Читать книгу Tamed By The She-Wolf - Kristal Hollis - Страница 11

Half naked and legless wasn’t how Lincoln had imagined meeting his guardian angel in the flesh. Angeline’s long auburn hair framed a face Lincoln would have recognized even if he were a blind man with only his hands to feel the shape of her feminine brow, her high, angular cheeks and soft, full lips. God only knew how often he had traced every angle and plane of the woman in the worn photograph he’d carried with him for the better part of the last fifteen years. Now that he’d encountered the she-wolf in the flesh, his heart wouldn’t stop fluttering and the tingly sensation in his stomach would make him sick if it didn’t stop soon.

Attaching the prosthetic to his stump, Lincoln didn’t dare take his gaze off Angeline, fearing she would disappear like she had so often in his dreams.

The old picture entrusted to him by the dying Dogman on Lincoln’s first mission hadn’t done Angeline justice because it had failed to capture her fire and strength of will. Unlike the fragile, ethereal female he’d envisioned, the real woman—strong, sassy, sexy—took him utterly by surprise.

“When is the last time you ate?” Despite the gentleness in her voice, Angeline’s hard, no-nonsense gaze didn’t soften.

“On the plane, somewhere over the ocean,” he said over the loud rumblings of his stomach. Grabbing his camo pants, he stuffed his good leg into the pant leg and then slid the other pant leg over his prosthetic without embarrassment over his nearly nude state. For Wahyas, nudity was as natural as eating and breathing.

“I’m coming off a ten-hour flight from Munich. I got stuck in customs for over two hours in the Atlanta airport because the TSA agents had never seen the bionics used in my leg. Then I had a nearly three-hour drive to get here and all of the drive-throughs in town were closed.”

He wouldn’t starve, though. Inside his duffel were the rations he’d consumed for so long that he no longer remembered the taste of real food.

Wordlessly, Angeline stood and strolled into the kitchen. Lincoln quickly wiggled the pants over his boxers. He didn’t particularly like the undergarments but had learned to tolerate them during his recovery when the friction from long pants made his stump feel as if it were on fire.

“Bon appetite,” Angeline said, returning with a large foam box in her hands.

She opened the lid. The spicy scent of a mountain of buffalo chicken wings made his mouth water. His eyes might’ve, too, because she had offered him food. Actual everyday, take-for-granted, comfort food. Not canned or freeze-dried rations. Not bland, pasty mess hall slop or the airline’s processed micro meals. Real, honest-to-goodness food, only mere inches from his face.

But, remembering the near-empty refrigerator and pantry, he waved away her offering. “Thanks. But no.”

Times were tough and he didn’t want to take advantage of her kindness.

Her nostrils flared slightly and her full, luscious lips flattened.

“I meant no offense,” he said, pulling on a black sweatshirt. Wolfans took food seriously. Refusing food insulted the one offering it. “But I don’t need your supper.”

His stomach protested. Loudly.

“I’m not the one whose stomach is about to eat itself.” She jabbed the box toward him. “Take them, they’re yours.”

“I saw the fridge.” He gently pushed back the tempting container. “You need to eat those more than I do. I have rations that will hold me over. And I’ll pay you for the beer.” He dug a wallet from the duffel and held out a fifty-dollar bill.

Mouth open and shock rippling through her gaze, she stared at his hand. Suddenly, full-bellied feminine laughter shook her body.

Before the explosion, Lincoln had found a woman’s laugh sexy. In his current circumstance, scarred and crippled, he felt belittled and hurt. He’d built up a fantasy about this woman. One where her kindness and gentleness had soothed and safe-guarded him. In reality, Angeline mocked him the same way the Program’s bureaucrats had when Lincoln had insisted that he could still perform his sworn duties.

The money slipped through his fingers and drifted to the floor. Whether she used it or not, Lincoln didn’t care.

He stood, steady and effortlessly. After a month of endless practice, he could stand, walk, run, jump and climb stairs with ease. Kneeling could be a bit tricky, but he managed. Shifting into his wolf form had proven to be the most challenging. No longer could he simply strip down and crouch before turning into his wolf. Now he had to carefully remove the artificial leg, otherwise it would turn to ash during the transformation.

