The Accidental Werewolf 2: Something About Harry (Accidentally Paranormal Novel) Page 14

  “Then let’s do this.” He backed away, popping open her front door, a cool blast of early morning air ruffling his perfect hair.

  Carl thumped Harry on the back, lifting his entire arm high in the air to wave them off with a jerky hand.

  Mara sucked the cold into her lungs, squinting at the glare of sun on the freshly fallen snow.

  Harry made his way along the path, which Nina had dug in a matter of seconds, only to slip on a patch of ice. His feet went out from under him like someone had shot his knees out with a long-range rifle. “I’m okay!” he yelled from somewhere below the line of the wall of snow.

  As she made her way to her Smart Car, rushing to help Harry up, she said a small prayer that some dormant thespian skill locked deep inside her would step up to the plate.

  Because she didn’t know what soap on a rope was, but if Nina did, it had to be ugly.

  * * *

  HARRY caught sight of Mara just as she rounded the corner to the cafeteria. He jumped up, pulling out a chair for her. He’d selected a table in the middle of the room, so everyone would see them together as planned.

  And he liked it. He liked it so much he forgot he didn’t want to be paranormal and she sucked for turning him into a werewolf, and instead, smiled at her.

  As she strode toward him, her almost waist-length hair, cut in layers framing her heart-shaped face, shone a deep, near blue, black, reminding him of her scent. Rosemary and citrus—or something he could now define merely by calling up the memory.

  It was driving him out of his mind. He’d thought about it all morning as he’d tried to focus on numbers that swam in front of his eyes; when he’d Skyped with Mimi and Fletcher while Wanda’s manservant Archibald oversaw things. He’d thought about it when he’d closed his eyes, breathing deeply to fight that strange tingling sensation in his limbs Mara had told him to expect in times of stress.

  He’d fought it while he remembered the curve of her hip pressed to his, her skin emanating heat even from beneath her jeans. The swell of breasts he wanted to cup in his hands and knead until she screamed his name. Uncomfortable things were occurring under the cafeteria table, forcing him to shift positions.

  Jesus, she was beautiful. Even in broad daylight, with the sun from the windows blaring down on her gorgeous head, he couldn’t find a single flaw. Her skin was creamy and tinted with a peachy glow, her eyes the shape of almonds and so deeply blue they were almost sapphire, making the fringe of her dark lashes striking.

  She plopped down next to him, her eyes giving him that deer in the headlights look. He watched her throat work up and down in a nervous gulp, smelled the sweat on her palms when she wiped them on her thighs.

  Usually, when he was attracted to a woman, he was the one secretly sweating, forming words carefully in order to keep himself from sounding like a complete ass. But today he was Mr. Carefree?

  She’d said someone needed to take charge, and if she was going to handle the adjustment phase of this, he was going to handle the boyfriend aspect—like a boss.

  He had a strange rush of confidence he hadn’t possessed before this “accident,” and he liked it. He had definitely been guilty of missing some very overt signs when it came to a woman, but he knew how to treat one once he had her.

  While they were just pretending, he’d pretend they weren’t pretending. He sure didn’t hate the idea. In fact, this morning he’d awakened ready to get his pretend on.

  Still, he heard his sister Donna’s warning in his head about what a sorry judge of character he was, and promptly ignored it. This is all a game, Harry. Remember why you’re playing it.

  He was taking one for the team—yeah, yeah. But not a chance in hell was he going to let an opportunity like this pass him by. He didn’t want to be a werewolf, and he’d continue to look for ways to reverse that, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to explore Mara.

  It had hit him like a punch to the kidneys last night, when he’d sworn she wasn’t going to jail on his watch. He’d toyed with why he’d developed this sudden protective instinct, put the notion away, then toyed with it again until he had to chalk it up to the unexplainable. He didn’t like anything there wasn’t a solution to, a logical explanation for—yet, here he was behaving illogically.

  And liking it. He was liking it. Rolling around in it like a pig in mud.

  Reaching across the white Formica, Harry grabbed her hand and smiled, rubbing his thumb over her silky, porcelain skin, savoring the texture of it. “You look really pretty today.”

