I sighed and hauled myself out of the chair to start unpacking the boxes. Maybe it would help if I could tell Dani my secret—let her know the real me. But as much as I loved her, I knew I could never do that. I had worked too hard to gain her trust to hit her with the fact that not only did werewolves exist, but I was one of them.
I put my bobble-head Dali Lama down on the surface of the desk and studied the thumbprints I'd carelessly left there. It had been stupid of me to let myself get so rattled that I forgot to control my strength. I wondered what Dani would say if she knew I was capable of not only lifting the entire desk myself, but of holding it over my head with one hand and bench-pressing it.
Superhuman strength was one of the few advantages of being one of the Lunar Challenged, as my mom jokingly called it. That and super sharp senses, cat-like—or in my case wolf-like—reflexes, and the ability to see in the dark were the only compensation I got for living with the curse that had landed on every male in my family for generations. Why only males? I don't know, but there were no female werewolves or shapeshifters of any kind that I knew of.
My grandfather was a were, too, and my dad had been one as well. Dad had died when I was very young, so he wasn't around to tell me what the hell was happening to me when I started getting hairy—and I mean really hairy—once a month after I hit puberty. Luckily for me, Grandpa was a pretty cool guy, and he told me exactly what to expect and what to do about it.
The first time he took me to a pack gathering I was twelve, scared as hell, and very impressionable. What I saw there turned me off being a werewolf for good, but what could I do? It's not like the AMA recognizes lycanthropy as a genuine disease, so there aren't any cures for it, and nobody is doing any “please help the poor shapeshifting children” telethons. I had to do the best I could and deal with it in my own way—which I did.
It took me years, but what I found out was this: living with lycanthropy is like living with epilepsy or panic attacks. With the right management, it can be controlled.
Of course, there aren't any medications, but there is treatment—self treatment, that is. A lot of people only know what they see on TV and in the movies, or read in books. They think—if they think about anything so supposedly mythical and fictitious as werewolves at all—that when the full moon rises in the sky, the werewolf has to change to his animal form. But that's simply not true. There's no need to get furry once a month or even once a year, as long as you keep yourself under control. And by that I mean both mentally and physically.
To that end, I meditate, run five miles daily, and do power Yoga three times a week. I'm a practicing vegetarian and a non-practicing Buddhist, which drives my mom nuts, since I was raised Catholic. In high school and college, I avoided all the usual male-centric sports like soccer and football, even though every coach I'd ever met was dying to get me on the team. I guess they looked at my size and strength and thought, “What a waste.” But spikes in testosterone and adrenaline make the change harder to control, and I wanted to stay human more than I wanted any pseudo-glory I could earn on a football field. Instead, I participated in solitary sports like weight lifting and long distance running. I still like to run the occasional marathon.
Another thing that makes the change hard to control is being around the pheromones other weres give off, so I avoided them, too. After that one meeting when I was twelve, I never went to another pack gathering, even though my grandfather was always trying to talk me into it. He wanted me to give the whole were culture another chance, but I didn't want anything to do with it.
After years of struggling, I finally had my lycanthropy in hand, and at that point in time I was proud to say that I hadn't had an uncontrolled change in over five years. In fact, I hadn't even had a controlled change in over three years, which meant—to me anyway—that I had been mostly successful in keeping my were nature buried. Three years since I'd let the genie—that part of me that was other—out of its bottle. Sometimes I could even forget, for weeks at a time, that I had the curse, or disease, or whatever you wanted to call it hanging over me in the first place.
Of course, it helped that I was an even-tempered guy—what Dani called “a real sweetheart,” or I never would have managed it. Losing your temper or letting yourself get too emotional is almost guaranteed to bring on the change, especially if the moon is full or near full. But whenever I felt that part of myself trying to rise and take control, I concentrated on something else, and it would usually pass. Instead, I kept myself busy with work. That wasn't hard when being at work meant being around Dani—not that it was doing me any good.
