Chapter 9
She was his obsession. An aphrodisiac Jake Silver had little control over. The dark-haired siren of his dreams. Alicia Greiston.
And just as with last night and every night for the past seven weeks since she’d first appeared to him in his dreams, seducing him with her mouth, her eyes, her touch, he sought her out. In his nighttime fantasies. Because, as real as she was, he knew the visions of her were only dreams. But she had been real, and he wanted the real woman again. He’d hoped and prayed she’d go to the art gallery and get the envelope he’d left for her, then call. But she hadn’t yet.
As much as he hated to admit it, he was ready to turn in for the night just to be with her. But as soon as it was light out, he was returning to Breckenridge to search for her again. She hadn’t even returned to the florist shop to leave wreaths in memory of her mother. That would have worried him more if he didn’t keep dreaming of her. She had to still be alive.
Tired and out of sorts, Jake was ready to skip dinner. The questioning sidelong glances his younger triplet brother, Tom, gave him, plus the more openly concerned looks his older brother, Darien, cast at him were enough to curb his appetite. As pack leader of Silver Town, Colorado, Darien was always concerned about the pack members’ well-being. And since he was Jake’s brother, Darien’s concern about him was heightened. Added to that, Darien’s mate, Lelandi, was analyzing Jake’s behavior based on the psychology courses she was taking. Jake felt as if he was a proverbial open book for everyone to read.
Except he would not let them know why he wasn’t sleeping. Hell, at the very least, if he died from lack of sleep, it would be with a smile on his face.
What gnawed at him most was that Darien had said the dream mating that had occurred between him and Lelandi before they had met was fate and that their family had a history of such occurrences. Which Jake couldn’t believe in.
Yet the truth of the matter was that he felt as though he was linked with Alicia through his nighttime fantasies, which couldn’t be. She was human. The lack of sleep was driving him slowly mad.
Except for the clinking of forks as Tom and Darien scooped up their mashed potatoes and gravy, the dining room was silent. Then Lelandi spoke up. “Everything’s fine at the leather-goods factory, right?” She had asked Darien, but her gaze again slid to Jake, as if she thought something was bothering him about some trouble with the factory.
“Everything’s fine,” Darien said, “Everywhere. No pack problems at present, no problems with the mine. The town is running without any difficulties, and the factory’s doing well. Just as everything should be.”
Lelandi set her half-eaten slice of bread on her plate and rubbed her belly. She was due this fall; another month and she would have the triplets. That was making Jake antsy. And he felt guilty about it. All pack members revered the pack leaders’ offspring. They took care of them and provided for them, just as they did other pack members’ children. Yet, as much as he hated himself for it, he felt twinges of jealousy for his older brother when he’d never felt that way before.
Normally, Lelandi was beautiful and glowed with motherhood, her red hair spilling over her shoulders, her green eyes bright with laughter. But now, she seemed just as concerned as his brothers. They wouldn’t prod him too hard. But Lelandi? She was bound to ask him before long what was wrong. And he didn’t want to lie. But he wasn’t telling her the truth, either.
He respected her for bringing Darien out of the deep pit of despair he’d been wallowing in. And with the impending birth of their children, she certainly didn’t need to be worrying about Jake.
But then she smiled a little as if she’d figured out what was bothering him. Maybe she’d been able to work out the mystery intuitively, or maybe he’d given himself away. Or maybe it was something altogether different. He still couldn’t read her like he could his brothers and they, him. Although he was certain they couldn’t figure out his behavior right now.
Lelandi turned her attention to Tom and lifted her bread from her plate again. “Woman trouble?”
Tom immediately glanced at Jake. Hell, Jake didn’t have woman problems, except in the form of a damned beguiling woman who continued to appear to him in his dreams, and who in the worst-case scenario had gotten into trouble with the Mob. Lesser worst-case scenario, she’d just stood him up. Jake scowled further.
Tom gave a small smile. “Can’t have any woman trouble if there’s no one around to give me difficulty.”
Lelandi looked at Jake, but she didn’t repeat the question, although it lingered in the air as if it hung invisibly between them, begging to be answered. He imagined his expression said she’d better not pose the question.
