Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Timber
Shit. I don’t know how to explain this.
Might as well fess up to everything.
“Please sit down and let me tend your wounds. Let me make you breakfast. And I’ll explain everything.”
“I don’t eat breakfast.”
“I’ll make you a smoothie. You need something to help your body recover from all that running you did last night.”
Her pretty brow furrows. “If you put kale in it, or it’s green in any way, I’m calling the police.”
“Ah, the police are probably looking for me already. And I promise to make it delicious. And not green.”
She hesitates, then to my delight and surprise, Cherry finally, grudgingly agrees and takes a seat in the cozy bedroom chair angled in front of the fireplace.
I go to her and gingerly prop her wounded feet on the footrest and kneel down in front of her.
I explain everything as I carefully unwrap her bandages, clean the wounds, apply ointment and rewrap everything.
“I first saw you the day you started working at the candle shop. I saw you walking down the street with a tray of coffee for everyone, and I knew right away you were a nice person. You stopped to pet a stray dog in the road, even though your hands were full. You were five minutes late to work because you reunited the dog with its owner, who had lost him when he left him tied up outside the bike shop.”
“I remember that,” she says with a slight smile.
“I waited for a while, then followed you to work. Not because I’m a weirdo, but because I had an instinct about you. I felt drawn to you in the magical sense.”
“You might actually be a bit of a weirdo,” she teases.
I laugh. “Maybe.”
Her proud smile at making me laugh warms my heart.
I continue, “I went into the candle shop, and though I don’t have much use for candles, I bought one. My lungs are pretty sensitive to essential oils and fragrance, so…”
“So you bought unscented. That explains all of this. Are these all from my store?” Cherry asks.
I nod.
“You could have just said hello,” she teases.
She has a softer look in her eye now, which might have something to do with the fact that I’m carefully massaging the parts of her shins that aren’t wounded.
“After your Friday shifts at the candle shop, you head straight to the Chinese restaurant and pick up fried noodles and egg rolls, then you go home to your little cottage at 934 South Fifth Street, where you lock your doors and draw the blinds. Not a lot of humans lock their doors here, but it’s a habit you continued from growing up in New York City. ”
Her eyes grow larger the longer I talk. “On Saturdays, you hike through the woods to visit your grandmother, Morgan, up on Colony Hill. You frequently spend all day up there, sometimes spending the night and not coming home until Sunday afternoon, your arms loaded down with fresh spell supplies and baked goods.”
After a long pause, I expect her to run right out the door. I can feel her blood pressure elevating in fear. “I should have a restraining order against you, but you haven’t actually done anything illegal.”
I give a slight grin. “Yet.”
“Oh goddess. Why am I not running and screaming yet? Why don’t these protection spells work?”
“If you want to go, you can go. But there’s more.”
“Really? What now?”
“Your dad is Oscar, the son of Morgan and Adam. Oscar moved to New York to get away from all the talk about witchcraft. He hated everything about it. Oscar endeavored to live his life and raise his family as a typical human. You, Cherry, were shielded from all of that. Until it became impossible to ignore. You had questions about your upbringing, your ancestry. You started making drinks explode at the bar you worked at, simply by letting your emotions get out of control. The truth came out, and at the age of 28, you moved to Birchdale to understand who you are. You rent the cottage in town rather than live with your grandmother up in the witches’ village in the woods because it’s still all too overwhelming for you. ”
She blinks at me for a long moment as my fingers run over her sore feet.
“How do you know all of that? And don’t say magic.”
I smile. “Some of it is because I work in genealogy online. I have access to outrageous amounts of documents. The rest of it comes from reading your emotions and your pheromone secretions. Some of it’s extrapolation, and some of it, well, your scent has a history.”
“My scent … has a history? Make it make sense.”
“Feelings come out in your pheromones. Ever since I became a werewolf, I can smell people’s aura. And if I concentrate enough, I can pick up on things. Past trauma. Daily habits. Diet. Triggers. And, of course, arousal.”
Cherry blows out a breath. “Arousal. Obviously.”
I smirk. “Still not illegal.”
“You are a walking red flag.”
“I’m also a scurrying, bounding, clambering, skulking red flag.”
“Who makes excellent breakfast smoothies,” she adds, swirling the straw.
My gaze lands on her mouth as she takes a drink.
Cherry finishes the smoothie, and I take the glass, disposing of it in the sink.
