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His black eyes traveled slowly over the bustling crowd, looking for something. They stopped on her for a moment, and the impact made her catch her breath. Then his gaze drifted on.
His gaze caught first on a young girl with an Irish-pale complexion, whiskey-colored curly hair, and the defeated look of someone who was beaten on a regular basis. She looked tired, cold, and far too thin. It made him angry to see it, and he was already too angry to be safe, so he forced his gaze away.
She was an Omega. Right then he knew that whatever else he did in Chicago, he was going to kill whoever had given her that bruised look.
UP close he was even more impressive; she could feel his energy licking lightly over her like a snake tasting its prey.
He could have told her that he had no intention of bedding her, but he tried not to lie. Not even to himself. So he stayed silent.
The anger and the hunter’s wariness that his wolf always held was only a faint memory, leaving behind only the determination to take this one to mate—Charles had never felt anything like that either.
The wolf wanted to bed her and claim her as his own. Being of a more cautious nature than his wolf, he would wait until he knew her a little better before deciding to court her.
He’d have to call his brother, Samuel, and tell him that he’d finally learned that his face wouldn’t crack if he smiled. All it had taken to teach him was an Omega werewolf.
“Besides,” he told her gently, “my wolf is more interested in courting you than in asserting his dominance.”
He liked that. Who’d have thought he’d get turned on by a woman with a rolling pin?
He dropped to his knees, nuzzling against her neck, then rested his body, now taut as iron, against hers, trapping her between him and the wall. He put his hands on the wall, one to each side of her, and then quit moving. His breath was hot on her neck.
But there was something about him that kept her from being truly scared, something that insisted he wouldn’t hurt her. That he never would hurt her.
Though he smelled of anger, he also smelled like spring rain, wolf, and man.
She had the sudden feeling that if she could look into those eyes for the rest of her life, she would be happy. It scared her a lot more than his anger had.
He cupped her face in both of his hands. They were large hands, and calloused, and they trembled just a little. He bent down until his chin rested on the top of her head. “I’ve never felt this way before either.”
HE could have stayed there forever, despite the discomfort of kneeling on the hardwood floor. He’d never felt anything like this—certainly not with a woman he’d known less than twenty-four hours. He didn’t know how to deal with it, didn’t want to deal with it, and—most unlike himself—was willing to put off dealing with it indefinitely as long as he could spend the time with her body against his.
He stepped back. He didn’t much like to touch or be touched—though he seemed to have largely forgotten that while he was around Anna. His Anna.
As she stood still and shocked, he prowled around her until he came back around the front and kissed her, a long, dark, deep kiss that left her breathless for another reason entirely.
“My brother wolf has taken you for his mate. If you were nothing to me, I would have never allowed such abuse as you have suffered since your Change. But you are mine, and the thought of you hurt, of being able to do nothing about it, is an anger that even an Omega wolf cannot easily soothe.”
“If you had let me,” he said, “I’d have courted you gently and won your heart.” He closed his eyes. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
But if I am yours, then you damned well are going to be mine.”
“Ignore him,” Anna told the EMT. “He gets grumpy when he’s hurt.”
She might not be aggressive, but she had a limit to how far she could be pushed.
She was beautiful, he thought. Coal black with a dash of white over her nose. She was on the small side for a werewolf, but still much larger than a German shepherd. Her eyes were a pale, pale blue, which was strange because her human eyes were brown.
