Chapter Four

Leo had never been the kind of guy who went to a huge amount of trouble for a woman. What dates he went on—when he and whoever had picked him out of the pack to spend time with didn't just shoot straight past the civilized conversation part of the evening and directly to the incoherent moaning part—were usually casual and casually organised, a drink somewhere local, maybe a movie if they'd connected over a discussion of those. In truth, he'd never really needed to put in a whole lot of effort; when he did relatively infrequently give in to the urges of his body, not to mention his wolf, it had never been that difficult for him to find someone who was happy to keep things casual and go their separate ways after a couple of nights together.

But that level of qualified borderline disinterest wasn't going to fly with Delphinia. Della. She'd answered the phone as Della and sent what felt like every single drop of blood in his body shooting to his groin at the thought of growling the name while he was bringing her pleasure. It was a good thing he had made the call while he was home alone, because he had no doubt his eyes were glowing silver as the moon from the moment he heard her voice. Hell, from the moment he started digging for her number, the memory of her scent haunting him like a particularly insistent ghost.

He'd had every intention of apologising, then requesting to meet sometime to discuss the pack's involvement in the youth program and using that time together to not only explain James' position—because that wasn't going to make him feel like the world's biggest asshole at all—but also to desensitise himself to her somehow. He'd decided that his reaction to her, to her scent, at the meeting, could be nothing but a one-time failure on his part to adequately control his wolf when exposed to a beautiful woman. If he saw her again, he'd be able to manage it better. To find a way to get her out of his system if that was required. No matter how vehemently his wolf protested at the mere concept.

But this… this state of affairs had been truly unexpected. Was he seriously taking her on an honest-to-the-gods date, just to tell her the pack wasn't interested in being involved in her program? Just to see if he needed to find a way to get her into his bed for a night for the express purpose of hamstringing this borderline obsession he seemed to have developed with her? Something in him—his wolf, himself—just desperately wanted the chance to take her on a damn date, no agenda, just Leo and Della and a candlelit dinner and a bottle of wine and him spending the entire night trying to be a gentleman so that when he dropped her home, she might give him the chance to disprove the impression. He growled as blood rushed to his already painfully thickened cock. For her, the wolf was insisting. It's for her.

"Too fucking right," Leo snarled, "and that's the goddamned problem."

Because just as something in his chest relaxed somehow when he thought of having the right to bring her home and introduce her to the pack as his, his conversation with James had brought up another issue he hadn't properly considered. Blue Crescent wolves didn't integrate. They didn't fraternise outside the pack except when it couldn't be avoided. Blue Crescent wolves' partners, if they had them for the long term, were either other Blue Crescent wolves or, at a stretch, a wolf from another pack. Otherwise, there was a kind of one-night-stand culture that was probably perpetuated by neither the pack's Alpha nor Beta settling down with a partner of their own. If someone spent a brief time with someone outside the pack—a human, a witch or warlock, hell, even a vampire if their tastes ran that way—it was viewed through a sort of don't-ask-don't-tell lens, with the understanding that such associations were temporary.

The idea that he could bring Della into the pack and introduce her—a government-employed witch whose major focus was interspecies integration—as his partner, let alone if Raj and Emmett started talking about the whole mate thing again… the entire concept was ludicrous, and he'd been a fool to ever entertain the thought even.

Deep within him, his wolf howled, his canines lengthening in response to the thought, claws threatening to burst free from his fingertips. The very idea of letting Della go… the wolf was furious, desperately denying the impossibility of keeping her in his life. I'll find a way, a part of him insisted equally desperately. I'll find a way to have her and keep her and make her mine. How could I even consider letting her go?

An unwelcome memory of the man sitting beside her at the meeting putting his hand on Della's skin rolled through him, and he clenched his fists so hard, his elongating nails broke skin. Was he really prepared to let her go, let her find someone else, let another man have the right to put his hands all over her the way that Leo was craving to?

Too much. It was too much. He'd only met her the once, and just because merely talking to her on the phone was enough to get his cock hard as a rock and aching like never before, just because her scent blew his mind and his wolf was desperate to get his skin on hers, and she actually liked the way his mouth had run away with him after the meeting, and then again on the phone, and produced something more suited to a porno than an introductory conversation…

He just had to take her out for dinner, explain that the pack wasn't interested in being part of her afterschool programs, and maybe, just maybe, if there seemed to be even a chance of success, see if she might be interested in something casual enough between them to fulfill the requirements of the pack while at the same time getting this goddamn obsession out of his system.

Which meant planning a date, and not just a drinks-at-the-local-bar kind of date as per usual, either. Thus, the reason that he was, for almost the first time in the years since he'd taken on the role of Beta, coming close to what could be defined as 'pulling rank'.

***

Penny was one of the few Blue Crescent wolves with a job outside of the pack and its immediate requirements. She was a chef at a restaurant just outside of Blue Crescent territory, Maison, for which the waiting list for a table was several weeks long at a quiet time. But when her Beta rang and asked her to see if they could fit in a table for two that very night, she couldn't very well refuse.

