Borrowed Beauty

Chapter Twelve: Moments Before the Kill

Olivia

For a minute, I almost forgot that I was me. I actually thought that Josiah was going to kiss me at the restaurant. Before I did something completely stupid, Renee crashed the party. I was a little annoyed with her. After all, I didn’t horn in on her dates with the twins. But then again, this wasn’t a date, it was just a fun lunch with a fellow foodie.

That didn’t stop me from making sure that Renee got the full sushi experience and a nice fat chunk of that particularly fishy-fish sashimi.

While I took a little bit of satisfaction from watching her fight the gag reflex, that easy camaraderie that had blossomed between the alpha and I vanished, and we rode back to the pack house like we were two virtual strangers. I fidgeted in the seat and pretended like I was intensely interested in the passing scenery.

Prosperity Springs was a fascinating city. Prospectors had flocked to the area in the 1800s in search of a legendary motherlode of gold. However, panning the streams and mining the mountains turned up only a few ounces of the precious metal, and most of the miners moved on. The settlement became a forgotten ghost town until the Salvador brothers moved their pack to the area during the Great Depression. Now it was a modern, high-tech city, and yet somehow it still retained some of that Old West charm.

But I was too up in my head to fully appreciate it. I couldn’t figure out why the man next to me was making me feel so antsy and self-conscious. It wasn’t just his powerful aura, although there was that. And it wasn’t just his s****l magnetism. That was definitely a thing too. No, it was something else. It was as if the longer I sat next to him, the emptier I felt. Like I was lonely and incomplete and almost overcome with this unidentifiable longing.

I rubbed my chest absently and saw Josiah glance away from the road for a second to follow the movement of my hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I pasted on a smile and dropped my hand. “Probably just a little indigestion from eating too much. That was a really great restaurant though, and the food was excellent. Thank you for inviting me.”

He flashed me a smile and I noticed how his cheeks creased into dimples and his eyes crinkled at the edges. For some reason it made my chest feel more constricted. “I had fun,” he said, parking the car in front of the pack house.

I held my breath, half-hoping for more. I wanted him to say, “Are you free Friday night?” or at least “We should do this again sometime.” But instead, he just unbuckled his seatbelt and unfolded his big body from the vehicle.

See, this was why it was important not to read too much into these things. I didn’t wait for him to come to my door, just in case he had no intention of doing so. I let myself out, and we walked up to the front door in silence. Before we’d taken even two steps inside, Vero appeared. She was wearing a fire-engine-red suit, and had her salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in an artful twist. She reported an urgent message to Josiah as though she were his executive secretary. For all I knew, that could have been her function in the pack.

“Sorry to interrupt your fun,” she said, though she didn't seem sorry at all. She turned her full attention to Josiah, “Elton is waiting for you in the office.”

Josiah shot me an apologetic look, and I was spared from any more awkward moments as he walked away, his long legs and full stride carrying him out of the sitting room with as much speed as a normal man at a full run. Vero hurried after him, and I was left alone, at loose ends again.

I flopped down on the leather couch, tipped my head back into the lush pillow, and closed my eyes, allowing my imagination to indulge in a dangerous little game of what if.

What if he had really been intent on kissing me? What if Renee had delayed for just two more minutes? What if I’d been bold enough to take the initiative and close the gap between our faces? What would those lips…

“Hiiii!”

My eyes snapped open and I nearly peed myself as I found Thomas bouncing right in front of me. His strawberry blond hair was falling in his eyes, and there was evidence of his lunch (peanut butter and jelly, by the looks of it) still smeared around his mouth. I noticed he was half-in, half-out of his sweater, and one of the sleeves was stuck inside out. Impulsively I began fixing his sweater while he squirmed impatiently.

“Where’s Miss Pimms?”

“Kitchen!” He chirped happily. “She says she has a headache!”

The nanny in question appeared in the doorway, holding a glass of water in one hand, and her temple in the other. “Thomas, I told you to wait for me,” she scolded, but I noticed her voice lacked its usual sharp tone, and her eyes were dull. I thought the poor woman was really suffering.

“I can take him for an hour,” I offered, “If you’d like to lay down and have a rest?”

Miss Pimms looked so relieved that I thought she might actually cry. “Thank you so much, you are an angel! Thomas, you be good, and listen to…” she looked blank as she realized she didn’t know my name.

