“Yeah. Me, too.”
“Then I guess it’s about time you got that pretty little ass of yours over there, huh?”
“I haven’t been avoiding her, Fogle. I’ve been working on my dissertation. And she understands that.” They were all like a bunch of old women. Chastising her. She could practically see them shaking their collective paw at her.
“I didn’t think you were avoiding Sara—maybe that other fella, though.”
“Who? Zach?” She snorted. “I’d rip his balls off and wear them as a necklace.”
“Nah, not him. The other one. That big fella. Conall, I think his name is.”
“Oh give me a fuckin’ break.”
“Uh-huh.” Eddie looked back at her with those wolf eyes that reflected light just like a dog’s. “Did you know you moan Conall’s name in your sleep?”
The man couldn’t have startled her more if he’d punched her in the stomach.
She didn’t have an answer, so she stepped back into her house and slammed the door. It didn’t help she could hear his laughter through the thick wood.
She put her free hand to her face to rub her eyes in exasperation, but she smelled her scent on her fingers again. Dammit. Masturbating in her sleep again. Masturbating to Conall.
Well, this is spiraling out of control.
Conall Víga-Feilan, direct descendent of the Viking Overlord Sven Víga-Feilan and the Víga-Feilan Pack, dropped face down onto his bed. He was still wet from his third cold shower of the night. Well, this is spiraling out of control. How could one woman completely dominate his thoughts for six freakin’ months? He hadn’t masturbated this much since junior high.
But, Miki wasn’t just some woman. She was the meanest woman he knew. And her meanness talked to him on a level he’d never experienced before. She brought out the wolf in him, which he’d learned to control a long time ago. But just thinking about her made his cock hard and his canines grow.
His whole life he’d had to accept the fact he wasn’t like the other Víga-Feilans. His father had been too nice. Loved his Irish female too much. His uncle and grandfather had made his father’s life a living hell while he lived with the Víga-Feilan Pack. It wasn’t until he met Bruce Morrighan that everything changed. Bruce introduced Conall's father to the Magnus Pack. They had a lot of members and they were always looking for new ones. Jarl Víga-Feilan took his wife and newborn son and left the Víga-Feilan Pack for good. Since then, the Pack had been trying their best to get Conall to return to the fold. To become one of them. His cousin, Einarr, was especially determined to see him return. But there was no way he’d leave the Pack. Especially not now.
And not because the Pack needed him during this time of war. Or that Pack life really rocked with Zach and Sara in charge. He wasn’t leaving because Sara’s best friend was the woman of his dreams. A mean, sassy Texan with the sweetest smile he’d ever seen on a woman. He loved that smile. Loved to think about what that beautiful mouth could do to him.
Conall growled. Wrong thought. He shouldn’t have gone there. He stood and headed back to his shower when a knock on his door stopped him.
“Yeah?”
Jake stuck his head in. “I smelled something on our property. But it wasn’t Pride.”
Conall frowned. “Are you sure?”
“It was different. But nothing I recognized.”
Conall groaned. That had to be the same damn scent from the night of the rave. The scent he couldn’t remember for the life of him. The whole thing was making him insane.
“Anybody else up?”
“Jim and Kelly.”
“Get ‘em. Bring ‘em out with you. Kill anything that isn’t one of us.”
“You got it.”
“And Jake? Don’t hit on Kelly. She’ll crush your windpipe and suck the marrow from your bones.”
Jake looked so disappointed Conall almost felt bad for him. But not really.
Once Jake was gone, Conall stood in the middle of his bedroom wondering why he was standing in the middle of his bedroom. Then he remembered Miki. Well, Miki and oral sex. With a sigh, he started off again to the bathroom.
Zach was going to kill him when the water bill came.
Chapter Two
“So is Conall picking you up at the airport?”