Leo was going to make this a date that Della would never forget. Because something in him insisted that he never would, either.

***

Della was spending way too long getting ready for this meeting with Leo Tyler. Not that a beautiful dress, excellent makeup, and flawless hair weren't more than warranted when the meeting-date-thing was happening at Maison, of all places. How long had he been planning this, in order to get a table there? They'd only met—if you could call their first interaction so simple a word as a meeting—a few days ago.

Maybe, something in her whispered snidely, he would have taken anyone there. Maybe you're nothing special to him, just a convenient body.

Memories threatened to roll in, but she blocked them out, remembering Leo's voice on the phone when he'd growled out, "Never before." She couldn't let memories of Dane poison the strange but powerful connection she seemed to have with Leo. She wouldn't.

Just thinking of Dane brought a sour taste into her mouth, and she shoved the idea out of her head, running her fingers through the waves of her hair. She checked the time, realized she should be getting going if she wanted to get to the restaurant on time, and sat down to buckle her shoes. The heels were perhaps a touch excessive, but she'd bought them with one of her first pay checks after climbing out of the financial hole of dealing with Dane, and they represented her pride in her own achievements as much as her confidence in herself and, dammit, her desirability as a woman. Confidence shoes, Mags called them—in part due to her tiny stature, the little human had more pairs of shoes like these than Della could have worn in three months.

Although that might have been related to the fact that Della didn't incredibly regularly put herself in situations where confidence shoes were required. Sure, she went on dates—drinks with a co-worker here and there, or someone she'd met through friends, or a couple of times one of the warlocks in her coven or another to which they were close. Almost always someone to whom she had a prior connection, a way of knowing things about them or at least partially vetting them before she stepped out the door to meet them. Not that that would have protected her against Dane, who had been universally regarded as the nicest of guys before Della knew him. But it was something. Something more than going into a situation blind, and it gave her just the tiniest feeling of power in the interaction.

Not today.

She knew nothing about Leo, beyond his position as the Beta of Blue Crescent and that filthy mouth she inexplicably found so appealing. There was no information on which she could base an understanding of this strange connection she felt to him. He was a mystery to her, and while part of her was, if she was being honest with herself, completely terrified, another part of her was… excited? Intrigued? Maybe even slightly aroused?

It didn't make sense. This was breaking all her self-imposed rules. But then, what part of this made sense?

She stood, balancing herself in her confidence shoes, and collected her bag, wiping sweaty hands over the front of the deep blue dress. Sitting here considering it wasn't going to make a difference. She'd agreed to this date disguised as a meeting, and she was going to see it through, enjoy dinner without wondering who Leo had been planning on taking to this reservation, and work out what the hell she was going to do about the draw she felt to him.

Of course, she hit traffic. Extra traffic, because there were roadworks she hadn't been aware of. She'd factored enough time into her planned transit for a slow run just in case, but not enough for traffic to be so backed up that she had to actually stop repeatedly along the way. And then there was the time it took to find a parking space in that part of the city, and by the time she walked into the restaurant, she was twenty minutes late. She'd sent an apology text message when it had become clear she would be delayed but hadn't known by how much. Her perfectly styled hair had fallen out of the waves she'd put it in due to constantly running her hands through it in frustration and anxiety, and she had to stop herself from doing it again as the man at the door asked if she had a reservation. She gave him her own name as well as Leo's, but he barely got out a word before Leo was there, wrapping a hand around Della's and pulling her past the host stand. His hair looked as wild as hers and his eyes were glinting silver. When they got to the table, she hardly registered it, because she was still staring at him. He, too, had dressed up for the occasion, an open-necked button-down shirt under a suit jacket that struggled to contain his bulk.

He stopped beside the table, not letting go of her long enough for her to sit, and just stared at her.

"I'm so sorry I'm late," Della managed through lips that felt frozen and warm all at once. "There was traffic I didn't count on, and I couldn't get a park once I got here. I didn't think to factor that in. I'm sorry."

"I thought you weren't coming," Leo said, his voice halfway to a growl. He still had barely taken his eyes off her except to navigate between the restaurant's other patrons, feasting on her appearance in a way that made her glad she'd taken the time with her makeup and picked one of her most flattering dresses. For some reason, though, she had the sense that he'd have looked at her the same way if she'd been wearing pyjamas with her unwashed hair in a messy ponytail.

"Of course, I was coming," Della managed. "I told you I was."

"You look—" He ran a hand over his mouth and chin, shaking his head, then seemed to realize they were still standing next to their table. "Here, let me—" He let go of her hand to step behind her and pull out her chair for her. Okay, so this really was a date-date, or at least, he was going to treat it like one. Warmth spread in her abdomen, trickling through her veins like a champagne buzz as Leo circled the table to take his own seat. He was still staring at her as he sat.

"Do I have something on my face?" Della asked after a moment.

