Forbidden Alliance: A Werewolf's Tale (Forbidden Alliance Trilogy) (22 page)

Somehow Tanis was
even sexier when being an ass.

“You are ridiculous,” I mumbled and shoved the sandwich in my mouth.

While
Tanis
cleaned
up, he hummed under his breath
and there was something unbelievably sexy about it.

“Are you done undressing me with your eyes?” he asked
conversationally with his back to me as he washed
the dishes in the sink.

“Not really,” I admitted
then
cringed.
“Do you have a shirt I can borrow that doesn’t cost five grand?”
I quickly asked, trying desperately to change the subje
c
t.

He laughed.
“Maybe.
That means
you would
have to take a look in
my
room, alone, with me.”

“Well duh,” I
said, putting
on my best valley girl voice and flipped my hair over my shoulder.

Tanis turned and looked at me,
shaking his head in
resignation
.

No matter what he
threw
at me, I
always threw
it right back at him.

“So like, do I totally get to see you with like no shirt on since you saw me without a shirt
on
?” I
asked, twirling a lock of hair around my fingers
.

His amused expression turned into something else, something that was going to get me in trouble; a mischievous smirk
pulled at the corners of his lips
, and his silver-streaked-blue eyes
sparkled
with excitement.
“If you wanted me topless,
Duckie,
you only had to ask,” he
informed me and
pulled his shirt over his head and flung it at me.

I was about to
tell him what a jackass he was,
but the word never found their way to my lips as
my mouth
fell
open
with a slight popping sound
.

I’d
been around
bronze
,
muscular boys my entire life;
it never really did anything for me
.
However
,
seeing
Tanis’
lightly tanned skin, smooth
muscular chest that had the
perfect amount of definition
that lead to his
lean muscular
abs that called out to me to pull
my fingers down, again and again
and again, made my heart race
.

“I didn’t know you had a tattoo,” I blurted out, trying to find a coherent thought.

Tanis chuckled.
“Yes.
Me more human body holds ink rather well.
I thought a Japanese inspired piece would
look lovely on me arm this time,” he said, looking at his arm. “Last time it was M.C. Escher's
Relativity,
however, it was suggested by Abby and Steffen
,
a few hundred times
,
that I needed to find my zen-like calm with the universe so I opted for this one
in order to shut them up
.
”

Could he get any sexier if he tried?

“You look ill, are you
well
, Duckie?”
he asked.

I swallowed loudly.
“Yes.
Shirt?” I
whispered with a
forced a smile
as I fought
to keep my eyes off of his amazing body
…it was a battle that I never stood a chance of winning to begin with.

Obviously Jay Dee didn’t fancy me.
Most
woman
, when
I throw
my shirt at
them
and parade around topless in f
ront of—not an everyday occurrence, to say the least—
threw
themselves at me.

However,
Jay Dee
was keeping her damn distance as if I had the bloody plague.

I wish Romeo wasn’t
still
narked
about her
picking me over him
so I could ask him what to do.
I would ask Steffen, but he has been out of the game for centuries and it was love at f
irst sight with him and
Abby
, no effort was needed by either of them.

Bloody hell.

Jay Dee
was
stretched out on my bed
as she absently
thumbed through a maga
zine she had found on the night
stand….

O
h shite.

“What are you reading?” I
reluctantly asked
.

She held it up and
shrugged.
“Maxim.
I have to say, that’s a hot underwear set.”

I crawled up next to her on the bed
and peeked at what she was looking at, and couldn’t have agreed more.
She’d look amazing in it, and even better out of it.

“Anyway,” she
said and turned the page. “What do you do all day
or night?”

“Seriously, Duckie, get your head out of the
bloody books,
” I teased, softly knocking into her, and she knocked back.
“I sleep at night, this bed
is not a prop, and n
o we
do not
sleep in coffins, no we
are not
incapable of sleep, and no we
do not
stalk the night looking for young virgins to suck dry.”

I hissed at her for her amusement and she rolled her eyes.

“Ha ha,” she snorted
, flipping through the magazine, but the
delicious
flushing along her cheekbones was back.
“So you just sulk in your room from the time you get home until you wake for school?”
she surmised.

I hadn’t noticed that was exactly what I did.

“
Sadly, yes. T
hat is until I met you.
Sometimes
, to pass the time,
I play video games with Steffen, and
I am always fighting with Georgiana, and when I am
not in the mood for anyone, I go swimming.”

She looked at me; something I said had intrigued her.
“Swimming, where?”
she asked.

“The indoor pool in the outbuilding, why?”

“Whoa,” Jay Dee
said and
to
ssed the magazine on the floor. “An indoor pool. Sure,
why not?” she
huffed and
rolled to her back and glared at the ceiling.
“This isn’t going to work.”

“
I think I missed something,” I said as I silently prayed that she wasn’t telling me to sod off already.

“Tanis, why am I here?” she asked, ignoring my question.

“Because I asked you over?” I
asked unsure, not understanding in the least
where
her questioning was going
.

“No shit, Sherlock, but why?
” she asked, adamant. “
We aren’t the same
species, and you’
re way out of my league, and a lot older than me.
Surely you must find me childish and ridiculous, especially after this morning and my little bitch-fest.
If you’re just trying to get laid, I hate to burst your bubble, but I’m not that kind of girl.
I’ve been easily compared to an ice queen, so you can take me home at any time n
ow if that’s what you’re after. I promise, I won’t tell anyone so it doesn’t cause problems with the pack.
”

I was not entirely sure what to say about that.

All of her reasons
were
very
sound
ones, but none
which
appl
ied
.
For the life of me
,
I could
n’t
figure out where this beautiful young woman’s sense, or lack thereof, of self-worth was coming from. Was the pack’s treatment of her so severe that is had permanently damaged how she saw herself?

It was getting harder and harder to keep from fantasying about taking her away from the hideous beasts which had polluted her mind so. Jay Dee was beautiful, special, intelligent, kind and caring, and yet she apparently didn’t see any of that when she looked in the mirror—it drove mad with anger.

I twirled a lock of her
ridiculously
soft hair around my fingers and looked down at her.
“Duckie, you make
inarguable
points, if this were the seventeenth century.”

She rolled her eyes but
a small smile
pulled
at the corners of her mouth.

“See, that
was not
so hard,” I said, tracing her
pouting
bottom lip with my finger.
“If anything,
my
many centuries of life have taught me that
brass
cannot
buy happiness.
Sure it helps,
however,
no materialistic possession could make me feel as
happy as you have made me
these past two days.
This is
very
unsettling
for me to say aloud, but I
fancy
you very much; blonde hair,
feminine
emotional breakdowns, stripping in public to fight a werewolf, humble, modest, caring, funny,
irritating as all bloody hell,
and smart arse moments included.”

We looked at each other for a long moment
in silence
.

Buggers,
she
obviously did not
fancy
my company in the same way.

I
was continuing
to trace her vel
vety soft lips when she bit me, and sucked
my finger into her mouth, her tongue wrapping around it.

“O
w
...” I started to complain
that she was being childish;
t
he action was completely unexpected, but pleasantly intoxicating
, yet
it was, quite possibly, the most arousing thing I had ever experienced in my very long life
.

“You taste
delicious
,” she mumbled, holding my finger between her teeth.

I fought against my eyes that were so desperately trying to roll back in my head, my breathing got ridiculously labored, and I struggled to find a coherent thought.