Temptation (Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow) (21 page)

As an afterthought, I wrote “
Love Roan
” on the note and tucked it inside the box before I changed my mind. I did it more out a sign of possessiveness than anything else. I didn’t want her to think that I actually loved her, which I did, but she didn’t have to know that yet. It would just confuse her and cloud an already murky situation even further.

I left the present in my room, which was presently a mess and being occupied by Caver for the past month and a half. I shook my head in irritation as I moved the pile of clothes hanging off my dresser put Aspen’s gift in the top drawer with instructions for him to give it to her on Christmas morning.

I didn’t let Aspen know that I was home from the training camp for the day because it would only upset her when I had to turn right back around and leave her again. Besides, I really wasn’t supposed to be in Spruce Hollow and was technically shirking my responsibilities to the pack off on Griff for a few hours. I supposed I should feel bad about it but my dedication to the pack had taken me away from Aspen often enough in her short life and she deserved more than to be left behind all the time. And there was no way that I was leaving her behind on Christmas, it would have broken her fragile little heart.

Nevertheless, I’d phased and had seen her a couple of times throughout the day, drawn by loneliness for her company and also her intoxicating scent.

I could find her anywhere.

I had seen her at the bus stop this morning and then again at the corner store at lunch hour with Sorcha.

I watched her now, outside after school, standing there smiling and talking to that little prick Justin Meyers at the bus stop. She seemed so carefree and happy with the wind blowing her hair around. She kept tucking the soft curls behind her ears to keep it out of her face. I wanted to reach out and tangle my fingers in her riot of curls. To touch their softness and wrap them around my fingers and pull her lips up to meet mine.

Damn.

I had to stop thinking like that before my wolf broke free and went after her to take what I wanted so badly.

She didn’t look like a little girl anymore, standing there with her eyes, bright and shinning and her tight jeans molded to her ass. She looked like a vibrant, young woman standing there with Justin. Was this what she truly looked like? Had she looked this way for a while but I had refused to see it?

I saw the way that Justin looked at her when she wasn't looking and it wasn’t the way one looked at a little girl but a sexy, desirable, young woman. I felt my blood boil, as I stood there in the shadows, until I felt that I could barely swallow my own anger. I forced myself to leave before I pounded Justin Meyers into a bloody pulp in front of Aspen.

Stalking away, to lick my wounds, I placated myself with the thought that Aspen would never really be his. Even if she had a temporary infatuation with Justin, she would only ever belong to me.

Her heart would always be mine.

                ***

“
N
ew Years Eve, time to let go of the old and let in the new!” I thought to myself as I stood, my dewy, still glistening body wrapped in a fluffy white towel, and gazed at my reflection in my full-length bedroom mirror.

My eyes were bright as I unwrapped my riotous curly hair from the towel on my head and shook it out. I played with it, piling it on top of my head, then letting it fall again while trying to decide if I should wear it up or down tonight. It didn't matter, either way it was a curly mess. I'd been frequently told throughout my life that women would kill for hair like mine and what I want to know is where are these women because I would give it to them quite willing, no killing necessary.

I was going to a New Years Eve party at Sorcha’s house tonight and was filled to brimming with excitement at the prospect of getting out of the house and socializing with anyone other than my mother or Caver. Not that I didn’t love them both, of course. But there was only so many topics that I could talk about with each of them. Caver liked to talk about hockey, music and girls.

And not necessarily in that order.

And my mother? My mother didn’t really like to talk about much of anything. She wasn’t really a motherly, baking cookies, heart to heart having, type of mother. And because of that, we weren’t really the sit around, talking to one another about our day type of mother and daughter.

We had a less emotional and more utilitarian type of relationship. I found, as I got older, she got more and more emotionally distant, like she was pulling away from me, which forced me to rely solely on Roan for almost everything. Emotional and otherwise.

Speaking of Roan, I was being a good girl and had even texted him and asked if it was okay for me to go to the party at Sorcha’s.