"What? No." Leo suddenly seemed to realize what he was doing and picked up the menu in front of him. "I just—you look lovely. I like your dress."

"Oh, this old thing?" Della joked, letting her hair fall forward to cover her face before she could consider the defense mechanism.

As he had the last time they were face-to-face, Leo reached out immediately and tucked her hair back behind her ear, seemingly before he was even aware of what he was doing. Astonishingly, his cheeks colored slightly above the line of his beard as he let his hand drop to the table's surface. Della wondered if her mouth was hanging open. It felt like it should be, her breaths gasping audibly in and out at the throb of pure arousal that shot through her at his touch. She couldn't seem to look away from his eyes, once again sparking pure silver.

"Does that make you uncomfortable?" Leo asked after a long moment. "Compliments? Is that why you do that thing with your hair?"

"I-I don't know," Della admitted. "I don't do this all that often." She swallowed and forced a flirtatious tone into her voice. "Maybe I'm just doing it so that you'll touch me. You always push it back."

Leo's voice went ocean deep. "Della, if you want me to touch you, you don't have to goad me into pushing back your hair. All you have to do is give me permission and I'll have my hands on every damn inch of your body."

Della's eyes fell shut as she heaved in another deep breath, her hands twisted together on the table's surface. Her eyelids flew upwards when Leo's hand covered both of her own.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I won't do that again if it takes your eyes away from me. That's why I do it—pushing your hair back. I-I have this need to have your eyes on me, Delphinia. I don't like the risk that they'll be covered up."

She stared at him for a long moment before she found her voice. "I don't do it to goad you into anything. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I made that joke. I don't even think about it anymore, the hair thing, it just happens. No one else has ever commented on it."

A slight smile spread over Leo's lips. "Maybe everyone else just isn't looking closely enough."

She found herself smiling back, that inexplicable thread that seemed to connect them tugging below her bellybutton once more.

The waiter approaching the table interrupted their sexually charged stare-off. "Have you had a chance to look at the menu?"

"Not yet," Leo said while Della was still struggling to regain the capacity for speech. "Could you give us another few minutes?"

Certain that if she waited more than a moment, they'd just revert to staring at each other once more, Della hurriedly flipped the menu open and tried to focus on the various delicious options it listed.

"How on earth did you get a table here at such short notice?" she asked, examining the main courses, and immediately cursed herself. She'd sworn to herself she wouldn't ask any questions that she wasn't sure she wanted the answer to, but apparently her mouth had other plans.

"One of the chefs is a Blue Crescent wolf," Leo said. "I spoke to her, and she had them fit us in at short notice."

"Why do you look uncomfortable saying that?" Della asked.

A small smile raised the corners of his lips. "You're very perceptive."

"That's not an answer."

"You're right, it's not." Leo looked away from her for a moment. "I'm the pack Beta, you know that. It gives me a certain level of… influence, I guess you'd say, among the wolves. But I try not to use that power for my own ends. It should only be used for the good of the pack, in my opinion. Penny couldn't very well tell me she wouldn't fit us in if it were at all possible. I wanted to bring you here, so I put pressure on her in a way she didn't deserve. In a way that power isn't meant to be used."

"You didn't have to do that," Della blurted. "I would have been just as happy going to some no-name burger joint. I don't need fancy."

"I'd do it ten times over just to see you in that dress," Leo said. "I thought you were beautiful before, but all dressed up like this…" His eyes flicked over as much of her as was visible above the table, and she felt his gaze like he'd traced fingertips over her skin. "You're a fucking work of art, Della."

She felt a shy smile spread across her face and couldn't stop her eyes from falling to focus on his hands in embarrassment at the extravagant compliment. "Thank you," she murmured.

Leo reached forward and, with one finger, tilted her chin back up so she was looking at him once more. "Give me back those eyes," he said, his voice softer now, gentler.

"Ready to order?" the waiter asked cheerfully from beside them, interrupting what would surely have devolved into another erotic staring competition.

"Yes," Della blurted, trying desperately to remember what she'd wanted to eat. "Leo?"

If she hadn't been paying such close attention, she might not have noticed the way his hand on the table's surface clenched into a fist when she said his name.

"If you are," he said.

They placed their orders, and then Della let herself meet Leo's eyes again. "After that, it seems like a bit of a letdown to ask you how your day was."

He let out a huff of a laugh. "It was busy. Our Alpha, James… he's a bit hands-off in the way he leads the pack. He's still happy to make decisions, but a lot of the legwork tends to fall to me. So, I manage a lot of pack business on his behalf." It didn't sound like he was a particularly big fan of this method of management, but the closed-off look on his face told Della that pressing him for details might not be a particularly productive idea.

"And when you're not doing that? Managing the pack, that is. What do you like to do for fun?"

There was a short pause. "It's not exactly for fun," Leo said slowly. "But by training, I'm a carpenter. So, I do a lot of fixing things for the people who live near me."

