Temptation (Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow) (26 page)

Ha!

Who was I trying to kid? My heart had been pounding like a drum, my stomach doing flip flops at the thought of her mouth on mine. She hadn’t manipulated me, but thinking it just made the fact that I had my tongue in her mouth so much easier to bear.

Kissing Aspen was wrong on so many levels and I knew it. Yet once her soft, eager body was pressed close to mine, my hands tangled in her curls and our lips finally met…I was utterly and completely lost to her.

Her reaction to me was so open and uninhibited, the way she submitted and exposed herself to me, it called to me on a very primal level and it took everything I had to call it off and put a stop to everything before the situation went too far.

I wanted Aspen.

I wanted her so badly; it made my wolf whine and my dick hard just thinking about her soft, naked body seductively rubbing against mine. I knew how she kissed now and the knowledge was killing me. I no longer had to imagine it in my head late at night.

Because now, I knew
.

I knew how she tasted. I knew how soft her pouty little lips really were. And I knew how she sounded when she whimpered against my mouth with sexual need.

But instead of giving in to my wants, I left the house and went to a New Years Eve house party at Griff’s house. And I brought Andie with me. It was a mistake and I knew it as soon as I got into my truck and sped off because I ended drinking way too much in my attempt to drown the pouty mouthed, dreamy eyed image of Aspen out of my head. Then to cloud the situation even more and make matters even worse, Andie and I took a cab back to her place and I had sex with her.

It wasn’t my idea, it was hers but I was drunk and feeling guilty over what I’d done with Aspen so I wasn’t very difficult to convince. Once she’d unzipped my jeans, then slid her panties off and pushed her skirt up, she straddled me on the couch and pushed herself down onto me. I had always been a skilled and generous lover but this time, it was pretty much just Andie having sex…and I just happened to be there.

But there was one big, glaring difference about being with Andie this time though. This time was different and unlike all the other times in the past that I’d had sex with her or any of my other girlfriends that I’d had over the past ten years.

This time, I actually felt bad about it.

Being with other women had become a normal part of waiting for Aspen to grow up; I had never really given it a second thought. But something had changed within me lately, in regards to my mate. And I could feel it churning deep inside the pit of my stomach.

It was guilt.

Being with other women felt like cheating on Aspen now, rather than something I did to stop myself from forcing sex on her.

My head was fuzzy and confused when I finally got home late. Andie had wanted me to spend the night with her, at her place but that was my one hard limit, I never spent the night with my girlfriends.

Ever.

I wanted to be home, under the same roof as my mate and sleeping as close to Aspen as was humanly possible without crossing the boundaries. It would have been absolutely impossible for me to sleep anywhere, even Griff’s or Caver’s house tonight as I would have lain awake the entire night obsessing over Aspen and worrying about whether she had gotten home safely from the New Years Eve party at Sorcha’s.

The house was quiet as I got out of the cab and walked down the driveway. Aspen would have gotten home hours ago and was probably fast asleep. I hoped she’d had a good time tonight, even though we’d been fighting beforehand. I didn't want it to ruin her evening like it had mine. I hated being out of sync and arguing with her, it really set me off kilter.

Unfortunately, it was way too easy to argue with her sometimes, because even though I was more tolerant with Aspen than anyone else on the planet, she still managed to push every single one of my buttons until I thought I would explode. 

And truthfully, if anyone could push my buttons with absolute ease, it was her. It was like she knew the exact combination of words, looks and body posture that would send me straight into rage mode. Aspen frequently made me feel unhinged and I had to work even harder when I was around her to stay in control of my emotions.

Being around her always made me feel raw and exposed.

I could smell the body cologne I’d sprayed in my room before I left, as soon as I opened the front door. I guess I went a little overboard in trying to cover up Aspen’s scent in my room.

Normally whenever she was in my room for any length of time, I could smell her for days on end. But now, her pheromones were so strong, it was tortuous and difficult to have her smell in the house without throwing her to the floor and taking what I wanted from her, never mind having that intoxicating smell permeating my entire bedroom.