  Mara rolled her eyes. “Really? I’m glad terrified looks good on me. Because that’s what made up my entire color wheel this morning.”

  Her reference to color wheels reminded him of the upcoming merge between Pack and Bobbie-Sue Cosmetics. “Okay, other than your color wheel issues, how’s it going?”

  “Which part? The big, fat teller of tales part, or the part where I expect my brother to knock down the lab door at any moment and handcuff me with his infamous ‘I’m so disappointed in you, Mara’ frown?”

  He grinned rather than buy into her panic, hoping it would soothe her frazzled nerves. “Both.”

  “They both suck.”

  “Your brother Keegan? He raised you and your other brother Sloan, right?”

  She nodded her dark head, a strand of her hair slipping from the thick clip she held it up with—one he wanted to brush from her face. “Mostly, and don’t change the subject. We need to plan for a knotted-sheet escape, and in the event we can’t figure that out, toilet paper rations. I can’t skimp on the TP. Not even in prison.”

  Nothing about her fear was okay with him. You’d think what she did was on par with murder in her culture. So he had to ask. “Do they really have—” he leaned into her, “a place they keep people who commit crimes in your world?”

  Mara’s finger slipped to his arm and tapped it. “It’s your world now, too, lest you forget. And yep. They really do. We have to. One bad apple could spoil the whole damn thing. We want to live peacefully with humans, not create widespread panic. If someone found out about us, just one cruel or even nutty someone, imagine what they could do. What the government would do. So we have our own secret government. One you’ll have to learn the laws of. One of those laws is don’t turn someone into a werewolf. Period.”

  Harry bristled. She hadn’t done it maliciously. “But you were trying to create a life. There was no malice in what you did.”

  His defense reawakened Donna’s voice in his head. Ahem. Excuse me, Mr. I Don’t Want To Be A Werewolf, aren’t you consorting with the enemy? Wasn’t it you, just two nights ago, thinking all sorts of horrible things about the very woman you’ve claimed today is not only hot, but you’ve now complimented and admitted a wish to conduct carnality with? Wasn’t it you who was blaming her, et cetera, for doing this to you? Now it’s okay because her excuse was she wanted a baby? Oh, Harry.

  Shut. Up. Donna. Mara’s talking.

  He returned his attention to Mara, focusing completely on her and her dimples.

  She wrinkled her cute nose and actually smiled, making his gut twist. “Is that you sticking up for me, Harry of the ‘You suck so hard for doing this to me, Mara’?”

  Though he was pleased she was smiling, and he didn’t even know why, he kept his response honest. “I won’t lie and tell you I’m not still going to try and figure out how to change this, but I don’t think you should go to jail for it. And before you ask, I don’t know why I don’t. I just don’t.”

  The wheels of her razor-sharp mind turned. He saw it—was suddenly living for it. “It doesn’t matter. Or it won’t. I don’t know if there’s a law against what I did yet. I do know the pack wants to keep our bloodlines strong. They want us to mate—with each other preferably. That’s how we keep most of the crazy out. By keeping our core pure.”

  Harry shook his head, loving that she’d finally loosen
ed up a bit. “It’s bullshit. Also, medieval comes to mind. Everyone’s using surrogates nowadays. I don’t get the resistance.”

  “They’re not using them the way I used them.”

  “I’ll never look at another bottle of vitaminwater the same.”

  Her bright eyes fell to the table again. “I’m sorry, Harry.”

  He didn’t want her to keep apologizing. It was done. Her apologies only reminded him he lusted for someone he was supposed to be angry with. But she was so cute . . . So he changed the subject. “So you want a baby? Single parenthood and all that stuff?”

  Mara’s eyes went to her lap, her tongue, luscious and pink, flitting over her lower lip in nervousness. “I do. I did.”

  “So why didn’t you just do this mate thing? The one I vaguely remember you talking about at some point during my freak-out?” Those words sounded so archaic and blatantly sexist. Who mated?