"Do you ever just make things for the sake of it?" Della asked. "For the enjoyment of it, rather than to fix someone's problem?"

Was that really a blush rising in his cheeks? "Sometimes," he admitted. "I make furniture. Mostly for the poorer families in the pack, so I know they've got something that isn't going to fall apart in a strong breeze. Tables, chairs, bookcases, that kind of thing."

"It doesn't sound like you're particularly good at spending time just on yourself," Della noted. "It's always for someone else, isn't it?"

"The furniture—eventually, I guess," Leo said. "But the process of making it, that's just for me. It's easy to get lost in the creation part of it, making something useful out of… not quite nothing, but close enough that it feels like it."

"What about before you were Beta?" Della asked. "Before you had so many people to look after."

"I never really thought about it like that," Leo said. "That the job is looking after people."

"What did you think being Beta was?" Della asked with a smile.

"Mostly imposing James' will on people who would very happily continue to do otherwise," Leo said with half a laugh.

Della paused, wondering if she should ask this question or if it was crossing a line. He'd looked so closed-off before—should she just leave it and change the subject? But in the end, she couldn't help herself, or her rampant need to learn more about him and actually try to understand this man. "It sounds like you don't exactly enjoy what you do. Why do you do it?"

He looked at her consideringly for a long moment. "It's my job," he said simply, after the silence had stretched so long that Della regretted ever asking the question. "My father was the Beta before me, and my grandfather before him. I took an oath when I inherited the position. My role is to help bring the Alpha's instructions to fruition. James is the Alpha, so it's his opinion that's important. His vision for the pack is my responsibility to carry out."

"It just doesn't sound like you particularly enjoy, or maybe approve of, the way he runs the pack?" Della said, phrasing it as a question and knowing she was treading on dangerous ground here. "I guess I'm just wondering… why don't you find a way to change it if you don't like it? Speak to him or see if your pack mates feel similarly and bring him a collective opinion. Find a way to act, rather than just allowing things to continue as they are."

To her surprise, this garnered the same humorless half-laugh as before. "I hate to say it like this, but, Della, you just don't understand how the internal politics of werewolf packs are run. You're not in one, so that makes complete sense, but it's an alien concept to someone on the outside. There's a way that things are done and organizing a community protest isn't one of them. The Alpha's word, even if you don't agree with it, is tantamount to law. If I go against him, he can kick me out of the pack with barely a thought, Beta, or no. I would go from being responsible for hundreds of people to being totally packless—an Omega, is what we call them. It's not particularly polite," he added with a heart-melting smile. "I probably wouldn't repeat that term to anyone if I were you."

"Your secret is safe with me," Della promised. She took a sip of her drink, which she hadn't noticed arrive. Had the glass of wine been there since she sat down? She blinked at it, then focused back on Leo. "Would it be so awful for that to happen, though? I know you'd miss your position and what it means you can do for your packmates, but at least you'd be free of an Alpha who it sounds like he treats you like some kind of—of enforcer."

"There are so many things wrong with that, I don't even know where to start," Leo said, but there was no malice in his tone. At some point while they'd been talking, their food had arrived too—how had she been so focused on him that she missed that? "It's not the position I'd miss, not at all. In a lot of ways, it would even be a relief to be free of the responsibilities of being Beta. Not to be responsible for the welfare of hundreds of people. But then I wouldn't be able to… to help them anymore. To fix it when they have problems. I mean, what if the next Beta was like James? He would get to choose who came next if he expelled me from the pack. And he could pick someone who didn't give a shit about our people, and then where would they be? I can't risk that for them." He took a bite of food, looking like he was gathering his thoughts. "Then there's the Omega thing. Wolves aren't meant to be packless. It's not good for them, physically or mentally. And I could apply to join another pack, but the process is long, and they'd want a full report of why I was expelled from Blue Crescent. It would be hard enough to join a new pack even without having the mark against my name of being a Beta who abandoned his duty."

"But you wouldn't have abandoned it," Della protested.

"That's how it would be interpreted," Leo explained. "I told you, there's a specific way things are done in werewolf packs. We're traditional people, wolves. Conservative. We like to stick to tradition. And if you've only just recently shown a great disrespect for the traditional way of doing things…" He shrugged, but his shoulders looked tight. "No other pack would want me."

"I can't imagine that," Della blurted, her stomach hurting somehow at the evidence of his pain at the thought.

"What?" Leo asked.

"Not—not wanting you," she managed quietly. "They'd be fools not to accept someone willing to put himself through so much for his people."

"Is that why you're looking at me like that, Della?" Leo asked, half his mouth quirked upwards in a smile. "My community-minded attitude?"

"How am I looking at you?" Della asked.

"Like you're hungry," Leo said, voice deepening once more. He raised an eyebrow, somehow turning it into the sexiest facial expression the world had ever seen. "Like you're hungry, and I look like a meal."