I didn’t bother turning on the lights and risking waking up Aspen, besides, who needed lights when my wolf eyes could see just fine in the dark. I looked down the hallway towards Aspen’s bedroom and her door was shut tight, which meant she was home, safe and sound and fast asleep.

Walking to the kitchen to get a drink of water, I was lost in my own little world, dreading the uncomfortable conversation that would undoubtedly come between Aspen and I tomorrow, when I casually glanced back down the darkened hallway and could vaguely make out the shape of something on the outside surface of my door. 

What the hell?

I flicked the hall light on and marched past Aspen’s door to mine and stood in complete silence as it became clear to me what it was that was stuck to my door.

It was Aspen’s bracelet, the one that I gave her for Christmas, glinting and shiny and taped to the door with silver duct tape.

Someone, Aspen, I assumed, had also written the word “Liar” across the top of the door, in black spray paint.

What the hell was going on?

I shoved the bedroom door open and was unprepared for the disaster that greeted me inside.

My room was totally and completely trashed. It was like something out of a movie crime scene, you know the one where the bad guys go looking for important documents and trash the entire room in the process? 

Everything was on the floor in pieces, either dumped out of the dressers or thrown out of the closet. My tv was broken and on the floor with the screen smashed to hell. My dresser mirror was smashed in.

There was glass everywhere.

Why the hell did Aspen do this??
I knew she had been upset with me when I pushed her away and told her that we needed to stop kissing. It killed me to see the look of bewilderment and confusion in her eyes. She looked all Bambi-like with her innocent doe eyes filling with tears.

But still, even though she had initially cried and then yelled at me in hurt anger, I never in a million years thought that she would have done something like this to get back at me.

Shaking my head, I looked over at the wall above my bed and there it was, spelled out for me as clear as day.

xoRoan’s_Babyxo Go fuck yourself, you lying bastard

Oh god. She knows. She knows about Andie
. 

Fuck.

I raced off towards her room, my heart pounding wildly in my chest with worry and fear, as I slammed the door open against the wall. Her room was in disarray and her bed was empty.

I knew she wouldn’t be there. I felt it in my bones.

But where the hell was she? She should have been back from Sorcha’s hours ago. Had she even gone to the New Years Eve party at all after I left the house?

Panic crept through me, my thoughts snapping back and forth like a psychotic yoyo. Jesus, is she okay? What if she’s out there alone somewhere? Please don’t let her do anything stupid. I am going to strangle her scrawny little neck when I find her.

My chest pained with guilt and the knowledge that I had wounded Aspen and that she had been so distraught by the betrayal that she had gone off the deep end in a fit of rage and despair. What if I’ve pushed her too far? What if finding out about Andie pushed her into someone else’s arms? What if she won’t forgive me?

“This is all your fault,” snarled my wolf, “our mate does not understand what is going on. You have never bothered to explain the circumstances to her. Perhaps if you had been truthful from the very beginning, like I wanted you to be, then our mate would be here, safe at home and this would not have happened.” 

“Would you shut up, you aren’t helping the situation any right now, you know. We can argue about who’s right later. Right now, we have to find Aspen before she does something stupid!”

My head was spinning, jumping from scenario to scenario, each more horrifying and disturbing than the last. What if she was lost? Or hurt? Fuck, where the hell could she be?

I pulled my cell out and dial Caver’s number, “Yeah, it’s me. Aspen’s gone. She found out about Andie, trashed my room and took off.” 

“Ouch, seriously? Wow, you are in it deep now, aren’t you, man?” Caver said with jocularity. 

“Yes, I know that Caver, but that’s not really helpful right now is it? FUCK! Call Griff. Yep, I’ll pick you both up in 5 minutes. We have to find her before she does something stupid”

Caver could be a pain in the ass sometimes but he was trustworthy as hell. Once you had Caver’s respect, you had a friend for life. And I’d pulled his ass out of enough scrapes to qualify. He’d always had my back ever since he joined the pack and I took him up to the training camp. He’d been one tough nut to crack, the stubborn ass, but there had been no way he was going to best me and I managed to pull him in line, kicking and screaming all the way.