“Olivia!” Thomas shouted, making the woman cringe. “Her name is Oh-liv-ee-uh.”

“Listen to Olivia,” the nanny said weakly, before disappearing down the hall to the wing where the staff apartments were located.

I turned my attention back to Thomas and smiled at him. He was still bouncing with a kinetic energy that threatened to burst out of him at any moment. “Want to play outside?”

“Yeah!” The words had barely left my mouth before he was running full speed toward the front door.

“Hold up!” I bolted off the couch just in time to block the door handle with my body. He looked up at me in that funny way, turning his head and watching me from the corner of his eye. I wondered if there was something wrong with his vision, or if he just had an aversion to direct eye contact. “We need three things,” I stated calmly.

“We do?”

“Yes,” I counted the items off on my fingers. “One- we need a book to read. Two- we need a ball. And three- we need a toy car.”

“Oh! Okay, I’ll get them.” He ran across the room and fell to his knees in front of the toybox in the corner. His head and most of his upper body disappeared beneath the lid to the chest. “Do we need this guy?” He pulled out an action figure and held it up.

“Not this time,” I shook my head.

His pale face darkened a little bit. “But I want to play with him!”

“If you want to play outside, we need the three things,” I reminded him. “Can you remember what they are?”

His lip pouted out and he had a very stubborn look as he continued to move the action figure's arms and make punching sound-effects with his mouth.

“Or, we can stay inside while you play with your guy.”

The choice seemed to confound him, but after a second the lure of the outdoors was too great, so he tossed the action figure aside and dug around until emerged again with a plastic wiffle ball, and a monster truck. He stuffed the truck under one arm and went to the little cupboard under the coffee table where an assortment of children’s books, puzzles, and coloring books had been stored. He grabbed the first book his hand touched and ran back to the door. Of course, he left the cupboard door open, but I was pretty impressed that he had managed to focus enough to retrieve the three items.

We went outside and I looked for an open area to play. The big mansion and its grounds weren’t really very child-friendly, especially for a child like Thomas, who really needed running and climbing and jumping. I finally picked a spot in the well-manicured garden.

The head gardener probably would have been mortified if he had caught us building a monster truck race track in the mulch under one of the carefully pruned ornamental trees, but it kept Thomas interested and occupied for several minutes. In between activities, I would call him back, and we would sit together and read a few paragraphs in the book. I kept him engaged for as long as I could by asking him questions. “Where is the kitten? Do you see the hen? What do you think is going to happen?” And then, after a page or two, we would go back to throwing the ball, driving the truck, or finally to me crawling around on my hands and knees while Thomas rode “cowboy” on my back, squealing with delight.

We played for almost two hours before I ran out of energy. Even a werewolf couldn’t keep up with Thomas for long. I started to have a little more sympathy for his nanny. We gathered up our toys and headed back to the house to find Miss Pimms, and to look for a snack for Thomas. I’m sure we looked quite silly as Thomas announced our return by stomping across the floor toward the kitchen. He had new grass stains on the knees of his pants, and I probably did too, but thankfully my pants were black. We had grass in our hair and dirt under our fingernails, but I could see that some of the tension and nervous energy had left Thomas’s little body, and although he still stomped, he actually walked across the room, instead of running.

Miss Pimms looked a little better when she appeared in the kitchen to take over making Thomas’s snack.

“Bye, Thomas, thanks for playing with me,” I said, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

“Yep,” he replied, talking around a big mouthful of banana.

When I left the kitchen, I paused at the bottom of the staircase, and then changed direction and headed down the hallway that I knew, from previous wanderings, led to the alpha’s office. I stopped outside the closed door and listened for voices. If he was still in a meeting, I didn’t want to interrupt. All my sensitive ears could detect was the occasional rustle of paper and the tapping of fingers on a keyboard. I sucked in a fortifying breath and knocked lightly on the dark, paneled door.

“Come in!” Even those mundane words, when spoken in that deep, husky voice, made the hair on my arms prickle with excitement. I pushed open the door and observed his office, the Alpha’s domain, for the first time. It still had the same hunting-lodge motif, with light oak paneled walls and rough-hewn furniture. The room was dominated by a massive desk, and a stuffed moose head on the side wall, who presided over the room with a stern expression on his long hairy face. Behind the desk, floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the forest, and just a little bit of the lake was just barely visible through the trees.