Della sucked in a breath, trying to ignore the pulse of heat throbbing through her that he seemed to be able to call up at will. "Maybe I am hungry," she said, gesturing to the meals they'd hardly touched. "This food is spectacular, and I've barely managed to eat any of it."

To her surprise, his heated expression faded immediately—the heat was still there, but muted, and almost hidden under something she couldn't identify.

"I don't like the idea of you being hungry," he said with the air of someone admitting a secret. "I don't know why, Della, but it does something to me, the idea of you not being… properly cared for."

"I care for myself, Leo," she said in a kind of confused protest.

"What if I wanted to do it?" Leo asked, his voice soft. His gaze was trained on her with the precision and intensity of a military sniper, the color of his eyes flicking deeper and deeper from green into glowing silver once more.

Della shook her head to clear thoughts of Dane from it. "I don't know," she said, focusing somewhere in the region of his collarbone. "That's a pretty intense question to ask someone on a first date, Leo," she added, hearing the note of desperation in her own voice.

"This whole night has been intense," Leo said, his voice harsh. "We were intense the moment you got wet hearing me talk filth to you behind the lectern at a public meeting. This night was intense the second you put on that dress for the express purpose of making my dick hard, Della. Because it worked. It fucking worked."

Her mouth dropped open and she gasped in a breath, arousal and disbelief powering through her in equal measures.

Leo's hands, flat on the table's surface, clenched into fists and he reined himself in with a visible effort. "Della, I don't think I've ever told anyone else the things I've told you tonight. Maybe we're just intense people. Maybe we're just intense together." He squeezed his eyes shut for a long second, and when he opened them, the green tinge had returned to them. Still mostly silver, but no longer the color of the rising moon as they had been before. "I can try to keep it in check, if it would make you more comfortable."

"No," Della blurted before she could think it through. Shock and arousal and distant memories of the past swirled through her brain. "No, I don't want you anything but genuine. But, Leo, I can't—" The words stuck in her throat at the concept of discussing what had happened with Dane. She cleared her throat. "I'm busy," she said instead. "I told you this was my only night off until the next meeting. I was up until almost three o'clock this morning finishing a grant application. And that's not unusual for me. I don't have time for this to be something intense. Maybe in a few years when the council's agenda is a bit more advanced, but I can't get into a relationship right now."

His expression as he looked at her was completely inscrutable. The silence stretched out, long and heavy.

"I'm not really a relationship kind of guy," Leo said eventually. "So, you probably don't have to worry about that too much with me. But, Della, I want to keep seeing you. Even if it's just the infrequent night you have off. There's something here, you can't deny that, and I want to ride that out."

For a long moment, Della just stared at him. "Okay."

"Okay?" Leo repeated, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Okay," Della confirmed. "It sounds like we're on the same page. That's… good." She pushed her chair back and stood. "I'm just going to duck to the bathroom."

"Della—" Leo said, coming half out of his chair with a look of near-panic in his eyes.

She laid a hand over one of his. "Leo. I'll be right back. I promise."

In the restroom, she splashed cold water on the pulse points in her wrists and tried to calm her racing heart. What in the name of all the gods had she just done? Agreed to some kind of half-relationship with Leo? And in between the weekly or fortnightly nights she was able to offer him, would he expect to be able to be with someone else? Multiple someone elses? This man who wanted to provide for her—what the hell did that even mean?

She could not relive what had happened last time she attempted a serious relationship with a man to whom she felt a strong draw. Hadn't she and Dane started off as something casual too? And it had ended up with her in pieces on the floor. She wouldn't survive going through that again.

But she couldn't deny the profound draw she felt to Leo, the inescapable heat between them, even when they were doing something like discussing the politics of his pack. There was something between them, something she desperately wanted to explore.

The question was if she was brave enough to risk it.

***

What the hell? What the hell? What had he just done?

Was there any surer way of driving a woman away than telling her you weren't interested in a relationship? Especially when it contradicted everything you'd shown her so far?

He could not handle having driven Della away. If she ran, he would chase her. He'd never been surer of anything in his life. This thing between them… something in Leo needed to explore it, find out how deep it ran. And if that meant pretending he didn't have a profound and driving urge to be everything to her, for as long as it took for her to truly trust that he was here for the right reasons, he'd take that chance and be happy to have it. He'd take every free night she had and hoard those moments like a miser.

It was true, he didn't know much about relationships. In the whirlwind of his usual life, he'd never felt like he had enough to offer a woman, not to mention the urge, to attempt one. But with Della … with Della, there was nothing he wanted more than the opportunity to try.

So, what the actual fuck had he just done? Opening up to her like he never had to a woman before about the pack and his place in it, talking filth to her the way the burn for her in his blood demanded that he do… it didn't matter than she'd expressed that she liked it when he spoke to her that way. He had no business using it as some kind of… of weapon against her hesitancy. He was better than that, wasn't he? They were better than that.