  Her chest rose and fell in an enticing lift of soft pink turtleneck. “Someone has to want to mate with you for you to do the mate thing.”

  He paused. What? The idea that Mara, gorgeous, curvy, sexy as hell, couldn’t find a mate made his mouth drop open, but he slammed it shut before she lifted her eyes. “I find that almost impossible to believe.”

  “Believe.”

  She must be as lame about social cues as he was. He could name five guys from his department alone who thought she was hot. It had to be her brains. It scared off the weak. “I think you’re just too much woman for this bunch of slackers. I smell a lot of werewolf in this room. Lots of single, available werewolf. Which, as a by the way, freaked me out when I discovered how many of you there really are today as I sniffed my way through just my department alone. Anyway, you’re just too smart, and they’re all intimidated by you.” Wow, pal. Nice. Smooth, even. Where’d the player in you come from?

  Her cheeks tinted an adorable shade of red followed shortly thereafter by the tip of her nose. “I’m sure that’s what the problem is. My oversized brain.”

  The back of his neck began to tingle, making him take a covert peek around before refocusing on Mara’s pretty face. “I think we’ve been noticed.”

  She shifted in her chair, awkward written all over her features. “It won’t be long now before everyone on lunch break will have to recharge their batteries for the texting they’re doing about us even as we speak.”

  Harry didn’t bother to look up again. He couldn’t. Now that he’d moved past the initial shock of his turning and his anger had subsided, he was in the process of coming back down to earth. And earth had this gorgeous creature named Mara. He liked earth. “Screw ’em. That’s what we want. Them talking. Now look at me like you think I’m the only person in the world, and let’s sell this.”

  Her eyes were shy, her lips pouty and peachy-colored. “Who are you, Harry Emmerson?”

  “I’m your boyfriend, Mara Flaherty.”

  “You’re my pretend boyfriend.”

  “So let’s pretend,” he goaded with a sly chuckle. Somehow, a new facet to his personality had flared up. It was called The Flirty Harry, and it was doing something he’d sucked ass at in his former totally human life. Huh.

  “My pretend boyfriend who’s suddenly very vocal about the issues at hand. I don’t know this Harry Emmerson.”

  “Did you know the other one?”

  Her eyes skirted his, settling on the table again. “I knew enough to know that he was quiet and easygoing. Not opinionated and pushy.”

  Was he quiet? Yeah. Yeah, he probably was. But he didn’t feel like being quiet today. “Well, now you know the werewolf Harry, and it would appear he’s got something to say. So, let’s make googly eyes at each other to announce our budding relationship.”

  That demure look was back on her face, in her posture. “You go first.”

  Harry pulled her hand to his lips, savoring the feel of her flesh against his mouth, and brushed a kiss on her fingers while he gazed into her eyes. “You look like I’m holding you hostage. It’s just lunch. Not Zero Dark Thirty day,” he joked.

  She almost laughed before he saw her realize she was doing it and caught herself, but she didn’t pull her hand away. In fact, she closed it around his.

  It was much smaller than his own; smaller yet callused in some spots from the work she’d so proudly announced she’d been doing all by herself to renovate her frilly cottage.

  A cottage he felt like a big oaf in for every basket of flowers he’d tripped over, and all the periwinkle blue and moss green pillows he’d all but annihilated by squashing after sitting on them on her ivory couch. “A lunch of lies. So many lies,” she whispered, scanning the crowd of heads dotting the cafeteria.

  Ah. She was worried the other werewolves would hear them. “You’re making this harder than it has to be.” Literally, he thought, drawing his napkin over his lap. “Weren’t you the one who said most times werewolves block out the sounds around them in order to focus on conversations they’re having, and to keep from literally going insane with so much stimuli? I’ve been practicing it all day. Though I have to admit, I was a little uncomfortable with Esterhazy’s story about his hemorrhoids and subsequent visit to what he called a butt doctor. Some things should remain private.”

  Not even a giggle. In fact, she didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. She was throwing off an uncomfortable vibe he could virtually catch in his mouth as if it came in the shape of popcorn.

