More Wicked Alphas, Wilder Nights: Sizzling Collection of Paranormal Romance (Wicked Alphas, Wild Nights Book 5) (2 page)

Anticipation. Hope. Even arousal because, for the past few nights, her mystery man had been stopping by to chase away her loneliness and fear. To stay the night. Would he come again?

Cicadas chirped, and a tumbleweed hurried through the dim cone cast by the single streetlight. Her dusty VW was out by the curb with its out-of-place Pennsylvania plates. She’d parked it crookedly in her dash from the comforting confines of the vehicle to the relative safety of the house. The
deceptive
 safety, because the thin walls and flimsy door of her rental bungalow wouldn’t hold a determined intruder back—like the one who’d occupied her nightmares ever since she fled the East Coast.

Somehow, though, she’d stumbled into a quiet oasis of safety here in Arizona. Better yet, she’d stumbled into the arms of a man who exuded safety and warmth. Would he visit again tonight? Would he chase away the awful memories and replace them with beautiful dreams instead?

She closed her eyes and imagined his soft knock at the door. His sunny smile, his lively eyes. Imagined a lot of things she shouldn’t allow herself to, like his gentle caress and the warm bulk of him slumbering beside her. She was a woman on the run, damn it! She’d have to leave soon, before the beast that hunted her caught up with her. Out of this bubble of safety and back into sheer survival mode.

She pinched her lips together. There was no way something this good could last. But hell, she’d allow herself to enjoy it for just a few more nights.

She peeked again, because she couldn’t resist. God, it was good to feel something other than fear. To feel a little normalcy again. Which was crazy, because there was nothing normal about the pull she felt toward Cody Hawthorne or the inexplicable feeling that this ridiculously remote place in the desert Southwest could be called home. And she didn’t mean this bungalow or this scrappy town. The place that felt like home was forty-five minutes away, where she worked. Twin Moon Ranch. The quietest, most unlikely place. A magical place she wished she could call home.

Never mind that here in town, rumors about the ranch and its inhabitants flew. Twin Moon Ranch harbored some kind of cult, people said. The way the ranch folk sequestered themselves, the way they kept outsiders at arm’s length. A cult, for sure. But Heather had been teaching at the ranch’s one-room schoolhouse for three weeks now, and she’d seen no sign of that. Just hard-working, honest folk with endearingly old-fashioned values of community. What was so wrong about that?

Still, there was an undercurrent of differentness there. She wasn’t sure what, only that there was nothing evil about it. She knew; she’d tasted evil back in Pennsylvania, and this was totally different. Her heart told her as much.

Of course, the question was, could a woman as messed up as she was really trust her heart?

A scrape over the roof startled her into looking up. Damn bats, hanging around the house again. Then a blue pickup hummed quietly up the deserted lane, and her heart skipped a few beats in a good way. She turned away in a hurry to tidy up. As if there were a lot of tidying to do in her two-room place. But she’d left school papers all over the table and her dinner plate in the sink. Cody never came early enough for dinner; that much of a pattern, she’d figured out. He was busy with some project that required long hours away—too long for her to wait at the old adobe schoolhouse for his return, because she wasn’t allowed on the ranch after dark. The dirt road was too dangerous, they said, so she always cleared out right after school. But he had come to her place in town every night for the past four, and that was enough, even if it seemed as if a lifetime with him wouldn’t be enough.

She jumped into speed-demon mode, scrubbing the empty chili pot, rinsing off her plate. Feeling hopelessly domestic, like a bird desperate to present a perfect nest to its prospective mate.

A knock sounded quietly on the door, then another, then another. Three little taps, just the way she tapped her fingers on his back when they parted. Did Cody know it was code for the words she didn’t dare speak?

I love you.

Tap, tap, tap.

If her first step toward the door was measured, the second turned into a leap, and the third was a bound. She flung the door open so quickly—ripped it open, practically—that the strand of garlic she kept nailed there swung back and forth. And there he stood: the world’s most perfect man, grinning at her over the threshold, totally unperturbed.

“Hiya, Heather.”