If there was a them at all after the way she'd practically sprinted away from him. Didn't she know what the threat of a chase did to a werewolf? His blood was thrumming with the need to go after her, to pin her body down, lift that mind fuck dress and show her that what was between them might be intense, but it would be worth it to explore where it went. He'd make it fucking worth it, every second of her time that she gave him. He'd take care of every need she had. He'd make her his.

He made the conscious decision not to analyze this need to possess a woman in a way that he had never felt before, which had suddenly made itself so profoundly known. He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes and let out the quietest groan he could manage, reminding himself that it would be beyond inappropriate to follow Della to the bathroom. She'd left her bag here. She'd promised him she'd return. She would come back. He just had to be patient, even if every second that she spent outside his field of view—in a dress that would draw the eye of any man with a pulse, no less—felt deeply, fundamentally wrong.

"Leo?"

Her voice—saying his name, no less—almost had him shooting out of his seat again. He gripped the edge of the table hard enough that it creaked as she hesitantly slipped back into her seat, giving him a shy smile that did nothing to remove the worry from her eyes.

"Della," he managed.

"Are you all right?" she asked. A crease had appeared between her eyebrows, and he wanted nothing more than the right to reach out and smooth it away.

"I'm fine," he said instead.

"Really?"

"You came back," he said, since apparently his brain had stopped controlling the movements of his mouth. "I'm fine."

This time, her smile looked slightly confused, although marginally more real. "Look, Leo—"

Panic spread in him, potent and hot. "Della, stop. If you're about to end this, at least give me a minute, give me a chance—"

"Actually, I'm trying to agree with you," she said.

For a moment, Leo was shocked into silence. Finally, he gathered himself enough to ask, "Which part?" Please let it be the part about wearing that dress to make me hard. Tell me you want me as much as I want you.

"You're right," Della said. "There's something between us, and I do want to… to see where it goes. To ride it out, like you said. But we need some… some ground rules if we're going to give this a shot."

"Ground rules," Leo said slowly. "What kind of ground rules?"

"We have to keep this casual," Della said. "Like I said, I don't have much free time, so that part shouldn't be too hard. But I'm not in a place for it to turn into anything serious."

Knowing he'd probably stumble over speaking so profound a lie, Leo kept his agreement to a nod. He would have agreed to go to the moon if it meant he had a chance to keep seeing her.

"No one else while we're seeing each other," Della said, and Leo's vision went red so rapidly that he almost missed her adding, "I'm sorry if that's a dealbreaker, given how little time I have, but I couldn't handle that. Not after… I just couldn't."

He swallowed down his irrational rage at the idea of her being with another man long enough to say, "Della. That was never even in question for me. It's far from a dealbreaker."

Her shoulders relaxed just a little, and this time the smile she shot him was real, real enough that it shot a bolt of arousal through him. Was there anything this woman could do that wouldn't make him hard? Or harder, rather, since it felt like the majority of the blood in his body had been swelling his cock since he caught her scent before she entered the restaurant. He heaved another dose of it into his lungs, just to feel a piece of her in him.

"This is the last one," Della was saying. Leo refocused on her, on her perfect mouth. "I don't, Leo… I don't think I want everyone knowing. Not if we're keeping this a casual thing, a temporary thing. It doesn't have to be a secret between us or anything, I wouldn't do that to you, but I'm not going to tell my entire coven."

Leo swallowed, trying to read the complex mix of emotions running across her face. What was it that Della was worried about if people knew? The witches were generally a fairly accepting group; they surely wouldn't have a problem with her dating a werewolf the way his pack—or rather his Alpha—would make an issue of him being with a witch. Was she scared people would judge her for having a casual—or apparently casual, for as long as it took him to convince her to let it become otherwise—relationship? Little did she know, this "ground rule" that had her looking at him with such trepidation actually solved a problem for him, giving him time to work out how to convince the pack to accept his relationship with a witch. Because after tonight, despite his best intentions to make it into some way of getting her out of his system, he'd completely burned through the resolve he'd had to make this a one-time thing. He wanted—no, needed, with an intensity that bordered on painful—to see where this thing between them would go. To keep her for himself for as long as he possibly could.

"I'm," he cleared his throat, "I'm fine with that, Della."

Relief was like a physical blanket as it spread over her. Her shoulders dropped to their normal position and the crease between her eyebrows finally went away. A real smile spread over her lips, and he was struck by a desperate need to feel it against his own mouth.

"Was that your last one?" he asked.

"That's all the ones I'd thought of," she offered. "If we come up with more, though, we should leave it open."

"Deal," Leo said. He looked down at their meals, which were barely touched, to avoid staring at the swells of her breasts visible over her neckline. Once he was sure he could control himself—beyond the transformation of his eyes, which were surely still glowing bright silver—he met her gaze again. "So, is this the part where I finally get around to asking how your day was?"

Her laugh rang in his ears like a symphony.

"Della," he blurted, "I just want to spend some time with you. See where this goes. That's all." Liar. "I can't pretend I'm not attracted as all hell to you, but we can try to be friends as well as that. As well as… all of this."

