Magic? He didn’t think this was a magic thing. It was a conscious decision he’d made to stop speaking.
His heart pound hard.
Wasn’t it?
His wolf stayed remarkable silent on the subject. He could talk. He knew he could.
He opened his mouth to tell her so and nothing came out. Grabbing his throat, like he could make his vocal cords work, he tried again. Nothing.
Standing up he moved around the room. This was unacceptable. Did his voice box—what?—Atrophy from non-use? He could still make growling noises.
To prove it, he made the noise in the base of his throat. Sure enough, it worked. There, that was evidence. He could talk if he wanted to.
Opening his mouth, he gave it a good try.
Nothing.
He whirled around to stare at Angel. She jumped off the bed, faster than she should have considering her injury, and grabbed him by the arms.
“I know. I get it. I’m not sure how I know, maybe it’s the mating thing, but I’m sure you didn’t know right until this moment you couldn’t speak.” She squeezed his arm muscle with her hand not holding the ice. “I’m going to help you. My wolf is a powerful magic wielder. One way or another, before I leave, I will get you speaking. You have my word on it.”
He nodded as he swallowed hard. He’d like to think the stress forming in his gut was from the very real fact that he physically could not utter a word. But, he had a feeling it was more about the idea that Angel would some day leave.
Even if it was the best thing. For both of them.
Chapter 3
ANGEL sat quietly, chewing on her bottom lip, as she watched Parker make a bed on the floor, presumably for her to sleep on. She could go back to her motel but after having woken up to Julian and Houston wielding a club at her head in that particular location, she preferred not to. Yes, Parker’s floor would work out very well for her.
Besides, it would give her more time to mull over exactly what she was going to do about Parker’s magic problem. She had promised him she could fix it and now she needed to figure out how she was going to do that. Staying close to him might inspire a solution faster than being out on her own. Or, at least she hoped it would.
She’d been told her whole life she was special and not necessarily in a good way. Growing up, the women of the New Orleans pack who had raised her, each taking a turn handling her, had loved to tell her the story of the Kane family and the way their wolf pack had turned on their mated women. She shivered at the thought.
If the stories were to be believed, her six brothers still roamed around their island in Maine looking for more women to butcher. So she certainly couldn’t take Parker there for help. A bunch of raving wolves were not going to be able to work magic on him.
Returning to New Orleans wasn’t an option either. She’d had to flee to get away from Cole and Zack battling for control of the pack. Besides, the women there had never been as powerful as she was. It wasn’t bragging, it was fact. Right or wrong, the heritage she’d received from her lunatic family was an incredible amount of magical strength.
She stood. That meant she was going to have to handle this on her own. She rubbed her eyes trying to stay awake. It might take her a few days to get a handle on this problem but she would figure it out eventually. Then she could leave with a clear conscience knowing that just because she didn’t want to mate ever—no way was she giving someone that much power over her—she’d left the poor guy in better shape than she’d found him.
And if she got to look at the hard line of his chest and the strong muscles in his arms then she would think herself a lucky woman. She smiled at the thought. Her attraction to him amazed her. She’d never had the slightest interest in men before now. Shrugging, she chalked it up to the mating thing. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to want men who weren’t her mate. Of course, in New Orleans there had been lots of male shifters who had wanted her…
She walked closer to him. The outline of his tattooed arms was visible to her. She would really need to be on top of him to see them closely but she thought one of them looked like some kind of bird. Did Parker like animals?
“Thank you. I think I’ll be very comfortable there.”
Smiling, she glanced down at the floor where he’d made the bed before she glanced back up at him. Parker scowled at her and for a second she couldn’t breathe under his harsh gaze.
“What?”
He took her and turned her around so she faced the bedroom. With strong hands clutching her shoulders he moved her forward until she stood in the doorway. Pointing, he nudged into the room he indicated.
Huh?
Her wolf darted around. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do and neither was Angel. Yeah, she needed to get Parker back his voice as soon as possible.
“Do you need something from the bedroom?”
Parker made the one noise he seemed to be able to make—the low growling sound in the back of his throat and turned her around to face the bedroom again.
“Oh!” Realization dawned on her and she rubbed her forehead. “No, I am not sleeping on your bed while you sleep on the floor. I can go back to the motel and bunk there.”
He moved in front of the doorway and crossed his hands over his chest.
“Are you suggesting you aren’t going to let me leave?”
He raised an eyebrow at her question. She shook her head. You could take away the voice but you couldn’t take away the male ego.
“If I want to leave, I’m leaving.”
Parker stormed away from the door into the kitchen. With his back to her, he rinsed off a few of the dishes strewn around in the sink. She sighed. Apparently, he wasn’t going to try to stop her. She scratched her head.
To say this was confusing would be an understatement. She walked next to him staring down into the sink. “You wash all day, I’ll do it.”
He shook his head and pointed at the bedroom again.
“Fine, then I’ll dry.” She took the towel hanging on a hook on the wall. “This one okay?”