As life changing as the loss had been, he was grateful to be alive. If he’d died instead of Lila, no one would go to the lengths Lincoln would to find his missing wolfling.

He slung the strap of the duffel bag over his shoulder then trudged toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To sleep in my truck until I can straighten this out with Tristan,” he snapped, too exhausted to keep the frustration and anger from his voice.

“I wasn’t laughing at you, Lincoln.”

His hand froze on the doorknob.

“It’s sweet of you to overpay for the beer to help me out with groceries, but I don’t need it. The fridge is empty because I don’t like to cook, not because I can’t afford to buy food. That’s why I laughed.”

She eased behind him. “You see, I can take care of myself. And if I ever needed anything, my family and my pack would step up. That’s how the Walker’s Run Co-operative works.”

A few years ago, while in Romania and assigned to a protective detail for the Woelfesenat’s negotiator, Brice Walker, Lincoln had learned of the Walker’s Run pack’s co-operative. Consisting of wolfans and a handful of humans aware of the existence of Wahyas, the Co-op gave the Walker’s Run pack a public, human face and a clever way to hide in plain sight among the unsuspecting townsfolk in Maico, a small Appalachian community in northeast Georgia where the pack resided.

Pivoting toward Angeline, Lincoln noticed the genuine concern etched on her face. Clearly, she hadn’t meant to upset him and he felt like an idiot to have allowed a trivial misunderstanding to bruise his pride.

Nine weeks in the infirmary at Headquarters had turned him soft. Lincoln had hoped time away from HQ might help him regain his bearings. Now, he might need to reassess that decision.

How could he stay focused on increasing his stamina and sharpening his combat skills so he could return to Somalia and find Dayax when his guardian angel had escaped his dreams and lived only a few door down from where he would be staying?

“You can have this back.” Slowly, her long, tapered fingers slid into his hip pocket to deposit the fifty. The ensuing jolt to his system rendered his entire body flaccid, except for his shaft, which instantly hardened.

“As I said before, bon appétit!” Moving her other hand from behind her back, Angeline presented him with the box of chicken wings. “And no there’s no need to sleep in your truck. I have a key to Tristan’s apartment.”

“Why?” Lincoln wondered about the relationship between the two and why Tristan had failed to mention that tidbit during their brief call earlier.

“Neighbors look out for each other.” She picked up a keyring from the kitchen counter, worked off a key and handed it to Lincoln. “Welcome to the neighborhood, Lincoln.”

A key in one hand and food in the other, he should be happy to finally be getting into his temporary apartment. “I wouldn’t mind some company for a while.”

Her gaze slid down his torso to the erection his pants couldn’t hide. Food and sex. A wolfan male’s priorities.

“I gave you food. Now you need to take care of the rest on your own.” She reached past him and opened the door. The biting February air gusted into the apartment and nipped his skin beneath the sweatshirt.

“Good night, Lincoln.” Angeline patted his chest, urging him to leave.

He’d barely stepped outside when the door closed behind him and locked.

“Whew! That was close.” Angeline’s voice reached his ears despite the barrier.

Turning, he strolled down the open corridor to the corner apartment, a smile budding on his face even as a weight settled in his heart. He had a mission to complete. Until he found Dayax, Lincoln would do well to resist the devilish diversion of his angelic neighbor.

Heart thumping and holding her breath, Angeline leaned against the door. The jumble of feelings knotting inside her were a fluke. Lincoln was a Dogman. Period. She could be neighborly but absolutely nothing else.

She squinched her eyes to banish the vision of him watching her beneath long, dark lashes as his silvery-green gaze caressed her face with reverence and awe. The effort merely branded the image into her brain.

Inheriting her mother’s model looks, Angeline had grown numb to people’s ogles, waggles and even jealousy-filled glares.

But the way Lincoln looked at her when she’d laughed and he’d misunderstood had felt like an iron fist slamming into her stomach, hard and painful.

