Alpha's Captive 04 - Haven Read Online Free PDF Page B

want to.”
    “Nightrider,” she repeated. He kept making references to things she was only vaguely familiar with. “How old are you, anyway?”
    “Really, you’re going to ask a question like that?” he returned. “I’m the fifth kid, Harper. Inherited most of my toys. And movies and TV shows.”
    “You’re like thirty, aren’t you?” she pressed.
    “Twenty- six, for your information,” he said. “But my oldest sister is forty-two, forty-three, something like that, and she had tons of hand-me-downs from all the cousins.”
    “Just making sure I’m not hanging out with a cradle-robber,” she said.
    “Yeah. You look robbed.” And even in the darkness, she felt the heat of his gaze.
    Dammit.
    “What’s your thing, anyway?” she asked. “You’re like the nicest douchebag or the jerkiest nice guy I’ve ever met. First you’re telling me that you think I’m awesome, then you’re telling me that this—” She pointed back and forth to him and herself. “—can’t be a thing, never mind the fact that you were telling me that it already was just minutes before. And then you go and say that you’ll fix my car. I mean, you definitely owe me that. But why? Why are you being so nice? Or so mean?” she added lamely.
    “This is a fun little adventure to you, Harper,” Levi said, his voice tight. “A bit of spice and excitement. Well, to me, it’s my life, and the stakes are real. You’re having a great time playing at this now, at us now, but you have to understand that this isn’t how werewolves are made. Not for long, anyway.”
    “ Who said I was playing at anything?” she asked, stung—not in the least because it was more than a little true.
    “ You didn’t have to. Look, I can have a bit of fun just like anyone else, but if you don’t watch out, it’ll hit, and when it does, there’s no way out.” His gaze raked across her then, briefly, before turning back to the road. “You just about jumped me in the barn.”
    “I don’t seem to remember you complaining about that,” she said, caught off guard by the apparent shift in subject.
    “Yeah? Is it something you’re in the habit of doing?”
    Harper was silent. He didn’t deserve to know that it wasn’t.
    “Why do you think that happened, Harper? You think it’s kismet? Eyes across a crowded room?”
    He paused, but Harper just pressed her lips together, refusing to respond to his scorn.
    “It’s pheromones. Werewolf pheromones. It makes women like you a little crazy.”
    Harper gaped. She’d thought more than once how damned good he’d smelled. But seriously? He’d been…drugging her with his armpits or something?
    That was her first thought. And her second was, What a stupid, weaselly excuse.
    “Pheromones , that’s you’re explanation? And what about you? Why were you so hot for it? Were you high on…on woman-stank or something?” She said the most ridiculous thing she could come up with.
    “ When werewolves are putting out those levels of pheromones, it’s usually because their wolf sides have decided they want something,” he said, ignoring her last question. Harper wished that she could see his face in the shadow, but she could make out only the vaguest silhouette. “Whatever their human brains think. And if a werewolf lets that go too far, well, then they’re playing for keeps.”
    “For keeps,” she repeated.
    “Forever.” He crosses two fingers, and she saw a flash of his teeth in the darkness as he grinned, though there was no humor in his voice. “Levi and Harper, sitting in a tree,” he said in a singsongy voice.
    “God, yes, I get it, okay?” she retorted, flushing in irritation, attraction, and, unaccountably, real embarrassment.
    “You’re worried about guys not caring enough? Well, there are only two options with me at this point, babycakes. Sayonara or till-death-do-we-part. Got the picture?”
    “Fine, yes,” she muttered.
    She’d been just fine with screwing him on the hood of her car