I sighed again and started hooking up the computers just the way she wanted them—with hers on one side of the desk and mine directly opposite. That way we could bounce ideas off each other without actually reading the other person's prose. Dani was very secretive about her work until it was actually ready to be read. She had a hard, punchy writing style that was the direct opposite of my own, more flowing wording. But somehow, when we wrote together, our differences made our prose stronger. I would've liked to think that our writing was a metaphor for the rest of our lives—that everything we did could be done better together—but I wasn't about to say that to Dani. She already thought I was a hopeless romantic, which, I suppose, was true—at least the hopeless part, anyway.
“Bingo,” I said under my breath as Dani's flat-screen popped to life. I pulled the connecting cables around the side of the desk so they mostly hid the two thumbprints I had left there. I wanted them out of sight and out of mind so Dani's curious brain didn't start getting any ideas. “Shouldn't have happened,” I muttered to myself, still upset by the visual proof of my lack of control. It wouldn't have happened, either, if it hadn't been so close to the full moon. Although, full moon or not, I usually had better control. For the next few days until the moon waned, I was really going to have to keep a tight rein on myself.
“Hey, partner, looking good.” Dani's voice interrupted my thoughts, and I looked up to see her posed in the doorway with her hands on her hips, gazing with satisfaction at the neatly arranged desk. The short gray skirt she wore made her legs go on forever, and the white silk shirt she had paired it with was gauzy and light, showing the shadow of her bra beneath it. I could see her full breasts nestled in their lace cups if I looked hard enough, which I was trying not to. But my eyes kept returning to her curvy form like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
Dani always managed to combine the best of professional and sexy no matter what she wore, and lots of times I couldn't help staring at her. She never seemed to mind. In fact, sometimes I thought she liked the way I looked at her—as long as looking was as far as it went.
“Hey.” I tried to grin at her and make my voice sound casual. “Any luck tracking down the missing girl?”
She frowned and ran a hand through her hair. “No—I ran a check, but no girl with the last name of McKinsey has been taken from the area or reported missing in the last two years.”
“Well, I guess that's that.” I shrugged, feeling relieved.
“I guess so,” Dani said, but she didn't sound convinced. I knew I needed to distract her or she'd never let it go.
“Ya know,” I said, rubbing my neck and trying to look pitiful. “I think I may have pulled something when we moved the desk. I didn't notice it before but now…” I let the sentence trail off with a theatrical wince, as though I was in terrible pain. I'm not a very good actor, but my little scene had the desired effect.
“Oh, Ben, I'm so sorry. And you were already so tense.” Dani was by my side at once, wanting to know where it hurt.
“From my neck all the way down to my lower back,” I said, deciding to keep her busy awhile. Dani gives great massages, and even though this would be my second one of the day, I could never resist a chance to have her hands all over me.
She sat me down in a chair, then changed her mind. “I can't work this way,” she said, tugging at my shirt. “Not and really do you any good. I won't be able to ge
t to your lower back at all. Take it off.”
“Dani,” I protested. “What about the rest of the office?”
“Let them get their own massages,” she replied promptly. “Now take it off.”
“You know that's not what I meant,” I said, loosening my tie.
“Fine, if you're so worried about what other people think…” She went over to the door and slapped it shut with a flourish.
“That probably isn't going to look too good either,” I pointed out, unbuttoning my shirt.
“Let 'em think what they want.” Dani grinned at me, her pert nose scrunching up like a mischievous little girl's. God, I loved her smile.
“I'm all yours,” I said, laying my shirt and tie on the desk and spreading my hands. “Have been since the moment I met you.” I could get away with flirting with her like this because she never took me seriously.
“Silly.” Dani tugged at my hair playfully, then got down to business. “Okay,” she said, lacing her fingers together and cracking them like a concert pianist. “Let's do this right. Turn the chair around and straddle it so I can really get to you.” Her tone was all business—an order, not a request.
