Ruthless Read online

  “From now on as in every day. Every night.”

  “Yes, I got that. But this isn’t an everyday kind of thing.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “No, it’s not.” I pushed up to sitting, trying to pull the sheet with me. “Rand, this… thing, I know it’s just an itch.”

  He looked me over. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous in my bed. And this?” he swirled his finger in a circle. “It’s definitely an itch. An itch I can’t stop scratching.” Reaching beneath the covers, I could tell he was gripping his dick, pumping it.

  I climbed from the bed, found my bra and put it on as I talked. “Get a flea collar then. This is not happening.”

  He pushed up onto his hand. “It’s already happened, Red. You don’t want to stay here, that’s fine. We can do the work around you.”

  Frustrated, I pushed the strap onto my shoulder. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to maybe make me some coffee then kiss me at my car, then I’d drive away. Maybe, maybe, we’d fuck again if we got that itch but nothing more. It annoyed me that he was pretending we could be something more when I already knew for a fact it wasn’t possible.

  That was why I was frustrated. Angry at how hot he looked in his bed. I could just shut my mouth, climb back in bed and answer his multiple choice question about getting me off.

  We’d only dig in a little deeper. And while I didn’t know jack about love, this was the kind of guy I might fantasize about having for keeps.

  Which wasn’t possible.

  No, I had to walk away now.

  “This was fun, but this isn’t an everyday thing, Rand. It can’t be.”

  “Why not? Didn’t you have fun?”

  He wasn’t being logical. I went around to the foot of the bed, found my jean skirt. I stepped into it and shimmied it up my legs. “It’s not about fun. I mean, it was definitely fun. But I know you don’t want something long term.”

  His brows dipped. “I want forever, Red.”

  That made me freeze. My breath caught. My heart skipped a beat. But he was lying to me. Strange—Rand didn’t strike me as a liar. He was smooth but didn’t give off the player vibe. It offended me he would try to lead me on. “No.”

  He pushed all the way up to sitting, his gorgeous torso on display. How did a guy get abs like those? It wasn’t from any gym around here.

  “No? What the fuck, Red? What do you mean no?”

  Now he was pushing me into a direction I’d never wanted to say. I’d sworn Uncle Adam to secrecy. I knew Rand kept his being a shifter a secret, and he was pushing me to say it aloud, to voice the one thing he never wanted uttered.

  I found my blouse, slipped my arms through it with more effort than required. “I mean, you’re being bossy again. Telling me I’m having an orgasm this morning whether I want it or not.”

  His mouth opened, and he held up a hand. “Cool your jets, darlin’. I’m not making you do anything. I’m a generous guy. When it comes to you, I want to make you happy. I want to hear you call my name in that breathy way again. I don’t care if it’s on my mouth or my dick.”

  “Why?” I asked, running my hand over my face.

  “Why what? Why do I want you to come? Because I’m a generous lover.”

  I sighed. “Fine, I’ll give you that. But why me? Why do you want it every day?”

  “Why don’t you?” he countered.

  I tossed my arms up. “Because we just met. I don’t know you.”

  “You know quite a bit about me, darlin’, just like I know a hell of a lot about you.”

  His gaze dropped to my chest, the fact that I hadn’t buttoned my blouse.

  I tried to calm down enough to get my fingers to work the buttons.

  “I told you before, Red, you’re mine. I’m a possessive fucker.”

  “I saw that clearly last night.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  He sat there all sexy and rumpled. And confused.

  This was it. There were only so many lies I could come up with to skirt the truth. And he was telling them, too, which bothered the hell out of me.

  “I know, Rand.”

  There, I said it. After fifteen years, I said it.

  “Know what?”

  I turned around to search for my shoes.

  “Know what?” he repeated.

  When I didn’t answer, he moved to me, took my arm and spun me back to face him. He stood before me. Bare. His dick was hard and bobbed between us, but he was looking at me with such confusion, such intensity, he clearly forgot he was aroused.

  “Know what?” he asked, this time with a little snap. His patience was at an end.

  “What you are.”

