Page 15 of Just One Bite

I use “our” a little too easily, but Olivia doesn’t seem to mind. Her shoulders drop from her ears, and the scowl on her face softens.

“Here.” I wrap my arm around her waist and haul her onto the couch in the center of the room. She tries to take the spot next to me, but I shift her to sit on my lap. “You’ll sit here.”

She adjusts with her hand on my knee. If I wasn’t so intent on watching the crowd, I’d have to adjust myself.

Olivia smells really good, so I have to fight the urge to bury my face in her hair.

I shake that thought out as quickly as it comes and take another drink. Don’t know what is wrong with me today.

I can’t stop staring at her. She watches people like she has to memorize every article of clothing for a quiz and guess the person’s most likely hobbies. It seems to calm her because she relaxes into me more with each passing second, and I keep reminding her to sip on her drink.

“Having fun?” I ask. Noxx House has still not figured out our preferred activity for the night. I voted for mud sports outside in the rain. No one liked the idea.

“No.”

“What would make it more fun for you?”

“Not sitting with my ass on your leg.” She shifts her hips.

I move her till she’s fully in my lap. “Is that better?”

A smile dances on her lips. At least she finds me amusing. Gavin moves across the room, typing into his phone. I feel his stare, and seconds later, my phone vibrates. Shit.

This arrangement can work, but I do need to make a show.

“I’m not being attentive enough to my girlfriend.” I brush the hair from Olivia’s shoulder so I can gain better access to her neck. It’s a vampire thing. There’s nothing better than that soft, thin part of the neck where the heartbeat thrums. “Let’s talk about you.”

I wet my lips and run them over her pulse, burying my face into her hair. Her back straightens, and goose bumps prickle her arm, then my mind wanders back to the fact that she’s digging into my lap.

“What about me?”

“You’re a ballerina. Tell me about your audition. I bet you’re going to kill it.”

“Not going to tell me how hard it is to get into the company like everyone else?”

“You look mighty capable to me. Getting into any of the clubs or sports here is not easy. You got an audition. That’s more than most get. Plus, that’s what they said when I showed up.”

Her head hangs, then she turns to look at me. “Thanks. I’m … really excited to audition. I’ve been dreaming about it since I was little.”

We’re both competitive and driven. Not surprising, most people in Noxx House are.

“All my life, it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”

She’s genuinely smiling now.

“One day, when you’re famous, I’ll tell everyone the Olivia Osborne sat in my lap.”

We talk back and forth about her dancing.

She tells me about what they wear and why, then moves onto the shoes and when she started pointe earlier than most at nine.

I never knew so much work went into dance, but as she gets more comfortable, her words get faster till they’re pouring out of her quicker than her mouth can keep up with.

“What about you? Will I get to watch you practice?” she asks. “I’ve never seen it played.”

“Definitely. And I want you at all my games when the season starts. Right now, you can come and watch us all get the shit kicked out of us while I try to get the team in shape.”

The hairs on my arm stand on end at the danger wafting in the air.

Cane is closer and watching Olivia. Were instincts are pretty much the best thing ever. It’s like having a sixth sense. He whispers to Aster, and I know they’re talking about her. I lick my teeth to prevent from clenching my jaw.

“Parker?”

“Yes, baby,” I whisper in her ear, and the small of her back lifts as she sits upright.

She likes it .

“Mind wandering a bit?”

“Can you blame me? I’ve got the most beautiful girl in the room with her ass in my lap.

” As I say it, I catch the eyeline of Cane.

His green and yellow eyes rake over Olivia, so I squeeze her tighter.

What a fucking prick. “I can’t keep myself from thinking about what I’m going to do when I get you in my room. ”

I kiss her shoulder and drag my bottom lip down the soft skin of her arm, so close to using my teeth. Stay the fuck back.

Cane smirks. All the other Weres are looking, including Gavin and Aster. Good. Cane and his buddies stalk about on my left and to my right, and Darien and the other vampires are closing in too. I fight the urge to scratch as my skin burns with the itch to shift.

“What’s wrong?”

I clutch her waist as a warning and draw her impossibly closer. They are too close to her, and she doesn’t smell enough like me. I need to take her somewhere and make her smell like me. I’m so fucking itchy.

I could hoist her over my shoulder and take her to my bed. Then she’ll really smell like me. I have to get my scent on her, inside her, everywhere. Because she’s mine and no one else can touch her.

I kiss her arm again and lick my teeth. This time because my mouth is salivating at the thought. The urge to mark her grows, and if they step any closer, I will. Yeah, good fucking logic, Parker.

“Tell me.” She squeezes my hand. “You’re looking very wolfy.”

“Meaning?”

“Your eyes.”

“Everyone is looking at you. I don’t like it. It makes me want to take you to my room and scent you. So they get the picture loud and clear.” I’m clearly not thinking straight.

Why else would I tell her that? What am I doing? Olivia may be my fake girlfriend, but no way am I contemplating marking her. I’ve never wanted to mark a girl before, not even the ones I actually dated. But it’s the same urge as before, luring me into the scent of her skin.