But damned if both of his brothers didn’t look to him to answer her query as if she’d blatantly asked him. He finished his meal, not intending to be drawn into this, took the plate to the kitchen, rinsed it off, put it in the dishwasher, and then returned to the dining room.
All three watched him.
He paused, thinking to ask them about dream mating—could it involve a human woman? But not wanting to get into a discussion about this when he was dog tired, he said instead, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
The looks they all gave him showed surprise. If they’d worn watches, which as lupus garous they didn’t, he figured they’d all be glancing at them now to determine just how late it was. And see that it was way too early for him to retire when he normally didn’t hit the sack until midnight. Unless he went for a midnight run as a wolf in the woods. Then it was even later.
Darien cleared his throat. “Do you want to talk to me privately about something?”
“No. And there’s no sense in putting this off any longer,” Jake remarked, not intending to mention it again, but it was time. He’d been renovating their grandfather’s home, which was situated farther from town than Darien’s house. The renovations were complete, and it was past time to settle in there.
Tom cast a glance at Lelandi. She’d been the one attempting all along to convince him to change his mind. Darien and Tom knew better than to try.
“I told you and Tom, both, you don’t need to leave. Just because the babies are coming, I don’t want you feeling like they’re pushing you out of your own home,” Lelandi said softly, her eyes welling up with tears, her throat choked with emotion.
Hell. She wasn’t often emotional, but with being pregnant, she’d had unnatural bouts of weepiness, which was another reason he couldn’t stay. He hated to see her cry—especially when he had anything to do with it.
Darien reached over and took her hand and squeezed.
“The cabin is so… isolated. It has electricity and running water, but no television or telephone service. It’s so primitive. What if you run into trouble out there?” she asked, quickly dabbing with a napkin at tears trailing down her cheeks.
He knew her well enough to realize she didn’t use the tears to make him feel guilty, even though they still had that effect. No matter how many times she cajoled him to stay, he couldn’t. He thought Tom was waffling, though. That was fine with Jake. He didn’t mind living at the house alone since he’d only be there at night. He’d spend his days working with the family, with the pack, and still have dinner with them unless he just had to get away. He was a family kind of guy, and that wouldn’t ever change. He’d told Lelandi that, and he wasn’t going to repeat himself.
But something deeper was bothering him. The need to have a mate. He was seeing Darien and Lelandi together with the babies coming, and now the damnable dreams of Alicia were making him crazy. He had to get away.
“You’ll need more room,” he said, and headed out of the dining room before anyone could say anything further to him.
He knew they’d all be giving each other looks, trying to figure out what was wrong with him, staying silent until he was well beyond earshot, and then discussing his actions in private.
He heard Darien’s phone ring and hoped there wasn’t trouble he had to take care of with the pack or town tonight, considering how much he wanted to sleep—dream, rather.
Why was he going to bed this early? Depression, Lelandi might surmise from her psychology classes. Never in a millennium would she or anyone else guess that he couldn’t sleep because of his desire for a woman’s silken touch.
“You need to speak with Jake?” Darien said in the dining room to whoever was on the phone, his voice sounding surprised.
Jake paused in the great room before he reached the stairs.
“Yeah, he’s here. Let me let you talk to him.” Normally Darien would have hollered to him that the call was for him, although why anyone would be calling him on Darien’s line was a mystery. But instead, Darien left the dining room to join Jake in the great room, and that didn’t bode well.
Already he was thinking that something bad had happened to Alicia. Although how anyone knew their connection, he couldn’t be sure. Unless she’d been hurt and the gallery staff had made the correlation.
Darien held his hand over the mouthpiece on the phone. “Sheriff got a call from Breckenridge.”
Already apprehensive, Jake could feel his legs turning to rubber, and he was sure his face had drained of all color, as light-headed as he felt. As observant as he always was, Darien noticed and frowned. “Hell, what’s going on?”
“What’s happened?”
Darien raised his brows, then shook his head. “You’ve got some talking to do. An Alicia Greiston passed out in the art gallery’s ladies’ restroom after she bought one of your photographs. Apparently, she’s pregnant. But they said you’d left your number for her to get in touch. Your cell phone must be off so they called our sheriff, trying to locate another number for you, and Peter gave them mine. What’s this all about?”