Cody’s voice was smooth as honey. His clear blue eyes were honest and warm. His short blond hair mimicked golden fall sunlight, and the bulk of him—not too big, not too small—called to her like a warm bed on a cold and lonely night.

“Hi,” she managed.

All she could do for a second was stand and breathe and look. And even Cody—cool, collected Cody—seemed momentarily lost in time. He gulped and the gold-edged blue of his eyes flashed.

“Brought you some strawberries,” he murmured.

He held up a pint, but all she could do was stare at his lips.

“Some wine, too.” He said it shyly, like she might hit him over the head with it instead of fast-forwarding to an image of the two of them clinking glasses. Naked. In bed.

The man was a magician that way. All it took was a pint of juicy berries and a chilled bottle, and her mouth was watering for more than just the first bite.

“Perfect,” she whispered, stepping back to invite him in.

He was the only man who could come that close without spooking her since the attack a month ago. The attack she didn’t dare tell him about, because who would believe her crazy story about a bloodsucking man with fangs? A vamp—

“You good?” His eyes held hers the way his arms had held her a few nights ago, when she’d woken from the nightmare.

Caring. Concerned. Outraged. Only Cody could combine all those things the way he combined gentleness and sheer power.

“Good.” She nodded. With him around, how could she be any other way?

The second she rested her hands on his shoulders and reached up for a kiss, a little zing raced through her body. And when their lips met, a pinball machine lit up inside her as the zing ricocheted around inside. It bounced off her heart, all around her veins, down to her wiggling toes, then up again. Either the man was a champion kisser or they were made for each other.

We’re made for each other,
 his eyes assured her when he slowly pulled back.

“Did the schoolkids behave themselves today?” he asked.

“Fine,” she murmured, even though she couldn’t property recall anything just then. “How about your day?”

His eyes clouded a little. His shoulders stiffened, but he pulled a mask over it all and beamed. “Fine. Just fine.”

A lie, but one she was willing to let slip. Their nights together seemed as much of an escape from reality for him as they were for her, and they both needed to pretend a little bit.

“Missed you,” she whispered. A from-the-heart slip she didn’t have to energy to cover up. All the running she’d done lately—the worrying, the recurring nightmare—had sucked it all out of her.

He gathered her close and kissed her ear. “Every minute without you is a minute too long.”

She melted into his embrace. Melted into the next slow kiss, too—the kind with a thousand beautiful words packed into tiny movements of the lips. Words like,
I missed you. I want you.
 Maybe even,
I need you.

Which was crazy, because why would a cowboy like him need a city girl like her? He had a dozen fawning groupies. A smile that could melt the sun’s heart. A warrior’s honed body that would frighten any enemy away. If he had enemies, which she doubted. Twin Moon Ranch was full of strong, self-assured men and women who seemed to live by their own rules and at their own pace. It was as if the real world screeched to a stop at the ranch gate and let the inhabitants live in peace.

And there it was again, that pang in her heart. The wish for a home like his. A home
with
 him…

He combed her long blond hair with his fingers, making her feel beautiful instead of a near-wreck. Up around the nape of her neck, around her ears. He ran his fingers to the ends of the last wispy strands, then started all over again.

“So beautiful,” he whispered, making her smile behind the kiss.

He scooped her hair back while her hands ran their own reconnaissance mission of the hard body that had held her close over the past few nights. He seemed constructed entirely of muscle, with one layer stacked over another in crisscrossing, interlocking planes.

So beautiful
, she could have echoed if her lips weren’t so busy with his.

“Can you put this up?” he asked, gently pulling back from the kiss.

Her hair? Was it in the way? “Why?”

He grinned that mischievous, Huck Finn grin. “So I can take it down again.”

She laughed out loud, pulled a leather hair clip off a nearby shelf, and slowly gathered her hair up into a bun. The way Cody watched, she might have been treating him to a strip tease.

“You do the pin,” she murmured, holding it out to him.

He took it carefully and worked it slowly, gently into place.

“How’s that?” His voice was a whisper, as if speaking any louder might shatter the quiet moment.

