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“No. He didn’t teach me how to give in.” Nor did she have a business degree, having chosen to secretly study music instead. Angeline dried her hands on the dish towel. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to say good-night to the kids.”
“Don’t forget they’re out of school for a teacher’s workday on Thursday,” Madelyn said.
“I have everything planned.” Breakfast, sledding, watching a superhero movie on DVD while overloading on popcorn and hot chocolate.
“You haven’t changed your mind about Sierra’s birthday party, have you?” Mischief twinkled in Izzie’s eyes.
“I’ll be the one loaded with all the surprises.” And Angeline couldn’t wait to see the disapproving look on Patrick O’Brien’s face when forced to wear one of the fringed pastel foil party hats she’d bought specially for the occasion.
Headlights briefly lit the dark stairwell. When they blinked off, Lincoln glanced toward the parking lot and stopped to watch Angeline slide out of her car.
Seeing him paused on the stairs, she waved but only a faint smile touched her lips.
He waited, his heartbeat falling into an unusual rhythm, pushing his blood more quickly through his veins.
“Hey,” she said, climbing the steps behind him. “How was your day?”
The question caused a little flutter in his chest. Other than the nurses at the infirmary, Lincoln couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked that question of him.
“Awkward,” Lincoln said.
“Why?”
He remained one step behind Angeline as they continued up the stairs.
“Brice invited me to his home for supper. Didn’t know his parents would be there.”
“Guess that would be awkward, especially not knowing them.”
“What about you?” He’d seen the rigidness of her stride walking to the stairs and could feel the tension radiating from her now.
“Monthly family dinner. My dad uses the opportunity to chide me about my life’s choices. He’s gravely disappointed that, at my age, I’m unmated and have no viable career.” Her entire body seemed to sigh. “If he only knew...”
“Knew what?”
They reached the third-floor landing.
“Doesn’t matter.” An artificial smile curved her tantalizing mouth.
Nearing his apartment, Lincoln bid Angeline good-night. He fiddled with his keys, listening to the rhythmic thump of her boots retreating down the corridor.
“Lincoln?”
“Yeah?” He turned.
“Wanna come in for a drink?”
“Sure.” Shoving the keys into his pocket, he walked down to her apartment.
She’d left the door partially open, so he entered and shut out the cold night air. Angeline had dropped her coat on the back of the couch and had headed straight for the kitchen.
“Beer, wine or Jack?”
“Your choice.” He sat on the couch rather than the chair, giving room for Angeline to join him, if she chose.
After living in tents and barracks, sleeping on the ground, in cots, hammocks or in trees, Lincoln appreciated the upgrade to Tristan’s modern-style apartment. But it lacked the cozy warmth of Angeline’s place. Walking inside felt like coming home.
Or rather, what he imagined coming home would feel like, if he had one.
Calm, comfortable and filled with the enticing scent of a sexy, spirited she-wolf.
A fantasy. Nothing more than a fleeting dream the mind called forth in times of extreme stress just so he could get through the ordeal.
Each Dogman had just such a dream. They’d go feral without one.
Handing him a bottle, she plopped next to him on the couch and kerplunked one furry-booted foot onto the coffee table, then the other.
“Cheers.” Her bottle clinked against his, then she tipped back her head, exposing the slender column of her smooth, creamy neck, and took a long swig. His mouth parched with want of the taste of her skin despite the cold liquid sloshing down his own throat.
In all the years he’d carried Angeline’s picture in his pocket, Lincoln never imagined he’d actually share a drink with his angel.
Oh, he’d tried to unravel the mystery of the woman in the photograph in the months following the death of the Dogman who’d entrusted him with the prized possession. But Lincoln had very little to go on. Only the name “Angel” had been written on the back of the picture and Tanner Phillip’s next of kin had not known her identity.
In the beginning, Lincoln had reached for the photo when hurt, indecisive or just plain lonely. Later he’d spoken to her upon waking and just before going to sleep. Probably not the healthiest of habits, but his second-in-command, Lila, had said the rosary. By nature, Wahyas weren’t religious. However, she had found comfort in the tradition and repetitiveness. And so had he.
They all needed something larger than themselves from which to seek guidance, absolution and everything else in between.
“What makes your family dinners stressful?” Lincoln asked, restarting the conversation they began on the stairs.
“Irreconcilable differences.” Angeline took another drink. “It’s insanity. My dad keeps picking the same fight, month after month, expecting that suddenly I’ll conform to his expectations of a daughter.” She snorted. “Not that he ever wanted one. After my mom died, he cut off my hair and dressed me in my brothers’ hand-me-downs.”
“You must’ve looked like your mother.”
“I did.” Angeline swirled her bottle. “Still do.”
Lincoln took another swig of beer, unable to imagine the long auburn strands that fell below her shoulders stunted in a short bob. He much preferred the vision of her in masculine clothes...in particular, his sweatshirt enveloping her much smaller frame.
His thoughts drifted to the way the softness of her body had cushioned his when he’d rolled her beneath him while disoriented from a nightmare.
The mere memory of how perfectly their bodied aligned electrified his nerves, tingling and tantalizing his already sensitized skin.
“Everybody’s curious about you,” she said. “We’ve never had a Dogman in town.” Her jaw tightened and her mouth pulled tight.
“Brice and I go back a few years. When he heard about my injury, he invited me here.”
“Then why aren’t you staying at his family’s resort?”
“Not my style.” Or in his comfort zone. He didn’t need to be pampered or coddled. Besides, a couples retreat had been scheduled for Valentine’s Day weekend and he definitely didn’t want to be in the midst of a lovefest, especially during a full moon.
