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Jamieson Hart stood holding a bottle of whiskey in his hand squinting at me. Jamieson “Jamie” Hart the man I despised most in the world. The man who’d teased, tortured, and tormented me since I was eight years old. He’d done everything from literally pulling my pigtails to stealing my clothes out of the girl’s locker room while I was showering at school.
He’d pushed me around, challenged me, called me names, and beat me to a bloody pulp during our combat training classes. For about fifteen years he specialized in making my life a living hell. He took great care in causing me pain, and he loved every minute of it.
But this wasn’t the Jamie I remembered. The Jamie I remembered was thin, lithe, and pale. A bully who didn’t appreciate that I wasn’t in love with him.
This Jamie was tan, and muscular. Perfectly sculpted biceps and broad shoulders rounded out his wide chest, and even in the low light, I could tell a delicious V-shape hid beneath his shirt, pointing my eyes down to his belt and what lay beyond.
My cheeks burned and a rogue wave of desire made my toes curl in my boots. “Jamie, what are you doing in here?”
“I could ask you the same question, Snowball.” He smiled, lifting his bottle to his lips for a second. “I work here, and Ronnie asked me to check on the stock. What’s your excuse?”
His smile sent my knees wobbling even as a growl ripped from my throat. “My hair isn’t even blonde, asshole.”
“No.” He chuckled. “But your fur is.”
Something warm coiled deep inside my gut, and I forced it away, in favor of scrubbing my hands over my face and turning back to Maria. “Maybe we should go back to the bar. It’s feeling a little crowded in here.”
“Awe, don’t be like that, Snow. It’s a compliment for Christ’s sake. You’re the only white wolf in the pack.” He sighed. “Even Annie had a few patches of other colors.”
A wolf’s color was an outward expression of their soul, their emotions, their heart. The more mottled their look, the more dangerous and unstable the animal.
Maria opened her mouth to say something, but the sound of the sliding glass door stopped her in her tracks, and we all turned in time to see Sloane coming around the corner of the aisle at the front of the building.
“Hey guys, sorry to interrupt, but Adrian needs you, Maria. He wants to talk about something for the service,” she said without bothering to raise her voice. She was clearly a human who knew she was surrounded by werewolves. Having us all in one place would’ve bothered the hell out of anyone who wasn’t well informed. Our energies are too intense to go unnoticed if we’re in a large group.
“Uhhh,” Maria glanced between Jamie and I. “I’ll be right there, Sloane. Thank you.”
“Go,” Jamie said. “We’ll play nice.”
“You wish.” I snorted.
He ignored me and put a hand to his heart. “I promise.”
Maria pursed her lips in thought for a second, and then gave him a curt nod. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
I wanted to protest as I watched her walk away, but even Jamie’s presence was more pleasant than talking to Adrian.
I wasn’t anywhere near ready for that lecture yet. Still, I didn’t want to see Jamie either. I just wanted to be left alone, allowed to grieve for Annie on my own.
“I think I’m gonna go out back, and just wait for the service to start,” I said, turning in the direction of the back wall, where the row of Skee Ball lanes sat beside the employee’s entrance.
I made it two inches before Jamie sidestepped cutting off my path. My feet came up short, and reflexively my hands landed on his chest, as I tried to stop myself from running into him. He’d grown about a foot taller than I remembered. Easily six one or two. Looking up into his hooded eyes, I swallowed. His skin radiated warmth, and his breath smelled like whiskey as it curled across my cheeks. My fingers twisted into his shirt, and I shivered.
His mouth turned up at the corner. “I knew it.”
“What?” I asked, hating myself for the breathy tone.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, reaching up with his free hand to brush his fingers along my jaw. “All that matters is that while you can hate me as much as you want, I know the truth.”
I rolled my eyes and made to step back, but he struck fast as a viper. His free arm wrapped around my back, and we spun, tipping downward until he had me laid out on the closest Skee Ball lane beneath him, the whiskey bottle safely set down somewhere out of sight.
I gasped in shock, and moved my hands to push him away, but as he leaned in, running his nose along the line of my jaw, and down over my neck, his fingers gently guided my wrists up over my head, where he pressed my knuckles into the smooth wood beneath me.
“You smell so damn good,” he growled in my ear. “I could eat you up Snowball.”
His tongue traced my carotid artery, and I moaned, arching my back to press my chest against his, relaxing into his touch. He rocked his hips forward and my entire body shivered again, turning my insides to smoke and tingles. I hooked my leg around his hip, pulling him closer, and—
His teeth closed on my earlobe, biting down hard. It was enough of a shock to bring me back to reality. Yanking my hands from his grasp, I smacked him hard on the shoulders.
“No, get off me. Get off.”
He stood up without hesitation, chuckling under his breath. “Sorry, couldn’t help myself.”
“You never could, could you?” I snarled at him. “Wolves never change.”
Something strange crossed his face, a shadow danced behind his eyes, and his smile fell. “You don’t know me anymore, Snowball, and don’t act like you didn’t enjoy that. I know you did. I can smell it.”
I tried to think of some sort of retort, but all that came out was a frustrated growl as I turned away and marched out the back door of the building, sparing him one final glance as I stepped out of sight.
The door shut behind me and I let out a strangled breath I didn’t know I was holding back. I hated that man. Jamieson-fucking-Hart. He was the most frustrating, insufferable, and chaotic man I’d ever met. But most of all, I hated him for the fact that he was right.