Pregnant?
Darien didn’t wait for Jake’s answer, but handed him the phone and remained watching him like a wary wolf.
His heart in his throat and worried as hell about Alicia, Jake said, “Hello, this is Jake Silver.”
“I’m Mary Clebourne from the art gallery in Breckenridge. I’m the one who gave you the contract on your work. I just wanted to let you know I gave your girlfriend your phone number like you asked me to, and she said she’d call you. Has she called you? We’ve been worried about her. She passed out in the ladies’ restroom. Said she was pregnant and apologized all over the place. We wanted to follow her home, but she said she’d be all right. Did she call you?” Mary repeated.
Girlfriend? Pregnant? “No. She didn’t. When did this happen?”
“Tonight. A couple of hours ago. I wanted to give her time to reach you, but then I worried she might not, so I thought I’d get in touch with you just in case. Then I couldn’t get hold of you and called the sheriff of Silver Town, figuring he’d know your family and someone would pass the word along. But since I couldn’t get hold of you, I assumed she only had the number I couldn’t reach either.”
Hell, the phone was charging in his bedroom. “Did she mention where she was staying? Leave a phone number or anything?”
“No. Nothing. She said that she hadn’t been drinking enough fluids. We gave her a bottle of water, and she seemed better but still awfully pale. Before the episode, she bought your tangerine wood lily photograph.”
Pregnant. Damn guy probably had left her. Hell, that’s why she had been reluctant to see Jake further. But then why in the Sam Hill was she chasing down bad guys in her condition? She hadn’t been showing when Jake had been with her. Maybe she hadn’t known that she was pregnant right away.
The part about her buying his photograph finally registered. And he was concerned all over again. It was as if she wanted to reach out to him but was afraid to.
“All right. I’ll be there in the morning.” But he’d leave after a few hours sleep, arrive way before dawn, and search for Alicia’s car at hotels all over Breckenridge. Hopefully he’d locate her before she had a chance to vanish again.
“I just thought you should know.”
“Thanks, Mary. I really appreciate this.”
“You ought to marry her, you know. I didn’t see that she had a wedding ring.”
Jake glanced at Darien, knowing that with their enhanced hearing, his brother could hear what was being said through the mouthpiece.
Darien raised his brows again.
How could he tell Mary that, in werewolf fashion, they didn’t marry but mated for a lifetime? And since Alicia was human, that meant turning her. But with her carrying a baby, no way in hell could he or any other wolf risk the consequences. Turning a human was chancy at best and rarely done on purpose.
“Thanks, Mary. I’ll stop by tomorrow.”
They ended the call, and he handed Darien his phone.
“My office,” Darien suggested, although it was more of an order.
Jake knew Darien would tell Lelandi what was going on because she jointly led the pack and she had a need to know. But he didn’t have to like it.
As soon as Jake shut the door to Darien’s office, Darien took a seat in the sitting area instead of behind his desk.
“What’s going on, Jake? She has a gray wolf name.”
“But she’s not one of us. She has a wolf’s name, but you and I both know that the names we’ve chosen are not exclusive to our species.”
“All right.” Darien leaned back in his tall leather chair. “So what’s this all about?”
“She’s human and got into trouble at a restaurant where I had eaten breakfast while waiting for the gallery to open. The opening had been delayed. Anyway, she’s a bounty hunter and—”
“Bounty hunter?” Darien looked surprised as hell.
“Yeah, and she’s after a couple of mobster types.”
Darien didn’t say anything for a minute, then shook his head. “She’s pregnant? What in the hell is she doing chasing down members of the Mob in her condition?”
He didn’t voice any opinion about why Jake would have been having sex with a human woman who was pregnant. He had to figure that Jake had sense enough to know better.
“She didn’t look pregnant when I saw her. She had a man under surveillance, and he’d sent one of his thugs to remove her from the restaurant where I was having breakfast. So I came to her rescue. We were supposed to have lunch together, but she left before we could do so. That’s why I stayed overnight. I thought either some harm had come to her after all, or she was trying to ditch me.”
“You were at a motel together, though.”
The shower incident came back to Jake in a vivid recollection. He frowned at his brother. Normally, that should have been his own business. He let out his breath in exasperation. “She didn’t look pregnant. All right? Give me credit for having better sense than that.”
