull her over onto his lap, feeling her settle her bottom against the hard ridge in his sweat pants.  She was warm and soft and feminine, and small next to his much taller, much larger frame.  He waited for her to look at him, to demand that he put her down, to struggle to get off his lap.  She did none of those things.  Instead, she ground her bottom into his erection in deliberate provocation, and moaned when he helplessly pressed up against her.

“You’re playing with fire, you know,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around her.  “You’re likely to get burned.”

She looked up at him at last, a mischievous smile curving her lips.  “How bad can it be?” she asked, eyeing him in open invitation.

He trailed a finger over her lips, smiling back at her.   “Third degree burns are inevitable,” he replied.  “Extremely dangerous situation.  Sure you don’t want to try and escape the flames?”