Bound to the Billionaire

Chapter Three: Here He Is!

His smile grew, larger and larger, it touched his whole face, crinkled his eyes. He was happy. I whiffed it, the spike of endorphins, the whirl of hormones.He reached for me, his fingertips just skimming my jawbone. His touch drove pink to my skin and a hiss through my teeth. I wanted to suck each of those fingers, I had to admit. 

“Yes,” I said, staring down the wheel, trying to ignore the tickle of his touch. My shoulders had begun to quake again. “You know nothing about me and I know nothing about you, and I’m yours. I don’t like that.”

“That’s how it’s been for thousands of years. You’re my other half.”

“I don’t want to be your other half!” I slammed my fist on the horn, scattering a flock of pigeons that had been asleep on the pipes overhead. My wolf strained, and I couldn't tell if it was for Nico or for the easy lunch of a dozen little birds.  “I can’t even be my own half.”

“You just need time,” he said, his voice silky, like he was speaking to something he was scared to spook. His hands sunk to his knees, shirt spilling open and exposing a touch of dark hair. “I’ll wait.”

Tears threatened my eyes. “Please,” I said. “Out.”

He touched my hair one more time, his cologne clouding the air, and slipped out. I plowed the van in reverse as soon as the door slammed shut. Tires squealed and shrieked on the icy patch. 

This was my human way of running. I wouldn’t let my hands turn to paws, wouldn’t let the forest floor brush my pads, but I could drive fast. So, I did. Windows down, snow whipping through the driver’s side.

 How could everything spiral out of control so quickly? All I’d wanted to do was sell the man cupcakes, and now he was my future lover, my mate? As I pulled out into the city, Nico and my business became specks on the rearview. What did I want? His body? This? Tears splattered my apron, and it pissed me off, that I was suddenly crying and there was this sudden cottony feeling in the back of my throat and the suddenness of the whole damn experience, like a kiss if a kiss were synonymous with ‘car-wreck.’ I leaned into the bite of the wind, and with every mile I put between us, I found enough clarity to pull apart what had happened.

I wanted Nico, I thought as my shoeless foot jammed the gas petal. I wanted my mate. I wanted the man I was chained to. Sheets of cloudy sky spanned above the icy streets Trembling, I turned onto a hilly road that lead far from downtown. I let the van scream one more time as I sent it spinning into the open garage of the rickety gray building that had once been my father’s and now belonged to me.

My wolf snarled, howled, and whimpered, but I was not my wolf. I would not return to Nico. I barged inside the shop, unlocked the pantry and sunk into my cot, alone at last.

 ***

Sunlight streamed through cracked yellow blinds. I’d fallen asleep with a pillow jammed between my knees and my head tucked into my shoulder. Truth was, I didn’t have much in way of a home anymore. This gray closet, with a thin rectangle of cracked glass my father dug out himself for my window,had been my sanctuary for years. When my father used this building for a hardware shop, and I’d been screaming desperate to escape the jeers of the pack, I’d lock myself in this closet with a stack of comics and wouldn’t emerge for the better of days. Stretching, I glanced at the open suitcase of clothes under my cot and decided little had changed.

A knock sounded on the door. One after the other in a slow, soft procession. I yawned, rubbing sleep from my eyes as I shuffled through the kitchen. Glossy appliances sparkled silver in the frothy morning light, polished to a sheen. They’d cost me everything I had and sunk me to my neck in debt. It was a Saturday, and the bakery wouldn’t open for another week. Probably a pack member. If it was, I’d slam the door in their face, but it was safest to answer.

I was stripped down to a pair of faded sweatpants and a white tee. “Coming,” I said, turning the knob. How stupid had that man made me? I hadn’t even locked up the shop. Sunlight swept through the tarped eatery morning, making the world bright and white. “Mornin’, stranger,” I said with a grin, eyes squinted to the outside blur. “What can I do for you?”

Nico flashed me my own gold-foil business card, with its soaring cursive and a pink cupcake for a logo. My heart, which had beat slow against my ribs upon my late waking, jetted through my chest. “I didn’t stalk you,” he said flatly, though his black eyes twinkled with good humor. “You left these with your cart. Can I come in?”

Against the flaming sun, Nico was a silhouette of thick shoulders and a thin waist. I blinked once, twice. Panic whirled up inside me. All I needed when I should’ve been focused on my life work. Running a business that didn’t drill itself into the ground, frankly, was enough stress. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said.

“I have your cart.” He stepped to the side and there it sat in the store entrance, its leathery wheels struggling for purchase in the sloping hillside. My heart clenched. Well, shit.

