Beautifully Cruel (Beautifully Cruel #1)(6)

Then it’s just me, Carla, Diego, and my growing certainty that I’ll never see the wolf again.

I scared him off with my terrifying tales of rural Texas. He probably thinks my favorite hobbies include shooting at woodpeckers in my underwear, getting into fist fights at NASCAR races, and making beer runs to the convenience store with my pet goats riding in the back of my pickup truck.

Just when I’ve given up all hope, the bell over the front door jingles, and there he is.

The tall, dark, and handsome stranger who can unsettle me with a look and hasn’t told me his name once in eleven months of coming here.

He stops a foot inside the door and stares at me, standing frozen behind the counter.

He makes no move to come closer or sit down. Dressed in his usual black suit and tie, his hair slicked back, his beautiful dark eyes burning as they drink me in, he looks like a supermodel assassin.

I’m gripped by an insane urge to run across the restaurant and throw myself into his arms.

Carla sails past with the coffee carafe in one hand and a mug in the other. Under her breath, she says, “OwOooo!”

My heart in need of a defibrillator, I watch breathlessly as Carla approaches the wolf. She says something to him, gesturing to a table in her section. Still staring at me, he shakes his head. She glances at me over her shoulder, grins, then turns back to him and says something else, too low for me to hear.

He glances back and forth between the two of us, hesitating, then licks his lips.

It’s such a simple, mindless gesture, but so sexy I almost groan out loud.

Carla feels it, too. She rocks back on her heels. When she turns around and heads towards me, her jaw is slack and she has the glassy-eyed look of someone who’s been hypnotized.

This time when she sails past me, her voice is unsteady. Her words come out in a breathy rush.

“I told him I’d send you over, my ovaries just exploded, great buckets of owl shit, I need to go lie down, that man is fire.”

“Carla.”

She stops and looks at me.

“Give me the coffee pot.”

She looks down at it in her hand like she has no recollection of picking it up.

I know the feeling.

She thrusts it at me, along with the mug. Then she heads to the back, probably to lock herself into a stall in the ladies room for a vigorous session of self-pleasuring.

I can’t blame her. I haven’t even exchanged a word with him yet and my panties are already smoking.

Heat throbbing in my cheeks, I approach him, stopping a few feet away and trying desperately not to glow with self-consciousness. “Hi.”

“Hullo.”

His voice is husky. His expression is somber. He looks like he’s not entirely sure exchanging this simple greeting with me is a good idea.

But I’ve been examined under the gazes of enough men to know that whatever the cause of his ambivalence, however deep it might run, he’ll stay and talk to me.

I know desire when I see it. He kept it in check before, but he’s off leash now.

This wolf wants me.

More troublesome is that I want him, too, and I know I shouldn’t. Wolves might mate for life, but they’re still dangerous wild animals.

I’m as likely to get bitten as kissed.

I wordlessly gesture to the booth he normally sits in. He hesitates a moment longer, then runs a hand down the front of his suit jacket and sits. I pour coffee into his mug, feeling his gaze on me, feeling elated and nervous and a little bit scared.

“Can I get you anything else?”

His eyes flash. When he looks at my mouth and sinks his teeth into his lower lip, I almost topple over.

His voice low, he says, “I shouldn’t be here.”

I have no idea how to respond to that. “Um…okay?”

“I’m supposed to be on the other side of the city right now, taking care of business. Business I can’t afford to put aside. Instead, I’m here. You understand?”

I’m about to say no, but I rethink it. A dangerous kind of adrenaline has begun to work its way through my blood, weaving magic in my veins, making me feel like anything is possible.

Making me bold.

My heart pounding, I look him in the eye and say quietly, “Yes. You have important things to do, but you came here to see me, even though you wish you didn’t want to, and it’s against your better judgment. For the record, I like you, too.”

Jaw working, he stares at me in blistering silence.

I’ve surprised him. I like that I’ve surprised him. He doesn’t seem like a man who’s taken aback by much of anything.

“You don’t have a man, then.”

Wow. How he managed to make that sound like, “Bend over the table and lift up your skirt,” I’ll never know. Carla was right: the man is fire.

I clear my throat, shifting my weight from foot to foot, painfully aware of the flush of heat spreading down from my cheeks to my neck. “No. I’m single.” I glance at his left hand, at his bare ring finger. “You?”

He says gruffly, “I don’t…a relationship wouldn’t…fit my lifestyle.”

The boldness still flowing through me, I say tartly, “So you’re only into one night stands?”

“No. I’m not into anything. I mean, I wasn’t.”

He stares hungrily at me. I hear the unspoken Until you, and the flesh on my arms rises in goose bumps.