“I can tell. Here, hold on to me,” Luke ordered. I reached out, grabbing for his elbow, but instead, my fingers brushed the fabric of his jeans. I felt the button on his fly. Shit. I’d grabbed him right—
“If you wanted an excuse to grope me, you just had to ask,” he laughed.
“Shut up,” I shot back, heat flaring in my cheeks. I was lucky it was so dark he wouldn’t be able to see how beet-red I must be. I reached up, clamping my hand around his forearm. The warm sensation raced through my fingers, down my whole arm, lighting all my senses on fire.
Woah. The heat was intense. It wasn’t just my hormones on overdrive. The heat penetrated every layer of my body, spreading through my limbs and circling through my head. My chest swelled with intense emotion. I gulped back the urge to…I’m not sure whether I wanted to cry or laugh or kiss Luke or push him away or beg him to marry me. The intense sensation swirled around my head, and in the darkness, it was even more disorienting. I squeezed Luke’s arm tighter, reassuring myself that he was there, and that I was standing upright still.
“Luke,” I asked, tugging at my hand. “I feel—”
“I know.” His deep voice came through the dark. Confident, reassuring. “Don’t think about it now, Anna. We need to focus on getting out of here. Can you follow behind me?”
“I…I think so.”
Luke’s fingers closed around mine. The warmth in my body surged. Slowly, Luke felt his way back up the fissure, squeezing his way between the gap. I kept close at his heels, my other hand feeling my way along the rocks, re-establishing my bearings. Every few moments he squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, assuring him I was fine.
“You’re good at this,” I remarked as we emerged onto the site and Luke picked his way carefully around the quadrants without disturbing any of our cuttings.
“I can see well in the dark,” he said, then sucked in his breath, as though he’d said something he shouldn’t.
“That’s interesting.”
“Is it?” He slid down a rocky ledge, then turned to grip my waist with his strong hands. Before I could say anything, he’d lifted me down, and crushed my body against his powerful chest. My face was millimetres from his. His hot breath warmed my lips. The energy between us sizzled. “I can think of much more interesting things right now.”
Kiss me. My body screamed. In the dark, my senses worked in overdrive, assailing me with Luke’s intoxicating masculine scent, the sensation of his fingers gripping me, the press of his bulge against my thigh.
“Luke—” I murmured, not sure whether I was protesting or begging.
“Anna.” His husky voice grated against my ears. His breath caressed my cheek. And then, he pressed his lips to mine.
I pressed back. My whole body shot with fire. It was as though the kiss connected us by more than just our lips.
Luke teased apart my lips, his tongue running against mine, dragging me deeper into his embrace. His hand cupped my cheek, holding my head against his as though he couldn’t bear to break the seal. His other hand burned the small of my back.
In the darkness, every touch, every sensation spiralled out of control. He burned all around me, a star going supernova, trailing a line of fire across my universe.
I tangled my fingers through his hair, pulling it out of its tie and enjoying the way the silky threads fell through my fingers. I’d never been with a guy who had long hair before. Ben’s hair had been your standard number-two cut…No, I didn’t want to think about Ben. Not now—
Too late. Ben’s face was dancing on my vision. That carefree smile he’d worn as he’d kissed me goodbye for the last time…his battered face staring up at me at the morgue, stiff and lifeless. My body stiffened.
Luke pulled away. “We…shouldn’t do this.” He breathed.
“It’s a bad idea.” I agreed, leaning forward to kiss him again, wanting to drive out the vision of Ben. Luke moaned as my lips touched his, and I melted back against him, losing myself in his wonderful touch.
He tore himself away again. “Anna. We have to stop.”
“You don’t want this?”
He laughed hollowly. “That’s not it at all. You were the one who just stiffened up.”
“I don’t want to talk about that right now. I just…”
“Look, it’s fine.” Luke shrugged away from me. My heart beat against my chest. How had this gone so wrong? Why had I thought about Ben at all…thinking about him wouldn’t bring him back. “We can just go back to the camp and forget it ever happened.”
“But…you kissed me?” Panic rose in my chest.
“Yes.” He sighed. “And I want to push you up against that rock face and fuck you senseless.”
My whole body flushed.
Luke continued. “But aside from the fact we risk getting stalactites in some very unfortunate places, I’m not sure it’s such a good idea. We’re supposed to be working together.”
Now my face flushed with embarrassment. Luke was right. If we did…anything, it was going to be awkward as hell for the rest of the dig. I was supposed to be doing my best job to impress Professor Doyle so I could get a recommendation for my master’s course. Luke was supposed to keep all us archaeologists in line, and prevent the kind of accidents that had killed my dad and Ben. It wouldn’t look good if anyone found out that we were shagging.