Darien tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Maybe she broke the engagement because she wasn’t showing and she was too embarrassed to tell you she was having a child out of wedlock. Or maybe she’s still married. Or separated from a husband.”
Jake sighed darkly. “I assume it’s something like that now, yes. But I’m glad she’s not in danger.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’re returning to Breckenridge.”
When Darien’s probing look changed to one of concern, Jake sat taller and ground his teeth. “It’s just something I have to do.”
“Why, Jake? What the hell is going on between the two of you?”
Jake raked his fingers through his hair and stared at the floor before he again held Darien’s gaze. “Tell me about this dream mating that happened between you and Lelandi.”
Darien’s mouth parted. Then he clamped his lips tight and didn’t say anything for a moment. “You’ve never believed in it.”
“Hell, Darien, I dreamed of her last night. And every night for the past seven weeks. Ever since the day she disappeared.”
“The human woman?” Disbelief coated Darien’s words.
“Yeah, damn it. She’s so real, I swear I made love to her last night. Again.”
Darien looked at him thoughtfully, then shook his head. “Can’t be happening. Must be just that you’re so fascinated by her, you’re dreaming about her. We can’t dream mate with humans.”
Jake let out his breath in exasperation. “Maybe it’s an anomaly. Maybe it’s just a really rare occurrence. But from what you’ve told me about you and Lelandi, this is the same thing that happened between the two of you.”
“If this woman’s not a wolf, she’s carrying a human child. You can’t change a woman and her child. A woman, if the situation is dire enough, but not her unborn child.”
“All right, all right. I hadn’t planned to turn her. I just want to know she’s safe.”
Darien frowned at him. “I’m serious about this, Jake.”
“Your concern is duly noted. Is that all?”
“Jake…” Darien’s tone was consoling.
Jake didn’t need consolation. He needed to see Alicia again, craved seeing her, and had to find out what had happened to her over the past seven weeks. He had to be sure she was truly safe and well.
Jake nodded. “I know my place, Darien. I know what I can and can’t do. See you in the morning.”
His heart warring with his mind, he left Darien’s office and headed for the stairs. He was past ready to move out.
He hated that a dream could make him crave someone so badly that she’d keep him up half the night. Hated that he couldn’t have her in the flesh the way he wanted.
She was pregnant. He just couldn’t believe it.
In his bedroom, he jerked off his clothes and dropped them on the floor. He glanced at the polished top of his dresser—at the copper hair clip that had bound Alicia’s satiny curls when he had made love to her in the forest in Breckenridge that one day—the only physical evidence he had connecting him to her.
He yanked his bedcovers aside. No matter how much he told himself it was insane, he climbed into bed and waited for her—with wretched eagerness and abject desperation.
***
She had it bad, Alicia thought, as she pulled off her clothes in the scroungy motel room—the only motel she could find in the tiny town of Crestview—and laid her things neatly over a chair. If it hadn’t already been so late and she hadn’t been afraid she wouldn’t find another hotel with a vacancy in another town, she’d have driven on.
Right now, all she wanted was to be with the man of her dreams, but she had a job to do—relocate and start her life over.
She couldn’t risk any of Constantino’s cronies catching up to her if he thought to get revenge for her turning him in. In the future, until she could figure out another way to make a living, she’d go after only bail bond jumpers with non-Italian names, to stay on the safe side. And only work during the day, although she’d shifted some during the day as well, so that wasn’t a guarantee of anything. But she hadn’t realized that the moon was nearly full, and she suspected that’s why she’d felt a sudden need to shift.
Hating that she would be driving right past Silver Town tomorrow and beyond without a word to Jake, she wondered if there was another route she could take.
Jake! She meant to at least call someone in Silver Town and leave a message that she was alive and well. But when she pulled her cell phone out of her purse, she flipped the phone open and recalled that the battery was dead. She had to charge it. She started the charge and glanced at the room phone. If she couldn’t call him on her phone after taking her shower, and it would have been charging for an hour or so, she’d make a long-distance room call instead.
