Rhyannon Byrd - Dark Wolf Rising

And I was lying through my teeth about wanting to get rid of her .

Grabbing the oversized backpack she’d brought down with her, she hitched it onto her shoulder, then turned back toward him, grabbing the card key that he held out. He wondered if she had any idea how hard it was going to be for him to leave her, instead of following her into that hotel room, where he imagined a queen-size bed was waiting. He could see the possible scenario in his mind as clearly as if he were standing beside the bed, watching it happen. Watching his larger body, with its tensed muscles and sweat-slick skin, taking her to the flowered quilt. Spreading her beneath him. Pressing his lips to the smooth heat of her flesh. Taking the taste of her hot, slippery sex into his mouth, onto his tongue, where it could imprint upon his memory. Hearing her husky cries as she came from his touch. Sweet. Wild. Undone and unraveled and outrageously beautiful.

Clearing his throat, Eric finally managed to scrape out some words. “The room number is 263. I’ll have your bus brought here first thing in the morning, so that by the time you’re up and ready to go, she’ll be waiting. The keys will be left at the front desk for you.”

“Fine,” she murmured, rubbing her thumb against the smooth surface of the card key. Her gaze slid away, over the nondescript front of the hotel, then cut back up to him. “I appreciate the ride, the room and the fact that you’re getting my bus fixed—but, I meant what I said before. This doesn’t mean that I owe you anything.”

“Actually, I’ve changed my mind about that,” he told her, still fighting the urge to reach out, grab her and pull her against his chest…against his body. He wanted to know the feel of her, the heat. Wanted to have her unique scent wrapped around him, seeping into his pores. But it couldn’t happen.

Instead, he had to do whatever it took to make her see reason.

Her slim brows knitted with irritation. “Excuse me?”

“You owe me your word that after you get your little ass up in the morning, you’ll get it the hell out of town.”

Her eyes rounded with a mixture of shock and indignation. “You can’t force me to leave Wesley, Eric. Your mountain, maybe. But not this town. You don’t have any power here.”

He stepped even closer, scowling down at her, and forced himself to deliver the words he was hoping would save her life. “You stay, and you’re likely to end up dead. Listen to what I’m telling you, Chelsea, and don’t argue for the sake of your grating little Miss Independent routine. Go home, and go back to work. Collect your paychecks, pay your mortgage on that condo you just bought and take care of yourself. When your sister wizens up, she’ll come crawling back. But if you keep digging into things at that club, keep wandering around by yourself up in those mountains, you’re the one who’s going to end up in trouble.”

Finally, he could see a shadow of fear creeping into her rigid expression. “Just what exactly is up there?”

He gave a hard, brief shake of his head. “Nothing you need to know about.”

The scowl on his face would have terrified most men, but she simply glared right back at him. “So I should just be a good little girl and take your advice?”

“You will take it, if you know what’s good for you.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You probably won’t be around long enough for me to say I told you so. The best thing you can do is leave.”

Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag until her knuckles turned white. “How is that the best thing, when it means leaving my sister in the hands of this stranger and not caring about what happens to her?”

In a slightly gentler tone, he said, “I didn’t say it was easy.”

She blinked up at him, staring into his eyes with a sharp, intense focus, as if she knew there was more…something important he wasn’t telling her. Taking a receipt from his pocket, Eric reached around her, into the truck, and grabbed a pen from the center console, then handed them to her. “Give me your mobile number.”

“What for?” she asked with a heavy dose of suspicion.

“I’ll look into some things, and if I do happen to run across your sister, I’ll call you.”

She hesitated for a moment, then quickly wrote down her number. With a slow shake of her head, she handed the slip of paper back to him. “You’re so sure I’m going to do what you say, aren’t you?”

“You’d be an idiot not to,” he muttered, shoving the receipt back in his pocket. “And I have a feeling you’re anything but.”

She absorbed his words with a small nod, studying him for a moment longer, then shook her head again and held out her hand. Eric took it, closing his hard, roughened fingers around the tender softness of hers. It was a small, endlessly feminine hand, not bony, just cushioned and lovely and sweet. He wanted to pull it to his body and press it against his skin. Feel it hold him where he was hard…feel it grip him…the unwanted need making him restless, angry. With another scowl pulling between his brows, he released her chilled hand and took a hasty step back, hating the urgent feeling prickling beneath his skin. She was like a rash that he needed to shake, before the damn thing spread.

“Well, goodbye, Eric Drake,” she said huskily, hitching the backpack higher on her shoulder. “It was certainly…interesting.”

Eric gave her a jerky nod and clenched his jaw as she turned toward the hotel, walking away from him with a tired, but proud, confident stride. When he realized his gaze had snagged on the way those low-rise jeans hugged her ass, he muttered a blistering curse. Heading around to the driver-side of the truck, he quickly climbed behind the wheel and made his way back onto the road, gunning the engine.

He might not like it, but the truth couldn’t be ignored.

No matter what demons she faced on her own, Chelsea Smart was a hell of a lot better off without him.

Chelsea Smart needed to have her little backside blistered. And Eric was tempted to do it himself, just as soon as he managed to find her.

As he pulled into the parking lot of the Heaven and Hell strip club late the following afternoon, he didn’t think he’d ever been so furious. There’d been an odd ache in his chest just moments before, when he’d driven past the Travelodge without spotting Chelsea’s bus—which had been delivered to the hotel early that morning—in the parking lot. Though he’d known it was for the best, the idea of never seeing her again had been uncomfortably disturbing, a strange sense of loss weighing heavily in his gut. But instead of easing when he’d caught sight of that ridiculous bus parked in the club’s lot, he was suddenly in a world of hurt. One much darker and deeper than before. One that was angry and hard and violent.

She’d blatantly disregarded his orders, and now the headstrong little idiot was chin-deep in the kind of danger he’d tried to warn her about. Son of a bitch .

He’d mistakenly assumed that with her being a woman and him being a big, intimidating, dominant Lycan, it would be enough to make her realize she should listen to him, whether she wanted to or not. But he’d obviously been wrong.

After a long day of dealing with issues up in Shadow Peak, Eric had headed down to Wesley intending to visit the club to see if there was anything he could learn about Perry Smart’s whereabouts, as well as to get a better idea of exactly what was going on there. He hadn’t planned on having to save her older sister’s stubborn ass, though that seemed the more likely scenario now that he knew Chelsea hadn’t left town…but had done exactly what he’d told her not to do instead. Damn. He’d known she was willful, but still. The woman was downright destructive.