Page 5

CHAPTER FIVE

JAKE

Moving like a predator, I stalk down the hallway and take the steps to reach the pool on the ground floor. I wasn’t going to let Elena hit the pool alone — not after she strutted into the room wearing that tiny fucking bikini.

She’s already down there when I arrive. The sunflower-yellow fabric of her swimsuit barely covers her ass, and don’t even get me started on that top.

Her glossy black hair cascades down her back, and I find myself wondering what it would feel like wrapped around my hand.

Elena’s long golden legs dangle into the water as she laughs at something Carmen said.

Carmen. Talk about a bad influence. I swear, that girl lives to make trouble.

“Yo!”

I turn at the sound of Maddox’s voice and break into a wide grin. I hadn’t realized he was going to be at this shindig, and it’s good to see a familiar face.

Maddox is a big guy — dark-haired and well-inked. He looks like somebody who should be dressed in leather, straddling a big black Harley. Instead he’s lounging in a pool chair and sipping a beer. Beside him is Nick, another one of my pack brothers.

I plop down in the empty chair on Maddox’s other side, and he hands me a cold Corona.

“Thanks, man,” I say, taking a long drag.

“Didn’t know you were gonna be here.”

“Neither did I.”

Maddox gives me a strange look, and I nod toward Elena. “Rafael wanted me to keep an eye on his sister this weekend.”

Our little town of Gold Creek is a forty-minute drive from Denver, but every shifter in Colorado knows Raf.

Maddox’s eyebrows creep up, and he shakes his head as a chuckle rumbles up his throat. “So you’re here to keep her from getting fucked by the groomsmen?”

“Basically,” I grunt, my wolf snarling at Maddox’s implication that Lena would sleep with any other male here.

Nick doesn’t speak, but I know he’s listening. He stares out at the party with sharp green eyes that could cut fucking glass, as if he half expects someone to throw a grenade into the gaggle of females drinking and chatting at the other end of the pool.

Nick is a delta wolf, which places him outside the pack hierarchy altogether. Where dominant wolves can use alpha command to force individual wolves to do their bidding, a delta wolf can manipulate emotions and influence the entire pack at once.

I’ve known the guy for five years, and I still find it creepy as hell.

“You gonna come out with us tonight?” Maddox asks. “ We’re pregaming in Damon’s room, then we’re gonna head to Cascade for —”

Maddox breaks off, and a whirl of movement catches my eye. A woman with honey-blond hair is sprinting toward the water. She shrieks and pulls her legs up into a cannonball position as three human males gawk and whistle from the sidelines.

A low growl rumbles beside me, and I see Maddox shift his weight forward, preparing to stand. The blond is Maddox’s mate, Paige, and those human dudes have no idea what they just stepped in.

Before he met Paige, Maddox was the mad dog who did the pack’s dirty work. He’s settled down quite a bit since he mated, but any new level of zen he’s achieved goes out the window where Paige is concerned.

While Maddox watches Paige swim across the pool, my gaze drifts over to Elena. The water laps at her perfect breasts, and one of her bikini ties floats behind her.

I have a sudden graphic fantasy of the two of us alone in the pool. I swim up behind her and give that string a little tug, cupping her warm breasts as I plant a trail of kisses down that perfect golden neck.

Elena has a dancer’s body — lithe and petite. I bet I could get her in some truly spectacular positions and make her come so hard that she —

“You gonna go for it?” Maddox asks, ripping me out of fantasy land.

I whip my head around to look at him, panic squeezing my guts. He’s followed my gaze across the pool to where Elena is lounging, and the look in his eyes says he knows where my head was.

“ What ?” I ask, trying to play it off .

Nick might be picking up on my lust and angst, but Maddox isn’t a fucking mind reader.

“The water,” he clarifies. “You gonna get in?”

“Oh . . . I don’t know. Maybe.” Relief ebbs through me, though I know I can’t get in the water — not when it would put me so close to Elena in her yellow bikini.

Besides that, watching her has given me a . . . situation down south. Sitting with my legs spread wide, it’s hard to tell, but if I were to stand, everyone would know exactly how I feel about Raf’s little sister.

That knowledge is enough to make me sweat, and it takes me back to the last time I saw Elena before I left town for good.

I was twenty-two, and I was in Denver visiting Raf. There wasn’t a lot going on that night, so we decided to crash our old high-school team’s basketball game before the planned hunt with Raf’s pack.

I hadn’t known Lena was on the pom squad. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come.

I’d made every effort to avoid the Garcia house since the night of her sweet sixteen — since the night she kissed me.

That night, I’d sworn off temptation. Lena thought I didn’t want her, and she was right.

I didn’t want her. I needed her — needed her like I needed water or air. But I couldn’t cross that line. Lena was five years younger and Raf’s baby sister. Raf was the closest thing I had to a brother, and he would’ve disowned me if he knew the thoughts I had about her.

