Most Eligible Wolf - Julie Steimle (e novels to read TXT) 📗

Matt held up his hands in protest, backing away. “I didn’t say anything!”

“Rick!” Daisy clung to him, pointing to Randon. “What is that thing?”

Already breathing in her smell, Rick said, “He’s a witch’s familiar.”

Daisy stared with such wide eyes. The way she held him, her bare skin against his, it was enough for him to want to go back to her and finish what they had started. The desire to make love to her had begun to overwhelm him again.

“I told you witches were real,” he murmured, entranced.

Daisy tried to pull him away while Randon hissed for Matt not to hide a clearly juicy secret Rick was keeping from them. Dragged farther from his friends and under the influence of her smell, Rick went with her back towards the bed where she picked up her clothes as well as his, handing his to him. She hissed, “This is too crazy. Let’s just leave. You and I. Together. Forget everything. Forget responsibility. We are mated for life.”

“Not happening.” Tom Brown then dumped toilet water on Daisy’s head.

It reeked. And she shrieked.

Covering his nose, Rick staggered back. “Oh!”

“Into the shower with you!” Tom yanked Rick with his overwhelmed senses away, pushing him straight into the upright shower stall of the bathroom. That toilet water had apparently been personally filled with the things that belonged in a toilet—and Rick could not smell anything but it. Tom turned on the hot water and chucked a bar of soap at Rick’s head. “Wash!”

He then marched out of the bathroom.

It was amazing how excrement could clear his senses so fast. Rick turned on the water to get it out of his nose, scrubbing immediately with the soap.

“Gimmie that hose!” Tom stuck out his hand while Rick was in the middle of washing.

In a daze, Rick handed it to him. He could hear Daisy yelp something about sexual harassment—but for some reason her voice no longer lured him in. Then he looked at the soap in his hands. It was his father’s special lye soap, which always seemed to take off a layer of skin and hair every time he scrubbed with it. It was the remedy for any topically applied attack on him. And he recalled that he had told them about it earlier that day.

“Soap!”

Rick chucked the soap at Tom’s head. Tom dodged, but he was grinning maniacally, joy back in his eyes that Rick was more himself again. “I’m still too fast!”

Peering through the fogged glass of the shower, Rick could see Tom was riding on the back of a honey colored wolf which he was hosing down and scrubbing with that smelly soap. The carpet under them was ruined. Of course Daisy would return to a wolf form to take on Tom. Matt and Randon were nowhere to be seen, probably keeping out of the way. Rick leaned his head against the glass. Everything was all unraveling. A number of tangled emotions rippled over and off him, and he felt like his heart was being clawed to shreds.  

Tom handed back the soap and showerhead. “Finish the job. Under the fingernails and in all your cracks, you horny wolf.”

In mental grief, Rick snatch them from Tom’s fingers. “Fine.”

As Tom finished washing the she-wolf, Daisy was thrown a towel and shouted at to dry off and get dressed. Tom guarded Rick’s shower until he was finished. He tossed Rick a towel while keeping Daisy away. She was pacing the doorway, staring at them both while refusing to leave the room.

Never had her blue eyes looked more deadly. And even more when she became human again. “You don’t own him!” Daisy snapped. “He’s a free wolf! And you aren’t his boss!”

A dry stare was not normal for Tom Brown who was all manic mischief and mayhem, but he stared dryly at her, his arms folded across his chest. And though Daisy tried to get back with Rick, every time she attempted something, he was in her way. Tom was always incredibly fast. Imp speed, or nearly. Of course he could also read her temptations, so he knew exactly where to go.

Rick knocked on the shower cubicle’s glass. “I’m feeling much more level headed now. Can I come out?”

Whipping around, Tom eyed him. “Not yet. I can still hear your imps shouting at you.”

Level with him, staring through the frosted glass, Rick asked, “Are they shouting for me to lie to you?”

Blinking, leaning back, Tom shook his head.

“Then I am telling you, I have no intention of leaving with Daisy or the Wolverton pack,” Rick said.

Daisy whimpered, stepping back.

Tom blinked his orange eyes at him, then nodded to himself. “Fair enough.” He opened the shower stall door. “But don’t get close to her, I don’t think I could get all that smell off of her.”

Rick shook his head, chuckling. “It’s her scent. You can’t erase it.”

Cringing—another non-Tom facial expression—Tom nodded.

Daisy reached out to Rick once he was out of the shower.

But Rick held up his hands and backed away. “Not this time, Daisy.” Rick shook his head at her, seeing her now for the predator she was. “I got played twice, but my friends were here for me this time.”

Looking around, first at Tom’s returning crooked grin then out to where Matt and Randon had to be, Rick stiffened, hoping Matt did not spill the beans about Paris. Matt could not have heard everything about the Loup Garou, and what he had heard could not have made complete sense. Rick didn’t want them to speculate about it.

“What about the pack?” Daisy asked, in true distress, looking lost. “What about living life as a whole wolf?”

Rick stepped into the room, backing away from her. But his resolve was already breaking. She was still so lovely, and her smell was still there. His addiction had not gone. It was just not overwhelming him anymore.

“We’re his pack.” Matt stepped forward. Randon was with him. They had been talking quietly in the corner the entire time. “And he is a werewolf. That means he is part man.”