When I return from the kitchen, she’s fixing her hair in the bathroom mirror.
“You should be resting those feet, Cherry.”
She rolls her eyes. “Next question: how come I’m not running away? Like, why am I not scared of you?”
“Well, you’re injured, for one thing.”
“That’s not what I mean, Timber.” She steps toward me as I linger in the doorway of the bathroom.
Cherry’s hands rest on my forearms. “Why didn’t you just introduce yourself? Why didn’t you just try to talk to me?”
“Because I needed to be sure.”
“Be sure of what?”
Cherry isn’t ready to hear about how the wolf DNA in me is programmed me to fixate on one mate for the rest of my life, and she is it for me.
“That I had a shot with you.”
“Wise consideration, since I’m very picky. And hence, still a virgin. Oh goddess, why did I just admit that?”
“A virgin?”
“Please don’t judge.”
“Never. Why would that be a problem?”
Oh, but it’s a huge problem. There’s no way I can let this get any further. Not yet. Cherry’s not ready for what I am. Especially not for the type of mating a werewolf does. What a werewolf must do.
She bites her glossy bottom lip, juicy and full. The sight of it threatens to undo my restraint. My fingers dig into the bathroom door frame.
“I don’t know. But I’ve gotten a lot of shit for it from guys I’ve dated.”
“Well, anyone giving you shit for any reason doesn’t deserve to be with you,” I say.
Cherry quirks her lips. “That’s a bit extreme. Surely I deserve some shit for some things.”
“Doubt it.”
“You’re cute,” she laughs, and the sound is so perfectly tempting I worry I might rip the trim off the doorjamb.
“But for starters, my witch grandmother will give me plenty of shit when she finds out my protection spell misfired and I somehow ended up enthralled by a love spell.”
I’m confused. “Why do you say that?”
Cherry comes closer. My hands relax on the doorjamb.
“How else do I explain why my virgin ass wants to tear you apart right now?” she says, low and breathy and so full of need that my cock jerks.
“Cherry…”
Her perfect brow lifts as she tilts her face toward mine. “Timber?”
It’s all over when she murmurs my name.
I lean in and fit her soft lips against mine.
Cherry’s mouth is too sweet, too soft, and the kiss is too quick.
She pulls back with a surprised look on her face. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are full of questions.
“Was the kiss that bad?” I ask.
She wets her lips and shakes her head. “No. I just don’t know what came over me.” She looks down at her feet. “Darn. I really screwed up that protection spell.”
I dare to gently comb my fingers through her hair, brushing the locks that have gone all different directions while she fitfully slept. She’s got bedhead, and though I find it adorable, I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate being seen in public as is.
“What makes you say that?”
Cherry looks back up at me and shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I should be freaking out more after learning that werewolves are real. And that you, Timber Hawkins, have been stalking me.”
I bite back the words that sit on the tip of my tongue.
Instead, I offer another truth. “Maybe you have a secret crush on me.”
This makes her laugh, and she pushes against my bare chest. “Cocky much?”
I’m too aroused by her touching me to answer that. I let out a low growl and lean in, nuzzling her neck. My favorite spot, where her scent is the strongest.
She sighs, and in response, my hands go to her hips and draw her closer. Her eyes and fingers roam over my chest and up over my shoulders.
“Cherry,” I murmur. She lifts her gaze to meet mine, forcing her face to tilt up. I lean in and take her bottom lip between my teeth. Just a little nip.
Her mouth opens to me, and I slip my tongue in, tasting her warmth.
Cherry presses her body against mine as we deepen the kiss together. There’s no way she’s missing the erection through the thin layers that separate us.
The need to mate with her is constant, and the closeness now is amplifying that need by a thousand.
My cock twitches, and abruptly, she pulls back from the kiss. Not finished with her yet, I trail kisses down her throat, over the smooth skin at her shoulder.
“I must have terrible morning breath.”
I smile as I lick and nip and kiss. “You want me to stop kissing you?” I ask.
She lets out a small, frustrated moan. “No.”
“Good.”
My mouth follows the trail of her neckline, down to her breastbone. The soft material of her dress would be so easy to rend, giving me everything I want. I want to see her naked. I want her under me. But I need to give her time to adjust. She needs to be sure she wants this as much as I do.
Because once I mate with her, we mate for life. That’s it for me. And that can be a lot to handle for someone just learning about werewolves.