Every second feels drawn out, and I ache when I think of not being able to mark her like I want to. I can’t have someone else’s teeth on her, let alone their hands. I need to think of something else. Anything else before I snap. So I turn to the first thing on my mind .

“What do you want to do tonight? I was thinking we could explore that mask kink you have.” I move closer to her neck, needing to be closer to her pulse. “Is that what your dream was about?”

She squeezes my knee, and her nails hurt. Fuck.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t know many girls that would let me pull them against a tree.”

That makes her laugh, and it snaps me out of my possessive dissociation for a split second.

“You know plenty.”

“You were into it.” I keep pushing, more interested in her reaction than anything else going on. “I could tell. What would you have let me do if we’d been completely alone then?”

The fresh scent of her arousal floods my senses. It’s faint. Quick and unexpected but sweet and enticing. Well, there goes my self-restraint.

“I think you might have let me strip you …”

“No.” She takes a breath and lets it out with a sigh. I need to stop. My dick is already hard thinking about it. But it’s all hypothetical. I mean, in fake-boyfriend land anything is possible. If she were my girlfriend, I’d want her to think about me touching her.

“You’re right. You wouldn’t until I chased you. You know you don’t need to dream about it, baby. I can make it happen whenever you want. Just say the words.”

“Parker,” she warns, but the sweet scent grows stronger, and I can’t quite help myself.

“You’ve thought about it. Me running after you in the forest, finding you … slipping off your skirt and leaving it at your ankles—”

Without warning, she leans back and squeezes the hair at the nape of my neck.

“ Dear , we’re in public, remember?” She glares into my eyes. I like the way she’s hurting me and the bite in her voice. I swear I hear her whisper the words to me, but her mouth stays closed. Get a hold of yourself.

“You’re right. Sorry, I … I’m being … I don’t know.” I shake my head. “I don’t know what the what the fuck I’m saying.”

“Who is Cane to you?” she asks, fully wrapping her arm around my neck. It’s intimate, but I won’t complain.

“How do you know about him? ”

“You were glaring at him more than the others earlier. I asked Cherry.”

“Cane is the biggest asshole I’ve met. We grew up together. Me, Zant, Cane, and a few other guys here I don’t talk to all went to the same school in the city. All our dads work for the Werewolf Council.”

“Why does he look at you like that?”

I huff. “I don’t know. He hates me. I don’t know what his father fills his head with, but my father told me his dad is an egomaniac. My dad is his second-in-command and gets ordered around all the time, and for some reason, Cane has taken that as an invitation to hate me.”

I take another drink.

“I’m getting the impression you have daddy issues.”

“Uh, yeah, same as you, I guess, and I don’t like to talk about mine either.”

“Fine. What other history is there with Cane? There has to be more.”

“Loads. More than I can tell you in a night, but I can give you a recent hint. I found him in my bed with my girlfriend. See that girl over there, staring at us and him.”

I point at Mia. She is staring and fidgeting with a piece of red hair between her fingers.

Olivia’s eyes widen. “Yeah …”

“That’s one of his mates. Different packs have their own rules, and Cane’s frequently takes multiple mates. He already had two and decided he’d set his sights on my girlfriend for a trophy.”

“That must have been terrible.”

“Yeah, finding them in my bed together was a bad day. But I got over her quickly.” I’m a shit boyfriend. Pretty sure my most spoken words to her were “ Sorry, I’ve got practice .”

“She doesn’t look happy.”

I smirk. “Yeah, I don’t think he has much to do with his mates after he bonds with them. She asked me to fuck her once. Showed up at my door at one in the morning.”

Olivia’s face drops, but she recovers so quickly I almost didn’t catch it.

“I told her to leave.” I lean next to her ear. “In case you’re curious. She’s avoided me since.”

I can’t tell if she finds me amusing or annoying. Probably both, but she doesn’t leave my lap, so I relish in the warmth of her body twisted on mine and trace circles on the small of her back.

Suddenly, I know it’s going to be a loss when she separates from me, and she says, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

“I’ll walk you.”

“You need to follow me?”

“With the amount of assholes in here, yes.”

I leave her at the door and make my way back over to the drink table for a refill.

“I have to say, I thought you were lying,” Gavin says, taking a cup from the table and pouring himself a drink.

“I know.” I shrug.

“I mean, we had that conversation and suddenly you tell me Olivia is your mate, but after seeing you two tonight … it’s obvious.”

“Obvious, huh?” Fuck yes. We got them so good.

“Yeah, I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about you the rest of the semester.”

It’s going to be an interesting semester, that’s for certain. I can’t wait to tell Olivia how convincing we were.

“I’ve never seen you act that way before either.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” I sip my drink.

“Oh, so you weren’t thinking about marking Olivia in the public common room?”

“No. Definitely not. I have class.”

Marking someone in public is the equivalent of having sex with them, and I don’t want to be one of those people.

But I also need everyone else to keep their teeth away from my girl friend.

A girl who’s a friend that I also weirdly want to mark.

Nothing I need to think that hard about tonight anyway.

“Uh-huh.” I eye the door to the bathroom, scanning for Cane and Aster’s friends lingering nearby.

“Well, you don’t need to worry. Her and her sisters are under our protection. I already have things settled with Aster and Barrett.”

“Perfect.”