  He tried another tact. He was damned interested in how she’d whipped up a baby-making serum. She was smarter than he’d ever guessed, and it only made him think about her naked that much more—which was an unsettling segue from her big brain.

  She could talk with him about the things that interested him, too—theories and equations and The Walking Dead. If he were checking off characteristics on his dream list, she was almost perfect.

  “So tell me about the, you know, serum. How the hell did you make something so brilliant? It’s damn well genius, Mara. Tell me in geek-speak, if you have to, but I gotta know.”

  Mara scooted her chair closer to his, reaching for the lunch Carl had packed them. She pulled out a sandwich bag with a crushed slice of bread in it to peek inside and find it slathered with mustard and some jaggedly cut carrots on it. “I think we need to order lunch. Carl’s intentions, while sweeter than sweet, are geared more toward what he likes for lunch, I think. Besides, hasn’t the hunger hit you yet?”

  Christ. He could have all but dived on top of the leftover cake Trisha from legal had brought down to their break room, and fighting the temptation to keep his hands off Liam’s lunch in the fridge, a thick roast beef and cheddar sub with horseradish dressing, had sent him to the bathroom to splash his face with cold water.

  “The hunger’s hit, for sure. I usually avoid red meat but maybe once a month. Now I can’t stop thinking about a porterhouse—rare. Or maybe just a whole cow.” Among other things.

  Her shoulders relaxed as she became the Mara he was more familiar with, full of informative tips and directives. She was in her safe zone if she was instructing him on the way of the were. “In the beginning, you need to eat, and eat often. So make sure you come down on breaks and grab—”

  He cut off her werewolf tutorial by pulling her to him with merely a foot braced against the leg of the cafeteria chair, and planted a kiss on her pretty peachy lips, so full and glossy he wanted to suck on them, drive his tongue between them as he peeled her clothes from her body.

  He couldn’t help it. Having her this close to him, smelling her unique scent, feeling all the things he was feeling became magnified, making his nerves raw with need.

  If he didn’t kiss her, he’d haul her over his shoulder and drag her off to some janitor’s closet and have his way with her. This was the next best thing to being labeled a Neanderthal.

  Mara’s surprise was evident at first, until she appeared to forge
t they were in the middle of Pack’s cafeteria when she nuzzled her jaw into the palm of his hand, skimming her tongue over his lower lip.

  While his head exploded, the lunchroom fell silent. So silent he heard heartbeats and blood pulsing through veins.

  Until Mara’s trio of friends showed up, and the one named Astrid dropped her lunch tray on the table with such force it hurt Harry’s ears, leaving a humming vibration in its wake.

  He sensed discontent—and something else he couldn’t quite pinpoint. It was out of place in the realm of new scents he’d discovered, but it was there.

  And it was unhappy.

  * * *

  “SO, this is news,” Astrid drawled, pulling out a chair and dropping into it, clearly displeased she hadn’t been privy to Mara’s fantasy crush turning into a reality.

  Mara struggled to come back down from the cloud she was on after experiencing her first kiss ever from her pretend boyfriend.

  It was everything she’d hoped and more when having her pretend affair with him. Soft, hot, sweet, and sinful in one soul-jarring kiss. Harry’s lips didn’t just press against hers, they consumed hers, devoured them. She’d kissed aplenty in her time, but never quite like that. The heat between her thighs pounded in time with her heart, still crashing against her ribs. He’d proven the age-old adage—geeks ruled.

  Leah and Jiaying, always supportive of her fictional life with Harry, gave her a grin and a thumbs-up from behind him, giggling softly before taking their places on the other side of the table next to Astrid, expressing their open curiosity.

  Mara stayed calm, pulling the juice box Carl had packed for her out of her brown paper bag. “Uh-huh. Definitely news,” she agreed, forcing her eyes up even while Harry’s hand drew tantalizing circles on her back.

  Leah was the first to stick out her hand in Harry’s direction. Her pixie cut left a swatch of her sandy blond hair hanging over her left eye, but her smile was friendly. “Hi, Harry. I know you, but I don’t think you know me. I’m Leah from the lab. Nice to finally meet you.”