Miki’s hands balled into fists over her keyboard and her teeth clenched together. How many times were Sara and Angelina going to mention that man? It was bad enough she couldn’t forget him. Bad enough she was jacking off to him in her sleep. The hardest thing she’d ever had to do was walk away from him that night at the rave. But she knew what guys like him could do. Guys with innocent smiles and all the right words. They came into your life, turned it completely upside down, and then left you. Alone, pregnant and bitter. At least that was how it had worked for her mother.
“If you mention that motherfucker one more goddamn time I am going to kick your ass all over this fuckin’ airport.”
Angelina calmly stared at her over her sour apple martini. “Hmm. Those sound like the tense cuss words of a woman that needs to get laid.”
Miki snarled. She seemed to do that a lot around Angelina these days. Mostly because she wouldn’t stop mentioning “Sweet, adorable Conall”.
How anyone could think that man was sweet was beyond her. Not with those eyes of his. Those beautiful blue eyes were anything but innocent. The man was a marauder. A conqueror. And he was looking at Miki like unclaimed territory in ancient China.
“We’re not having this discussion again.”
“Okay. Fine.” Angelina was silent. For about fifteen seconds. “But you do know that a vibrator can’t really be your boyfriend.”
Miki dropped her head into her hands. “I will not discuss Mr. Happy with the likes of you.”
Angelina sighed. “I find the fact that you named your vibrator disturbing on so many levels.”
“Best relationship I’ve ever had.”
Angelina sipped her martini and eyed Miki over her glass. Miki picked up her Shirley Temple and stared back.
“I didn’t know insanity ran in your family, Kendrick.”
“We got it from yours, Santiago.”
Angelina crossed her legs and Miki immediately looked around to watch the men watch Angie. Remarkable. The woman had the ability to distract every man in the room and she never seemed to notice. Or care.
“So, did you talk to Sara today?”
Relieved Angelina decided to back off the Conall discussion and not wanting to hit a beautiful woman in the face with her laptop computer, Miki answered, “Like four times. You’d think I wouldn’t be seeing her in a few hours.”
“I don’t know why you’re going to her house first. Why aren’t you flying straight to Seattle?”
“Sara booked the tickets. She arranged this little stopover. I guess she misses me.”
“Well, you’ll like her place. It’s nice. Just needs a porch.”
Angelina had already been to Sara’s new home in Northern California. Miki hadn’t gone, instead opting to stay in Texas and plow through her thesis rewrites. She knew Sara understood, but she also knew Sara had been hurt. She missed her two friends, almost as much as they missed her.
“Whatever. At least I’ll have a place to relax before I head up to Seattle. I’m already so stressed about all this shit. I keep rereading my notes and analyzing my thesis.”
“And writing lists.” Angelina gave her a warm smile. “Don’t worry, Mik. You’re going to be great.”
“And what if I blow it, Angie?”
“What if you do? So? The world won’t end.”
Close enough. She had her whole future riding on this. Angie would never understand. Everything always came so easy to her. And Sara, being the canine that she was, never really asked for much. Miki, however, was being left behind and she knew it.
But not anymore. An assistant professor position at the university was hers once her dissertation was completed. She simply had to make sure she didn’t blo
w it. The fact they wanted her at all still amazed her. She and her Seattle friends were infamous. Not only in the university where she got her undergrad and graduate degrees. But in schools across the country. From the time she dumped her clothes on the dorm room floor her freshman year, she’d been up to all sorts of hijinks and shenanigans.
Surprising to many, Miki only got busted once. In high school. The judge could have sent her off to juvenile detention or even tried her as an adult, but her mother had died the year before and the entire town turned out to make a plea on her behalf. Sara had even shown up using crutches. She’d never used crutches before in all the years Miki had known her up to that point. But there she stood in front of the judge, making a tearful plea for Miki while leaning on her pitiful crutches. It was quite the display and Miki would have laughed her ass off if she hadn’t been scared to death she was going to prison.
