“The world doesn’t have enough whiskey,” I muttered. “Nothing’s wrong. Just family crap.” After what she’d suffered during our fall break camping trip, I wouldn’t feel right burdening her with my problems.
Robyn only knew a little about my home life—just the parts it was safe for me to tell her. She knew I had five highly protective older brothers and that my parents had very “traditional” expectations for me. She knew that I could handle myself in a fight, thanks to summers spent with my cousin Faythe. She knew I was still in touch with my high school boyfriend, Brian, but that I only answered about half of his calls, because neither of us knew what to say to each other over the phone.
She also knew that a good friend of my father lived less than an hour from campus, and that he acted as my emergency contact and de facto guardian while I was at school.
What she didn’t know were words like Alpha and enforcer. And Pride, at least in the shifter sense of the word.
“So, the semester’s over!” I drained my spiked hot chocolate and stood to toss the cup into the trash, then turned to my closet, where my party clothes had been neglected for the better part of the term. “Last one dressed has to find us a designated driver!”
Three minutes later, I zipped up my shortest skirt and was just stepping into my highest-heeled boots when movement out the window drew my eye. A familiar black Pathfinder was pulling into a spot in the parking lot two floors below.
Nooooooo!
I leaned over the nightstand for a better look, and even with my breath fogging up the glass, I recognized the tall, broad figure who stepped out of the car. “Son of a bitch!”
I knew I should have answered my phone.
“Done!” Robyn stood up in the middle of the room, fully dressed. “Get ready to sweet-talk Julie Cass, because she’s the only teetotaler on this floor who has her own car.”
When I didn’t reply, my roommate rounded the end of her bed and leaned over my nightstand to follow my gaze. “What are we looking a…” When her question faded into drooling nonsense, I knew she’d spotted him. “Who is that, and why the hell haven’t you called dibs?”
“That’s Jace Hammond.” I stood, trying to slow the automatic jump in my pulse. She wasn’t wrong. He was gorgeous, in a carved-from-stone perfection kind of way.
“Wait, that’s your dad’s friend? Shouldn’t he be…old?”
“He’s old enough.” Though in truth, thirty was too young for the authority he wielded and too old for what I secretly, wake-up-aching-in-the-middle-of-the-night wanted from him. Which was why I avoided him as often as possible. “And he’s not supposed to be here until tomorrow.”
Jace never came to pick me up until the day after my last final. I’d thought I’d have the evening to talk him out of it this time.
In the parking lot, he leaned against the side of his SUV and pulled his phone from his pocket. Mine rang second later, and for the fourth time in the past two hours, his name and picture popped up on the screen. I answered the call and pressed the phone to my ear.
“You’re early,” I snapped, and Jace stood up straight to scan the side of the dorm building, surprised.
“How did you…”
“Fourth from the left, third floor.”
When he found my window, Jace took off his sunglasses and grinned up at me. Even from two floors down, his eyes shone bright blue and his grin lit little fires deep inside me, as it had since I was fifteen years old.
I stomped those tiny flames until they were nothing but embers keeping me warm. Jace smiled the same way at every woman who looked at him. That grin meant nothing, I could not afford to forget that.
Robyn had identified the problem without even knowing it. Alphas weren’t supposed to be young and hot. They were supposed to be old and wise, like my father.
“I’ll be up in a second.” Jace’s voice surged through me, stoking the flames I’d just trampled.
“No! I’ll come down. Stay there.” I hung up before he could argue, and Robyn looked at me as if I’d just threatened to cut off my own arm.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Looking for my coat.” I eyed a suspicious lump beneath my comforter, but it turned out to be my pillow.
“You know what I mean. If that guy promised my dad he’d look out for me, I’d sure as hell let him. He looks like he could take really good care of you.”
A quick search of my closet floor revealed a cardigan, four bras, and the hair clip I’d been looking for all month. It was the only one strong enough to hold all of my curls out of my face at once. “Stop staring, Robyn. He’s compulsively unavailable.”
Her hopeful expression collapsed. “Wife?”
“Yeah, but not his own. His heart belongs to my cousin. My very married cousin.” And his body belonged to whatever human girl was warming his bed on any given week. I’d met at least a dozen of them in what little time I’d spent at the lodge during holidays and long weekends.
He’d never failed to introduce me as “kiddo.”