Part 15 (1/2)

A shower and scrub with lots of lemon bath gel refreshed her, but Bella stayed under the water stream for half an hour, till the water got cold. Lost in the patter of water, she allowed her thoughts to flee and she found a tolerable medium between anger and peace.

That the man could so easily toy with her emotions troubled her. And then she knew it was because he meant so much to her. If she meant half as much to him, shouldn't he have known his actions would destroy her?

The sun had set by the time she exited the steamy paradise. Tugging on a silk robe, she padded into the kitchen to browse the fridge. A few nonperishable items remained, though none appealed to her. Not even the half tub of milk-chocolate frosting.

”I miss Heloise's cooking. Oh! What is it with that man? He's always so...macho. So controlling.”

She'd thought she liked that about him. But how could she after what he'd done tonight? He'd ruined any chance of her getting the apprentices.h.i.+p.

She didn't know how to deal with his possessiveness. How did a girl date a wolf and make it work? ”Mom never had any advice for that one,” she told herself aloud.

Diana Reynolds, who had headed off to Tunisia a month ago to work with a charity organization, would have told her daughter to face the challenge head-on. Don't let it upset you. Look at the reason why it's in your life. To teach you something.

Teach her? But what?

To be less controlling? But in exchange for being controlled?

That didn't jibe.

To be more accepting of those unlike her? She'd always been open-minded. Prejudice was not a word in the Reynolds household.

To love? She loved. Many. But Bella had never loved deeply like this before.

Was romantic love supposed to ache as well as feel good?

Scratching her head, she surveyed the room. She didn't feel in the mood for a swim. The computer sat silently mocking her lack of attention.

”I should check my e-mail.” It had been over a week, and though her current clients didn't require immediate attention, she never knew when a new client would contact her.

Booting up the Mac, she waited while the Entourage program downloaded 220 e-mails. That would take a while to sort through.

And she was still too frustrated to sit quietly and do work.

Instead, Bella went to the Internet and searched Google for werewolf.

Wikipedia called them lycanthropes, humans with the ability to shape-s.h.i.+ft into a wolf or a wolflike creature.

The loup-garou in eighteenth-century France was a feared and hunted creature, blamed for killing dozens of men, women and children.

Their weaknesses were silver and wolfsbane. And the idea of a werewolf bite transforming a mortal into a werewolf was purely a fictional creation.

Weren't werewolves themselves supposed to be fictional?

And yet, knowing they were real wasn't so awful. Just...

”p.i.s.sed,” she muttered sharply. ”So p.i.s.sed at him.”

She clicked to another site and another. They all rehashed the lore and legend and featured artists' renditions of the creature. But none of the sites told her about the man she was dealing with. She searched Google for wolf.

According to the Internet they usually ran in packs of six to eight. Yet, she thought, Severo had never mentioned other werewolves. The site also said a wolf could be an alpha, but to do so, it must find an unoccupied territory and a female to mate with.

Bella clutched her throat.

She read more. The wolf's sense of smell was about one hundred times greater than a human's. She knew that. They also marked their territory. So it was an ingrained thing with Severo, she realized. Was he worried Tony was marking his territory?

That still didn't explain his reaction at the studio.

She read more. ”A wolf may growl to indicate warning or dominance.”

Severo growled a lot. And it always turned her on if they were making out. He was dominating her.

A s.h.i.+ver traced her shoulders and arms. A good s.h.i.+ver.

A rap on the patio door made Bella sit up, alert. It was getting late. Who could that be? A vampire? In her anger, she'd forgotten the danger, the reason Severo had coaxed her away from her home in the first place.

Would a murderous vampire knock first? she reasoned as she walked over to the door. Through the long white sheers she saw the shadow outside-a big male shadow who wore a leather jacket.

”Go away!” she called through the gla.s.s door.

”I'm sorry,” Severo said, his voice calm and low. ”Please, can we talk?”

”I'm not in the mood.” She peeked through the curtain, found he stood with his back to the door, and then dropped the curtain and paced around the living room.

This seemed to be his MO. Stalk her when she hated him. Overwhelm her with his caveman aggression and awkward charm to win her over.

”It's not going to work tonight,” she muttered, with a glance to her abandoned dancing shoes.

He could have no idea how much earning an apprentices.h.i.+p with Tony meant to her. Web design was fun, and it paid the bills, but it required one's b.u.t.t in the chair all day. Dancing? Well, Bella couldn't get enough of the motion, the freedom, the utter abandon.

”Bella, please.”

”Don't say my name,” she whispered. She clutched her arms across her chest in a less than rea.s.suring hug. ”Just go away.”

He couldn't hear her soft, trembling plea. But if he was so keen on picking up her scent, why couldn't he also hear through walls and windows? Shouldn't paranormal sorts be able to do all kinds of fabulous things with their senses?

And yet, his sense of propriety was off the scale.

”Wolves are protective of their mates. They mate for life,” she said, repeating the information she'd read online. ”And werewolves are creatures, not humans.”

With a shudder, she paused before the patio door. His shadow was not there, but she could see a figure now standing before the pool's edge. ”He's not going to leave.”

Resigned to make the best of it, at least to try convincing him to leave, Bella pulled the door open and slipped outside. He remained before the pool, looking down.

At an amazing sight.

Bella joined Severo at his side. Dozens of white water lilies floated on the surface of the water. The streetlight across the alley shone over the water and glinted in the droplets dewed on the pale petals. Gorgeous. And fantastical.

Bella swallowed and looked up at Severo.