  He stared.

  “That you’re a shifter.”

  His eyes widened slightly, and the grip on my arm tightened, but it wasn’t painful.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, clearly trying to fake it.

  I sighed, let it out. “I saw you. That summer when the tractor fell on you.”

  He dropped his hand, went to the bed, sat on the edge.

  “I told Uncle Adam. He knew, told me what you were, what all of you at Wolf Ranch were. Are.”

  Rand looked over, surprise on his face. “Old Man Sheffield knew? All that time?”

  I nodded. “His first and only love was a shifter from your pack named Maggie. She couldn’t be with him because he was a human. So yeah. I know. I know there’s no forever for us.”

  He lurched up from the bed, holding both hands out. “Hold up. That’s where you’re wrong.”

  Something fluttered in my belly. God, I didn’t know how badly I wanted to be wrong. My legs trembled where I stood, as if my body believed this conversation was far more important than I’d given it credit for.

  “First of all, it used to be pack law that we couldn’t mate with humans, but that’s no longer the case. What really guides us is fate.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes, but he appeared dead serious.

  “A shifter catches the scent of his or her mate and knows them immediately. It’s biology. There’s no choice or question involved. I don’t know whether your uncle was Maggie’s fated mate, but I do know you’re my mate. You’re mine, Natalie Sheffield.”

  The trembling in my limbs grew stronger. I swallowed. “Wh-what are you saying? You just smell someone, and that’s it? You know?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. You’re mine. Your scent told me. I caught it on the full moon, and it led me straight to you.” His eyes widened, and a cocky grin stretched his lips. “You knew it was me at the swimming hole, didn’t you?”

  For some ridiculous reason, I felt my cheeks heat, even though he’d seen me naked a few times since. “I knew.”

  I reeled, trying to assimilate what he was telling me. That there was some biological urge that just clicked and told him I belonged to him.

  “Listen… this is all a bit much. I hear what you’re saying. You don’t do love. You just… mate? Well, th-that’s not how it works for me.”

  Rand’s face seemed to drain of color. He took a step forward, reaching for my upper arms and lightly touching them. “What’s the problem, Red? If you know what I am and know you’re my mate, then why are you pushing me away?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, more as a protective gesture than anything else. I could hold back from letting him hold me. “Because I’m human.”

  He frowned. “Yeah, so? So are a lot of the pack’s mates. Audrey and her sister Marina. And Becky, my brother’s mate. Charlie, our veterinarian. They mated shifters.”

  “Uncle Adam… ”

  “Come on, Red. Sit.” He led me to the bed, and we settled at the end. “Tell me what your uncle told you. I won’t touch you.”

  I eyed him for a minute then told him about Uncle Adam’s high school sweetheart. “I won’t be with a guy, a shifter, who leaves me for another shifter.”

  He turned, looked to me. He lifted his hand to cup my face, let it fall. “That’s not
how it is. Maybe then, maybe that family, but things are different now. Even Rob, who’s the pack alpha, was prepared to mate a human, but Willow, you know her from the DEA sting last year, turned out to be a wolf.”

  My eyes widened. “Willow’s a shifter, too?”

  He gave a small smile. “She didn’t know it then. But that’s not the point. Everyone in the pack lately’s mated to a human. I’m the next to fall. For you.”

  I popped up, paced, considered. Uncle Adam’s story was poignant, but I couldn’t deny the four examples of human/shifter relationships he’d mentioned. Even Rob, the leader, had been prepared to mate a human. If they all had done it, then Rand would be fine with it too.

  Then I thought of my parents, the true issue. “Your wolf is driving you.”

  He grinned. “That’s for sure. I… I’m hot for you. I won’t deny that. But I want more than that. You want love. Well, that’s easy. I love you, Red.”

  There. That. All of a sudden, I was cold. His words, they were empty. “No. Don’t do that. Don’t say the words when you don’t mean them. Love isn’t some biological urge. Your wolf is controlling you. Will always do so. My parents, they… they hate each other. They live in this loveless, miserable marriage. I’ve heard that word tossed around when it means nothing. I won’t have that.”

