Her Promise

Her Fear | Chapter Six

When you roll with the punches…

LEMON

I had never tasted so many decadent flavor combinations. My stomach was sickeningly full, but I had so many ideas spinning through my head. Axel had solved my problem. The options were limited back home, and there wasn’t a lot of outside-the-box thinking in our tiny town. Everyone did things the same way all the time, so when this bride booked her wedding as some sort of destination thing, I was worried. She had been a problem at every turn, but the catering was the biggest point of contention.

“Well, did you find a winner?” Colleen asked, grabbing the last of the many plates she brought us to try. Thankfully, Axel and I split every small slice she brought us, or I’d never been able to get through it all. Who knew cake could be champagne flavored or whiskey went so well with chocolate?

“It was all so amazing,” I complimented her. Axel smiled at me, and it was so sexy I wanted to melt. I was glad he was less mad after the hotel mix-up.

“Would you like to send a few text messages?” Axel laughed.

“No! I don’t want to work while we are on a date!” I gasped. It was true; I didn’t want to work. But I did want to write down some things to remember for later.

Colleen came back to the table and slipped something in front of me. “Everything I stuffed you full of tonight,” she smiled and winked at me. She indeed wrote down everything we ate with a short description of the contents.

“Thank you!” I squealed.

“Thanks, Colleen,” Axel said, shaking the woman’s hand.

“This one’s a keeper, darling,” Colleen whispered before leaving us. I couldn’t agree more with her. I smiled at Axel, my boyfriend.

“Ready for our next stop?” he asked.

“If you’re going to try to feed me dinner now that we had so much dessert, I might explode,” I said, patting my stomach.

“No more eating, for now,” he said, his voice lowering. His eyes held a promise that my little monster wanted him to make good on.

Axel led me back out to the car, and I tried not to squirm in anticipation. I had managed to keep my cool since he picked me up from work, but not knowing what our plans were was starting to test my patience. “Where to next?” I asked Axel as he pulled out onto the busy street. The sun was setting, but it wasn’t nearly late yet.

“This one, I have actual tickets for,” he smiled.

“Tickets for?” I poked him.

“For our next stop,” he laughed. I rolled my eyes, knowing he was enjoying surprising me just as much as he was enjoying being out with me. Axel took us through a packed street, cars lining every possible inch of the curb. It looked like there was a crowd gathering at a gate when he turned down a side road and found a parking spot.

“What are we doing?” I asked as we got out of the car. Axel grabbed a blanket from the trunk before wrapping his arm around my waist and leading me back toward the crowd. “You’ll see soon,” he smiled. His smile usually made me want to kiss him, but it had the opposite effect with the less he told me.

“Axel,” I groaned. He chuckled and pressed a kiss to the side of my head.

“You remember when we argued the other night on the couch?”

“Yea,” I answered, recalling his preposterous position about ‘The Vow’ being a better romance movie than ‘The Notebook.’ “What does that have to do with tonight?”

We joined the small crowd in front of the gate, and I tried to look around for a sign. There were lots of other small groups and couples all around us, displaying varying levels of excitement and affection. The crowd moved forward slightly, forming into two lines as we got closer. Finally, a large, hand-lettered sign came into view to the side of the gate.

“We’re seeing the Notebook in the park? That’s so cool,” I gasped. When I turned to Axel, he nodded. The happy look on his face was too much. I raised up on my toes just enough to kiss him, which responded enthusiastically too. “I thought it was the worst?” I laughed as we parted.

He pecked my nose. “But you think it’s the best, so maybe I just need to watch it with you,” he explained.

“You know, for a big scary wolf guy, you are an awfully sweet boyfriend,” I complimented him.

“I’m only sweet until someone messes with my pack or my girlfriend,” he rumbled quietly in my ear. His arm squeezed around me tighter, and I could feel my insides heating up. Damn those possessive words.

I leaned into Axel, wrapping my arms around him as we waited in line. He kept planting kisses on the top of my head, and I hugged him, making me feel like the center of his world. When we approached the person scanning the tickets, he pulled a paper from his back pocket and handed it over.

“Um, you guys are a little early,” the pimply kid said, handing the paper back to Axel.

“What do you mean?” Axel said, looking down at it. “Seven o’clock showing. It’s right there.”

“I meant your seven days early. That ticket is for next weekend’s showing. We repeat the same movie for two weeks each month,” the kid explained. Axel went rigid in my hold.

“That’s impossible,” he said. We both looked at the printed ticket he had, and sure enough, the date was a week away.

“Are there any tickets left for tonight?” I quickly asked. The people behind us started to get frustrated.

“Sorry, we’re at capacity. The fire department only lets us sell so many tickets,” the kid frowned.

“f**k,” Axel growled.

“It’s alright,” I told him, even though I could feel the frustration rolling off him. First the hotel, now this.

“Sorry, but I have to keep scanning tickets,” the teenager said, shifting nervously. I tugged on Axel, pulling him out of the way. Finally, he budged, and we set back off toward the car. I let him quietly stew as we walked. When we were back in the car, he pulled his phone out and started doing something, pushing his finger angrily through the front of his hair.

“Axel, it was a little mix-up; it’s alright,” I tried to tell him.

“I had everything planned out perfectly,” he ground out. “Now it’s all f****d up. First the hotel, now this. f**k!”

I put my hand on his arm, and he froze. He slowly turned his head to me. “I’m still having a great time. All I care about is that I’m out with you. Why don’t we find a bar or something and go have a drink until it’s time for our next stop.” My only hope was that alcohol might loosen him up enough to calm down about the problems we’d run into.

