Page 13 of Diners, Damsels & Wolves

Thirteen

Thomas

B reathing deep, the scent of Clarissa and peonies filled Tom’s nose. Smiling, he reached to pull her in close. His hand found empty sheets.

Danger! his mind screamed at him.

Opening his eyes, he bolted upright. A sharp intake of breath drew his attention. Clarissa stood in front of her closet in the process of pulling on a bra. She froze, then hastily pulled the garment on, reaching for a shirt and yanking that on over it. He frowned. Was something wrong?

“Did I—” She cleared her throat. “Did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet.”

“No.” His frown deepened. She was averting her gaze, actively looking everywhere but at him. “Is everything alright?”

“What?” Her voice muffled as she pulled a dress over her turtleneck. “Yes, I just, I need to get ready for work.” Turning away from him, she brushed her hair up, securing it with an elastic.

“Do you want me to drive you?” He tried not to wince as her back went visibly rigid.

“No,” she practically yelled. “I mean, I need to be able to get back home.”

“Of course …” he trailed off. Confusion and hurt fell like a rock in the pit of his stomach while he watched her flit about the room. She still wasn’t looking at him. Had he done something wrong?

Replaying the events of last night, he couldn’t pinpoint any moment where she seemed to be uncomfortable or dissatisfied. She’d been just as eager as he was … Why was she now acting as if he repulsed her?

Getting out of bed, he took her hand. The touch of her skin made his heart lurch. “Clarissa.”

She froze.

“I want to see you again, tonight. Nothing extravagant, I just …”

“I don’t know, I—” The side of her face pulled into a pucker.

Racking his brain, he was desperate for something, anything, to make her stay. “I never did get to take you to the park. We could go for a walk.”

“I’m not sure what time I’ll get off work.”

He wondered if her excuse sounded as pathetic to her as it did to him. He was starting to get irritated. Why wouldn’t she look at him?

“Clarissa …” He internally chided himself for the anger seeping into his voice. Forcing himself to take a deep breath, he abruptly remembered … humans were dangerously more fragile than shifters and with his wolf strength, oh no. “Did I hurt you?”

“No!” Turning to him, her eyes went wide. She dropped her eyes to the floor, flushing scarlet and chewing on her lip.

He couldn’t believe it. Was she embarrassed ?

“Please let me take you on a walk today.” He didn’t like how needy he sounded, but damn it, she wasn’t going to snub him like this. “I can stop by the diner after your shift.”

“I’ll be in my work clothes.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I do.” She ripped her hand from his. “I really do have to go to work now. You know, some of us have jobs we actually have to show up to.”

Too stunned to respond, he let her go. She slammed the bedroom door shut, he heard the front door open and close. Before her engine roared to life, he heard her yelling at herself in the car. Sometimes his hearing was too keen for his own good. He didn’t want to listen to her chastise herself for being a slut.

How in hell had she worked that one out? Did spending the night with him really call for such harsh language? Did she think so little of him, of them together? Hadn’t he tried to convince her of his feelings for her, to assure her he wanted to be more than a passing ship?

Hanging his head, he gathered his clothes to leave. How had everything gone so terribly wrong so quickly?

They’d spent a wonderful night together. It had been hurried and passionate, sure, but it also felt right. It felt like coming home.

Watching the movie, she seemed so at ease, letting him hold her hand. Then when he went to go, all he’d meant to do was give her a good-night kiss and leave it at that. Her reaction threw him off guard.

The way she’d glowed under the moonlight was positively breathtaking, and then she curled herself into him as they’d kissed. When she’d said his name, oh God, why did she have to say his name like that?

Slamming the door of his car shut, he pulled out his phone. It was five-fifty in the morning. He had seventy-eight text messages and three missed calls.

The first two calls were from Sara and Nathon. He listened to their voicemails; checking in on patrol duty, he’d forgotten he was supposed to run with them last night. The third call was from Maria. Her message was less panicked, asking him to call her back whenever he resurfaced. Taking charge of the family group chat, Maria ensured them all he was fine and he was taking a night off.

It seemed he’d screwed up in more ways than one last night. Grumbling to himself, he started his car and drove home.

Trudging up the garage stairs, he went through the house to the kitchen.

“Good morning!” Michael sat at the kitchen counter wrapped in a fuzzy pink robe, a mug clutched in his hands. His dark hair stuck up at odd angles.

Tom grunted at him. He’d hoped to have the kitchen to himself to mope in.

“Uh oh,” Michael sang, “late night, or bad night?”

Ignoring him, Tom grabbed an orange juice from the fridge and chugged it.

“Well, you’re clothed and not covered in mud, so I am going to rule out a wild wolf night. Does this by chance have anything to do with the waitress at the diner you have us all babysitting?”

Tom flipped him off.

“Mmm-hmmm.” Michael arched a brow, sipping at his mug.

Throwing the empty bottle out, Tom glanced at the pot of coffee on the counter. “That’d better be decaf,” he growled, unnecessarily picking a fight with Michael. At the moment, he was too pissed at the universe to care about the unfairness of it. “I know you’re new to this, but I was very clear about the negative side effects caffeine and alcohol have on shifters.”

Alcoholism had always run rampant in shifter packs, along with caffeine addiction. He’d tested a wild theory with a few pack members when he first became Alpha. Within a month of them being sober, their tempers evened out and they had impeccable control of their wolf instincts. When he’d made the substance ban pack-wide, infighting between the wolves and domestic disputes had stopped almost entirely. While the pack still grumbled about the prohibition, they’d admitted to seeing and feeling the benefits.

With the link between the substances and shifter behavior identified, he’d sent letters to every shifter Alpha he knew to inform them. He hoped other families could benefit from their example.