I did as she asked at once. Dani had this way of taking charge of a situation, and sometimes she could come off as bossy or domineering. I knew a lot of guys on staff that couldn't work with her for that reason. In fact, some of them had actually asked me how I could stand to work with her. How could I explain to them that the tough, take-charge exterior was actually a cover-up for the vulnerable little girl my partner kept inside? I couldn't and didn't. I knew the other guys thought I was whipped, but I didn't give a damn. Sure, Dani was high maintenance, but she was worth it, in my opinion.
I leaned forward, my forearms resting on the back of the chair, and stifled a moan as her soft hands began to work on my neck. The massage she had given me earlier had been really nice but this…her silky touch on my bare back…God, I could live on this for weeks. It occurred to me that I should pretend to have back pain a lot more often.
But then she withdrew her hands. I craned my head around to look at her. “Why did you stop?”
Dani was rummaging through the oversized leather backpack she calls a purse with a look of fierce concentration on her face. “What we need is some lotion. Or some…ah-ha! Here it is.” She pulled out a small bottle of baby oil triumphantly, and I groaned.
“Aw, no, Dani. I'll be all sticky, and that stuff is going to stain my shirt.”
“Don't be such a baby.” She opened the oil and poured a small amount into her palm. “Look, I'm not using much, and this is going to make it so much better. Now turn around.”
“I feel like I just stepped into some kind of a massage parlor,” I grumbled, but I turned around obediently anyway. The truth was I probably would have let her rub just about anything on my back. Ketchup, mayonnaise, you name it. Maybe I was whipped. I grinned to myself.
“A massage parlor, huh?” Dani's voice floated to my ear as her hands resumed their magic on my bare back. She was working to smooth the oil all over my skin, sliding her palms in long, sensuous curves from my shoulders to my lower back, and it felt amazing. I could smell the bland sweetness of the baby oil and under it, the warm, secret scent of her skin.
“Yeah,” I said, no longer certain what I was saying.
“If this is a massage parlor, I guess I'm supposed to ask if you want a happy ending, huh, Mister Davis?” She made her voice breathy and low, and even though I knew she was just kidding around, I couldn't help the way my body responded to it.
“Mmm,” I mumbled, squirming a little in my chair. Her words had evoked all kinds of X-rated pictures inside my head, thoughts I usually tried hard to keep a reign on when I was with her. I thought about being in a real massage parlor with her—only I was the one doing the massaging.
I could just imagine spreading warm oil up the length of her slender, shapely legs and abdomen, then cupping her full breasts in my hands and teasing the nipples until she moaned for more. I wondered what color her nipples were—pale pink? Or maybe they were the same natural, ripe berry-tone as her lips. What would it be like to suck her nipples? To kiss my way down her trembling stomach to the sweet center between her thighs? God, I wanted to spread her legs and worship her with my tongue, to taste her ripe pussy until she cried and writhed under me—
“You're so stiff today.” Dani's words interrupted my illicit fantasy, and I shifted in my chair, feeling guilty. She had no idea how right she was. I was usually able to control myself around her, but right now my cock was so hard it was painful. It was also bent the wrong way inside my pants. Damn, I was in serious agony here.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, trying to relax. It was time to banish these sexual dreams and meditate instead. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe deeply, letting myself feel empty and light and at one with the universe, and…and it wasn't working. Once I had opened the door to it, I couldn't get the thought of Dani naked, of me touching her, out of my head. What was wrong with me? Was it just the stress of wanting her so much and never being able to talk about it? Or was it my other nature trying to assert itself? Whatever it was, nothing I used to try and control my arousal worked. In fact, I felt ready to pop.
“That's it, just relax,” Dani murmured in my ear, obviously unaware of my dilemma. “You're so tense today—touching you is like touching warm steel,” she went on, as her hands began a slow slide down my back to massage my lumbar area.