Then with her lavender shampoo and tangerine body wash in hand, she walked into the grungy bathroom. The grout in the floor was no longer white but a dirty gray, rust stains lined the sink from a perpetually dripping faucet, and the shower curtain was covered with a light sheen of soap scum, but the floor of the porcelain tub seemed clean enough. She turned on the water, waited for it to get hot, then slipped inside to shower.
She soaped up her hair with the shampoo, wanting to wash away the past few weeks’ events, going back to when she’d been doing damn well. Her hands stilled in the suds on top of her head where she’d piled her soapy hair. When the men had come to kill Ferdinand at his townhouse, she’d smelled the cologne of the man who’d entered the bedroom where she’d hidden under the bed. Ferdinand had already bitten her by that time. And her sense of smell had been highly attuned. A wolf’s sense of smell. Would she recognize the man’s odor again?
She groaned. If he did come to get her, she’d most likely recognize him because of her enhanced sense of smell and know she was a dead woman before the deed was done. Some help that would be.
She rinsed out her hair, grabbed her bottle of peach body wash and poured some on her hands, then slathered her whole body with the silky, fragrant wash. It helped disguise the unfamiliar, unwanted odors in the bathroom and hotel room.
After towel drying her hair and body, she stalked back into the bedroom, unzipped her bag, and drew out a silky blue nightie. She pulled it on, then climbed into bed and slipped between the harsh sheets. She was glad they smelled of bleach and not the last occupant’s odor. Sometimes to save money and to avoid the work, the hotel staff didn’t bother to change the sheets between customers. Not that she’d let them get away with it.
Woe to those who didn’t have a wolf’s senses and couldn’t detect such a thing. On the other hand, there was something to be said about the old adage—Ignorance is bliss.
She closed her eyes, wanting to welcome her dream lover into her arms, and waited. Breathless with anticipation.
The first time he had come to her, she had known it was just a dream. Very, very real, but just a dream. And she loved conjuring him up, loved making him come to her. He was every bit as much an addiction as chocolate—the really rich dark kind.
She breathed in the stale air, the smell of bleached sheets, the faint odor of cigarette smoke in what was supposed to be a nonsmoking room, the dustiness. Felt the scratchy sheets against her bare skin and the equally scratchy comforter decorated in brown palm trees that probably had never been washed, noted the picture of palm trees nailed to the wall—and wondered if the Colorado motel owner fantasized about having a resort in Florida. She hated not being in her own bedroom on her comfortable saggy mattress, the sheets super soft, and having her pillow, too.
But she was afraid if she returned there for very long, they’d catch up to her. If she could, she’d clean out her bank account, give notice, take as much from her apartment as she could fit into her car, and leave the rest behind with no forwarding address. Although she’d worked hard to afford her furniture, and she hated having to abandon it.
Sometime during the night, as the heat of the day subsided and a dry coolness filled the room, she began to slip off to the world of sleep.
Vaguely she became aware of another presence in her room.
At first, a peculiar sense of recognition washed over her, reassuring her that she was safe, that whoever or whatever she was sensing wouldn’t harm her.
Then she saw him, materializing in the darkness like a shadowed lover. Distractedly, she remembered the phone call she hadn’t made. Damn. Tomorrow, first thing.
Jake approached, and she forgot everything else but him.
Advancing, his hair the color of rich, dark-brown earth after a summer rain, his eyes of the same shade and darkly intense, his masculine lips curved up faintly in the hint of a smile, he moved toward her in a slow, methodical, predatory way. In the past few weeks, when her world seemed only to be spiraling downhill faster, only Jake had made her life bearable after that fateful night she’d been turned. And she wanted him at night, every night, for as long as she lived, which might not be very long the way things were going.
Naked, he flexed his muscles, stood a little taller, and saw her and only her. Still covered in the comforter up to her neck because of the chill in the air, she gave him a refrained smile back. It was always the same. An acknowledgment that they were here in concert for this, but no wild throwing themselves together in the heat of the moment. Deep down, she felt it was because she feared that if she did leap from the bed and jump into his waiting arms, he’d just vanish. Poof. And never come again.
So she waited for him, waited for his large capable fingers to pull back the comforter, to feel his hands lifting her gown off her. He always started with his gentle, then urgent strokes, his lips and tongue teasing her, his mouth on her breast.
