Chapter Five
When Nory had gone back to check on Alese last night, Liam’s truck had been gone.
He was probably meeting with that pretty woman.
Why did that bother her so much? She didn’t stand an icicle’s chance in hell with a man like Liam, and besides, they weren’t even the same species. Right? Were werewolves a different species than humans? She needed to Google that.
How had he landed here? It was well-known that there were established territories where Werewolves were allowed to live, to keep the human population as safe as possible, so what was Liam doing here?
She was so curious about him. Hell, she’d spent half the night thinking about him.
Alese had crashed on her couch, because she’d had about four too many drinks last night, and had just left.
Alese made as much noise as an elephant tramping through the forest when she got ready in the mornings, so Nory hadn’t had a chance of sleeping in this morning.
Pity. She loved sleeping in on her days off.
She sat there in her sleep shirt she’d bought from a merch table at the last concert she’d gone to with Alese. Her hair was a mess that hung down her shoulders in snarls, but that was okay. She had zero plans today.
A loud knock sounded on her door, and she yelped and jumped a foot off the ground.
Fear trilled through her, and she padded slowly to the door to look out the peephole.
What she found there made no sense to her half-asleep mind.
Liam was standing far back, his hands on his hips, a glare trained toward the parking lot below. He’d already returned the food containers. She’d found them by the door when she’d waved Alese off this morning.
So…why was he here?
Panicking, she stepped back from the door and tried to pat her tangled hair into place.
Her efforts were futile, as her hair had decided to take on the shape of a bird’s nest sometime in her night of thinking about the hottest man in the world who was standing on her porch looking like a super model in the early morning light. She squinted at the peephole again.
“I can hear you in there,” he said, dragging bright blue glowing eyes to the peephole.
Nory flinched away from the door, and barely resisted the urge to yelp again, lest mister supersonic dog hearing think she was lamer than he already thought.
She blew out three quick breaths and pulled the door open. “Hey, hello, hi.”
His hands stayed hooked on his hips as he sighed. He looked down at her doormat pointedly, then back up at her.
On the ground lay an empty coffee cup. She recognized the logo from the coffee shop down the street. The plastic lid was halfway from here to the next door.
Confused, she said, “Someone spilled a coffee.”
“That was me,” he gritted out, lifting a hand and owning it. “I don’t know why I’m here.” He made that growling sound and did an about face and headed to the stairs.
Nory peeked her head out and watched him jog down the first few and then turn around and climb back up. “I need something to clean up the mess. Please.”
“You…” She frowned. “You brought me a coffee?”
“Yeah, and then I realized I’ve lost my damn mind, and I tried to walk away, but the wolf decided I needed to set the coffee beside the door so you could wake up to a treat, and then I got pissed off because I am the boss of me.
I am the boss,” he repeated, eyes blazing.
“So…” He gestured to the empty plastic cup.
“So, you knocked it over?”
“I kicked it over.”
“Because you are the boss.”
“Don’t say it like that. It sounds weird when you say it.”
She knelt down and picked up the cup, read the label. “Um, how did you know what kind of coffee I like?”
“There’s a coffee shop in walking distance, and I don’t know. It seemed like something you would like doing, so I asked the lady at the register if she knew of you.”
“You…you described me to her?”
“No. I told her your name. I figured she would recognize it if she’s made you coffee before. That thing has like a gallon of sugar in it, by the way. I don’t even think that’s healthy for you. You’re not wearing a bra, are you?”
With a gasp, she looked down at herself, and she surely wasn’t. Nory stood in a rush and dropped the cup, then crossed her arms over her chest. “Sorry. It’s cold and I…get…” Don’t say it, don’t say it! “Nipply.”
His blazing blue eyes were trained right on her forearms. Liam forced his gaze to the ground and said, “I just need some paper towels, and I can go.”
“Go to work?”
“No, Nory, now I have to go get you another damn coffee because every time I think about leaving you without your morning coffee, my skin tingles with an urge to Change, and I’m pretty sure no one in this complex is ready to deal with that.
So, to keep everyone here safe, I need to go back to the coffee shop now. ”
“You seem mad at me.”
“I’m not.” His voice was too gruff.