Gods, he loved how one side of her mouth lifted a fraction of a second before the other when she smiled. He wanted to lick those perfect lips before introducing the rest of her body to his tongue. Calm down, he ordered himself. Keep your shit together. Don't scare her away now when you've just made some headway.

"I'd like that," Della said softly. "My day… my day was busy too." She let out a light laugh that rang like music in his blood. "How familiar are you with governmental procedures?"

He managed to keep himself in check for the rest of the meal, keeping their discussion to work and friends and his pack and her coven. Being a fairly high-ranking member of her governmental department apparently meant that Della was called upon for all sorts of government-related things by the members of her coven, most of them only tangentially related to the work she did, which only contributed to her busy lifestyle.

"But why would they expect you to know anything about small business licenses?" he asked in disbelief, trying to control his arousal as she licked pastry crumbs off her lips from her dessert. "You work in youth and community."

"That was my response as well." Della laughed, sitting back from her plate. "But we eventually worked out which permits they needed to apply for."

"You couldn't just say, 'That's not my department,' and send them on their way?"

She shot him a half-smile that had more than a hint of flirtation in it. "You're not the only one who likes helping people when they can, Mr. Big Bad Beta."

"Keep looking at me that way, and I'll have you calling me that for a very different reason, Della."

She raised an eyebrow, her shyness from earlier completely forgotten. "You're very confident."

He signaled the waiter. "Let me get the bill, and I'll show you why," Leo offered with a smile that he could feel was all teeth.

He watched as she bit her lip and then, impossibly, she nodded. Those strands of hair slid forwards and, as if on cue, they both reached out to tuck them behind her ear again. Leo caught her fingers in his own and dropped their joined hands to the table. "Della, I'll keep talking filth to you because you've told me you like it, and because my mouth tends to run away with me when you're around. But I will never, ever go further than that unless you're one hundred percent on board. Do you hear me? Don't give me a yes with doubt in your eyes."

"There's no doubt, Leo," Della said, her voice breathless. "I-I want you. I want… whatever you want to show me."

Heedless of the other diners, Leo lifted her hand to his lips and licked a slow path down one of her fingers. The look on her face and the parting of her lips as she sucked in a breath was a hundred times worth the painful throb of his engorged cock at his first taste of her skin. "Whatever I want to show you, huh?"

"Leo," Della breathed.

"Excuse me?" the waiter asked from next to Leo, sounding hesitant to interrupt them.

Della yanked her hand back like she'd been burnt, but Leo held her gaze for a long moment afterwards, just to revel in her enlarged pupils and wide eyes before he acknowledged their server. Clearly, he'd been right in the prediction he'd made over the phone—they'd be giving the waiters some stories to tell in the back tonight.

He'd rarely been less cognizant of anything than he was of paying the bill and asking the server to pass on his greetings and thanks to Penny. His attention was so focused on Della shifting around in her seat like she was uncomfortable, her tongue repeatedly peeking out to wet her lips.

"I'm going to need you to walk out of here in front of me," Leo admitted when Della went to push her chair out.

"Why—" she started, but then he quirked an eyebrow and watched as her eyes widened in understanding of the condition she had put him in.

"I can only hide so much," he admitted with half a smile. "And you've got me about a million miles past that."

"Really?" she asked breathlessly. She sounded utterly shocked by his response to her, to her scent that felt like it should be permanently soaked into his skin by now.

"Della, you'd get me hard in a pair of old pajamas, let alone that dress. I've been sitting here watching you lick those pretty lips for hours. I just got my first fuckin' taste of you. You've had me like this pretty much since the moment you walked in."

Was he imagining it, or was there just a hint of satisfaction mixed in with the surprise on her face?

"Stand up, then," she said, just the barest touch of a challenge in her tone. "I'll cover you."

Once I'm done with you, you're goddamn right you will, he thought but was too busy positioning his erection so it was as unobtrusive as possible and using Della's swishing hips as a visual barrier between his thickened cock and the rest of the high-class restaurant, which by now was thankfully mostly empty. Not that seeing the drape of material covering the swell of her ass did anything to help the situation whatsoever.

Once they were outside, he took a deep breath of the cooling, city-dense air, intending to calm himself down, but instead getting a deep lungful of Della's scent. He turned to face her, and something in his expression had her backing up a step.

"One thing you should know about werewolves, sweetheart," Leo managed, his voice almost a growl.

"What's that?" Della asked breathily.

"Only run from one if you want to be chased," he said, and this time it was a growl that left his lips. He could feel his canines pushing to elongate and he fought the urge.

Eyes on him, Della backed up another step.

With a snarl, Leo lunged forwards until he had her pinned against the building's brick wall, And the feel of her body against him was so perfect, it made him want to howl at the moon—softness and glorious curves that pressed against every hard plane of him. And the way his erection fit at the notch of her thighs… perfect was too small a word.

"Della," he ground out.

