Page 13 of Brandon’s Mate

Right. She’d done a stellar job of that so far.

“Not if you’re trying to hang out with Rocko’s gang.”

Her lips tightened stubbornly, and he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to figure out how to get through to her. “Look, Kitkat, you should be going to football games and—and making out at Lookout Point and deciding if you’re going to let the guy feel your boobs, not trying to lose your virginity to a guy that’s way too old for you, and too drunk and too much of an asshole to do it right.”

He suddenly got a vision of Kitty naked underneath him, and him giving her the kind of pleasure she’d never dreamed about. He instantly blocked it out.

Sister. She was like his little sister.

“I wasn’t going to have sex with him,” Kitty muttered. She was finally buttoning up her shirt, to Brandon’s relief.

Reality check. “Oh yeah you were, whether you wanted to or not.” The very thought made him want to go back to the clubhouse, rip Rocko’s balls off, slow-roast them and feed them to him.

She stopped buttoning and looked up at him, eyes wide. “No way. My wolf would have killed him first.”

He remembered the crazy red churning in her eyes and the size of her wolf. Maybe she was right, but he sure as hell didn’t want that for her either. The very thought scared him into snapping at her.

“Like that’s a better choice? Geez, Kitty, you’re way over your head here. Go back to your Barbie dolls, for fuck’s sake.”

Her eyes blazed, and for a second he thought he saw that red churning rage in them once more. “Fucking Barbie dolls? Seriously? Dammit, Brandon, look at me! Really look at me, for once.” She ripped the shirt open again, exposing all those amazing curves.

“Stop that,” he hissed, grabbing at the open shirt and trying to close it up again. “What’s wrong with you?”

She slapped his hands away. “You just don’t get it, do you?” She was growling, deep in her chest. She wasn’t going crazy wolf again, was she?

She went on, “The only reason I went there was because I wanted you to look at me like—like I was a real girl and not some baby sister who you tousle her hair and tell her to run away and play. I just wanted you to notice me. And then I thought, well, maybe if you knew another guy was interested in me you’d see me differently…”

She couldn’t be saying what he thought she was saying.

“Kitty, you’re fifteen. I’m twenty-one. You’re my little sister.”

“I’m not!” Her voice shook with emotion. “We’re not related. And age doesn’t matter. I love you. I—” She broke off, hand over her mouth as she saw his open-mouthed please-tell-me-this-isn’t-happening face.

Hers flushed with shame and humiliation. “You don’t—oh my god. I’m such an idiot.”

He reached out toward her, but she backed away. She tore off the shirt, and with an anguished howl she changed to wolf, and ran off into the woods.

Brandon shook his head, breaking the spell of the past.

He hadn’t stayed long in Tennessee after that. Fuck, he’d been as bad as Rocko, a grown man perving after a fifteen-year-old girl.

He’d stayed just long enough for Rocko to come after him one dark night with murder on his mind. No one had ever seen Rocko again after that.

But Kitty… damn, he missed Kitty.

He’d given her time to grow up. Hell, he’d even tried to go back for her once, see if there was anything… but by that time his life had already gone to shit.

Nobody as bright and happy as Kitty deserved a man haunted by ghosts and guilt.

He went to swipe the picture away, and his fingers brushed over the text icon. The latest messages popped up.

They were from Kitty.

Brandon froze. She’d never texted him—not in all these years.

Brandon? Where are you? Are you okay?

And then: I feel like you’re having a bad day.