Secrets We Keep
Contents
SECRETS WE KEEP
Copyright
Mandy M. Roth, Online
Blurb
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Dear Reader
SECRETS WE KEEP
Mandy M. Roth
Secrets We Keep © Copyright 2016, Mandy M. Roth
First Electronic Printing 2005
Second Electronic Printing Nov, 2016, Raven Happy Hour LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
All books are copyrighted to the author and may not be resold or given away without written permission from the author, Mandy M. Roth.
This novel is a work of fiction and intended for mature audiences only. Any and all characters, names, events, places and incidents are used under the umbrella of fiction and are of the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or events or places or locales is merely coincidence.
Published by Raven Happy Hour LLC
Oxford, MS USA
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Mandy M. Roth, Online
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Secrets We Keep
Mating with a human is strictly forbidden.
Alpha wolf-shifter Dane has been forced to stand by and watch the love of his life date another. Trisha is off limits to him because she isn't a supernatural and she's not allowed to know his secrets. When he realizes she's going to take the plunge and marry another--a human--he can't fight his inner beast any longer. It wants to claim her and he's going to let it.
Chapter One
Trisha Holt glanced at her wristwatch and sighed. Why she ever believed Bill would actually show was a mystery to her. It wasn’t like he had a glowing track record. No. The man had let her down more times than she was willing to count. Still, she’d agreed to marry him. The idea of turning thirty in a month and still being single scared her, though she wasn’t sure why. It’s not as though thirty was old. She wouldn’t reach her expiration date at midnight on her birthday. Yet, she couldn’t get out of the mindset that if she didn’t have a husband, a home, and a family started by then, she never would.
Truth be told, Bill wasn’t the guy she wanted to fill the shoes of husband and father to hypothetical children. The man she really wanted in that role didn’t think of her as girlfriend material, let alone as a potential wife. No. Her best friend— Dane Bennett—acted as though she was an extension of himself rather than a female willing to lie in his arms for the rest of their lives. She’d resigned herself to remaining romantically neutral where he was concerned but he made it hard.
They were together every day.
Growing up an only child had left Trisha always longing for company. Always a loner, she never warmed enough to her schoolmates to consider any true friends. Perhaps that’s why she had taken to art. It wasn’t normally considered a group activity and it functioned as a creative outlet. She’d excelled and it had taken her to college. Upon graduation, she’d landed an entry-level position at a prestigious advertising firm. It was then she made her first real friend—Dane.
Dane worked in the office building adjacent to hers. After seven years, she still wasn’t entirely sure what he did. She did, however, know that it had something to do with investments and that he must be pretty damn high up in the company. Whenever she used to phone his office she’d have to go through four people to get to him. Each woman would ask her name and reason for calling, then inform her that Mr. Bennett was in a meeting and was not to be disturbed. The minute she teased Dane about it, it stopped. Since then, whenever she called, they immediately put her right through to him. As if that wasn’t enough proof of his position, he seemed to be able to come and go as he pleased. He even timed his lunches with hers and on days she was sick, he came over to her apartment and kept her company.
Dane had never invited her over to see where he worked, but he managed to stop by her office a few times a week. All the women she worked with had crushes on him. Each of them poked and goaded her about dating Dane. Again and again, she found herself explaining that they were just friends, nothing more.
The idea of asking him out on a date had occurred to her once, right after they’d first met. But Dane had said things that had led her to believe she wasn’t his type of woman. Comments like, “We’re a breed apart, baby. A breed apart. It’s a good thing we’ll never be more than friends.” The strangest one was, “I’m not only more of a man than women can handle, I’m flat out more than a man.” He was bizarre like that. The cryptic lines and the disappearing for several nights a month had all seemed weird to her at first. Now, she was used to them—to Dane.
The sound of her cell phone ringing pulled her out of deep thought. Rifling through her purse, she found it. “Hello?”
“Hey Trish, I’m not interrupting Bill’s endless rambling, am I?” Dane’s deep voice moved through the phone and wrapped itself around her, comforting her, easing some of the embarrassment of being stood up—again.
She smiled softly. “No, you’re not interrupting Bill. He’d have to be here to do that.”
Dane was quiet for a moment. “You didn’t want to spend the evening in that stuffy restaurant anyway, remember? You always break out from the caviar he tries to make you eat. Remember the last time the ass took you there? I ended up staying at your house for two nights because whatever you ate didn’t agree with you. Hey, aren’t they showing that French film you like so much down the street from that restaurant?”
Trish nodded her head and bit back tears. Dane knew her better than anyone. “Yeah, you’re right. The food here never agrees with me.” She glanced around, taking in table after table of men and women dressed in designer clothes and sporting more diamonds than she could count. “Why did I agree to this?”