Wahyas were wired for sex. It regulated their wolfan hormones, keeping the primitive monster that lived inside them dormant. A full moon was the most critical time for Wahyas to have sex, but Dogmen had little time and opportunity to find willing partners every month.
So, Program scientists developed the hormone suppressor implanted into every Dogman before deployment. Only those involved in the Program knew of the implant’s existence because of the known side effect of increased hostility.
Dogmen were highly trained to manage their aggressive impulses, whether naturally occurring or chemically induced. Unleashing the implant on the general Wahyan population could give rise to the very beasts that the drug had been created to suppress.
Removal of the implant proved just as challenging. After a wolfan’s sexual instinct had been stifled for so long, some Dogmen found the deluge of natural hormones overwhelming.
Lincoln’s implant had been removed after the last full moon. With less than a week until the next one, he needed to find a consenting sex partner. Soon.
He glanced sidelong at Angeline and his heart thudded all the way down to his groin. His wolf had declared his choice. Undeniably, Lincoln wanted to agree. But things could get oh, so complicated.
He liked simple.
And he knew one thing for sure. There was absolutely nothing simple about Angeline.
Chapter 5 (#u484207a4-2c17-5558-bff5-b92a662a77e9)
“What is that god-awful noise?” It pounded in Angeline’s head like a woodpecker drilling a tree for food.
Slowly and painfully, she opened her eyes. The shirt Lincoln had worn last night obscured her field of vision. Suddenly, the pillow her head rested upon moved.
“Buenos días, Angel.” Lincoln’s deep Texas drawl sounded thunderously close but at least the beep grating her nerves stopped.
The sluggish thoughts in her brain, however, kept going. Unfurling her legs, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Were you speaking Spanish?”
“Yeah. I grew up in a bilingual household. My maternal grandparents emigrated from Mexico to Texas when my mom was a child. But I also speak German, Tagalog and some Somali.”
“Strange combo of languages.”
“I learn whatever the Program tells me to.” Lincoln began the process of putting on his prosthetic.
She remembered Lincoln asking if she was okay with him taking off his artificial leg because his stump hurt, but not much after he did.
“Um.” She glanced at the coffee table littered with a Jack Daniel’s decanter and likely every beer bottle she had in the fridge. All empty. “What happened last night?”
“You passed out and latched onto me in your sleep.” He wiggled into his pants.
“I did not!” The screech in her voice made Angeline cringe.
“Oh, so it was a ploy to keep me here?” He cracked a smile. “Aw, Angel, all you had to do was ask.”
She felt the weight of a frown on her jaw. “Tread lightly, I’m not a morning person.”
Despite her warning, he laughed. “You certainly aren’t. But you are quite adorable with your messy hair and grumpy face.”
“You’re not earning any brownie points, Dogman.”
“That’s not what you said last night.” He had the nerve to wink.
“They only count if I remembering doling them out. Which I don’t, so...” She massaged her temples.
“I’m not surprised.” Lincoln stood, and Angeline felt woozy looking up at him. He began gathering the discarded bottles. “Most of these are yours.”
“That can’t be right,” she said, trying to focus her fuzzy and somewhat incoherent memories. “I don’t normally drink that much.”
“Good to know,” Lincoln said. “But I think your family dinners are more upsetting than you allow yourself to believe.”
“Why? What did I say?” Angeline’s heartbeat sped up, despite the sludge a night of drinking had deposited in her veins.
“Nothing that bears repeating.” Lincoln dropped the bottles into the recycling bin underneath the sink.
“No, really. I need to know what I talked about.”
“Tell me where the coffee is.” Lincoln gave her an assessing look. “Then I’ll give you a play-by-play of all the beans you spilled.”
Angeline’s stomach churned and it wasn’t from the hangover. If her drunken self had told Lincoln about her music career...
“Check the pantry, third shelf. Coffee filters should be there, too.”
While Lincoln busied himself in the kitchen, seemingly making as much noise as possible, Angeline dragged herself into the bathroom, soaked a washcloth in cold water and buried her face in it. This—the morning-after hangover—is why she didn’t usually indulge in more than two drinks in one night.
Dampening the cloth, she glanced into the mirror and jumped back. Her bloodshot eyes were a little puffy, but her hair...yikes! What a tangled mess.
And Lincoln thought she looked adorable? Definitely, the man needed glasses.
At least nausea didn’t accompany the hangover, but if she didn’t take a painkiller for the pounding in her head, it might split open.
She fumbled through the medicine cabinet for ibuprofen and downed two caplets with a glass of water. After scrubbing her face and rinsing the funk from her mouth, she tackled combing her hair. Seriously, how did she get so many knots?
Emerging from the bathroom, Angeline looked much more presentable than when she’d gone in. Her nose twitched at the rich, robust aroma of fresh-brewed coffee, and she followed the scent all the way to the kitchen.
Lincoln handed her a big cup filled nearly to the rim.
“Thanks.” Holding the ceramic mug between both hands, she took her first sip. The heat sloshed down her throat ahead of the flavor. The more she drank, the more the tightness in her body began to ease.
“I would’ve made breakfast, but your fridge is nearly empty and so is mine.”
“I’m not usually up this early. On the occasion that I am, I grab a pastry from the bakery.”
“Sweets for the sweet,” Lincoln said. “I’ll remember that.”
“I’m not really sweet.” She tried to glare at him over the rim of her coffee cup, but his sleepy eyes and soft smile were just so cute.
“Difference of opinion then.” He poured a cup of coffee for himself and sat on the bar stool next to her.
“Okay,” she said, swiveling toward him. “You spill the beans. I want to know every word I said to you.”
“I don’t have that much time. You became quite chatty after that third beer.”