He nodded without looking at her.
She couldn’t help the smile that crossed her lips. All right, maybe she was a little sick in the head but she couldn’t help it, she wanted to tease him into a more joking mood. Or, at the very least, she wanted to know if she could.
“Gonna thank me, big guy?” She took the plate from his hand as she dried it with the towel.
He raised his eyebrow in question.
“That’s right, thank me. You don’t have to use words. I’m sure you can come up with something you can do to get your point across.”
He turned off the water and shifted his position to stare at her. For the most part, Parker hadn’t made a lot of eye contact with her and she found the power and force of his gaze to be intimidating. It made her quiver. After a second, she looked down in what she knew was a distinct act of submission.
She shook her head. That hadn’t gone well. If she wanted to spend her life being docile, she could have stayed in New Orleans where it was expected of her. Exhaling a long breath, she pushed at his chest. It was childish and asinine but she wanted to see what he would do.
Maybe it would be more effective if her efforts had made him move in the slightest. Parker was built like a solid wall. It would take a construction vehicle to move him or maybe two strong men. In any case, her attempts at shoving him did nothing more than make him smile.
She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Most of the time Parker seemed severe. Hard lines marred his face and his eyes were intense, almost all seeing in the way they bore into her. But when he smiled. Wow, he lit up the room. He was beautiful, like a mythical Greek god come to life.
Reaching up to touch his mouth, she pressed a tentative finger on his lips. His smile fell but she didn’t move away her hand. Instead, they stayed like that for a few moments.
Wow. Her skin is so soft.
Angel dropped her hand
. “Did you speak?”
“I wish I could speak. I would tell you to get your butt in the bedroom and stop arguing about things I’m not going to relent on.”
“Now, I know I heard that and you didn’t move your lips.” She took a step back as she pointed at him. “I can hear your thoughts.”
Parker’s eyes got huge. “What?”
Yes. She’d heard about this. True mating. What was it? Oh! True mates could speak telepathically. She chewed on her bottom lip. There was only one way to find out.
“Can you hear me when I think my thoughts towards you?”
Silence filled the room and Angel sighed. Apparently, not.
Parker nodded. “I can.”
Putting her hands on her hips, Angel wished she could kick him. “Why did you wait so long to answer me?”
“I was a little shocked. I don’t really understand how this is working. Can you hear all my thoughts?”
She shrugged. “Gods, I hope not. I really don’t want to know what you’re thinking and doing every second of every day while I’m here. Try to limit what you send in my direction.”
“But I didn’t mean to send you anything to begin with. How am I supposed to limit myself?”
This was turning out to be a lot harder than she liked, especially considering she wasn’t planning on making this a permanent arrangement. “Maybe we should just be glad it happened by accident and leave it at that.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Angel turned her back on Parker. Maybe she would take his bed. He was being so surly he didn’t deserve her good will. “I think I liked you better when I couldn’t understand you at all.”
The sound of his laughter resonating in her mind followed her to the bedroom. She closed the door behind her and realized she was scowling. Touching her lips, she couldn’t help the smile that came with that realization. She hadn’t meant to be funny; she’d intended to be rude.
What did it mean he’d found it amusing instead?
Touching her head tentatively, relief filled her senses. The spot where she’d been whacked didn’t hurt anymore. She was lucky. If she’d been a regular human, the blow she’d taken to the head would have sent her straight to the hospital. Instead, it had knocked her out and then given her no trouble at all.
She smiled at her wolf. Thanks for fixing it.
Her wolf didn’t acknowledge her. That was typical. Her canine companion didn’t like gratitude for things she did that fell into some kind of category she called ‘standard care.’ Angel wondered all the time if other people had as much of a prickly relationship with their wolves as she did with her own. It wasn’t like there was anyone she could ask. Half of the female wolves in the New Orleans pack were latent and the other half terrified. No way was she ever approaching a male shifter about it. Nope, she’d just have to never know.
Pulling down Parker’s covers, she caught the scent of his soap wafting off the sheets. Closing her eyes, she let herself breathe him in without him knowing it. Since she’d opened her eyes, it was all she’d been wanting to do. It wasn’t like she could indulge the need. If there was one thing she’d learned about him right off the bat it was he wasn’t all that comfortable with basic contact. He flinched nearly every time she got close.
Well…either that or he found her repulsive. She didn’t think that was the case since the first thought she’d ‘heard’ was about her soft skin. Still, he’d been rather hot and cold on how he found her physically.
Angel blinked to clear the crazy line of thinking that had taken away her reasonable thoughts. This wouldn’t do, not in the least. She was leaving. What difference did it make if Parker Liberty thought she was physically desirable? None. She had a life to start living and she wasn’t going to get tied down in the abuse of mating.
No way. No how.