I didn’t want to chance pissing him off like I had last time with the Dam party fiasco. He had questioned me to death about the party, asking questions like” Is there going to be drinking or drugs”, or “How many people are going to be there” and most importantly in his eyes, “Are her parents going to be home”.

You know, the kind of stuff that Roan would be concerned about. After the Roan inquisition was over and he felt satisfied with my answers, he said that I could go. I had to promise him “no drinking” and to be home by 1:00am sharp.

I felt giddy, just thinking about it. Roan had never allowed me to stay out until after midnight before! Maybe he was starting to see that I truly wasn’t a kid anymore? My birthday was fast approaching and by the time the Winter was over, I would be seventeen years old.

I wasn’t a kid any longer and it was about time that Roan started to notice it.

One thing I didn’t promise him and the one thing he hadn’t asked me about was if there were going to be any boys there at the party. And the answer was a big 'HELL YEAH' there were going to be boys there!

It was going to be an enormous party, with over 200 guests made up of classmates, friends, neighbors and relatives who were all invited to Sorcha’s parents farm. It was more of event, really, than a simple New Years Eve get together.

Honestly, I was surprised that Roan had said that I could go with so many people invited to the party. So many, in fact, that Sorcha’s parents had to clear out the main barn to make room for whomever would be showing up and rest assured, nearly everyone who was invited would be showing up. 

There was no way that people wouldn’t show up for a New Years dance complete with a sound system, DJ and a light show. This was Spruce Hollow, after all, and this was probably one of the most exciting things to happen here all year long! But for me, the most exciting part of all had to be the fireworks show that was going to take place at midnight, when we counted down to the new year!

How exciting was that?

To a town that only saw a seven-minute fireworks show behind the dugout of the baseball field every July 4th, it was pretty freaking exciting!

I loved fireworks. They were so beautiful and captivating as they exploded in the sky. I felt utterly spellbound by them.

My favorite fireworks, by far, were the golden ones that looked like what I imagined “pixie dust” would look like if it was falling from the sky. I’d once heard someone call that particular firework “Heaven’s Staircase” and I thought that perfectly encapsulated all the wonder and beauty of their shimmering golden perfection.

Sorcha had excitedly assured me that there were going to be quite a few boys at the party. 

And even ones that I didn’t know! 

The prospect of having a different gene pool occupying the same geographical space as me was in itself pretty exciting as outsiders rarely ventured into Spruce Hollow.

It was a one-horse town and populated with families who’d lived there for generations.

The Were pack alone had lived on the acreage for over 200 years.

I
'd spent all day over at Sorcha’s house, helping her and her family prepare for the massive party. The guests were due to start arriving around eight and there was still a lot left to be done, so I rolled up my sleeves and pitched in. Sorcha and I had spent most of our time hanging up banners and New Years eve themed decorations and the barn was starting to look more like "party time" and less like "farm animals occasionally poop here".

“Does this look straight to you?” Sorcha asked as she laid a table runner filled with pictures of balloons and party horns on the punch table. 

“Hmm, I think so” I replied as I straightened the snack table banner. “What are you wearing tonight, anyway?” I asked. 

“Oh my god, Aspen, I got this new dress on that trip that I took to Shawfield with my mom last week. It’s so short; I can’t even believe that my mom actually bought it for me! It makes my legs look super long, I can’t wait until Josh sees me in it, he’s going to be so sorry that he broke up with me and left me for that hoe bag,” Sorcha replied bitterly. 

“He’s such a jerk, you could do so much better than him, Sorcha. I saw the two of them on the last day of school right before Christmas break and I swear to god she was trying to lick his tonsils, it was totally gross. And she was dressed like a total prostitute. I don’t know what he sees in her, you’re so much prettier than she is,” I said emphatically.