Josiah looked perfectly at home, his oversized body fit nicely with the rustic furnishings. The only thing that looked kind of out of place was the small, sleek, silver laptop that Joshiah was currently hunched over as he compared something on the screen to the papers he held in his hand. His nostrils flared slightly as he caught my scent, and looked up at me in surprise. “Olivia?”

Was it my imagination, or did he actually look pleased to see me?

Stop that, focus! I chided myself.

“Um, hi. I know you are very busy, but I wondered if you could give me a minute of your time?”

“Sure, of course. Please, have a seat,” he gestured to one of the chairs across from the desk.

I perched in one and started to feel a little nervous. I was poking into something that really wasn’t my business, and I wasn’t sure how he would react. “I wanted to talk to you about Thomas.”

One of his eyebrows went up. I could see he wasn’t expecting that topic. He didn’t say anything, so I continued. “I spent some time with him this afternoon, and he’s really a great kid,” I was talking a little too fast, “but I couldn’t help but notice that Thomas isn’t like other boys his age…”

Josiah sighed and ran one hand over his face. I couldn’t help but notice that when his hand slid away, it left behind some sadness and tension. “Yes, I am aware that Thomas is different.” He closed the top of his laptop and gave me his full attention. I could sense that he was weighing something in his mind before he continued speaking. “Thomas’s mother has a drug problem, and sadly, she used while she was pregnant. Thomas was born addicted, and it seems to have affected his development.”

I nodded, feeling a deep wave of compassion for Thomas, and a little bit of relief to know that the alpha was already aware of the problem. “I know it’s none of my business, but,” I licked my lips, and watched his dark eyes follow my tongue. “I have a suggestion.”

He stood, and stalked around the side of the desk, and irrationally, I felt my heartbeat kick up a notch. But all he did was move in front and lean back against the desk casually. “Go ahead,” he prompted, “I’d like to hear it.”

Hear what? My eyes were drawn by his posture, to the way his powerful thighs were straining the fabric of his pants.

Thomas, I reminded myself. I’m here to talk about Thomas, not eye-f**k the alpha. I moved my gaze to his face and forced it to stay there.

“Thomas has a lot of energy,” I said, stating the obvious, “and he really craves vestibular stimulation. I was thinking a swing set would be really good for him.” I twisted my fingers together. “He might be a little less destructive and aggravating if he had a kid-safe place to play.”

Josiah crossed his arm over his chest and tapped his chin with one hand. “You may be on to something,” he finally admitted. “We haven’t had small children in the pack house for a long time. Not since the twins and I were little. Most of the pack lives in the city now.” He pushed away from the desk and smiled at me, “It's an excellent idea. Thank you for taking an interest in him.”

I felt my cheeks flush under the warmth of that devastating smile. “It's no problem,” I muttered, and also rose from the chair. It seemed like the entire room was getting a little too warm, and I was eager to escape. Josiah took a step closer, and I tried to back away, only to bump into the arm of the chair I had just been sitting in.

Suddenly he was there, right in front of me, just inches away. His scent swirled around me, and I had the eerie sensation of being a helpless prey animal caught in the mesmerizing stare of the hunter, just moments before the kill. But I wasn’t afraid, I was excited. Terribly excited.

His hand reached out and plucked a bit of dry twig out of my hair. He twirled it between his thumb and forefinger, and I thought, Oh, that’s all he intended to do. I remembered that I was currently a disheveled mess from horsing around with a hyperactive preschooler in the garden.

I was still frozen in place when his fingers caught the thick braid that had fallen over my shoulder. There was probably more grass and mulch debris there, but his fingers went to the scrunchie that was holding the braid in place. He plucked it off and tossed it aside, much the way Thomas had tossed aside the action toy earlier. I trembled and held my breath as his large fingers pulled apart the braid and then combed through the loose strands. “That’s better,” his voice came out in a deep, sexy rumble.

The feeling of his hands in my hair was both relaxing and sensual. Even more so when his fingers tightened in my mane and he used my hair as leverage to gently ease my head back.

There was no misreading the signs this time, as his lips came down on mine in the lightest, barest caress. They teased mine like he was only exploring and experimenting before he dove in for a deep and passionate, all-consuming kiss.