Daisy huffed, rolling her eyes. “You are not his pack—”

“But they are,” Rick said, latching onto that. He then laughed, shaking his head at her as he felt so relieved. “You know, I should have realized it when I was at your town that all of it was a manipulation. But your pack was really good at making me feel like I belonged. But I really didn’t, did I?”

She approached him, or tried to. Tom blocked her way. Huffing, she growled at Tom as she said, to Rick, “You did belong.”

“No, I didn’t,” Rick murmured. “I was a heretic.”

“A what?” Randon stared at him.

But Matt laughed, comprehending Rick’s thoughts connected to the phrase. “He’s not into the werewolf cult of moon worship. They were just using him so they could get his DNA in their gene pool.”

“You knew this already,” Randon said to Rick. “You told us this.”

Laughing more Matt said, “But an unbeliever in the moon cult is called a heretic—because he knows his grandfather was born a wolf who was cursed by a witch.”

Randon nodded. “So?”

“They didn’t really accept him,” Tom said with a groan. He stared at Daisy. “The pack’s entire plan was to keep him in a trance-like state so they could continue to manipulate him. They don’t care about what he thinks or feels, or whom he had made promises to. They just care about themselves and getting another wolf of new blood for their pack.”

“Like those Canadians.” Randon cringed, remembering the comparison.

Rick shook his head, putting a hand to his forehead as he walked to the bed, sitting down.

“Worse than,” Matt replied, gazing hard on Daisy.

Daisy jogged over to Rick, successfully dodging around Tom.

Rick held up a hand. “Stop. Don’t touch me. Don’t come near me.”

“But I love—”

“You’re lying,” Rick said. He then opened his eyes and faced her. “Go back to your pack. And don’t contact me again.”

“Yes!” Tom pumped his arm.

Stiffening, Daisy rose. However, gathering her clothes jerkily, barely slipping them on, she said, “But what if I am pregnant? What then?”

Lifting his eyes to her, incensed as he knew that had been her entire goal in coming to the convention, he growled, “If you are pregnant and you give birth to a healthy baby, then bring the child to Middleton Village and we will conduct a paternity test. And if that child is mine, I will make sure it is raised right.”

She recoiled from him. “You will not take my child—”

“I did not say that,” Rick snapped. His eyes leveled with hers in a wolfish glare. “When or if the time comes, I will make sure my child gets what it needs. But I will not be joining the pack.”

Daisy stepped back. Yet as she headed to the door, an odd expression rested on her face. She turned and said, “It’s all because of that woman, that animal rescue worker at that booth, isn’t it?”

Rick blinked, taking a second to recall whom she was talking about. But then the image of Audry came to mind. He flushed. “Wha…” Rick rose to his feet, clenching his fists. “You leave Audry alone. If I find out you or any of the pack have messed with her—”

“So it is her!” Daisy pulled herself to her full height.

Rick moaned, hanging his shoulders. “No. Audry Bruchenhaus is a pain in the neck vegan who happened to have saved my life once. That’s all. She didn’t even know I was the wolf.”

But Daisy only huffed. “No… I know you.”

“No, you don’t,” Rick snapped.

Yet, laughing, Daisy nodded. “Yes, I do. I know what turns you on. Besides, I’ve researched you. You like sporty granola outspoken intellectual types who want to talk about books and nature and stuff. And you are strongly affected by smell. You are attracted to certain scents—which is why I knew I would find you near the kitchens. And her natural smell would drive you wild.”

Rick pulled back. Warm shivers went through him. It wasn’t a lie. Audry had a nice scent. He was quite familiar with it, and he often recognized her scent before anything else.

“That’s enough!” Tom pushed her. “Get out!”

Daisy huffed. “What are you going to do, arrest me?”

They looked to Matt.

“Ok.” Matt pulled out his badge. “Hi. I’m Officer Calamori of the NYPD, and if you don’t leave these premises right now, I will arrest you for harassment.”

Yipping, Daisy’s jumped from his ID and badge. She immediately ran to the door and fled.

Tom stood in the doorway to make sure she really had left.

“You need to read that paper in your wallet again,” Randon said to Rick once she was gone. “Just for good measure.”

Rick nodded, rattled, as he stared after Daisy—or rather the space that she had been in. He pawed around for his wallet, searching for his pants. Matt handed them to him while Tom made sure the door was shut and locked. They stood as if they would keep him confined in that hotel room until after he calmed down and reread that paper.

Going over the list of things he was looking for in a wife with the counter list compared to Daisy, Rick realized Daisy was right. He had listed things that described Audry perfectly: smart, quick to banter and defend her own ideas, educated—has a degree and worked hard for it (Audry had a Masters and was working on her PhD), likes to read, has a good sense of humor, patient (the way she had handled her ex was proof of that), has a passionate interest and is willing to share it with me (very willing, she wanted everyone to be a vegan), beautiful…. Rick stared into the space in front of him. Admittedly, when Daisy was standing next to Audry in the booth, Rick was overwhelmed at how beautiful Audry had looked. His eyes raked over the rest. She was passionate about life, able to get on with his friends, definitely wasn’t after money and she most definitely knew