“A little loose, maybe—” she threw in a quick smile “—but good for your first time.”

“First time.” He nodded. “I like the idea of a second time…”

She wound her arms behind his neck and kissed him again.

“…a third time…” he mumbled.

Lots more times.
 The words ghosted through her mind like he’d sent them there, and her lips curled even as they kissed. Now she was imagining his voice in her mind. What else might he say?

Mine,
 came a whisper that matched his tightening grip.
Mate…

She opened her eyes in surprise and caught sight of the patio curtain, dancing in the air. There she was, imagining his voice when it was only silk swishing over silk in the gentle night breeze.

He cocked his head in a question she didn’t dare read into.

“Want some strawberries?” he asked.

Now it was her turn to cock her head, because she was sure those were not the words that had been on the tip of his tongue.

“Just strawberries?”

He grinned as if proud to see her becoming so bold. She’d been a shadow of herself lately, but being near him brought out the real Heather.

“Just strawberries,” Cody teased back. “You don’t want any?”

“Oh, I want some, all right.”

She fisted her hands in his collar and pulled him closer. It was crazy, how good she felt with him, how fast. How much she trusted him when she knew she couldn’t trust anyone.

He dragged her into a hug, inhaled deeply, and came up satisfied as a pig in mud. “Oh, you want some, all right.”

***

Damn.

Cody studied the forest-green eyes that had mesmerized him from the start. For a moment there, he thought Heather might have heard his inner wolf crying,
Mine! Mate!

I get it!
He wanted to shout the beast into silence.
I get it already!

So what are you doing about it?
the wolf shot back.

Trying desperately to figure some way a shifter like him could win over a human, that’s what he was doing. An absolutely, positively, forbidden human with long, lean legs and champagne hair and a special smile, just for him.

An absolutely, positively perfect woman,
 his wolf growled in agreement. Loud enough that a tiny bit of the growl slipped from his lips.

“What did you say?” Heather murmured, looking at him with those innocent eyes, full of hope and longing. Those emotions were in the forefront, where the green was at its brightest. Behind that, though, crates of fear stood stacked around the dark edges. Fear he’d been able to chase back into the shadows but not entirely dispel. Whoever or whatever had scared her, he wanted to rip piece from piece, the way he wanted to destroy the vampire he’d been tracking down at work. But those were two different things, and neither of them belonged in this perfect part of this perfect night.

Mate
, his wolf purred as he stole another kiss. A kiss he got stuck on and drew out over the next couple of heady breaths.
Mine.

Maybe in daylight, he’d figure out some solution. At the moment, all he could do was scrape his body along hers, rubbing his scent in to mark her as his. He’d do the same when they were naked, but there was a certain achy satisfaction that went with drawing the process out.

Mine…

“Listen,” she mumbled, pulling out of the kiss.

He thought she was on to him then, but she turned to the open patio and smiled.

“Listen…”

He listened as a shrill voice broke the slumbering silence of the night. A second joined it, then a third.

“Coyotes!” Heather’s eyes lit up as she said it, like coyotes were the best possible thing. A good sign, though. She liked big dogs and coyotes, so that meant she might be okay with wolves, right?

He winced a little, following the cackle of the coyote calls. Damn things were so squeaky. Nothing like wolves.

“So beautiful.” Heather sighed.

His wolf gave a sour little
humpf
.

The West Hills pack sounded off, one by one, and Cody tacked mental images onto each familiar voice. A couple of the younger pack members started their nightly call off, and then the scarred old alpha pitched in with his scratchy voice.

“I love listening to them howl at the moon.”

They were just yowling about dinner, but he let that slide. The West Hills coyotes didn’t have a trace of shifter in them, unlike the Echo Creek pack whose territory bordered on Twin Moon Ranch. Totally unlike the Echo Creek pack, in fact, who were much quieter. Prouder, too, in their tight-lipped Navajo way.

“You’ve got this obsession with howling,” he joked.

I’ll make you howl,
 his wolf threw in.

He imagined her tipping her head and teasing him.
Promise?

But she was still dreamy, still listening to the sound. “Such a beautiful song.”