Chapter 22
JULIET
The blanket is a cozy, warm furnace around my shoulders, enticing me deeper into my cushy chair. My setup is perfect. Glass of wine, good book, snug seating.
When a knock comes at my front door, I mutter a string of curses.
Really? Someone decides to visit now?
The odd hour registers, and my irritation shifts into trepidation, my pulse thundering harder.
Why is someone coming to my house so late in the evening?
Reluctantly, I leave my blanket behind and pad on my sock-covered feet to the hallway. Once again, I remember to use my security system, pressing the button to switch on the camera for my front porch.
There, standing in all of his grumpy glory, is Roderick fucking Jameson.
Mr. Pie Judge himself.
My insides clench, my nerves tingle, and my head gets hot. Is the reaction leftover anger from yesterday? Partly. But it’s also hard to ignore how much my body responds to his proximity. An inappropriate, unapproved level of want.
My brain knows he’s an asshole, but my gut wants me to duct tape his mouth shut, then strip off his clothes and have my way with him.
I need to get laid, I decide. By a human man, preferably.
Even though I don’t feel a physical threat from the werewolf, I still grab hold of my baseball bat on the way to the door.
Last time we spoke, Roderick pissed me off. No need to be neighborly if he’s just here to poke and prod and judge, like he’s been doing since the first day I met him.
“What do you want?” I demand before I’m done opening the door.
Roderick, looking way too good in his jeans and white T-shirt that stretch tight over heavy muscles, holds up something between us.
The porch light illuminates a beautiful golden-brown pie.
“I’m not here to fight with you.” He repeats the words I threw at him yesterday as his lips twitch.
He brought dessert.
My stomach growls, and I try not to blush. The cool night air nips at my skin, and I regret not bringing my blanket with me for this chat.
I should send him on his way. Take the pie and slam the door in his face.
But I guess I like to torture myself a little bit.
“Come in.” With my bat, I point toward the kitchen, even though Roderick already knows the layout of my house. Best to remind him I’m not some helpless woman.
After shutting the door behind him and reprogramming my alarm, I find Roderick hovering by my kitchen table, eyes tracking each of my movements as I approach.
“If you’re not here to fight with me, why are you here?”
Instead of answering, he extends a folded scrap of paper. Hesitantly, I reach out and take it, leaning my bat against my thigh so I can unfold the thing. Six words are scrawled on the sheet that’s obviously been torn from a random notebook.
Dear Juliet,
I am sorry.
—Roderick
I choke on a scoff. “You call this a card? I crafted yours by hand!”
He tilts his head in a wolf-like gesture as he studies me. Then he shrugs. “Best I could do. I’m here to apologize.”
I snort. “You’ve finally figured out something to apologize for? Realized you’re not the pinnacle of perfection?”
He grimaces. “I don’t think I’m perfect.”
“Certainly think you’re better than me.”
But why should that surprise me? Didn’t I learn my lesson in Bear Valley? The pack doesn’t only hold themselves separate from humans, but above us.
“I don’t.” Roderick’s gaze is fierce. “Wolves are not better than humans,” he says, the words eerily close to what I was thinking.
“Just different.” He sighs, rubbing a hand over his short hair.
“But it would make me more comfortable if I at least knew how you found out about my kind. That’s what has me on edge. ”
My initial urge is to keep my mouth shut or to continue arguing my point. But then I’m forced to recall the reason that I offered up my apology in the first place. Roderick exiled his own mother because she’d hurt a human.
Maybe Roderick is telling the truth. Maybe he deserves a little sliver of mine.
“I know about werewolves because I dated one.”
His nostrils flare.
Does he think he’ll smell the guy on me?
Maybe. Wolves are weird like that. But I showered Cory off of me for the last time months ago.
“He told you what he was, but you didn’t become mates?” Roderick asks, his voice stiff, eyes flicking to my low neckline to the skin on my left breast, where a mating mark would reside if I’d ever gone through with the ceremony.