  “You won’t be miserable with me,” he replied.

  I shook my head. “You don’t even know me. We’ve spent one night together. One night. I’m not going to sign up for a lifetime based on that. I’ve seen how unfortunate that scenario can turn out. I won’t be in a relationship every day when I will never know if it’s the wolf’s need for a mate or love that keeps us together.”

  “I’ll always have a wolf’s need for you. You’ve seen it, it’s possessive and bossy. It’s desperate for you.”

  He truly had no idea, which was proof that this wasn’t going to work. He didn’t understand that I wasn’t going to have a relationship with a shifter, one who was driven by his need to mate. Not by genuine connection. Not by love.

  “Exactly. I can’t. I’m sorry but no. That’s just biology. That’s not love.”

  I turned again, grabbed my shoes off the floor and carried them out of his bedroom. My purse was on the floor by the front door, and I grabbed it.

  “Red!” Rand called, following.

  I went outside, the sun warm, the sky a gorgeous blue.

  “Red!” he cried again, stepping out onto the porch. Butt naked. “Don’t leave. I’ll just have to follow you.”

  I stopped by my car, looked to him. “No, you won’t be following me. Your wolf will.”

  12

  RAND

  * * *

  Nash’s truck pulled up while I was still standing in the doorway, my dick waving in the wind.

  I cursed and stepped back into the cabin and yanked on a pair of jeans and t-shirt. We had a job today—a chimney rebuild at one of the pack member’s houses. I’d told Nash yesterday to reschedule because I needed to get Natalie’s whole house rewired, but he’d refused.

  “You’re gonna need to keep working if you’re going to help fund her fix-up project,” he’d told me. “Besides, I can’t do the chimney job alone.”

  He was right, but fuck if I didn’t want to jog right past his truck and go after my mate. I wanted to follow—hell, I needed to follow, but Natalie didn’t want that.

  “You look like shit,” Nash observed when I climbed in the cab. “Did you just wake up? Did you even eat?”

  I shook my head. My brain was whirring and spinning in twelve different directions, and all of them were around Natalie. What the fuck had just happened? She’d known I was a shifter. For years. I couldn’t get my head around that. Humans didn’t know about shifters. My brother, Clint, had told me how he’d had to reveal what he was to Becky, and that had been a cluster fuck. Being the younger sibling, I was able to learn from Clint’s mistakes. I hadn’t even gotten to the point where I would have messed up telling Natalie the truth.

  She already knew.

  She’d known all along she was going to walk away while I’d been sinking hard and fast.

  My wolf was pissed for letting her go. What was I supposed to say to her?

  I had no fucking idea.

  Nash put the truck back in park. “Go grab some beef sticks. I’m not gonna have you snarling at me because you’re hungry and haven’t marked your mate yet.”

  I wanted to snarl at him right there. In fact, I would have loved a good wolf fight—the two of us throwing down in a tussle of fur and fangs until I got rid of some of this aggression. But when we were done, bloody and worn out, I’d still feel the same fucking way.

  Natalie had left and nothing was going to fix that. Except going after her and getting her to see reason… somehow.

  When I refused to move, he shook his head and got out, stomping into my open cabin and coming back with a handful of the giant meat-sticks we kept on hand for wolf snacks.

  He dropped them in my lap, put the truck back in gear and started driving. “So? What’s the problem? I smell her all over you.”

  “She knows about shifters.”

  “Okaaay.” He drew out the last syllable as if to imply there was no problem.

  “She says what I feel isn’t love. Then she basically shot out of here and told me not to follow.”

  He steered around a turn, kept his eyes on the road.

  “Well, humans are different,” he said, as if he knew this shit. He didn’t have a mate. He had no fucking clue. Still, he went on. “You should talk to your brother about it. Or to Becky. Human women don’t get the mate thing. Didn’t Becky refuse to marry Clint because she’d had a bad marriage? They don’t understand that bad matings don’t happen.”

