Chapter Eighteen – Angela
Chapter Eighteen
Angela
I crawled into bed beside Rabbit while Jack went back to being lonely, sprawled out on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. To think, all those years I’d thought that I was an island, and I’d never seen the other one floating right beside me.
Before I could say anything profound, he sprang up out of bed. “I’m going to go take a walk. Check the perimeter and all that.”
My wolf was restless inside, it was like she was pacing—I didn’t think I’d sleep tonight, or tomorrow. “Want some company?”
He paused, considering, then answered slowly. “Sure.”
I wrapped up in a coat and we both stepped outside, where I set all the locks.
The hotel was an L-shape, with an alcove full of benches and vending machines at the corner, and we walked its longest edge.
The parking lot was empty, except for the car I assumed belonged to that other couple—they’d stopped fighting about an hour ago.
Across that was a two way street, and then rolling desert beyond.
I could feel my wolf’s urge to go run in it underneath the waxing moon, matched only by her desire to stay here, close to Jack.
Getting bitten had startled her, but also cemented some part of her interest in him.
He was dangerous and still, somehow, safe.
“Aren’t you cold?” I asked him. A conversation would keep my feelings human.
“No. Your blood’s pretty warm.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, leaning over to nudge him. He seemed surprised by that, taken aback almost. “How many people know?”
“Three-ish, now that there’s you. That’s not including other vampires, obviously.”
I grinned. “Wow, I’m a member of a very elite group.”
“Just don’t go comparing notes on me.” He kept watching me out of the corner of his eyes. “And, obviously, don’t go telling anyone.”
“I won’t. I just can’t believe I didn’t figure it out.
All those years you worked for me….” I let my voice drift and laughed.
“Here I thought that I was lucky that you were willing to work nights—until I realized how good you were and got pissed that you wouldn’t work days, to make both of us more money. ”
“Yeah, well, day shift was never in the cards for me, sorry.” He gave me a sheepish grin.
I stopped just outside of a halo of streetlight. “And all that time you never guessed about me?”
Jack shrugged. “You were always masked by the silver. And I guessed that you were stressed, being a single mom and all.” He blew air through his pursed lips. “I always wanted to help you more, Angela, but really the only way I could do that was by being a good employee. Which I did try to do.”
My eyebrows crawled up my forehead. “In between sneaking out to sleep with people,” I said. “Or, sleeping in-house, with clients.”
He gave me one of his wicked grins. “I can’t help it if I’m personally responsible for most of our fantastic Yelp ratings.
I just never let a customer leave unhappy.
” I rolled my eyes at him and he laughed, as he went on.
“But no, I never guessed. I didn’t even know werewolves existed, until I started trying to figure out who killed Bella. ”
“Jonah’s girl. Who…it sounds like you were also sleeping with?” I don’t know why I bothered to make it sound like a question.
He winced a little. “I slept with her first, if that makes it better.” He inhaled deeply and shrugged. “I sleep with a lot of people.”
And oddly, around me, he seemed shy of that fact. “So I’ve heard,” I teased.
It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Fran,” he said with a groan, and I laughed.
“I didn’t need Fran to tell me that. A guy who looks like you? Single? In Vegas? Please.” And just how many times had I imagined sleeping with him? Even when I was on silver? I rose up on my toes and then settled back down.
“All right, fine. I keep busy,” he said, shrugging again. “But it’s not like something I’m proud of.”
That was the first time I’d ever heard contrition in his voice. “Why not?”
“Because this isn’t how I want to be.” He put his hands in his jeans pockets and looked out at the desert behind me.
“It’s like I’m always starving. Sometimes that’s okay because the world’s the biggest buffet ever.
But then other times I find something that I know is going to taste better than anything else, and I realize if I let myself go I might eat it all up, and I’ll never be able to taste it again.
Everything I’m actually hungry for shouldn’t be around me.
” He looked down and caught me watching him.
“It’s not a good metaphor,” he said, with a headshake.