But this time he seemed hesitant. She frowned a little. He couldn’t leave her now. Not when he was the only bright spot in her life. A too-real figment of her imagination.
He raked his fingers through his hair. She parted her lips as if to speak. She never had spoken to him before. Had never needed to. Didn’t think she really could. But he seemed so unsure, as if he was reevaluating why he was here.
He couldn’t. He was here because she made him come. She pulled her arms free from the comforter and was about to stretch them out to him, to encourage him to join her. How could he come to her and then decide he couldn’t do this?
And then he sighed, although she never could hear sounds in her dreams, except for the blood rushing in her ears, her own panting breath when he stroked her into submission, her heart beating wildly. Her smile widened.
But he didn’t smile back. Still reserved, she thought. Still bothered by something. Yet he approached her with an aggressive stride, yanked the covers aside, and stared at her belly, the pale blue gown she wore having risen to her thighs. Her naked legs didn’t hold his attention, but his gaze focused on her waist. He slid the silky fabric up her thighs, past her hips, higher until her belly was exposed, then kissed her there. She wasn’t sure how to read his actions, but then she reached for him, spread her legs willingly, opened herself to him, and encouraged him to join her.
He climbed onto the bed, situating himself between her legs, but kept his weight off her as he tackled her mouth with his. His kiss was hard and fierce, his jaw lightly whiskered and rough. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear she’d have whisker burns on her cheeks after they made love. His tongue dove into her mouth, impatient, impassioned, and she met his craving move for move. God, he was beautiful and she desired him with all her heart.
“You’re the only good thing in my life,” she mouthed against his lips, wishing there could be more to their relationship than this.
He paused, staring at her with such intensity that it was as if he’d truly heard her words and felt her sentiment, and then he kissed her hard again. His hand encompassed a breast, fondled, and stroked, caressed her nipple with the pad of his thumb, teasing the tip, which was tingling and aching with need. Her breasts were slightly tender, fuller, more sensitive to his touch. Then his mouth moved down her throat, and he brushed his lips across her sensitive skin, licking her there. He seemed desperate with wanting her, just as much as she felt about him. His hand stroked her deeply between her legs, where she was already hot and wet and swollen for him, her core aching with such an intensity that she could barely last.
She envisioned she was still at home in her own bed with the man in her dreams making wild passionate love with her. His fingers dipped in between her legs, caressing her into climax while she gripped his waist and never wanted to let go.
She felt the earth shift, the bed, the room, the whole world as she reached the peak and shattered with the most riveting ecstasy. Vaguely, she felt his fingers withdraw before he filled her with his arousal, hard and hot and very much ready for action.
But this time he raised her legs over his shoulders for maximum penetration and dove into her with hard, deep, satisfying thrusts, his face dipping to kiss her breast, to lick the nipple, her hands running through his hair as she moaned with satisfaction. He knew how to give her pleasure like she’d never felt before. His lusty gaze shifted to hers. His expression was still dark, and she couldn’t read it now. Before, he’d always been so pleased with her, to see her, to be with her, but now… something was amiss. As if he was tired of playing this game. But he was hers, her dream. He had to be here for her whenever she drifted off to her fantasy world of dreams.
She moaned as he stole her thoughts, brought her rising again on another tidal wave of pleasure, had her grasping for his sinewy arms, and he groaned, pumping into her until he was spent, then collapsed and didn’t move. He was heavy and sweaty and felt protective and manly and wonderful.
He lay there for some time, and at first she thought her dream lover had fallen asleep, but then he lifted his head, sighed, and rolled off her, then pulled her into his arms and held her tight. He kissed the top of her head, caressing her arm with a soft touch. He’d kiss her and caress her and nap and take her again and again all night long, and by morning, he’d be gone, and she’d still miss him. Until the night returned.
She’d started taking naps during the day to manage the nights. But a vaguely ominous worry crept into the dream. She couldn’t shake loose of the feeling that Jake was in danger—and all because of her.
But then something else seized her attention. A sound. Not a key, but… something… like… the sound of a plastic card being slipped between the doorjamb and the door with a hard whooshing, sliding sound.
Like someone was trying to break into her room.