But more importantly than all that right now,was the fact that he cared about Aspen. He always had, ever since she was just a kid. I guess he sort of saw her as the kid sister that he never had.

Between Caver, Griff and I, we would find Aspen, I had no doubt about that. I could track her anywhere, just by scent alone. The thing I was worried about was what kind of trouble she’d gotten herself into since she’d found out about Andie. She was obviously in a great deal of emotional turmoil and god knows what that would translate into for her.

                ***

“
A
spen?” Sorcha whispered into the darkness as she opened her bedroom door quietly. I was lying on her bed, fully clothed, trying to catch some sleep so I could wake up early, before anyone else in the house, and take off before dawn.

I had run through the plan a hundred times in my head already. I would get up early, and then make my way to the train station by foot. Of course getting up so early would mean that I would get there before the ticket office opened, which meant waiting around in the cold, but as long as I managed to get out of Sorcha’s house early enough without waking anyone up, then no one would be able to tell Roan where I’d gone either.

And that sounded like a pretty good plan to me.

“Yeah?” 

“Were you sleeping?” 

“Naw, not yet. I was just laying here. Where’s your lover boy staying tonight?” I teased her. I couldn’t see her in the dark but I knew she had the sappiest, love struck grin on her pretty face. 

“Oh, Aspen, isn’t he just the cutest thing ever? And he’s a frat boy too, can you believe it? Me and a frat boy!” I could see her silhouette bopping around in excitement against the dim light in the doorway.

I smiled. It appeared that her failed relationship with Josh was the last thing on her mind right now. Sorcha was like that, unerringly positive and enthusiastic about life, like everything that happened to her was a gift in some way. I admired that about her, that no matter how crappy life got, she always found a reason to keep smiling. I would miss her terribly when I left; she was the only true friend that I had ever had.

I felt a lump rising into my throat but swallowed it back down. Now was not the time to start getting emotional. That was a surefire way to threaten my cover and blow my plans.

I needed to get out of Spruce Hollow and as far away from Roan as humanly possible...and nothing was going to get in the way of that, not even the love I felt for Sorcha.

                 ***

A
spen was still at Sorcha’s. Of that much, I was certain. I had picked up her scent in the driveway as soon as I got out of the truck. 

The forest after it rains
.

“She’s here, or at least she was here at one point tonight,” I called over my shoulder to Griff and Caver, who were hanging back behind me. We had started tracking Aspen at Sorcha’s, since that was the last known place where she was supposed to have been, and with any luck, she would still be here.

I inhaled deeply and tracked her scent all the way down the driveway towards the barn. It was late but there were still stragglers hanging around in small groups from the New Years party. Almost everyone in town had been invited, including me as I frequently worked on Sorcha’s family's vehicles. I had been so tempted to go too, not for the party but just to be able to keep an eye on Aspen.

But after we kissed, everything had gone haywire and I needed to put distance in between us before things got even murkier. It must have been quite the party though if the inebriated state of the stragglers and the DJ set up and speakers were any indication.

I wonder if she had liked it, did she dance all night?

“With another male?” my wolf asked, perking up his ears. 

“Who knows? She was obviously angry when she left the house. Anything’s possible at this point, I’ve never seen her in such a state before.”

I followed Aspen’s scent around to the backyard and then up through the field to the house. She had gone to the house at some point in the night, but the important question remained: was she still in there? 

Most of the house was darkened but I could see soft light on in the front of the house. The living room, maybe? Opening my hearing wide, I listened hard and could hear soft, hushed voices coming from upstairs.

Two, young, hushed female voices. It was Aspen and Sorcha, if I was a betting man.

But I wasn’t a betting man, especially not where Aspen was concerned. Listening again, I focused everything I had on the actual words, rather than just the sound of their voices. It was a lot harder to do. Sound can travel for large distances across open ground but to actually make out the contents of the sound is a much harder task.