She lay down in the bed. If she’d thought smelling his scent was intense from above the bed she had no idea how much worse it would laying down in his sheets. It felt like Parker lay with her in the bed, his arms around her as he moved over her, rubbing his aroma all over her own until they couldn’t tell where one of them began and the other one ended. They were no longer separate entities, but one single being.
Forgetting all her inhibitions, she closed her eyes and rolled around in his sheets. She stopped only to take her clothes off her body, wanting nothing between herself and the little bit of Parker she would let herself ingest. Never before had she ever felt so completely in touch with her wolf side.
She inhaled deeply. Scent was a wonderful thing. Humans would never know what it was like to become so completely invested in the small particles that gave meaning to things, which would never exist without her extrasensory perceptions. She loved it.
The door banged open and she gasped yanking the covers over her naked body. Parker stood in the doorway. She breathed hard as she looked at him. What had she been thinking? He was a wolf. He would know how turned on she was from miles away let alone the next room.
But it had been too much, too intense to not lose herself to the moment. She bit down on her bottom lip. How would she explain it to him so he didn’t think she was a freak?
The closer he got to the bed, the less she worried about that. Suddenly, it felt like her throat had closed up and she’d swallowed her tongue. Yet, she was perfectly capable of breathing and might, in fact, start hyperventilating if she wasn’t careful. Parker was huge—her initial impression of a linebacker hadn’t been wrong—and right now his eyes were wolf, pure wolf.
She should be running away, terrified. Male wolf-shifters were nothing if not volatile at best. When they gave into their animal natures, they could be maniacs. And yet…
She was anything but scared. She was hot, like she’d never been hot before. Decisions, she had learned early on in her existence, were only ninety-percent yours to make. Some of it was timing. Some of it was fate, or luck, or divine intervention, whatever your preference of names happened to be.
Ten percent of Angel wanted to give in, wanted to give into her wolf instincts and just be with this man because it was easy and because rolling around in his scent had made her skin tingle in the most delicious ways.
But ninety-percent of this was her and it wouldn’t do to deny it or blame it on the same instincts she had controlled every day of her life.
She sat up on her knees letting the blanket fall down until her breasts were exposed. He hadn’t moved but a growl sounded in his throat as she showed herself.
“We hardly know each other.” She reached out until she touched his chest. “And still I am drawn to you like I have no choice.” She swallowed. “But I do have a choice and so do you. If you want to do this, do it because you want to and not because your wolf is demanding it. We’re more than our animals.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Sometimes I think they’re more than us.”
She smiled. “That too.”
“Angel, I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since I scented you in the restaurant. Knowing you’re in here and you’re turned on,” he sniffed the air to demonstrate how he knew. “I can’t resist it any more than I can resist breathing or thinking.”
She wanted to ask him if he’d seen her down the street and they’d been two regular people who happened to spot each other on some random Saturday would he have pursued her? Instead, she moved forward so he could grab her shoulders in his strong embrace.
She didn’t ask because she had decided. The ninety-percent of her that got to still be in control of her destiny had made her choice. She wanted him and she wasn’t going to let Parker say anything that might change her mind. She could still leave when it was over. They’d go their separate ways. Tonight they’d be together and she’d always know what true-mated sex was like.
Few got to experience it. Who was she to throw away the chance to know what it was like?
“I can feel that you want me too.” He ran his hands down her chest to touch t
he top of her breasts and she closed her eyes to let the shivers making their way around her body take her wherever they wanted her to go.
“Say it aloud. Let me hear your consent.”
She smiled, feeling heat in her cheeks and desire in her mind. “Let’s do this.”
Parker didn’t seem to need any more encouragement. She leaned backwards off her knees and he pushed her back on his bed, staring down at her with heat in his wolf eyes. He blinked and his brown depths came back to their human form as his mouth came down onto her nipple.
She gasped, her back arching off the mattress as he continued to suck on the straining peak. She’d never done this before, not ever, always equating sex with mating and gods knew she never wanted to do that.
Yet here she was.
Enjoying the hell out of this.
Her hands roamed to the short hairs on the back of his neck up onto his only slightly longer strands on his head. She dug her fingers into his scalp and he moaned, letting go of her breast for a second to move his mouth to her other nipple. She hissed.
“Parker, I think you might be trying to kill me.”
He stopped sucking to look at her. “Kill you in a good way or in a bad way?”
“Like I might die from pleasure.”
He smiled, and she stopped breathing. He was so beautiful when he smiled. It was like the heavens had opened and sent him down to torment her with his beauty. She reached up to stroke his face and he kissed the palm of her hand.
Running his finger down her chest to her belly button, she shivered under his ministrations.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this all day.” He leaned toward her, his tongue tracing where his finger had made a path. “I tried not to think about this.
She nodded as she tugged at his shirt. She wanted skin-to-skin contact with him and she wanted it right now. He helped her by pulling the shirt over his head and throwing it onto the floor. His muscles were well defined and huge. There was nothing about Parker that was small. Even his hands, which stroked her shoulders, were large and sturdy.