Pushing away from the door, she trudged to the couch, slouched against the leather cushions and pulled off her boots. Next she peeled out of the thick sweater she wore over the long-sleeved T-shirt and tossed it in the chair. Picking up the afghan Lincoln had carefully folded, she inhaled his earthy male musk. Instead of trotting outside to hang the afghan on the balcony in the cold night air to remove his scent, she shook it out and laid it across her lap. After all, she couldn’t leave her favorite blanket out in the elements.

Too keyed up to sleep, Angeline visually searched for the television remote and didn’t see it on either end table or the entertainment center. Slipping her hand between the cushions, she not only found the remote but also Lincoln’s wallet.

At the thought of returning it to him, her heart picked up speed. The sudden acceleration caused her body to tingle and anticipation coiled low in her belly.

Perhaps a brisk walk would cool things down.

Tossing aside the blanket, she didn’t bother with a sweater or shoes. It would only take a minute to return the wallet. She walked outside and scurried down the corridor overlooking the parking lot to the corner apartment.

“Lincoln, it’s Angeline.” Knocking on the door, her fingers were as cold as ice cubes.

Tristan had disconnected the doorbell years ago. Too many people pulling him in too many directions. Once he turned off his phone to sleep, he didn’t want to be disturbed by someone showing up at his door and pressing the bell until he got up.

Sure would’ve been nice for him to have reconnected the bell before subletting his place.

Still holding Lincoln’s wallet, she tucked her hands beneath her arms to warm them. “Hurry up! I’m freezing.”

“What are you doing out here, Angel?”

Angeline spun around, doing a little jig that could either be described as a startled jump or a stealthy self-defense move.

She preferred the latter.

“Whoa!” Lincoln’s hands lifted in surrender. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t.” Angeline stood tall.

“Uh-huh.” Lincoln’s disbelieving grin raised her ire and suddenly she no longer felt cold.

“Why didn’t I hear you coming up behind me?” Wahyas had excellent hearing.

“You’re not supposed to.”

“Right. Because you’re a Dogman.”

Silent as a ninja, as deadly as one, too. Or so the rumors went. No one outside the Woelfesenat’s militarized security force knew exactly what the Dogmen did, other than the generic job description of peacekeeping.

Considering the numerous scars on his body, whatever Lincoln had been doing, it wasn’t so peaceable.

“You’re right about one thing.” Lincoln pivoted to block the gust of wind that caused her teeth to chatter and then reached around her to open the door. “You are freezing.”

His broad hand heated the small of her back and he nudged her forward. Her mind mounted a protest but her feet didn’t get the memo in time to keep her from crossing the threshold.

“What were you doing outside?”

“Cooling off.” He tossed an odd-looking cell phone next to the take-out box on the asymmetrical coffee table. If he’d had the device in her apartment, she hadn’t noticed it.

“Change your mind about sharing a snack?” Lincoln sat on the couch and opened the box of chicken wings.

“No.” As a restaurant employee, she’d learned to eat only when truly hungry, otherwise she’d eat constantly and no amount of running in the woods would compensate for the extra calories. Ignoring the delicious scent taunting her stomach, Angeline held out Lincoln’s wallet. “I found it between the couch cushions.”

Mouth full of food, he gave a hand signal for her to leave it on the coffee table.

Angeline strolled around the living room. “This place is probably a culture shock for you. The furnishings are too modern for my taste. Tristan didn’t like it much, either, but his mother is an interior designer and she loves this stuff.”

Still eating, Lincoln watched her with the same quiet curiosity as he had in her apartment. And when she walked into the kitchen, his inquisitive gaze followed.

“You’re in luck,” she said, peeking into the refrigerator. “It’s stocked with a few basics. At least you won’t have to go grocery shopping on Sunday.” Closing the refrigerator, she added, “Which technically is today, since it’s after midnight, you know...in case your days are mixed up from traveling.”

A chuckle accompanied Lincoln’s slight head shake.

“You would think Sundays are good days to go to the grocery store.” She sat on a stool at the bar rather than leaving. She and Tristan had their fair share of late-night chats. Being back in his apartment, it seemed natural to carry on tradition. Even though Lincoln was a Dogman, she could still be neighborly.