In the end, she got one year of house arrest and three years of no computer or phone use. You would think that would have been enough to get her to keep the hijinks to a minimum once she got to college. Yet when you’re eighteen, you always think you’re untouchable. And for some unknown reason, she had been. The Feds couldn’t find anything to nail her with and they’d tried. Then Miki disappeared. Okay, not really. She just went home. She had only begun working on her graduate degree when her grandmother became ill. At twenty-one she had no idea what the hell she wanted to do with the rest of her life anyway and could easily finish her degree long distance. She thought a year home would help.
But it was eight years and two master’s degrees later and Miki was still trying to figure out what the hell she was going to do with her life.
“Trust me,” Angelina insisted. “You’ll be fine.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Angelina grinned. “You know a massage would really help you relax.”
Miki liked the sound of that. Maybe she had a few extra bucks in her tragically poor bank account to hit one of those fancy spas up near Sara.
“And dirty, filthy monkey sex with a hot guy like Conall is good, too.”
Miki slammed her drink down on the table. “All right, let’s analyze this, shall we?”
Angelina’s head fell back. “Oh, God. Not the analyzin’.”
“Let’s say I go and have hot monkey sex with the Viking.”
Angelina looked at her. “Who?”
“Conall.”
“Okay. You do. You work him out of your system and then it’s over. And then everybody can go about their day and you can learn to fuckin’ relax.”
“Problem is that unlike you and Sara, I have a problem with fucking whatever comes along.”
“Hey! I think I was insulted. Bitch.”
“No, really. I get attached. Emotionally. It’s this flaw I have. So, then I’ll have to see this fucker every holiday I go up there. He and his wolf buddies will nudge each other and give me that ‘I had her’ look, while I’m forced to pretend that I’m okay.”
“You have analyzed this.”
“That’s what I do, Angelina.”
“Fine. You wanna live life alone and bitter, be my guest.”
“Trust me. Fucking the Viking isn’t going to change the living alone and bitter thing one bit.”
“Whatever.”
Miki heard them announce final boarding for her flight and the relief nearly floored her. Hopefully by the time Angelina arrived in Northern California, she’d have found a new topic. Miki really would hate to have to kill such a close friend.
“Come on, sassy girl. Let’s get your ass on a plane.” Angelina finished off her drink.
Miki slipped her computer into her bag and stood up.
Angelina did the same and slammed into a businessman trying to step around their table.
“Sorry, darlin’.” Miki felt that voice. She looked up and continued to look up at what her grandmother would have termed “a tall drink of water”. Once her head was firmly all the way back, she finally saw his face. He was breathtakingly handsome. Dark, dark hair with hints of red and a few streaks of white, but was definitely their age, maybe a year or two older. Gold eyes with green flecks, the lids slightly slanted. And a sexy smile. Basically, trouble with a penis. But he was well groomed. Clearly wealthy if his ten-thousand-dollar titanium watch and alligator-skin briefcase were any indication. And, not surprisingly, he was interested in Angelina. What was surprising was the two men with him. They looked exactly like him. All brothers apparently. Which meant that somewhere out there a couple existed who created these three gorgeous specimens. Amazing.
“You all right, sugar?” Didn’t help that sexy voice was Southern. Miki would place him around the Carolinas or Alabama. Georgia maybe. Wherever he hailed from, guys with Southern accents did things to her and her two friends that any other accent simply couldn’t touch.
Angelina stared. “Uh…”
Miki’s eyes widened. Never, ever, in the twenty years she’d known her, had Angelina been at a loss for words over a man. Any man.
Miki slung the bag over her shoulder. “Sorry about that. We need to get to my plane.”
“No problem. Y’all can slam in to me any time.”
He may have said “y’all” but he clearly meant only Angelina. Who still hadn’t quite found her voice yet. They called Miki’s plane again. She had to go or she’d miss her flight and never hear the end of it from Sara.
She couldn’t leave Angelina, though. Not with this one. Definitely not with all three.