“Sure,” he huffed.

Fifteen minutes later, we were walking into a small pub-looking place. It was moderately busy. Half the tables were full, and a small crowd lingered around the bar. Axel and I went there first to get drinks before we sat down at a table.

“Do I get to know what our next stop is since we have to wait?” I asked, trying to break him out of his grumpy funk.

“No,” he shrugged, sipping his drink.

I scowled at him playfully. “I hardly think that’s fair.”

“I call the shots tonight so I decide what’s fair,” he pointed out. He gave me the smallest hint of a smile, and I laughed. The girl at the table behind us started laughing absurdly loud and sounded really fake. Axel and I peeked behind us.

“What do you think she’s laughing about?” I whispered to Axel.

“He told her a particularly lame joke, probably something you’d hear out of your dad’s mouth. She’s pretending she’s into it to keep the date from being awkward,” he guessed. We could see the pair from their sides. She wore something just a fraction too close to indecent while he was dressed a little on the nerdy side. My eyes traveled down and met the telltale dad sneakers on his feet.

“Poor guy,” I sighed. I had seen them plenty on inn guests. They always adorned the feet of middle-aged or older men who were too concerned with the welfare of their family and their comfort than what they looked like. “He’s probably just trying to get out there and meet someone, and she’s going to chew him up and spit him out.”

“He’s really into her, though,” Axel said, scrunching his nose.

“How can you tell?” I asked, bringing my eyes back to him.

“Scent,” he said, tapping his nose. “You can smell some emotional responses if you know what you’re looking for. Especially in humans.”

“You told me once I smelled scared until you were around,” I remembered. Axel nodded. “Now, what do I smell like?”

Axel smirked. “You smell like a lot of things, baby.”

I rolled my eyes and slapped him on the chest for his dirty nonanswer. He just threw back the rest of his drink with a chuckle. We fell into easy conversation after that, Axel relaxing back into our night. We people-watched a little bit, making guesses about some of the other patrons. When my drink was almost gone, I offered to get us more since we still had time before our next stop.

“I’ll get it,” Axel said, trying to stand. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he let me push him back down.

“I will get them. Girls get attention faster at a crowded bar than guys,” I teased him. I stood, and his eyes trailed down to my bare legs below the hem of my dress. When his eyes slowly crawled back up, I felt myself getting warm. It was his way of telling me I always had his attention, and damn, did I love how that look made me feel.

I pushed my way through the tables and people to get back to the bar, feeling Axel’s gaze on me the entire time. I found a gap in the crowd around the bar and stepped up, waiting to flag down the bartender. I tapped my card on the slightly sticky countertop. The group next to me left for the small dance floor, and the bartender gave me a ‘just a second’ gesture as he ducked behind a door.

I looked back at Axel over my shoulder. He was checking his phone. He almost fit in with the rest of the crowd in the bar. He was hot enough, for sure. Instead of plain shirts or a flannel, he went for a nicer button-down tonight, but the sleeves were rolled up. He wore it untucked over jeans that were fitted to his muscular thighs, and it made me drool thinking about what was beneath all of that.

“f**k me sideways. Aren’t you a sweet piece of meat?” someone said to my right. My attention snapped there, and a man was smiling at me but not in a good way.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Looking for a good time tonight, babydoll?” he said, flashing his teeth. He was tall and objectively good-looking, but I was not too fond of the way he looked at me.

“No, I’m not,” I said, turning my body fully toward the bar. I gripped my credit card tightly in my first, wishing the bartender would hurry up. I tried to ignore the guy, but he stepped closer, crowding me. His hand made contact with my ass, and I jumped, turning to him again.

I smacked him, trying to push him away, but he wouldn’t budge. “Get away from me!” I practically shouted.

The guy opened his mouth to say something but didn’t get the words out. A fist connected with his face. In slow motion, I realized it was Axel as he pushed me back behind him and hit the guy again. I tried to grab Axel, but other people crowded around us as the bartender busted back through the door.

“Axel!” I shouted. The other guy had managed to swing back at him, and they were full-on fighting now. “Axel!”

Axel got another hard hit across the guy’s face, knocking him away from the bar. He went after him, tackling him to the ground.

“AXEL, STOP!”

They knocked back a table, and half the bar now surrounded them in a circle. Axel fought the guy who touched me with blind rage. I wasn’t even sure he heard me. They were evenly matched in size, but I knew Axel could hurt the other guy badly. Werewolves were stronger than humans. They could do inhuman things because they weren’t human.

Axel managed to get himself fully over the guy and reigned down punches to his face. Slowly, the other guy stopped fighting.

“Axel, please!” I almost sobbed. This was so bad. The first time he hit the guy, he totally deserved it. This was so much worse.

Axel stopped, his shoulders moving up and down with his fast breathing. He turned his head slowly, catching sight of me behind him. My hands trembled as I clutched them in front of me.

“Get the hell out of here before the police get here!” the bartender screamed behind us. Axel moved to his feet swiftly and was in front of me.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes and hands starting to take inventory of me. “He didn’t touch you anywhere else, did he?”

I shook my head. “We need to go,” I told him. Axel grabbed my face in his hands and made me look into his eyes. He had a small cut that looked red and angry, with a bruise forming underneath on his cheek. “Please. We need to go.”

Axel nodded, but the door burst open.

“Police!”