The Boy Next Door-
Nine:
“What did they do to him?” Her whisper broke through the sound of the steady beating of her once racing heart as it lulled him into sleep. The broken, forlorn sound of her voice struck a cord within his chest. The wolf inside him that had calmed once Samara had fallen asleep fidgeted, an uneasy whine bouncing around the recesses of his mind.
His hand paused in its descent down the thick mass of her hair. “From what Jimmy told me they tried to force The Change on him.” He left out the part that Jimmy had showed him the video she had gotten in the mail mere weeks after her father’s funeral. He had a hard enough time even thinking about her possibly re-watching the events of that night, telling her that he’d seen it wasn’t something he was ready to do at the moment.
It was unheard of, though, for a full human to even survive the blood exchange required to start the transition, let alone actually be able to shift forms. Most humans couldn’t survive the amount of blood loss that occurred. But her father had been determined to survive, to protect his only child.
“Tried?” Samara turned until she faced him as they lay on the couch. Tears no longer filled her eyes, the dark circles beneath had abated, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that she needed more sleep. He could practically feel the exhaustion she fought. “I saw it-”
“If it had worked he would have been able to control his baser instincts.” He rubbed his thumb across her cheek. “Listen to me; if you hadn’t pulled that trigger he would have killed you. You did him a favor, Samara. He never would have survived.” Noah would have been forced to kill him to protect the pack.
“Why?” Samara sat up, clutching the blanket he had thrown over her to her chest as she stared miserably back at him. “Why didn’t they just kill him? Why try to… turn him if it was so unlikely to work?”
Colton sighed. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” It was, after all, what he and his brothers did. They all had their day jobs, but tracking out of control rogues before they went on killing sprees is what they were good at.
“How? The police have no idea who they are or if they’re still even in the country.” He wanted to tell her how unlikely it was that they had left the country knowing she could very well identify them. Rogues were insane, yes, but they knew how to cover their tracks.
They wouldn’t have terrorized her by sending that video if they had any intention of letting her live the rest of her life in peace. But he kept his mouth shut, wanting the proof rather than just the warning itch at the back of his neck before he turned her world upside down once more.
“Would you be able to identify them if you saw them again?” He didn’t mention the video, praying with every fiber of his being that Jimmy hadn’t been lying when he said Samara had no clue it even existed.
She nodded, eyes glazing over as some memory haunted her. “Yes,” Her voice was hoarse, riddled with pain. “But what good will that do if no one knows where they are?”
“You leave that to me, I just need you to be able to identify them whenever we find them.” Even though his very soul railed against the thought of them being anywhere near her again.
“We?”
He dragged her over his body, pinning her to his chest with his arms around her middle. “Yes, mate, we. I need to know everything you remember about them, baby, so that my brothers and I can find them.” Of course, he would probably get his ass kicked for volunteering them all, but that was beside the point.
She went silent and he had just begun to wonder what was running through her mind when she planted her hands on his chest and pushed herself up, staring him dead in the eye. Or trying to, anyway. Despite their positions, she was still a bit short. “Colton, your mother…” She broke off, glancing away, again, as she bit her lip.
“Is insane, I know, and I am so sorry. It just takes awhile to get used to her.” He should know. Christ, he was twenty-eight years old and he still wasn’t used to his mother’s “quirks” as his father called them.
“No-well, okay she kind of is, but that’s not the point. There was something she said earlier and what you just said reminded me of it.” She paused and Colton had to clench his fists at his sides in order to keep from pulling the hair from his head.
Because he knew, he just knew, what his mother had let slip.
“What is a mate?”
Damn her. Damn his mother and her big mouth! He was never speaking to her again. Never. Not even when she tried to bribe him with chocolate cake… okay, so he would probably take the cake, but that was it! After that, he was never speaking to her again.
…Unless she had more chocolate…
“Colton,” It was her hand tapping his cheek that finally brought him back to the present.
“Huh? What?” He blinked up into her smiling face a distant part of his mind still thinking about the chocolate cake he knew his mother would be making him when he confronted her about earlier that morning.
“You’re drooling.” She giggled, absolute merriment lighting up her expression as she watched him.
He ran the back of his hand over his mouth and-huh, what do you know. He was drooling. Well, that was embarrassing. He could feel a blush staining his cheeks and that only seemed to entertain her more.
“And now you’re blushing. That must have been some daydream, huh.” He groaned, closing his eyes as the blush in his cheeks grew stronger and she laughed again. “Oh come on, I think it’s cute.”
“’Cause that really strokes a man’s ego.”
She snorted. “The last thing you need is your ego stroked.” Now how had he known she was going to say that?
“You could always stroke something else.” Now wasn’t the time to tease her, he knew. She was still adjusting to everything she now knew, it wasn’t fair of him to take advantage of her confusion, but it was difficult to think of anything else when he knew all that was separating his aching c0ck from her hot little pu$$y was a few layers of clothing.
Wide eyes shot to where she was straddling his hips a second before she scrambled off the couch, squeaking in surprise when her bottom hit the floor. “That was so lame,” She pouted, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Well, hell woman. It’s just a little hard to think with you pushing that tight little pu$$y of yours right up against my d!ck.” He helped her off the floor, ignoring the fact that he was enjoying this all a little too much for his sanity to be entirely intact. Insanity tended to run in his family, though, so he wasn’t all that worried.
“You’re the one that put me in your lap.” She reminded him sweetly and he could practically feel her eyes narrowing on his back when he turned and stalked into the kitchen.
