With Abandon: With or Without, Book 3 Read Online Free PDF Page A

“I didn’t think my being gay would even come up, and Chay said that you’d gotten over it and—”
    “It’s not true, Matt. I don’t know what you heard, but I didn’t beat my brother up for being gay. For crying out loud I ripped another wolf’s throat out for him. Does that sound like something a person would do if they hated someone?”
    “Um…no. You killed someone?” Matt asked with avid interest.
    “I had no choice. He shot Chay and wouldn’t have stopped until Chay and Keaton were both dead.”
    “Oh. I’m glad. I like Keaton and Chay. That was very brave of you.”
    It hadn’t been bravado, it had been terror. “I guess.”
    Looking down, Matt bit his bottom lip. He ran his finger around and around the rim of his glass. Finally, he picked it up, finished it off and met Aubrey’s gaze. “Where does that leave us?”
    Aubrey hated himself for what he had to say, but he couldn’t give Matt false hope. He tossed back the rest of his drink, hoping it would lend him strength. “I don’t know, but I want you to stay.” He wanted to lick that full bottom lip Matt had held between his teeth too. “Other than that…” He shrugged. “I can’t afford a mate in my life, Matt, but I’d love to have another friend.”
     
    A phone rang, startling Aubrey out of scrutinizing his socked feet. He glanced up and around from his position on the floor. The phone rang again. Odd, the sound came from floor level, not up high. Extracting his shoulders from the front of the couch he’d been using as a backrest, he peeked under the coffee table. Where the hell was that ringing coming from? It sounded like an old dial telephone with real bells. His home phone made more of an electronic ring sound and his cell played, “You Ain’t Just Whistlin’ Dixie ”.
    “I got it,” Matt said from his sprawl on the couch but made no move to get up. Instead he turned his head, which slid off the cushions, nearly taking the rest of him with it.
    Obviously, Matt wasn’t used to alcohol. Maybe he should’ve been cut off after the third one. Oh well, it wouldn’t last long with werewolf metabolism being what it was. “What is it and where is it?”
    The bells stopped only to start up again a minute later.
    Aubrey pushed Matt’s dark head back onto the cushions, unable to resist giving him a quick scratch behind the ear. Matt wouldn’t remember it anyway.
    Matt’s shoulders ended up next to his ears, and his right foot kicked a couple of times. “Ooh ooh ooh…”
    The lupine reaction was just too cute but not conducive to getting answers. Pulling his hand away, Aubrey turned his attention to the floor between the couch and the bar. “Matt, is that your phone?”
    “Yep.” Matt lifted his head off the sofa and slapped around his waistline in a halfhearted search before letting his head fall back down. “No clue where it is though.”
    It wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity of the couch, TV or coffee table. “Okay, this shouldn’t be that hard. We’re wolves, for crying out loud. Pinpointing sounds isn’t difficult.” Aubrey heaved himself up from the floor.
    The phone stopped.
    “Drunk wolves.” Matt giggled. The sweet, innocent melody echoed through the apartment. Was Matt always this uninhibited or was it the booze?
    Aubrey shook his head. “I’m not drunk.” He never let himself get so wasted that he was careless anymore. At one time he’d been a party animal, trying to drown his problems, but that was years ago. He envied Matt the ability not to care, not to have to keep his guard up. Aubrey would give just about anything to have some of that innocence back.
    The ringing started up again.
    Aubrey wrenched his brain out of la-la land and followed the sound to the phone in the middle of the floor between the couch and the front door. Now he remembered. Matt had dropped it when they’d first seen each other some three hours earlier.
    Swooping down and retrieving the cell as it rang for a third time, he