My snort might sound like a laugh, but there’s no true humor in it.
“Believe me, he wanted to. I politely declined.” More like I fought tooth and nail to maintain the one bit of control I had over my life.
Even with my constant avoidance, Cory might have been able to force the matter if his pack leader was fully on board.
But Mick Sullivan, leader of the Bear Valley pack, was pulled in two directions on the issue.
On the one hand, Cory was his second-in-command.
A guy he’d like to keep happy. On the other hand, his daughter, Janeen Sullivan, had been in love with Cory since she had been a teen and clearly held out hope he’d drop me and choose her for his life partner.
So, Mick withheld his blessing. Maybe I should have been grateful for that. But the guy could just have easily ordered Cory to stop laying hands on me, and yet he never did. Mick never bound me to my hellish situation, but he let me live in it for years.
“What happened between you two?” Roderick asks, sharp eyes on me.
I frown, not liking this potential deep dive into off-limits territory.
“Is this an interrogation pie? Because I thought it was an apology pie.”
Roderick continues to stare at me. Hard. Like he can dig around in my brain for answers.
As far as I know, that’s not one of his supernatural abilities, so I just glare back at him.
After a moment, his intensity fades, and he offers a contrite twist to his mouth. “You’re right.”
I wait.
His eyes flick to the pie, then back to me. “Can we eat while I apologize? It’s strawberry rhubarb, and it might help your opinion of me.”
I bite my lips to stave off the sudden, surprising urge to smile. “Sure.”
After slicing two pieces, placing them on my new blue flowery plates, and setting one on the kitchen table for each of us, I wave for Roderick to sit across from me.
When he settles in the chair, the old wood groans under his dense weight.
I pray the thing won’t break, no matter how funny it would be to see the alpha sprawled on my kitchen floor, surrounded by splintered bits of furniture.
Before whatever half-assed apology he doles out can ruin the taste, I fork up a huge bite of the pie, the rich red filling glinting in the warm kitchen lighting. Once the pastry passes my lips, all thoughts drain from my mind as my focus goes entirely to my tongue.
The taste is orgasmic. Sweet, and tart, and buttery.
“My gods,” I moan while my mouth is still full. Barely allowing myself time to swallow the first bite, I’m already shoveling in a second. “This is decadent!” The words are garbled as they pass through my mouthful of pie. “Where did you get it from?”
Roderick watches me, unflinching, probably shocked by my gluttonous behavior.
But since I don’t care about his opinion, I don’t bother to restrain myself.
“I made it,” he says, voice low.
I freeze. “You?” I wave my crumb-covered fork at him. “You—electricity-fixing, biker-riding wolfman—made this pie? This one?”
His lips twitch. “Yes.”
“Hell,” I sigh, shoulders drooping. “I didn’t realize I was giving my pathetic attempt at an apology pie to a professional. I thought you’d just be like, Sugar! Nom, nom, nom.”
That earns me a full-sized smile, which softens his normally hard face.
“I did eat the entire thing in one sitting,” Roderick admits.
My chest grows surprisingly warm at the thought.
“Werewolves,” I mutter, covering up my pleased glow.
Then my eyes dart to the counter, where the rest of the apology pie sits. Unprotected. Vulnerable.
Shoving up from my seat, I hurriedly grab some foil out of the cabinet, cover the pie, and tuck it in my refrigerator. Then I turn to glare at a bemused Roderick.
“That slice is all you’re getting.” I point at the piece in front of him, regretting how large of a section I offered. “The rest is mine. Got it?”
He nods, attempting and failing to look contrite.
Settling back at the table, I pull my plate as close as I can without the treat tumbling to the ground and rest my arm around it, creating a protective barrier with my body.
“All right. I’m thoroughly wooed by your dessert offering. Let the apologizing officially commence.”
