Angelina
"I'm sorry, I know you didn't want me in there." Jared steals a glance at me as we walk out.
Jesus-is he actually looking unsure? The cocky tough guy who answers everything with a smirk and confidence? I hate seeing him unsure, except that it's over me, and that makes the gravel under my feet seem to skid and slide.
"Are you kidding? She freaking loved you. I'll bet if you asked her to stand on her head and count to thirty, she would have-just for you. I had no idea Grandma had a thing for muscles." I squeeze his biceps the way my Grandma had.
Touching him was a mistake. The moment my fingers contact his skin, the energy between us sizzles. He loops his arm around me, settling his hand on my hip and tapping my ass.
"You thought she'd hate me." He says it without rancor, but it's not a question, either.
I stop walking. "What? No." Why in the hell would he think that? "That's not why I didn't want you in there. I just-" I break off, struggling to put tangled thoughts into words. "I guess I think of Grandma as kind of personal. No-" I catch his arm when it drops away from my hip. "I mean in an embarrassing way. She's not always lucid and you heard her-she's homophobic, and racist, and often crotchety and rude. It would be like showing you my dirty underwear."
I jab him with my elbow when I see a wicked smile forming on his lips. "Okay, bad analogy. You probably like girls' panties."
"I sure as hell wouldn't turn down seeing your panties, baby. Not today. Not ever."
I roll my eyes and head to the car. "You're incorrigible."
"And you love me that way." He opens the passenger door for me, then walks around. "Admit it-you have a thing for the bad boy."
"You think you're the bad boy?"
His brows twitch. "Yeah. You don't?"
I don't. Not at all. Sure, he has tattoos, but this isn't the 1980s. Tattoos are the norm these days. No, I don't have one yet, partly because my parents would flip, but I've been planning to get one. As soon as I think of something perfect and decide on a place no one will see it. Like the top of my ass.
"You just held the car door for me. You protect me from creepy guys. You fed my grandma applesauce. No, I'd say you're the hero."
Jared stares at me. His hazel eyes catch the light and glow and I lose my breath for a moment, because I swear I can see the wolf in him. I don't mean he shifted, I just mean… I saw something.
Wolfy.
"Come on. I'm not the guy you'd bring home to meet your mother."
Okay, that's true. For some reason, my stomach knots imagining it. But that's because my parents are judgemental ladder-climbing high society people who need me to be a certain way to reflect better on them. It has nothing to do with Jared.
I choose not to respond to that line. "To me you're more military hero than bad boy."
Vulnerability flickers over Jared's face before he turns his attention to starting the car and driving.
I don't say anything more because I can tell I've hit a nerve, but I don't know why.
"That's funny." He doesn't look at me. "I was always the good-for-nothing, never-amounts-to-much guy who got into fights."
A chill threads through me, chased by hot anger. "Says who?" I demand. I'm ready to go toe-to-toe with anyone who believes such stupidity.
He shrugs. "My parents. My alpha."
"Garrett?"
"No." He shakes his head. "Garrett's dad. Garrett was a bit of a rebel, too-our leader. We broke off from his dad's pack as worthless teenage wastes and moved here to raise havoc in Tucson."
His words leave a sour taste in my mouth. "You're operating from a pretty outdated viewpoint of yourself, Jared."
Uncertainty flickers on his face again and I lean toward him. "You're the farthest thing from a waste I've ever seen."
A wall falls in place behind his eyes at the word waste. "Come on. Garrett may have made something of himself, but I'm nothing but his muscle. A bouncer at a nightclub. That's hardly carving a place for myself in the world. Violence is all I've ever been good at."
For some reason, my eyes burn at his declaration. I don't want to believe him-I don't believe him-but the violence part scares me. He's already made it plain his kind are far more violent than average humans. I realize he's warning me about himself again.
I'd be stupid not to heed the warning.
But even if he is violent-even if he's something I don't understand-I still know the truth.
This man is worthy.
Of so much more than he believes.
"Well-" I clear my throat, trying to reason my way through his beliefs. "There's a place for warriors. If we were in medieval times, you'd be the most revered of all men. The deliverer of justice, protector of honor."
Jared pulls up at my place and turns off the car. He stares at the steering wheel, his expression a turmoil of emotion.
"So you just have to figure out how the warrior fits into modern day times. If it's being the enforcer for your pack and the bouncer at a club, that's not less important than any other role in society. You're still the knight. I mean, you are to me."
Jared throws his door open and gets out without speaking.
Did I offend him? My mind replays what I said.