Ever since Sorcha’s ex boyfriend, Josh, had dumped her after their two month anniversary, it was my job, as Sorcha’s very best friend, to completely trash him and his new girlfriend whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Josh had broken Sorcha’s heart when he had left her for one of the known “easy” girls in school and even though he was a jerk who didn’t deserve her, Sorcha was, sadly, still in love with him.

“Really, you think so?” Sorcha asked. 

“Absolutely!” I said.

I wasn’t just saying it thought, Sorcha was a head turning beauty with long blonde hair and even longer legs. She had beautiful baby blue eyes and pouty lips and as such, generally got the best looking guys in school chasing after her. 

That is, until they ultimately found out that she didn’t put out and was saving herself for “the one” to come along and sweep her off her feet.

She even wore a purity ring and everything.

I don’t know if I shared her sentiments on premarital sex but I definitely had to respect her for them. I subscribed to the belief that you had to take the car out for a test drive before you committed to buying it, because marriage was a pretty long commitment, or at least it should be. 

In my head, it just didn’t make any sense to get married to someone without knowing that you were compatible in ways that seemed to be pretty significant.

And even though I was still a virgin and had only seen one penis when I was thirteen and Billy Donovan lost his shorts when he dove off the diving board head first at the community pool, sex seemed like it must be a pretty important part of a relationship to get wrong.

“I can’t wait until you meet my cousin Taylor, he’s so hilarious. He’s in college up North. And guess what, he’s supposed to be bringing some of his fraternity brothers with him tonight. Can you imagine, Aspen? Frats boys!! Oh my god, tonight is going to be so much fun!” Sorcha said as she hugged me enthusiastically.

                ***

I
had primped and preened for hours when I heard Caver’s truck pull into the driveway.

Roan was finally home!

He and the new Were had arrived back from the training camp sometime after lunch and once Caver got the call from Griff, he promptly got up from watching some sports show, popped his head in my room to say "bye" and hopped into his truck.

That was hours ago.

Caver had left our house hours ago to go pick up Roan at the Alpha’s house and I had erroneously assumed that he would be bringing him right back home.

I wondered what they’d been doing all day?

 I felt slightly miffed. I hadn’t seen Roan in a really long time, couldn’t he of at least come home to see me first and then gone back out with Caver and Griff? Wasn't I important to him too?

I checked the mirror, one last time before I went out to see him. I had only done my hair and makeup for the party so far and was still wearing a pair of pajama pants and a tank top that I threw on after I got out of the shower. But at least my hair looked really pretty. I had straightened it with the new flat iron my Mom had given me for Christmas. I didn’t often wear my hair like this, as it was too much work to tame my wild tangle of curls. I had to run various hair products through it, blow-dry my entire head in sections, then run each section through the flat iron and then finally smooth some more product down the length of it.

It was time consuming but the end result was worth it. Boys tended to love the long silky strands that reached nearly to the small of my back and girls looked at me in full-blown envy.

Tonight, my makeup was done similarly to what it was the night I had gone to the party at the Dam or “Whore Makeup” as Roan liked to call it. Meh, whatever, I wasn’t going to let Roan ruin this night for me. Between him finally coming home from the training camp and the party at Sorcha’s tonight, I was filled to brimming with near mind numbing exhilaration.

Besides, Roan had already given me permission to go to the party; there was no way he was going to take it back now.

Oh, who was I kidding, this was Roan we were talking about, he could do whatever the heck he felt like and anyone else and their feelings about the situation could go hang, in his opinion.

As a precaution, I took off a little of the eye makeup before I left my room to go out and welcome him home.

I didn’t want to give him any reason to make me stay home.

I was eager and nearly trembling as I heard Roan come in the side door. We hadn’t seen one another in so long and even though we’d never actually consummated a physical relationship, or even kissed in a sexual way for that matter, I’d still missed him like a woman yearning for her lover.

With the distance between us, you’d think that we’d drift apart somewhat but our time apart had the opposite effect with Roan and I somehow becoming even closer than before due to our daily texting, emailing and phone calls back and forth.