But this . . . this was some special form of torture.

There she was, dancing and smiling in her red-and-black uniform — short skirt, sleeveless top, bright-white tennis shoes that set off her smooth, golden skin .

Seeing her out there moving to the music, I couldn’t help but smile. I’d meant what I’d said when I gave her that bracelet. Lena was my sunshine.

The squad finished their number and headed for the bleachers, where a pale, muscular guy in a baggy white T-shirt was waiting. A giant rhinestone glinted from one ear. He said something to Elena, and her lips pinched together.

Inside, my wolf snarled.

“Who is that guy?” I asked Raf.

Raf shook his head and scowled. “Mikey. Some shithead Elena dated once or twice. I caught him feeling her up in his car.” The alpha’s voice trembled with fury. “I told her he was bad news, but she wouldn’t listen to me. They broke up when she caught him screwing some sophomore under the bleachers.”

At those words, the growl rumbled from my chest to my throat.

Lena pulled a smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes, but the guy kept talking.

“Seems like he can’t take a hint.”

“Yeah,” Raf agreed. “Elena’s got his number, though. And he’s only human.”

To anyone else listening, it might have sounded as though Raf was excusing the shithead’s behavior, but I caught his true meaning. The kid was a danger to his sister, but a human was easily dealt with.

At that moment, Elena turned to go, but the creep with the earring grabbed her by the arm.

Before I knew it, I was on my feet, ready to break both the guy’s legs. Lena yanked her arm away and said something that made the creep jerk his head back. Attagirl. She flounced off to rejoin the pom squad, but the guy kept watching.

“Be right back,” I said to Raf .

“But there’s only twelve seconds left on the clock, and we’re down by two points.”

I didn’t answer him. It was nearly the end of the fourth quarter, but I no longer felt invested in the game.

I stalked out of the gym and waited on the other side of the concessions stand. I heard a whistle and the squeak of sneakers on the court. Then the crowd went wild.

Judging by the sounds of celebration, I knew our team had scored and won. I didn’t move. I waited as students poured out through the double doors, high-fiving and shouting and celebrating.

The players, cheerleaders, and members of the pom squad would be in the locker rooms, which were only accessible from the gym and from the hallway just behind me.

So I waited.

Sure enough, the creep with the earring came slinking out with the throng of people. His pale eyes drifted over me as he exited with the crowd, and I knew I didn’t imagine the shiver that went through him.

Humans could be pretty dense, but even the stupidest of them could sense a predator.

Takes one to know one, creep.

I waited until he slunk down the hallway and then turned and followed him. He leaned against the wall outside the women’s locker room.

A grim smirk twisted my mouth. Sometimes, I hated being right.

“You waiting for Elena?” I called.

The creep looked up, and his face scrunched into a scowl.

“Maybe. What’s it to you?”

I let out a dry chuckle. This guy really was a genius.

“Everything,” I ground out .

The guy opened his mouth to reply, and my fist flew out — knocking his head back against the wall. He staggered, and I aimed a kick just above his knee. His leg crumpled beneath him.

I continued to land punch after punch until he was a limp, bleeding mess on the floor. Then I scraped him up off the tile and carried him out the double doors.

“Stay. Away. From. Her.”

A loud shriek from one of the girls on the other side of the pool tugs me out of the memory.

Before that night, I’d told myself I just had to wait. If I waited until I turned twenty-six, then I could allow myself a shot with Elena.

She’d be twenty-one. It would no longer be rob-the-cradle inappropriate. Raf would have to come around once he saw just how much I cared for his sister.

But after I’d left that creep’s blood splattered over the brick wall outside the locker rooms, I knew I couldn’t ever have her. If we got together and it didn’t work out, I’d spend the rest of my days taking out my rage on any man who dared get close to her, rather than fighters in a cage.

Sure, it’s been torture hearing Raf tell me about her life — including every guy she ever dated — but I’m good at pretending not to care.

Growing up, I’d pretended I didn’t care about going to school in dirty clothes that were a size too small.

I’d pretended I didn’t care that my own shitty parents were too fucked up to go to work or make sure there was food in the house.

I’d pretended I didn’t care that I had to swipe my friends’ uneaten scraps from the cafeteria just so I’d have something to eat between lunch and the free breakfast they offered at school. And if it was a weekend, I’d hang out at Raf’s as much as I could just so I didn’t go hungry.

So, yeah . . . I could pretend that I didn’t care about the beautiful girl who was old enough and practically within reach. I could do it because I had to.

Suddenly, my skin feels much too tight. My whole body tingles with the urge to shift, and I need to work off some of this energy before shutting myself in a hotel room with temptation.

“I’m going for a run,” I tell Maddox, getting to my feet and clapping him on the shoulder.

Maddox fixes me with that same odd look, but he doesn’t say a word as I stalk out of the gated pool area and head for my Jeep.