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it, damn it. I said it was a little hard to think with you rubbing all over me.” He snapped, jerking a bottle of water out of the fridge before he slammed the door closed again. “And don’t even bother denying it; I can smell how hot you are right now from clear across the room.”
“Well, then hold your breath.” She glared at him. “And you still haven’t answered me.” She propped her hands on her hips, staring down that perfect little nose at him.
“Why don’t you go ask my mother? She seems to enjoy imparting information she knows to keep to herself.” He shouldn’t have been so surprised, though, that was just what his mother did.
“If I had wanted your mother to tell me then I would have asked her first, not you.” The ‘duh’ went unsaid, but he could hear it as clearly as he could hear the racing of her heart. Irritation marred her features. “Well?”
“Look, I’ll explain everything later when you’re a little less… emotional.” He hadn’t meant to say it, hell he hadn’t meant it period, it just sort of slipped out. And he knew the second he did how much of an ass he had just made of himself. Damn it.
“Excuse me?” Shocked outrage lined every inch of her body, lit a fire in her eyes that, frankly, had him wondering if he should hide the knives. He had seen that look on Avery’s face whenever Noah angered her and it had never ended well for his brother. “You think I’m being emotional?”
“A little yeah.” And he just couldn’t help but keep digging his own grave, could he? Where the hell was his mother when he needed her? She always knew how to get him out of shit like this.
A frustrated snarl passed her lips that was just a little too sexy for her own good, but it was also his only warning.
Colton barely ducked in time for the glass she threw at his head to smash against the cabinets lining the wall behind him. Incredulity overruled the sudden laughter that built in his chest, but barely.
“You little, witch. Do you even know how much that glass cost?” It hadn’t even cost him two bucks, but it was the principle of the matter, he assured himself. She had thrown a glass at his head; surely, he had some right to be just a tad upset.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, forgive me please. I’m just being emotional!” She reached for another glass.
He ducked and, again, the glass shattered against the cabinets. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? If you’re trying to hit me, little cat, you might want to aim a little better next time.” A coffee mug came flying at his head, missing by mere inches. “Keep it up, witch, and I’m going to spank your ass.”
“Ooh, I’m so scared I’m shaking in my fucking boots.” She snarled at him, huffing when there were no other dishes within her reach on the counter.
“You’re not wearing boots.” There was the laughter again. It caught them both off guard, rumbling in his chest when she made a face at him.
“Oh, bite me.”
His grin was a slow, wicked bearing of his teeth as his voice lowered to a rumbling growl. “I can do that… but I’d much rather spank that pretty little ass of yours.” He lunged across the kitchen, catching her around the waist as she jumped for a glass on the counter and smacked him over the head with it.
Time seemed to stop. Samara froze as soon as the glass shattered against the top of his head, gulping as the nervousness filled her gaze again. It should have at least hurt and it would have, had he been human, but he wasn’t and all the shattering glass did was prove that she would fit into his family just fine.
But he wasn’t about to let her get away with clocking him over the head with his own damn glass.
“Samara-”
“I didn’t do it.” The childlike proclamation had him fighting back laughter.
“You didn’t?” She shook her head against his chest, hiding behind the thick curtain of her hair. “Then how did I get glass in my hair?”
“…It flew?” She blinked up at him innocently.
“The glass flew at my head and broke? All by itself?” He asked and when she merely nodded, he threw her over his shoulder and stalked down the hall to his bedroom. She was amusing as hell, his little cat, but he was a wolf and the need to assert his dominance was something he found he couldn’t fight any longer.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She demanded, pounding on his back with her tiny fists when he locked the bedroom door, gasping in shock when he tossed her onto the bed and turned to the closet.
He wasn’t surprised when she scrambled for the door, but he caught her before her hand even reached the doorknob. He grabbed the edges of her shirt and pulled until the sound of tearing fabric rent the air, and then he did the same with her shorts. Leaving her exquisitely bare and furious to his gaze.
“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing? Huh?” One delicate little finger prodded his chest, the nail biting into his skin through the material of his shirt. “Hello?” She snapped her fingers in his face, forcing him to tear his gaze away from the hard, reddened n!pples topping her breasts.
“I think I’m going to spank that pretty little ass exactly as I warned you I would, mate.” One arm wrapped around her middle, lifting her off her feet and he carried her back to the bed, following her down when he laid her flat on her stomach.
“Like hell you are asshole. I didn’t give you permission to-” She froze. Tension radiated throughout her entire body as her gaze shot to where he had handcuffed one of her hands to the headboard of his bed. Her breathing deepened, roughened. Her heartbeat accelerated and the sweetest scent of feminine arousal tickled his senses. But she was nervous, uncertain.
“Say no,” His lips blazed a path across her shoulder blades, goose bumps rose along her bare flesh. “Say the word and I’ll back off. Or,” He cuffed her other wrist to the bed, making sure there was enough slack in the metal chain to keep from hurting her. The metal cuffs wouldn’t have been his first choice, but at the moment, they were all he had. “We can play for a little while, wouldn’t you like that?”
She was trembling, but then, so was he. The thought of playing with her, of seeing how much she could handle had him harder than hell, but the idea that he could be pushing for too much too soon was lurking at the forefront of his mind.
His teeth clenched on the vulnerable pulse point beating erratically at her neck and a low, keening cry fell from her lips. “What do you say, Mara-baby? Are you brave enough to play with the big, bad wolf?”
It’s so very short, I know, but it’s something and I’m surprised I’ve had the time to write this much. Let me know what you guys think.