I pulled the door open, watched Nico stroll in with that little smile on his lean face, and slammed it shut behind him. The lock clicked in place. I glanced downward to let my eyes adjust. Faded jeans clung to Nico’s legs, outlining the thickness of his calves and the shape of his thighs. I lifted my eyes to met his, scanning over his bronze arms which were tenuous and defined. His face, just as it was the night before, same cleft of his chin, same searing dark eyes, same lean features. But his hair was messy, feathers tousled up in opposing directions as if he’d just woken up. It made him sexier.

I smiled a twitch. The man had at least three inches on me, and muscle wise, he was more of a hunk than I could ever dream of becoming, but he looked adorable and damned yummy with his hair like that. “I also wanted to see you.”

“You are seeing me. Like the way I look?” I twirled for him and shoved the empty cart across the room. Everything was tarp-covered, the floors, the front counter, the tables. Each step brought on a rustle. Last night’s cry-fest had blunted me to the man who was my mate. He was here, and I was here, and for those few moments, I was okay with it. He was just another sexy man I happened to want. I would treat him as such.

He caught my hand. “Gorgeous. Are you normally like this?”

 He smelled of ivory soap and aftershave. The smoothness of his skin and his warmth made the tension release from my muscles. I hated to admit that his scent had an intoxicating air to it, made my head swim, made me want to cling to him, how suddenly, the man seemed delicious. Both I and my wolf wanted to devour him.

“What do you mean?”

He stroked his smooth chin with his pointer finger and thumb. “Grumpy? Snappy?”

I had to think about this for a second, one fist punched on my hip. “Well, yeah. Especially if I lose a shoe in a door jam because nobody will help me.”

"I'm sorry," he said. He stepped toward me, his shadow creeping across the rustling floor. It made me feel small, and when he laughed it sounded musical. Memories of last night brought gooseflesh to my arms. He was dangerous. He could convince me to take him as his mate, mark me. Scary world out there. 

"Look, maybe you should leave, I don't even know—"

“What’s your favorite color?” he asked.

“Pink." I gave in easily. No one cared about me enough to ask. "Yours?”

“Blue. Like your eyes.”

I snorted. Though I didn’t like mates, I did like games. “Alright, since you’re trying to get to know me. Favorite food?” Talking like this, so oddly casual, drove the emotion of last night far away, like the crying and fast driving belonged to some other Dimitri from some other reality. My heart was still clenched, but now that I stood in my own domain I could breathe.

He blinked up at the ceiling, tapping a finger to the corner of his lips. “I want to say steak, but I feel like that’s the wrong answer.”

“It is. Very wrong." I pulled my hand out of his grasp, though I had to admit I didn’t want to. When I looked at him, I craved him. Not his mouth or his touch or his skin, just him in a vague sense. I wanted all of him, the body as well as the stranger who inhabited it. And never before had I felt a need so all-encompassing that heat crawled up my spine when his skin brushed mine. “Favorite food has got to have sugar in it.” I paused, adding “and sprinkles” as an afterthought.

“Huh.” He raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t know that rule.” I smiled just a little more. I didn’t have to accept him as my mate to like him, I figured. “Favorite hobby?”

“Baking—I mean that’s my job. And sometimes I get tired of it, but it’s always there, and I like it.”

Nico nodded. His eyes gleamed. “It’s reading for me. I hit the gym sometimes, it's good to get the blood flowing. And hell, pretending I know what to do will all the money I’ve piled up. Do I look like the type of man who decorates his house with lambskins and deco-page?”

He looked like the type of man who spent half his days slamming back protein shakes . At the mention of his money I felt a chill. Because of course this conversation would circle back to that. He cupped my chin. The smile tugged into a smirk.

“Last night, you said you wanted to fuck me.”

I made a sound like a snarl. “Last night, you said you’d give me time.”

“Well, what do you want first?”

“Are you drunk?” I glanced at my watch to avoid his eyes. He didn’t smell of alcohol, just the clean, musky scent of his cologne. “It’s eight in the morning.”

“Do you have something to do today?” he asked. Next week would be full, day in, day out, training new hires, seeing to the last kinks in my website’s design, last minute paperwork. I shook my head. Weekends I was supposed to spend with the pack. As if I’d willingly subject myself to a house full of assholes who bided their time wrestling. And I, for years, with my linen apron and cheap dust pan, quietly picking up after them.

He shrugged and threw two foil packets on the floor like he was rolling dice. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

“Clearly,” I muttered. I was laughing. I never thought my mate would have that effect on me. I’d assumed mates fucked you, dumped you into their house, and left you miserable. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“I don’t work weekends.” His tongue darted over his lips, drawing heat to my pants. I couldn’t deny my lust for the man, I decided. So what? One fuck. My hands roaming his skin, my mouth kissing, licking. He wanted my body, and I wanted his. What made him any different from the men I had let take me home after a night at the bar?

“Okay,” I said.