“I know,” Michael pouted. “You only have decaf in the pantry. Just because it doesn’t have caffeine, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the taste.”

Cursing under his breath, Tom pulled a sports drink from the fridge and tromped up to his room. Setting his drink down, he undid the buttons on his shirt. He tried, and failed, not to think about how Clarissa’s nimble fingers pulled at his buttons. The way her hands felt running up his chest. Her delicate skin cool and soft against his with her breath gasping against his neck.

He sniffed his shirt. It smelled like peonies, like her. Cussing, he threw it into his hamper with more force than strictly necessary. Padding into his ensuite, he looked at himself in the mirror.

His hair was sticking up in different directions, and his beard was helplessly mussed. There were faint circles under his eyes and his orbs were bloodshot. But not from exhaustion.

“Fuck!” Yelling, he pulled a hand through his messy hair. With a sharp exhale, he got out his toothbrush and set to tackling his teeth.

How was he going to fix this?

How had he even ruined it?

There had to be something … He was having a hard time believing a woman in her thirties was that embarrassed just from having sex. The way she rushed out the door, not even looking at him … It had to have been something he did. Or something about him that made her embarrassed.

Half-heartedly, he replayed the events of last night in his head. Recalling her breath catching when he’d taken off her dress, the feel of her tender flesh beneath his lips. The way she’d responded to his every movement, his every touch, making her moan and gasp. And how he’d do anything to hear that again. To feel her beneath him, gripping him tighter, buried inside her, her heart hammering in rhythm with his own.

She was everything to him. And now he may never see her again.

Bending over the sink, he smelled it again. Through the mint of his paste, peonies overcame his senses. He groaned. A scent he’d grown to love was now making his stomach churn. But where was it coming from?

Setting his toothbrush down, he sniffed his shoulder. It was him. Spending the night in her room left his skin scent marked.

Turning on the shower, he went back to the main room while the water got warm. He set his wallet and phone on the nightstand next to Dancing with Demons and his notebook and pens reminding him he’d gotten pitiful little information from the book so far. Another kick in the teeth in an already awful morning. He put his jeans, briefs, and socks in the hamper, they’d need to be washed with something strong to get rid of her perfume.

Going back to the shower, he stood under the streaming water until it was scalding hot. When the steam filled the room and his skin turned bright red, he washed. Twice. He didn’t want to risk any of the perfume lingering, even though he knew he would be able to smell traces of it for days.

On autopilot, he dried off, oiled and combed his beard, and ran pomade through his hair, going through the motions without feeling. He didn’t want to think right now, he didn’t want to feel. He wanted to avoid anything that could lead back to Clarissa, which was pretty much everything.

Fully groomed and dressed, he went back downstairs. Michael stood at the stove.

“I didn’t get the chance to tell you, there was a scuffle here last night,” Michael said, his voice flat and lifeless. Tom had the heart to feel guilty for snapping at him, at least for a second.

“Dan?” Tom asked, already knowing the answer. Dan was a stray like Michael who also had nowhere else to go and was living at the mansion. But unlike Michael, who was discovered by the pack after his first shift when he was seventeen, Dan had been found when he was already twenty-six. He’d been utterly alone and unaware of the supernatural underground, left to wrangle his wolf instincts without any guidance. That meant he still acted like a pup and had plenty of time for bad habits to settle in. Some very bad habits they were currently trying to break him of.

“Yup.” Michael popped the ‘p.’ “Luna was over last night to run drills with the other pups and she’s ovulating.”

“He didn’t!”

“No, but his wolf sure as hell tried. Sara and Nathon were here, getting ready for patrol. They and the elders got him off her and Sara about ripped his head off.”

Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose. “Is Luna okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. Sara let her get a few good hits on him and told her she could train at home until she felt comfortable coming back.”

He thanked his lucky stars for Sara, a no-nonsense hard-ass when it came to pack behavior. She’d been a very good choice for third-in-command.

“Is Dan working at the lumberyard today?”

“Yeah, he already left.” Michael eyed him. “He feels terrible, ya know. Try not to be too hard on him.”

“I think Luna would have a very different opinion on that,” he said through his teeth. “Jesus Christ, I’m fairly certain she doesn’t even like guys. Not that that matters when Dan is acting like a wild fucking animal.”

Thomas was grateful Dan had already left. With the mood he was in, he didn’t think he would be able to control himself and not cause permanent damage to him. By the time he got to the lumberyard, he’d be in a better headspace to deal with him.

Huffing out a sigh, he turned to the garage. Michael said the elders had been over last night when this happened. Great. That meant they had even more ammunition to use against him. Another argument to bring to his attention, to berate him for being a terrible Alpha for letting strays into his pack, threatening the pack’s strength and unity.

“Hold up,” Michael called after him. “I’m making pancakes for everyone.”

“No thanks,” he grumbled. “I’m not hungry.”

“You know breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

“You know that’s Maria’s bathrobe,” Tom snipped.

“She told me I could have it.”

“Oh?” Tom arched a brow at him.

“Yes, she told me I could have it as long as I—” Snapping his mouth shut his eyes bugged.

“As long as you what, Michael?”

“Nothing!” he said too fast. “She just knows you can’t fend for yourself is all. Wants me to keep you fed.”

“Well, now I know you’re a terrible liar. That information will come in handy in the future.”

Turning back, Tom pulled a granola bar from the pantry, waved it at Michael, then went out to the garage.

Checking his phone, his heart fell. What was he expecting? A lengthy text message from her with profuse apologies, confessing how much she cared for him and wanted to see him again?

Grumbling to himself, he tossed his phone onto the passenger seat and started the engine. He had to visit the mills and couldn’t afford to be distracted.