Werewolf Wedding(11)

“Let’s get you up,” he whispered before effortlessly hauling me to my feet and depositing me inside of Bertha’s maw. “Shit, it’s cold in here. Here, this should help.”

Opening his jacket, Jake guided my arms inside and underneath his. He held me tight, apparently unconcerned with Dilly the thermal vampire leeching off all his heat. Never – not once in my life – have I ever gone from freezing too comfortable in less than, like, four hours. But that time, with myself wrapped around Jake?

“There we go,” he whispered. It was like his voice was inside my head he spoke so softly. “All better. Or at least you aren’t shaking so hard anymore.”

I gulped and looked up at him. “Th-thank you. I don’t know what happened. I was just trying to get...”

With the tip of one finger, he touched my lips, quieting me. He shook his head. “Whatever happened, I’m just glad I was running late. You’re okay.” Jake was petting my hair, calming me more with each passing moment. “Everything is fine. Although... you have to hotwire your car?”

I snorted a laugh because that’s all I could do. I nodded. Something in his gaze was fierce, feral, protective, and even possessive. He held me closer against his body, his heat burning through the shirt he was wearing, which I just realized was flannel. I opened my hands, flattening them against his muscled stomach, until my fingertips trembled and I had to pull away so he wouldn’t notice.

“You okay for a second?” he asked. His lips were so close to my forehead that I felt the heat from his breath against my skin. I nodded, consciously leaning forward until my head touched his chin.

“There’s something about you,” he said before trailing off. “Something I can’t...”

The lips brushing my forehead sent goosebumps down my neck in a crawl. I felt my scalp tingle, my nipples pucker up underneath my bra. I’d never felt this sort of reaction before, sometimes not even right smack-dab in the middle of sex. With just a touch, a soft, completely harmless kiss, Jake Somerset had me ready to jump in his lap and ride into the wild blue yonder. My first inclination was to be embarrassed because, well, who wouldn’t be?

That feeling just wasn’t there. I had no trickle of regret, no ugly warble of self-doubt in the back of my mind. Right there, with this guy I barely knew, whose brother threatened to kill me if I didn’t ignore him, I felt like I was riding on top of a cloud.

He was a really warm, comfortable cloud with really big arms and a bulge in its jeans that clouds don’t normally have.

Okay, so that time I blushed a little, but it faded quickly. He brushed my forehead again, his lips warming me deliciously. “Hotwire?”

“Oh yeah,” I said with a little bit of a giggle. “Sorry, I got kind of carried away with my head.”

“You’re not the only one.” His voice was low and rumbling.

Ladypart tingles ahoy!

“The wires – are they under the dash like normal?”

I nodded. “Yeah, they’re—”

Just like when his brother had crossed the studio and grabbed me without my noticing his movement, Jake was bent under the dash, and then a split second later, Bertha was humming right along, engine thumping in time to the beating of my heart.

“For a car you have to hotwire, this thing sure does have a nice sound to it.” He climbed back in the seat, throwing his arm around my shoulder.

“I feel like we should go to a drive-in or something. Arm around my shoulder in the front seat of a mid-70s Caddy? I’m getting a real James Dean feel out of this.”

“Are there any drive-ins around here?” Jake asked, he sounded like he was honestly curious.

“Not that I know of,” I said, snuggling back down into the crook of his arm. “Dinner wouldn’t be bad though.

I looked up in the rearview in time to see him cock an eyebrow and tilt his glance down at me. “Steakhouse?” he asked. “I’ve got a... damn, now that you mention food, yeah, I could use a steak or three. Where’s good?”

From a boring day at work to a freezing cold panic attack underneath my car to... a steak dinner with Jake? What in the hell IS my life?

I looked at him for a moment longer, and made the decision, right then and there, that I wasn’t going to worry. I wasn’t going to analyze and overthink. For once – for one night, at the very least – I was just going to enjoy my improbably ridiculous life, and try to forget the nibbling anxiety in the back of my head about Captain Growly’s evil brother.





-6-


“No, only four potatoes. You must be watching your figure.”





-Delilah


––––––––

“Oh my God,” Jake groaned as he pushed back from the table. “I can’t believe... how many was that?”

He wiped his mouth and groaned again for emphasis. “I’m serious,” he said with a laugh that made his slightly puffy cheeks flush. “I can’t remember the last time I ate that much. How many was that?”

“Four,” I said and then looked at the plate between us with the bones piled up. “No, make that five. You just ate five three-quarter pound ribeyes,” I said, staring in awe at the creature before me. As it turns out, there aren’t really any steakhouses here worth a damn, so I got all bold and brought Jake to the grocery store, and then back to my place. In the freezing-ass cold, we fired up the grill and he kept me warm next to his radiant body for the approximately forty seconds that the steaks were cooked.