Page 64 of Blind Date with a Werewolf
“Do you doubt me?” he asked archly before spinning her so that they danced with her back to his front. The question was alittle unfair, since she hadn’t met him before tonight—and she was not a werewolf to know who the Moor was.
But he heard her “No,” and she gave herself back into the dance.
On the last note, he pulled her to a dramatic stop, face-to-face. Then he put his hands on the sides of her warm cheeks, looked into Mariposa’s eyes, and kissed her daughter as applause rose around them.
She stepped back, put her hands to her mouth, her eyes stark with sudden terror. But only her eyes. When he held out his hand, palm up, she put her own on top of it and followed him to the chairs he’d claimed for them. He bent down and put his lips to her ear. “You need to use the restroom.”
She wasn’t an actress but she wasn’t stupid. In a voice that carried she said, “Please excuse me. I’ll be right back.”
“Of course,” he told her, watching as she made her way to the ladies’ room, briefly pausing when some acquaintance tried to get her attention. But she kept to her mission and disappeared safely behind doors when their waiter approached Asil.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “But there’s someone who would like to speak with you. Could you follow me?”
“Certainly,” Asil said peaceably.
This is a stupid plan, his wolf told him dourly.
Asil smiled.
Very stupid.
IV
He returned to the ballroom, blood thrumming in his temples and the wolf hiding just behind his eyes, not close enough to be visible. That was entirely to the wolf’s credit.
Asil was doing well to walk across the floor on steady feet. If the beast had wanted to manifest in the middle of the room, Asil wouldn’t have been able to stop it. But it was helping him, at least for now.
He found Mari-Brigid waiting by their chairs and looking a little lost. She lit up when she saw him, but pleasure—or possibly relief—faded when she got a good look at him.
He could feel that the blood was still hidden by the no-see pack magic, so it was his face she was reading. He tried to tamp his euphoria down a fraction but knew that the smile he gave her as he took her by the hand was too wolfish by half.
“What—”
He didn’t give her a chance to say another word, just hauled her out of the room. The doorman, an older man, stopped them. He did it as if by accident, voice light and shoulders a little hunched—Asil’s wolf thought the man had law enforcement training. No matter what the doorman’s body said, his eyes recognized the predator in Asil.
“Are you okay, ma’am? Do you need me to call you a taxi?”
Asil and his wolf were working together to settle down, but if they were delayed too much by this upstart…nice retired policeman or something of the like who was concerned with a vulnerable person’s safety…Asil did not think they had long before his wolf made itself known. And Asil would not allowthem, would not allow himself, to kill a good man trying to protect someone. Letting the wolf out would just delay them, and he was on a schedule.
Mari-Brigid looked up into Asil’s face. He had no idea what she saw, but it made her say, “No. No trouble. I just need to get my friend home. He’s had some extraordinary news.”
There was still concern on the man’s face, but he opened the door and that was all Asil needed him to do.
As soon as they exited, Asil heard the purr of the BMW, easily distinguishable from the other cars on the road while his wolf rode him this high.
“Your pupils are huge,” she whispered urgently as he kept them moving down the rain-drenched sidewalk. “Did you take something?”
That was funny.
Not funny, growled his wolf. Reminded, Asil didn’t laugh as he’d wanted to.
“No,” he lied. But saying yes would be a lie in another way, because she was thinking about drugs. What he’d taken affected him far more than any mere drug ever could.
The car slid to a stop beside them. It was late and the traffic was light, so Bobby could do that without incurring the wrath of other drivers. Asil opened the back door and helped Mari-Brigid into the car. Then he walked around to the front and opened the driver’s side.
“Get into the back,” he told Bobby in the voice of an Alpha who needed to be obeyed right now.
Bobby had closed the back door and was belting himself in before he paused.“Hey—”
