It wouldn’t, but it was nice to pretend that it would while Drew sat there on the bench with the tray overflowing with food on his lap, studying her as he slowly devoured her late night snack. She was definitely going to have to order a second tray, she decided as she tried to scoot back in the tub, but unfortunately, there was nowhere to go.
“So,” Drew said, pausing to dip a fry in the large puddle of ketchup taking up a good portion of her plate before he popped the fry in his mouth, “it seems that Miss Smith has been coming here for over ten years, comes once a month, stays for three days and is an excellent tipper.”
“They have great room service?” she offered as an excuse.
He nodded, accepting that as a fact as he picked up her burger and helped himself to a big bite. Yup, definitely going to have order a second tray, she absently decided as she sat there, naked in the quickly cooling tub while Drew sat on the small bench, blocking every single exit, which admittedly there was only one and that was the bathroom door that he seemed to have shut and locked without her realizing it.
“And the reason that you come here every month during the full moon is…,” he said, prompting her to admit what they both already knew.
That she was a pathetic excuse for a werewolf?
That the idea of spending the night sleeping on the hard, twig covered ground was enough to make her want to cry?
That she was incapable of actually sleeping outside, because she knew the moment that she closed her eyes that all the bugs in the forest were going to attack her, claiming her human body as their new host and desecrating it with their furry little pointy legs?
Yeah, admitting to any of that was probably not a good idea, not unless she wanted to be forced to watch over her back for the rest of her life, wondering when the next time the bastard was going to try to scare her with a bug. So, instead she simply looked down and shrugged, doing her best to look as pathetic as humanly possible so that he would feel bad for her and just let it go.
So, when he said, “Is it because of my Pack? Did they…did they try to hurt you?” he asked hoarsely. She quickly peeked up at him just in time to see him carefully placed the now empty tray on the floor and rub his hands roughly down his face, looking like he was buying this.
When she just sat there, staring down at the water, because there really was no good way to answer that question, especially since his Pack, or rather his father’s Pack, had spent the first five years of her life in Boston playing “scare the shit out of Kara,” when they had to hit this forest to shift, he sighed heavily. She didn’t point out that they’d stopped harassing her after she may have accidentally shifted to human, climbed a tree and threw rocks at the assholes coming after her until they finally got sick of making her miserable and left her alone.
Then again, the threats and subtle hints that they hated her and wanted her to leave and never come back hadn’t exactly made her feel welcomed, but she’d never mentioned it before and she sure as hell wasn’t about to mention it now. The only thing that she was willing to do was to continue staring down at the water, looking pathetic and hoping that he didn’t continue questioning her until he found out the real reason and mock her until the end of time.
“I’m sorry, Kara,” he said, actually making her feel bad until she remembered the fact that his Pack had gone out their way to let her know that if they ever got the chance to kill her, they’d take it in a heartbeat.
So, yeah she’d let him think whatever it was that he wanted to think if it meant covering up the real reason why she refused to sleep in the woods as a human. Granted, she could have slept in the woods in her shifter form, but that would have given away her status and made her the ultimate trophy for hunters, not exactly the way that she wanted to spend eternity, stuffed and mounted on some guy’s wall.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, hoping that he would just let it go and order her a second tray of food, because she was starving.
When he didn’t say anything else, she got hopeful, risked a glance up and immediately regretted it when she saw the expression on his handsome face.
Determined.
“Kara, tell me what happened with your Pack?” he asked, making her blood run cold, because she knew without a doubt that he wasn’t going to let her leave this room until she told him everything that he wanted to know.
*-*-*-*
“There’s nothing to tell,” Kara said smoothly as she kept one arm wrapped around her indrawn knees and reached forward, turning the hot water on at full blast.
Sighing, he reached over and shut the water off, refusing to let her put this off for one more day. He stood up, drained the tub and held his hand out to her, letting her know that it was time to start talking. Ignoring his hand, Kara stood up, keeping her jaw clenched and avoiding his gaze, she carefully stepped out of the tub, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself as she headed into the hotel room.
He followed after her, refusing to let her out of his sight. “Kara, it’s time to talk.”
“Not about this,” she said with a firm shake of her head as she headed straight for her bag.
“We are definitely having this conversation, Kara,” he said firmly as he walked over to her and snatched the bag out of her hand.
“No,” she bit out, snatching back the satchel, “we’re not!”
“Yes,” he said, grabbing her bag and tossing it across the room, “we really are. I want to know why your Pack threw you out and I want to know why my father only gave you sanctuary when most Alphas would have taken you into the Pack.”
She stepped away from him, shaking her head as she walked over to her bag and snatched it up off the floor. “You don’t want to know what happened so just let it go, Drew. It’s ancient history.”
“I can’t let it go, Kara, not until I know what happened to you and why you’ve been hiding behind my Pack for nearly six decades.”
“I haven’t been hiding behind your Pack,” she snarled, slamming the bag down on the bed.
“Really?” he asked, walking over to her and grabbing her arm, forcing her to turn around and face him. “Then what the fuck would you call it?”