“Because you always want to see the best in everyone and you’re a people pleaser”
It would have been so easy for Dane to say that he’d warned her, but that wasn’t his style. He’d spent months telling her Bill wasn’t right for her, that he was too shallow to be right for anyone, but she hadn’t listened. She never listened, and look where it had gotten her—alone in a crowded restaurant on the verge of tears.
Again.
Standing, she eased her skirt down and grabbed her handbag. If the waiters wanted to charge her for the water she’d had, then fine. It would probably come back on her later too like the caviar. All she wanted to do was get away from the snooty establishment and forget about Bill. “You’re too good to me, Dane.”
“I know.”
“Uhh,” she sighed as she stalked towards the door. “I’m not sure I can find a good side of Bill. That’s horrible to admit, isn’t it?”
Dane chuckled. “That’s nothing compared to what I’d like to say about him.”
Trisha laughed as she pushed the front door opened. She went to hail a cab and stopped when she spotted a large man out of the corner of her eye. The man’s back was to her. His tousled black locks were done in the current
style of short on the sides and back while semi-spiked on the top. His six-foot-four-inch frame and broad upper body made him stick out in the sea of high-society people that filtered down the sidewalk.
“Trish, are you still there?”
Walking up behind the man, she grabbed his backside. Giving it a good squeeze, she giggled into the phone. “Oh, I’m right here, with my hand on an incredibly nice ass. Mmm, I’m loving the black leather jacket.”
“Really? And whose ass would you be touching?”
“Don’t know. Just some man I found standing outside a restaurant that’s across the city from his place. Dane, you should see him. He’s perfectly fuckable. If you don’t hear from me for a few days, it’s because I’m holed up with him, letting him have at me.”
Dane turned slowly, and the minute she saw his shockingly blue eyes, her body tightened. Sliding her tongue over her lower lip, she looked up through her lashes. His arm wrapped around her, and he brought her to his massive chest. “Perfectly fuckable? That doesn’t sound like you. Where’s my sweet little Trish?”
“Sweet little Trish? Hmm, maybe you don’t know me as well as you’d like to think. And I said what I meant. You are perfectly fuckable.”
“Guess I don’t know you at all but damn, with talk like that you make it hard to stay platonic. Still, grabbing a stranger’s ass in public and declaring you’d fuck him is a bit much. As the ass you grabbed was mine, I’m willing to overlook it this time.”
She laughed, still talking into her phone even though she was face-to-face with Dane. “You wouldn’t think it was too much if you saw the guy. He’s a total babe.” She winked and a grin spilled across his rugged face.
“You shouldn’t talk to strangers, Trish. You never know what could happen. That guy could take you up on your offer. He might have his way with you, leaving you too sore to walk the next morning. He could be one of those guys who can think of nothing more than bending you over and fucking you. And I’d have to hunt down any man who touched you and kill him. Especially if he beat me to you, and trust me, Trish, once you had my dick in you, you’d never want another,” he said, arching one dark eyebrow.
Shocked to the core by Dane’s sudden sexually charged demeanor, Trisha hung up and stared up at her friend. “Mmm, that just made it all the more tempting. And I have to admit that you’re good with the on-the-spot dirty talk.” Flushed from thinking about Dane fucking her, Trisha needed to change the subject before she did something stupid, like beg him to spend the night making love to her. “Thanks for coming. I should have guessed you’d know Bill would screw up again.”
Dane glanced down at his phone and smiled. “I can’t believe you just hung up on me. The love just pours out of you, babe. If we really were fucking, would you have hung up on me? I’d say I’m jealous of the men in your life but having been a firsthand witness to the number of guys you’ve dumped sort of makes me happy we’re just friends. At least this way, I can stare at your ass and know it’ll be around come morning. Not that you’d ever shake me. I’m sorry to tell you, but you are stuck with me for life.”
Punching his arm lightly, she buried her head in his chest. He really was too good to her. A small sob tore free of her throat, and she bit back the tears that threatened to fall. Dane stroked her hair and wrapped both his arms tight around her. She always felt so safe in his arms. Bill never made her feel that way. Neither had anyone else.
“Come on, we’ve got a movie to catch.”
Trisha pulled back from him slowly and shook her head, tears glistened in her eyes. “How did you know he’d do this to me?”
Dane ignored her question and ran his thumbs over her cheeks. “Don’t shed another tear over that bastard, Trish. He’s not worth it.”
“I know. I wasn’t crying over that.”
His forehead furrowed. “Then why are you upset?”
“I’m not. It’s just the minute I found you out here, I was so happy to see you that I couldn’t help myself. You always make everything better. You’re like a pro-bono shrink, without the credentials.” Quickly she stood tall, and still only came to his shoulder. “Okay, to the show it is.”