"Leo," she moaned, and every nerve in his body lit up like he'd been electrocuted. He couldn't stop his hips from rocking forwards into hers, grinding against the apex of her thighs, or the growl that escaped when he did.

"Where are you parked?" he demanded of her, begging his body to behave.

"W-what?" she stammered out.

"I need to kiss you, Della, and I've been hard up over you for hours. When I get my mouth on yours, it's going to be fucking indecent, and I won't do that to you on the street where anyone could walk past."

"In… in the parking lot on North," she stuttered, and Leo forced himself to take a step back from her, mourning the separation of their bodies.

"Show me."

A sense of pure masculine pride filled him when her legs shook as she stepped away from the wall. Without a word, he took her hand and let her lead him a few streets away to a carpark, stopping beside a small green vehicle. Her pupils were still so wide, he could barely see the color of her eyes when she turned to him.

"This is me."

Checking only once that they were alone, he tugged her between the cars and once more aligned their bodies. Her moan could have brought him back from the dead with the bolt of electricity that it shot through his body, and without speaking, he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and covered her lips with his.

The feeling that surged through Leo was like nothing he'd ever felt before. Arousal and possession and homecoming, all at once. Her hands fisted in his collar, slipped inside his jacket to twist in the fabric of his shirt, her body shifting where he had it pinned to the car, writhing against him as she met the press of his tongue with sweet swipes of her own. He was harder than he'd ever been in his life, and every time she dragged her tight curves over his bulge, it got worse, until he thought he might explode.

"Leo," Della moaned against his lips, pressing the juncture of her thighs so perfectly against his hardness. "Leo, I need—"

"I'll give you what you need," he growled, reclaiming her mouth with his own. Every goddamn thing you need, I'll give it to you. Dragging his hands down over the sweetness of her breasts and the curve of her waist and hips, he slipped one under the hem of her teasing dress and cupped her sex in his hand. Her gasp was like being granted entry to paradise, especially when he pressed down, and it morphed into a moan.

"Leo," Della breathed, desperation in her tone. "Please." Her head tipped back, exposing her throat, and the wolf in him wanted to howl at the show of surrender. He pressed a kiss there, dragging his teeth over the smooth perfection of her skin as he found the swollen bud at the apex of her sex and began massaging it through her panties.

"Wet little thing, aren't you, sweetheart?" he growled against her skin. "I wasn't the only one in that restaurant needing this. Sitting there with your wet little pussy soaking through your panties. Next time, you tell me, and I'll take you out the back and eat this perfect cunt until you scream so loud the whole building knows what I'm doing to you." He bit down on the skin of her exposed throat and felt the shudder roll through her entire body as she came, gasping and moaning and chanting—chanting his name in a way that made his chest fill with the most absurd amount of pride. "That's right, sweetheart. Say my name. Tell me who's making you come."

One final round of shudders rolled through her, and then she was grabbing at his wrist to slow his insistent fingers, pushing up on her toes and dragging his mouth down to hers.

"Leo," she gasped against his lips, panting for breath. "That was—" She shook her head, eyes wide.

"You're incredible," he murmured, stroking back the hair that had fallen over her face.

One of her hands fell to cup his bulge where it was throbbing in his trousers. "Can I…"

"Not here," he said, though denying her—denying himself—caused a bolt of physical pain to shoot through him.

"But you just—" she protested.

"Next time, Della. I won't let you get on your knees in a public parking lot, and you'd best believe the first time you get me off, it'll be in the mouth that's been teasing me all damn night."

Another shudder ran through her body. "Leo," she breathed, and he claimed her mouth again.

When they finally broke apart, he was impressed that he still had the wherewithal to deny his wolf's urging to tackle her to the ground and claim her for his own. Regular Della was incredible, but satisfied, grateful Della? It was like she was doing her best to convince him to go back on his word and see if her tongue felt as good on his dick as it did stroking into his mouth.

"It's getting late, sweetheart," he managed, stroking a hand over hair tangled from his searching fingers. "You should get home."

Her hand smoothing down the side of his face felt indescribably good, somehow soothing and arousing all at once. "I had… the most incredible time tonight, Leo."

"Me too." He kissed her once more, pulling away before it could become something deeper. "Now you'd best get in that car and drive away, because your backseat is too small for me to do all the things I want to you, but it's starting to look pretty damn tempting."

"Are you trying to convince me to stay or go?" Della asked, laughing, but she separated herself from him and dug her keys out of her bag. She slid into the driver's seat, and he leaned against the open door.

"Text me when you're home safe, okay?"

"Same goes if you get there before me." She looked up from fastening her seatbelt. "We both know you have my number, after all."

Her teasing smile remained in his mind long after she'd driven away. But when he found himself with his hand on his painfully swollen cock that night, it was the look of absolute shocked abandon on her face when she came for his fingers that he pictured. And because, after a full evening with Della, once wasn't nearly enough, the second time was to the memory of the way she'd gasped out his name.

Mine, the wolf in him was growling the entire time. Mine.