“No—I know exactly how that feels.” Like spending seven years waiting for the Pack to find me, afraid every day in the meantime.
“Maybe you do,” he acknowledged with a nod.
The streetlight cast him in stark relief, one half of him flooded with light, the other shadowed completely, turning his profile into a rising moon.
His hair hung loose, without product at long last, and the dragon tattoos on his arms were in direct opposition to the polo I’d bought him too quickly this morning.
He’d had always been available at the shop, and even though he was polite and never pressed, I’d always known it.
I’d kept the knowledge of his interest in my back pocket for years, for whenever I was down.
Any time that I’d thought that I was too much or too difficult for any man to handle, I’d always known that Jack wasn’t afraid of the hassle of me.
I had known him, trusted him, for so long, and here we were beneath the open sky.
“So what’s it like being a werewolf?” he said, and broke the spell, turning to walk up the L’s short-side.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been one very long.” I trotted after him.
“Rabbit seemed to get the hang of it fast.”
“Yeah, well, he’s young. He’s always liked his wolf—I’ve always been afraid of mine.”
“Why?”
“It’s hard to explain. She’s wild. And I’m not used to being a democracy—she has her own opinions.”
Jack chuckled. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Like….” I started to say, and then the moment went on too long, and he turned to look at me fully, waiting. “She likes you,” I breathed.
He was silent, and then said, “But you love Mark.” I nodded, as he took a long inhale. “I can see how that would be awkward.”
“It is,” I admitted. “Especially because she’s not wrong to like you.”
One of his eyebrows quirked up. “So how many votes does she get?”
“Just one. Same as me.”
“And how do you break ties?”
“There’s no need.” I stepped forward and leaned up, knowing he would meet me there.
His lips met mine just as I knew they would, but everything else was chaste—he didn’t reach for me—and he didn’t press his tongue in. He pulled back, staring down. “I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret, Angela.”
“It’s far too late for that, Jack. I might die tomorrow night. I don’t want to die alone.”
His dark eyes searched mine, and then he physically picked me up, carrying me towards the alcove.
My arms wrapped around his neck instinctively as he planted me against the hotel’s cinderblock wall.
“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he whispered, brushing hair out of my face. I felt my wolf rush forward, and fought her down. She could enjoy this from the backseat, but I wanted to be fully human for these last few memories.
“Me too,” I whispered back. His forehead was pressed against mine, our breaths intermingled, and I wanted him to kiss me.
As if knowing that, he leaned in. Our lips met, parted, and our tongues pushed, needing to taste each other at last. My hands raced to touch him, anywhere I could get.
Everything I’d been denying myself for years I wanted, all at once, right now—and I knew he felt the same.
I could feel it up and down his body—the way his teeth pulled at my lips when he leaned back, the way his hands stroked at my chest, my waist, the way I could feel his hard-on straining against my thigh.
He pulled back and started kissing my throat and neck as if he were going to devour me, and I wound one hand into his hair, clawing the other one up his back, and I started making quiet sounds.
“Please,” he asked for permission a second before he did it anyways, pulling my shirt up and out, falling to a crouch in front of me, hands pushing up my bra.
His hot mouth trailed against my stomach and I didn’t know which way to beg, to pull him up or push him down.
One hand stroked a breast as the other pushed up my skirt.
His mouth found my other nipple and—I was pinned against the wall as he licked at me, tugged at me, and started to softly finger the outside of my pussy through the fabric of my underwear.
“God, Jack,” I’d been overwhelmed before, but not like this, his need was like a tidal wave, sucking me down.
He rose back up to kiss me again, leaving his hand where it was between my legs, not pushing in, warming me up, torturing me.
“The entire time I’ve known you, Angela—all the nights I dreamed I was with you when I was with other women,” he said, the words muffled in between kisses against my neck.
“All the times I wanted to touch you, to taste you—every day knowing that I shouldn’t.