“Because everyone is either going to church or sleeping off Saturday night’s good time. But actually, the early risers are buzzing around to get their shopping done to have the rest of the day free. Late-goers are trying to grab something on their way to wherever. And the rest are trying to find something to fix their hangovers.”

“Good to know.” Not one speck of sauce marred his mouth and very little dotted his fingers. An amazing feat considering most people who ate her uncle’s wings required a plastic bib and a double stack of napkins.

And while looking at his mouth, Angeline couldn’t help but notice the perfect shape of his masculine lips or how his straight nose balanced the angles of his cheeks. His black hair didn’t conform to a human military’s regulation cut but rather fell to his collar in soft waves. The muscles in his strong jaw, darkened by a shadow of stubble, worked in tandem as he chewed. When he swallowed, she watched the slow descent of his Adam’s apple along his throat. The silver chain around the thick column of his neck held the dog tags hidden beneath his sweatshirt.

The thick dark slashes above his pale green eyes drew together as the curiosity in his gaze transitioned to something primal. “Angeline.” He softly growled her name and it whispered across her skin, heightening her own awareness of him.

She shouldn’t study him so intently. Wahyas’ senses were acutely sharp and staring too long usually signaled a threat or sexual interest. Obviously, Lincoln wouldn’t consider her a threat. He stood over six feet tall, while she only pushed upward of five-seven, and he out-massed her by at least seventy pounds.

However, underestimating her would be a mistake. Her brothers might not be quite as imposing as Lincoln, but they weren’t pushovers. They’d never taken it easy on her and the skills she’d learned tangling with them had come in handy a few years ago when a hook-up had turned sour and she’d needed to escape the situation.

Like most wolfan males, Lincoln would misinterpret her interest as...well...interest. Which, of course, it wasn’t. If she and a Dogman were the last Wahyas on Earth, she wouldn’t be interested. Even if it meant the salvation of their race, it simply would not happen.

Too bad, thanks to a treacherous brain, her body had no troubling recalling the intimate heat of him crouched above her, while his fierce gaze mapped every inch of her soul. His light-colored eyes had presented a striking contrast to the rich brownness of his nearly naked body and thick black waves of hair. Unbidden desire curled inside her like wisps of steam rising from a cup of hot chocolate.

“Tuesdays,” she said, throwing the brakes on primal instincts. Despite the close friendship with her former neighbor, Angeline had never experienced a sexual attraction toward Tristan. Considering her body’s unexpected and wholly unappreciated reaction to Lincoln, she would not make a habit of being overly neighborly.

“Tuesdays?” Confusion clouded Lincoln’s gaze.

“About midmorning.” Angeline slid off the bar stool. “Trust me. It’s the best time to go grocery shopping at Anne’s Market.”

“Appreciate the tip.” From his neutral expression, Angeline couldn’t discern if he truthfully did, or if he merely humored her.

“I should go.”

Lincoln met her at the door. “Here.” He tugged off his sweatshirt.

“Thanks.” She kept focused on the faint scar below his eye rather than the short, dark hairs spread across the broad, chiseled expanse of his chest. “But I don’t need it.”

He slipped the sweatshirt over her head and onto her shoulders anyway. His clean, crisp, masculine scent immediately invaded her senses, and she obediently slid her arms into the sleeves.

The fabric still held his warmth, and she remained nice and toasty all the way to her apartment.

Standing watch from his doorway, bare-chested and unflinching against the icy wind winding through the corridor, Lincoln presented a striking image of a proud warrior. He reeked of confidence, but not the arrogance she had imagined to have infected all Dogmen.

Once inside, Angeline sighed against the locked door. Hugging Lincoln’s sweatshirt to her body, she held the collar over her nose, breathing his scent and absorbing his warmth like a she-wolf showing more than a casual interest in a male—

Like cold water to the face, the realization shocked her senses and she couldn’t get out of his clothes fast enough.

This was all Tristan’s fault!

Leaving the sweatshirt in a puddle on the floor, she stomped to the kitchen bar, snatched open her purse, whipped out her cell phone and began furiously typing.