Roderick nods and straightens in his chair. The guy looks tall, even sitting down.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “For the way I treated you the first day we met and every day after.” He clears his throat but makes sure to meet my eyes. “You gave me no reason to be rude.”
The sincerity is undeniable in his voice, and I find I believe he means what he says. The pie is probably helping to smooth the way. I’m already down to my last bite.
“Thank you for saying that.”
“You fit in well here. Everyone in Pine Falls likes you.”
Apparently, Roderick wasn’t done.
My final swallow of pie is harder to get down as emotion clogs my throat. Rising from my seat, I grab a glass from the cabinet and fill it with water, using the drink to help dislodge the pie.
“My sister, Tanya, thinks you’re great,” he adds. “You might get her to go to the library.”
Fucking hell, now I’m blushing.
“And you might not believe me, but your pie was delicious.”
My pie was delicious? How can he say that after what I just ate?
An image of Roderick arises in my mind. He’s in a kitchen, rolling out dough, cutting the pastry, coating his hands in flour, braiding a lattice.
My gut gets all tight, and the space between my legs starts to tingle at the mental image.
Oh gods, am I seriously lusting after another werewolf?
Even when Roderick was grumpy and distrusting, I still had to admit—silently, to myself—that he was a good-looking guy. But it’s easy enough to ignore a stunning face and body when the brain behind it is annoying and judgmental.
But now he’s being nice. No, worse than that.
He’s being kind.
And kindness is way too attractive on Roderick Jameson.
“Thad appreciates your friendship. Your sign language is very good—”
“Stop it!” The words are too loud for my tiny kitchen, and I watch his eyebrows rise in response to my shout.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I carefully place my glass in the sink, using the task to avoid Roderick’s stare while I try to get my horny thoughts under control. “Just … can we go back to being mean to each other?”
Hell, that’s not what I meant to say, but the plea arose from a corner of my brain desperate to keep myself safe.
There’s a long pause before Roderick breaks it.
“Why?” Confusion twists through the word.
And why wouldn’t it? I’m all over the place. My mind going in so many different directions that I can’t seem to get a grasp on my mouth.
“I thought us getting along would be better. That we could be friends. But the second you stop making me mad, I start actually looking at you,” I blurt, then cringe at the raw honesty.
His brows tilt, and he glances down at himself. Like the wolf doesn’t know he’s sex in a worn pair of jeans.
“Come on, Roderick,” I huff, exasperated at his play of obliviousness. “You’re hot. Which I can ignore when you’re a prick. But not when you’re bringing me pies, and apologizing, and complimenting me. I don’t want to see you like that. I don’t want to think about you baking things shirtless.”
His gaze flies back up to mine, and I do my best not to read anything on his face.
“I don’t bake shirtless.”
“Well, that’s good—”
“I wear an apron.”
“Worse!” I groan.
“That’s worse?”
“Only because it’s so much better.” I know I sound like a whiny mess, but he’s the one who came to my house at the end of a long workday, carrying decadent baked goods.
And now I’m imagining him wearing an apron.
And only an apron. “Can you please”—I clasp my hands in front of me—“say something rude to me?”
Roderick watches me for a moment before answering, “No.”
I growl, “Work with me! I mean, come on. You don’t actually like me, right? You don’t want me drooling over you just because you’ve decided to start being pleasant?” Meeting his stare, I try to make him understand. “A kind you is too tempting.”
My frustration at having to admit I’m attracted to Roderick makes me slow to realize how rigid he’s gone. A frozen wolf in my kitchen. But at my last words, a shiver travels over his body.
And meaning to or not, Roderick does one of the best things to obliterate my libido.
His eyes turn black.
Nothing in my brain makes a choice. Pure instinct takes over. I lurch back toward the sink as my frantic fingers fumble, then lock around my baseball bat. Holding the weapon up, I keep the beast in my kitchen at a distance.
The thing across from me is all too familiar.
Black-eyed monster.