“Hey, Ang. We need to go.” She grabbed her friend’s arm and tugged. When that didn’t seem to work, she yanked.
Angelina snapped out of her stupor. “Uh…oh, yeah. Yeah. We better get moving.” She glanced at Southern Charm. “Sorry.”
“Not at all.” Then he and his tailor-made suit walked off. Miki knew it was tailormade because they simply didn’t make suits in that size for off-the-rack. His two brothers, with a leer at Miki, followed.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.” Angelina shook her head. “Yeah. I’m fine, dude.”
“I couldn’t leave you with him, ya know.”
“You think every tall guy is either Pride or Pack.”
“I don’t know what he is. But Sara and her Pack have pissed off some major players.”
“And yet you’re trotting off to Seattle by yourself.”
“First off, I don’t trot. Second, I can take care of myself. Always have. Always will. I don’t need babysitters. Besides I’m not the one in danger of becoming the love slave of some shapeshifter.”
Angelina finally snapped back completely. “You’re kidding, right? With Lassie on your tail?”
“Shut up.”
Conall checked his watch. Again. Soon his personal wet fantasy would be here. He wondered if it would be inappropriate to tackle her in the hallway as soon as she arrived and drag her up to his bedroom. Probably. Damn human etiquette.
He heard the glass doors leading to the back of the house slide open, and then he heard Zach. “Either you control that mutt or I’ll have him go play fetch on the freeway. Your choice, woman.” He slammed the door shut.
Zach walked over to Conall and, with a heavy sigh, sat down on the bench beside him.
Conall wasn’t buying it for a second. “Don’t even try and pretend like she annoys you.”
“She’s making my life a living hell.”
“She’s the best thing to ever happen to this Pack. And God knows, she’s the best thing to ever happen to you.”
“Yeah, I know.” Sara Morrighan had only been Zach’s mate and the Pack’s Alpha Female for six months, but it had been the best six months the Pack had known for years. She wasn’t normal. Even by wolf standards. But her odd view of everything was infectious. The females worshipped her and feared her in equal amounts while the males knew not to push her patience. Still, they appreciated that she took the jagged edges off Zach. He was still a ball buster, but a much friendlier one. She’d even gotten the respect of the older w
olves who didn’t live in the main house, which was usually damn near impossible.
Conall checked his watch and Zach chuckled.
“How long before she gets here?”
“Two hours. Six minutes. And thirty-four seconds.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re not all wound up about it.”
Oh, I’m wound all right. Tight. He never stopped thinking about her. Wanting her. He was dying to know exactly what kinds of things got her off. Sucking her nipples? Licking her clit? Or something more simple? His hands in her hair? His tongue in her ear?
Zach had thrown every available female from the club scene at him. He wanted Conall to lose interest in what he termed “Sara’s big-mouthed friend,” but none of the women held his interest. Conall only wanted Miki. And he couldn’t wait until he had her tight little butt naked and on his lap.
“She’ll come around,” he stated with as much conviction as possible.
“She’s human, Conall. You should go for a nice wolf girl.”
Conall looked over at his best friend and the Alpha Male of the Magnus Pack. Bite marks and bruises riddled the man’s body. And Conall knew from when they shifted after hunting that claw marks covered the man’s back. It was true, Sara rocked Zach’s world. But she also chewed the shit out of him while doing it. Conall would rather have sex that didn’t involve bloodletting. At least not as much. “I’m not looking for marriage here, Zach. I just want to fuck her until one of us dies.”
“Well…that’s a goal. But if you ask me she’s rude. Loud. Short.”
“She’s direct. Confident. Petite.”
“Man, do you have it bad.”
Conall didn’t bother denying it because they both knew it was true.
“By the way.” He decided to change the subject since talking about Miki only made him hard. “We had some visitors on our property last night.”
He could feel Zach tense next to him. His only objective was to protect his mate. Zach would destroy anyone who threatened her.