“You still seem mad at me,” she said softly. “What did I do wrong?”
He glanced at her, and away. Back to her, and away. The next time his eyes met hers, they were softer. “I’m mad at me. Not you.”
“Oh.” She gave him a sympathetic smile. “I know that feeling. I’m going to put on a bra. Follow me.”
“What?”
“Oh,” she said turning around as something hit her. “Is it like a vampire thing? You may cross the threshold. Come in.”
He hesitated. “It’s not like a vampire that needs to be invited in. You just shouldn’t invite strangers into your house.”
Nory shrugged her arms tighter over her chest as she headed toward her bedroom.
“There are paper towels in the kitchen. When she ghosted a look at the door right before she disappeared into her room, Liam was standing in the open doorway looking around her apartment with a baffled expression on his face.
She bit back a smile.
“I just told you I’m on the verge of a Change, Nory. In the future, if any werewolf says that to you, you get away from them. You don’t invite them inside your den.”
“My den?” she called, rifling through her closet for something cuter than a huge t-shirt to wear. “Is that what you call a home?”
“Yes. Who is this in the picture over your fireplace?”
“That’s my mom, my grandmother, and my great grandmother. And me.”
“Four generations,” he said quieter, and she almost didn’t catch it. “Are you all close?”
“My great grandmother isn’t with us anymore, but yes. They’ve always just understood me, you know? It’s good to have a support system like that.”
“You mean understood the shyness?”
She pursed her lips against a response. He would never know how much she had struggled with it when she was younger. For a few years, she’d had trouble even speaking to other people. He didn’t need to know that though.
She peeled off her shirt and pulled on a grey bra, and then a forest green sweater, and a pair of skinny jeans, and socks with little pine tree patterns on them.
She shoved her feet into her favorite pair of fall boots, zipped them up and then brushed through her hair in the dresser mirror.
A little mascara, a little eyeliner, a little lip gloss and one last look over in the full-length mirror in the corner of her room, and she came back out to find Liam looking at the framed picture of her and her mother that she kept on the coffee table.
He looked up and set it down slowly. His eyes traveled down her body, and then back up, and Nory stood there frozen.
Not because she was afraid, but she’d never had a man look at her in such an intimate way before.
His expression wasn’t hungry, or possessive.
No, it was different than the way Jackson looked at her.
Liam seemed to just appreciate whatever he saw.
But that didn’t make sense. He was Liam, the tall, sexy, perfect werewolf, and she was just… Nory.
“We match,” he rumbled.
She looked at his green T-shirt that was just tight enough to show off his defined chest. Even his jeans were a similar color to her skinny jeans.
“Oh my gosh. We do. Why did I do that?” she asked. “Sorry,” she said, turning back for her room to change.
“No, it’s fine. I don’t mind it. You look…” He cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back. “You look human.”
“Thank you?” she said with a soft laugh.
He nodded once. “I’ll be back in ten.”
“I can go with you,” she blurted out as he moved to leave.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s dangerous.”
“Because you are going to Change into a wolf?”
“No,” he murmured, and there was something deep sparking in his eyes. “Dangerous for me, not you. I won’t hurt you.”
“Oh.” She frowned and wished she knew what that meant. “I wouldn’t hurt you either.”
A smile cracked his face right before he dropped his gaze to the carpet. “You’re cute.” He cleared his throat again. “Human. You’re human.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I’ll be back.”
“Hey Liam,” she said before he could leave.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
He frowned. “For what?”
“For thinking of me. For getting me a coffee.”
“I kicked over your coffee. Don’t thank a man for gifts he destroys.”
“Okay.”
He hesitated, then left, shutting the door after him. Two seconds later, he opened up the door and parted his lips like he wanted to say something, then shut the door again.
Nory pursed her lips against a smile. He’d said she was cute. He was really cute too.
The door opened again. “Put on a jacket. I don’t want you catching fucking pneumonia.
” There was grit to his voice, but she wasn’t afraid of him.
He might be rough around the edges, but that didn’t negate the fact that he woke up thinking about her and had tried to surprise her with a coffee treat.
He might have sabotaged it like a champ, but she did appreciate the thought.