A slight fall breeze blew past them and Trisha shivered, snuggling closer to Dane’s large, warm body. He pulled away from her. Removing his jacket slowly, his eyes locked on hers. “Here, it’s too cold for you to be running around the city in that little dress. It’s not like the jackass can even appreciate the package, let alone the packaging.”
The tone in his voice made her pause. Dane had never sounded so angry, so passionate about anything before. He’d always come across as a relatively easygoing guy. At the moment, the look in his eyes both scared and excited her.
“Hey,” she said, sliding her arms into Dane’s leather jacket. It hung past her butt and swallowed her arms. “How about we skip the movie tonight? We could pick one up and just go home to watch it. Is that all right or would you prefer to do the movie?”
Chapter Two
Dane’s heart beat wildly in his chest. He grinned at Trish’s suggestion of them going home. She didn’t separate or point out the fact they didn’t live together. She talked about him like one would talk about a lover, a spouse, a mate. He’d wanted to ask her a million times to look at him the way she looked at the string of losers in her life. Why she picked men who were obvious heartbreakers baffled him. He’d love her, never hurt her, even kill for her if the need arose.
The only problem was that in the end it would never work. He knew better than to get close to a human but he hadn’t been able to control himself when he bumped into Trish on the street in front of his office building. He’d been about to take a sip of his coffee when this tiny blonde with large loose curls walked right into him, sending his coffee down his front. That surprised him, but what shocked him more was that he hadn’t sensed her near him. It wasn’t every day that someone got close enough, without his knowledge, to bump into him. Yet, this five-foot-five woman with hazel eyes had managed to do just that.
Trish had been so upset about making him spill his coffee that she’d immediately launched into trying to wipe it off him. Each touch of her tiny hands made his body tight and his cock hard. When she reached the top of his slacks, he fully expected her to stop. She didn’t. No. Trish kept going, placing the tissue from her purse over his rock-hard erection. If she noticed he had a hard-on, she didn’t say. It wasn’t until he cleared his throat that she stopped and glanced up at him.
He could still remember how the morning sun caught her smooth, pale skin and seemed to reflect back at him. The beast within him had fought for supremacy that morning, almost winning, as he’d been caught off-guard. The wolf rarely wanted to be unleashed except for the days surrounding a full moon. The fact that it had not only reacted to Trish, but had done so a week prior to the next full moon hadn’t been lost on him. But as much as Dane wanted to believe Trish was his mate, he knew it wasn’t possible. Lycanthropes didn’t mate with humans. It was forbidden.
Keeping their relationship purely platonic had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. And considering how, when he was younger, he’d had to fight other pack members for the right to live, that was saying much. He’d grown up without a father there to protect him and the pack hadn’t been easy on him or his mother. The official story was that his father ran out on his mother. That wasn’t entirely true. His father had turned on his own pack members, killing one of the head guards. Dane believed it had more to do with the guard being crooked and less to do with his father but that wasn’t his call. And since he’d never sought out a position on the pack council, his opinion didn’t matter. He also hadn’t had a say when others referred to him as the traitor’s son.
Never once in his life had Dane resented his mother. No. In his eyes, she could do no wrong. She was a single mother who worked multiple jobs to see to it that Dane was provided for. Eventually, leadership of the pack was passed on and many of the old ways died. He proved himself by showing he could not only fig
ht and survive but also be a cunning, deadly opponent when provoked, and the harassment stopped. The “traitor’s son” tag was dropped and Dane became a man—a very successful man. His mother wanted for nothing now and never would again. Too bad he couldn’t say the same of himself. He wanted something all right. Something he could never have.
Trish.
As he stood out in the open with Trish, her sweet floral scent assailed him, making his cock harden and his arms tighten. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t tried to fill the gap she left in him. He’d bedded more she-wolfs in the last seven years than he had in all the years before that. Still, none satisfied him. They were good for a hard fuck but nothing more. He had no interest in spending endless hours in bed with them, exploring every tiny detail of their bodies, sliding his tongue into their pussies to taste their cream, before filling them with his seed. Being close to Trisha made him think of all those things and more.
“Hello,” Trish said, waving her tiny hand in front of his face. “Is anyone home or are you spacing out on me?”
Dane smiled down at her and nipped playfully at her fingers. The moment he actually caught one, he didn’t let it go. Drawing it into his mouth carefully, he sucked on it slowly. Trish’s mouth dropped open and her tongue darted out and over her lower lip. She’d kill him if he kept doing that. Fighting the need to fuck her had become a full-time job. Trish consumed his every thought. There would be nothing sweeter than to sink his cock into her and claim her as his own. Releasing her finger, he waited for her to yank it away. She didn’t. Instead, she ran it lightly over his lips and stared up at him. She looked lost, vulnerable and he wanted a piece of Bill, particularly his head, for leaving her like this.