” He licked his tongue up from my collarbone to my ear, and he shifted the fabric barrier protecting me aside, and started touching between my legs, skin to skin.
“Afraid of showing you what I was—of you ever finding out how hungry you made me.”
I grabbed his head and brought his mouth to mine, kissing him hard. “Do you think you were the only one?” I whispered.
“I didn’t dare to hope,” he whispered back—and pushed his fingers inside me.
I cried out, and then kissed him again as I tilted my hips toward his hand. His body was pressed against mine—but I wanted more—I started raking his shirt up—I wanted to touch more of him, needed more of him touching me—as his fingers pushed deeper and his palm began to grind.
He pulled out of me and back for a moment, to take off his shirt and cast it aside. I reached to feel his skin—kissing his chest as his arms rose around me to shove my coat back and down. The night air flooded us both, but I wasn’t cold anymore—I belonged in it.
“Angela,” he said, catching my chin and pulling me up. “I’m not going to let you die tomorrow.”
“Dying’s not the plan. It’s just a possibility.” I finished pulling my coat off, throwing it toward his shirt. “And you’re still going to be asleep at moonrise. So you don’t get a choice.” He knew it was true as I said it, and I watched his expression crumple in agony. “Shh—it’s okay, Jack.”
“But there’s got to be a—”
“No,” I interrupted. “No suggestions. I’m over all of that. No more money, no more time. I need things to be done.” I rested one hand on his chest, over his heart and the head of a dragon tattoo. “That’s why I need this, now, please,” I said quietly.
The way he looked at me then, so full of meaning and intent—I would’ve swayed, were I not against a wall. “Okay,” he said, and it sounded like a promise.
We kissed again then, like both of us were fragile things, holding one another’s faces, tasting gently, pulling softly, moving as one, the flashfire of earlier passion quenched, with something hotter and deeper building in its place.
He pulled back, studying me again, and then lowered himself, grabbing hold of my shirt and pulling it up again, rubbing his face between my breasts before he kissed them all over, one by one, as I rested my hands on his shoulders and leaned back, looking down, wanting to watch him to take his fill of me, making small sounds as each kiss, lick, and caress, stoked heat inside my hips.
As his mouth started to move down my stomach I knew where this was leading—and reached down to pull my skirt up, as his hands rose underneath, stroking up my thighs.
His fingers caught the edges of my underwear and tugged, pulling them down for me to step out of, then his eyes on me all the while his mouth went—there—kissing my pussy, tonguing my clit.
I made another sound of submission and pushed my hips off the wall, offering everything to him, and felt him purr against me.
His mouth—God, his mouth—he sucked and pulled and his lips were strong except for when they needed to be soft and his tongue rolled against me, riding under my hood, teasing my clit out, as his chin ground up and in.
Both of his hands had moved to cup my ass, as my hands found his hair, to make sure he followed as my hips started to rock—and then he pulled back, and reached one hand up, bringing his first two fingers up between my thighs to slide them inside.
“Yeah—yes,” I breathed, as he started pulsing them in and out of me.
“You taste so good, Angela,” he whispered, looking up, watching the mess he was making of me. He reached up with his other hand for my breast—and then fastened his mouth back onto my clit as I moaned.
His hand, his mouth, his fingers—I never knew which one I liked best—the sharp sensation of a nipple being pulled, or the way his tongue worked my clit making everything hot, or how his fingers now were settled deep inside me, no longer pounding but rubbing, as if my orgasm were a thing that needed to be coaxed.
My hips rocked and thrust, my body thrashed, I rose up on my toes and shouted.
The sound of me coming echoed in the small space, each reverberation pulsing as I did, my pussy clenching, my hips bucking, one hand clawed into his hair, the other scrabbling for purchase on the wall.
Jack kept his mouth against me, kissing and sucking, determined to see me through until the very end—I looked down and saw him looking up, knew he was waiting on me, like he always had.
I put a thigh over his shoulder and pushed his head toward it. “Drink,” I whispered hoarsely.
He did.