  “They also don’t understand that a true fated mating is special,” I reminded him. Lots of shifters never found their fated mate. They settled with someone before it was too late to have a family. Those pairings were like human marriages—took work and could fall apart. Domestic abuse was rare, but when it happened in shifter couples, it was made even worse by the biological urge to stay with a fated mate. A female wolf might leave, but the male wolf would be compelled to follow his mate, even if she wanted to be free of him. Or so I’d heard. Again, it was rare.

  “Maybe you can get her to see what the others have. I mean, look at Audrey and Boyd. Clint and Becky. The others. You’ve got good examples of human/shifter mates that are fucking nauseating to watch.”

  “Yeah, they would be good, if she saw reason. She’s not thinking clearly. Plus, she mentioned her parents’ bad marriage. From what she told me of them, they’re a piece of work. Said she doesn’t want a loveless pairing.” I rubbed my forehead. “She thinks what we have isn’t love.”

  He turned and looked at me before back on the road. “Well, by their definition it isn’t, I guess. I know you knew her when you were kids, but you only really met the other day. You only found out she was your mate that night. That’s why you should go talk to Becky. Or any of the other women. Figure out what humans need to fall in love.”

  “I don’t think it’s that simple. She doesn’t think I love her. How do I prove to her my feelings are real besides all the shit I’m already doing? I mean, if I get any more possessive and protective, she’ll be tied to my bed.”

  I slumped in the seat as the truck bumped along the dirt road. Fuck. This was way harder than I’d anticipated, and no matter how much my wolf—and my dick—wanted her permanently in my bed, that wasn’t the way to go. I thought I’d been so lucky to find my mate at a good age for mating and pups. I didn’t realize finding her wasn’t the only hurdle. Or the smallest.

  Not that I wasn’t willing to do whatever the fuck it took to prove my worth to her.

  We pulled up at the job site and climbed out of the truck, unloading our supplies.

  Nathan, the homeowner, came out to greet us. He was kind of a prick, which was probably part of why Nash had refused to reschedule the job. Nathan wa
s the type to make a big stink and ask for a discount and all that shit, even from a fellow shifter.

  I also disliked the fucker because a relative of his from another pack tried to kill my brother last year. Disliked was being generous, especially in my current mood. Not that the fiasco with Clint had been Nathan’s fault, but he was a shady asshole, and I wouldn’t put it past him to be more involved than we’d discovered. He was the type to stir trouble wherever the fuck he went.

  I knew Rob had to watch his back with the older guy at every turn. He seemed to have it in for Rob especially, wanting him replaced with someone else as alpha, whoever the fuck it might be.

  “Hey boys, about time you showed up,” Nathan drawled, scuffing the heels of his cowboy boots in the dirt as he walked.

  Nash raised his brows. “We’re right on time by my watch.”

  Nathan made a show of checking his watch. “If five minutes late is your definition of on time.”

  I kept my mouth firmly shut. In the mood I was in, I was likely to do or say something that would come back to bite me in the ass. Hard. Instead, I pulled the ladder out of the back of the truck and propped it against Nathan’s house then set up the scaffolding next to it with our supplies.

  When Nathan turned back and went inside, Nash gave him the finger.

  My wolf was too fucking cranky for me to smile, but it did lighten my mood a bit. The guy was part of the pack. We took care of our own, even if one was a total bastard. I shook my head and got to work. The sooner we got it finished, the sooner we were out of here. The sooner I could get back to Natalie.

  We climbed up the ladder, set the boards on the scaffolding and got to work, taking apart the stone chimney where it had caved in after the ground below the century-old ranch house settled. The structural problems were more than just the chimney, but that was the only one Nathan was willing to fix at this point.

  “Did you get the fuse box replaced over at Natalie’s yesterday?” Nash asked while we worked. He pulled a loose stone free and set it on a tarp he’d placed on the roof. The day was warm, but the tall pines that surrounded the old cabin kept the sun from beating down. There was a slight breeze and the scent of evergreens and fried eggs—I assumed Nathan’s breakfast—filled the air. In the distance, I could hear a deer cutting through the woods.