Werewolf Wedding(5)

I curled my fingers, for some reason expecting to feel the heat from his skin one last time, but all I got was a fistful of my cotton blend skirt. He turned back from the doorway, smiled once more, and then closed the door behind him. Jeanette was standing in the studio. In all the, uh, whatever it was that just happened, I hadn’t even noticed her.

“Growly, huh?” she said, watching him out the window.

His perfectly firm butt moving just the right way underneath his beautifully tailored slacks made me think about my definitely less-than-perfect butt. It didn’t seem to matter how many flights of stadium stairs I ran, it never got the way I wanted it. I didn’t have time to worry about that though, too much to do. Too many dog statues to finish.

“He bought the Scotty,” I said in a hollow, confused sort of voice that turned upward at the end.

Jeanette sucked in so much air when I handed her the check that she could possibly have inhaled said Scotty statue, if it were still here, anyway. “Twenty... twenty-five thousand dollars?”

I nodded. “He must’ve liked it,” I said. “Wait, twenty five? He said he’d give me twenty.”

“I like him,” Jeanette responded. “I like you Jake Somerset. That’s his name, it’s on the check.”

“God,” I whispered. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. I like you too, Jake Somerset.”

His name on my lips tasted manly, musky, and before I knew it another of those tingling sensations shot through me.

As I sat there, still watching him through the window, Jake Somerset ran a hand through his hair in a completely non-pretentious way, and climbed on the back of a long, black motorcycle. It wasn’t a Harley – Jake Somerset wasn’t the kind of guy who needed to make a lot of noise. He just was the noise. He didn’t have to try to be in charge, he just was.

“I got a dog to do,” I said as he sped off. I reached over to the table where the Scotty had been, and picked up my coffee. Black, one sugar, tepid. The way I always seemed to drink it.

“I think that’s illegal,” Jeanette offered, helpfully.

Snorting, the tingling in my ladyparts became a much different kind of sensation – the burning of coffee in the nasal cavity. “Thanks,” I said, sniffing and coughing. “I’ll remember that.”

“Just tryin’ to help.”

“Thanks,” I said again. “I’ll do my best.”





-3-


“No, I’ve never read any romance novels. Why do you ask?”





-Jake


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He slammed his fist down hard, rattling the pen cup, executive ball-clacker, and whatever the coaster-holding thing was that sat on his desk.

It was for practice. Jake wasn’t angry at anything just then, but he knew at some point, he’d need to do some fist slamming, so he may as well be good at it.

Especially since his office was empty. Hell, the whole floor was empty except for his massive corner office that still had the remnants of a putting green his dad wasted untold hours with piled up in the corner. He hadn’t found any golf clubs. Even if he had, Jake wasn’t exactly the golfing type.

“You’ll do what I say and you’ll do it now!” he shouted, pounding both of his fists onto the desk this time, which tipped over the coaster holder. He decided it was supposed to be either an eagle claw or a giraffe’s hoof. “No delays, Franklin! I said do it now – and I mean this instant!”

With his hair a little ruffled and his testosterone flowing, Jake took a deep breath and looked around his office. It was bare, except for a couple of very large portraits that his father had done of himself, and one with his golfing-slash-drinking buddies where everyone was smiling and laughing, all a little red-faced.

“Old man never smiled around us,” he said with a sad, reminiscent smile. “Can’t blame him much though, with the brother I had. Have. Ugh, yeah I still have him.” He’d taken to talking to himself out loud due to a slightly lonely childhood, but when you’re the one of two possible alphas in a pack of werewolves who can hardly stand one another for long enough to get through Thanksgiving dinner without at least a little bit of blood, sometimes the only things you have to talk to are the cat and yourself.

He also spent a lot of time talking to his cat.

His eyes slid to the single Post-It stuck on his desk calendar, which struck him as quaintly old-fashioned. Jake was glad for it though, as he’d never learned to use the one on either his phone, or his computer, past making sophomoric jokes that somehow spelled out naughty words with scheduled events.

“Dane – Meeting – 1 PM,” the note read, in Jake’s bold handwriting. Every stroke of a writing instrument he made was determined, purposeful, and he usually wrote in Sharpie, which helped with the masculinity of his penmanship despite his propensity for curlicues. He clenched his fist tight, this time on instinct, and squeezed until his short fingernails dug into the palm of his hand, leaving tracks that itched slightly.

An urge struck. Jake strode across the lavish rug that covered the majority of his father’s office floor – and that’s how he still thought of it, even though he’d been running the place for six months – enjoying the way his bare toes squished in the silky red carpet. His mind returned to being fifteen, stalking back and forth across this exact same rug, thinking more or less the same thing he was thinking right then – why the hell do I have to deal with my brother?