I managed a strangled, “Sorry,” and bit my lip to keep from saying anything else. God, I had to calm down, or I was going to lose it! I was suddenly right on the edge of going too far. I kept having these vivid fantasies of pulling her down and having her right there on top of her great-grandfather's antique mahogany desk.
I could almost see it—see myself pressing her down on the desk and raising that short little skirt that had been driving me crazy all damn day. I would push it up around her hips and rip off her panties so I could see and touch and taste her pussy. I wanted to be inside her—buried in her warmth and wetness, thrusting hard to fill her with myself, to let her know exactly how I felt. I wanted her to know that I wasn't just some toy she could play with when she felt like it and discard when she was bored. I wanted to claim her, to fuck her, to—
“How many crunches do you do a day to keep your abs like this, anyway?” Dani's voice interrupted my crazy thoughts once more, and her hands slid around the front of my body, playing carelessly with the waistband of my pants. My cock surged painfully at the intimate touch, and it was suddenly too much.
“Stop it!” I was out of the chair and holding her wrists in my hands much faster than would have been possible if I had been human instead of were. I was breathing hard, my chest heaving, pulling her warm, feminine scent into my lungs like a drug I couldn't get enough of.
Dani's eyes went wide, and she stared at me in incomprehension. “Ben?” she asked, in a low, worried tone. “Are you all right? Did I…did I hurt you?”
“No,” I said, still fighting for control. “No, I just can't…” I shook my head, unable to finish my thought. It's just the moon calling your blood, I told myself. Calm down, Ben. Take deep breaths. Relax…
“Well, you're hurting me.” Dani's voice brought me back to the here and now with a thump, and I realized I could feel the small bones of her wrists grinding together when I squeezed. I let her go at once and took a step back, the bitter taste of shame flooding my mouth. What was wrong with me? Where had all my hard-won control gone? The moon wasn't even in the sky outside, but I felt like I was on the ragged edge of an uncontrolled change.
“I'm so sorry, Dani.” I struggled to make my voice calm, but it came out deep—almost menacing. I shook my head. “I just can't…Look, it's late. I need to go home.” I grabbed my shirt and tie from the desk and started to put them on, only to be stopped by her small hand on my arm. Her touch burned me.
“Ben, what is it?” There was genuine concern in her dark green eyes—conc
ern, but nothing else. No love. No lust. No need. She didn't feel any of what I was feeling for her. I felt like a ball of molten lead had been planted in my stomach and was melting slowly, eviscerating me from the inside out.
“Nothing, it's nothing,” I mumbled savagely, pulling on my shirt. I got my hand snagged in the sleeve and yanked impatiently, trying to get it through. I was rewarded by a low, ripping noise as the sleeve tore halfway off the shirt. Great. Just great.
Dani crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at me. “Don't tell me 'nothing' when you've been acting weird half the day. Sit down and explain what's going on.” She pointed at the chair, but for once, I didn't feel like giving in to her.
“No.” I bit out the word. Then, seeing the hurt look on her face, I tried to soften my tone. “Look, Dani, I'm sorry. But it's…not something I can talk about. Okay?” I shrugged into my ripped shirt and buttoned it hastily, jamming the tails of it down into my pants. I didn't bother with the tie.
“Ben…” she started, but I held up a hand to stop her.
“I'm sorry, but I have to go.” I cupped her cheek and bent to brush a chaste peck across the corner of her mouth. She smelled so fresh and sweet. I had the sudden urge to take her lips in a hungry, searching kiss, but I resisted with a Herculean effort of will. “It's not you,” I told her. “It's me. But I can't talk about it. All right?”
She nodded, her eyes wide. “All right,” she said. “Maybe…maybe I'll call you later?” The questioning tone in her voice broke my heart. She wasn't to blame for the way I felt—that was my own fault for losing control.
“You can always call me,” I told her. “I just have to go now. All right?”