Disappointment surged through me, followed by an intense wave of sadness. For a minute there I’d been completely ready to expose myself to Luke, both figuratively and very, very literally. I’d finally let down that wall that had been closed off ever since Ben had died, and the only thing on the other side was a guy who couldn’t even begin to comprehend the enormity of that. You have to remember that Luke doesn’t have all this baggage. To him, you are just a shag. Probably one of hundreds of women. That’s why it’s so easy for him to just pull back. He can just get it somewhere else. Don’t read more into this than it is.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I said, keeping my voice steady. At least in the dark he couldn’t see the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks. This is what happens when you let yourself be vulnerable, the voice inside my head warned me. You get hurt.
We scrambled out of the cave without touching and walked back to the camp, keeping a wide distance between us. The silent night stretched between us, filling the void with hanging, unanswered questions. The waxing moon beat down on my back, illuminating the forest with long shadows. I watched Luke out of the corner of my eye. He walked tall, his shoulders back, his head high, almost as though he were a dog sniffing out a scent. He showed no hint of disappointment or sadness at all.
You made the right decision, I told myself, even though the disappointment still bit into me.
Luke walked me to my tent. As I stooped to open the flap of the tent, he cleared his throat. “Anna, I—”
“It’s fine.” I said. “You were right. Goodnight Luke.”
I glanced up at him then, and caught his gaze. His eyes locked with mine, the stare so intense, so primal, it gave me a start. How could he be so blasé about things back in the cave, and then look at me like that?
Luke turned away, his mouth curling up at the edges ever so slightly. “Goodnight, Anna. Sweet dreams.”
I pulled up the flap of my tent and crawled inside. I scrambled around in the dark and found my phone, which I clicked on to the torch app to give me light while I took off my jacket and socks. My sleeping bag had never looked so inviting.
Weariness washed over me as I crawled down into the bag, pulling the flap right up around my chin. I trembled, but not from the cold. The heat still pulsed through my body, and I could still feel the traces of Luke’s fingers against my skin. What a bizarre, frustrating, sad night.
As I closed my eyes and tried to force my mind away from Luke and the kiss, my hand closed around my wrist, seeking out the familiar bracelet that always helped to calm me. Panic seized me when all I felt was skin.
I bolted upright, wide awake once more. I flicked on my phone torch
and looked at my wrist under the light. It was bare. I turned out my sleeping bag, flipped over the air mattress, and scrambled through my stack of clothing. Nothing.
My bracelet was gone. I’d lost it somewhere in the cave. It was the one item I had left that reminded me of Dad, that gave me strength when I needed it, and I’d lost it.
Tears pricked at my cheeks. I buried my face in my hands. You’re an idiot, Anna. This is what happens when you let your emotions take over. You have to stay away from that ranger, for your own good.
4
Luke
After my encounter with Anna, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, my body surging with desire for her. The connection between us called me to her, and it was all I could do to prevent myself throwing open the flap of my tent and running naked across the camp to find her.
Probably not the best look, if Frances or Ruth caught me.
I’d hoped the kiss would dissipate some of the sexual tension between us, but instead it had turned up the heat. But as soon as she’d stiffened up, I’d realised we had to stop. I knew it was such a bad idea. For her, having to suck up to Professor Doyle for her grades, and because there was clearly something in her past that made her cautious around me, and for me, who needed to stay on high alert for other wolves, and so I could find and destroy the paintings. Which was going to be hard as long as Anna was keeping her eye on me.
Maybe now she would pull back. It had taken everything within me to pull away from her, and I could see the disappointment and embarrassment written all over her face as we’d walked back to the camp. I hated the idea she thought I didn’t want her, but I was used to being thought of as a bastard, so it made sense, even if it was messing with my hormones, big time.
Your hormones…or your heart. The thought made the itch flare against my skin. I growled and scratched furiously at my legs, but the itch didn’t subside. I didn’t want to think about Dad, or how much I missed him, or how much I wished I could talk to him about Anna.
The full moon was two days away. I rolled over, punching the sleeping bag cover stuffed with clothes that served as my pillow in an attempt to form the lumps into a comfortable shape. Even though my head burned with barely concealed pain, my veins still pulsed with desire. Several long, grey hairs pricked through my skin, sticking up out of my arms and back like porcupine quills. Get control of yourself, Lowe, I scolded myself, rubbing in vain at the itch on my neck. This would only get worse.
At some point I must’ve fallen into an agitated sleep, for the next morning I woke with a start, my mind reeling from a dream in which I was chasing my father through a forest, only to burst into a clearing to find him and Anna kissing.
You’re going nuts. I told myself, trying to shake off the images. My dreams always got vivid and disturbing close to the full moon. Usually I paid them no heed, but my father’s death was still too raw in my consciousness for his appearance not to affect me.
The pain of his absence gripped me like a vice. I wrapped my arms around my shoulders, trying to will it away, but it pulsed just below my skin, a nagging, hopeless desire to see him again. I wished he could be here with me, telling me the stories about his childhood here in the forest. I wished he could give me some advice on what to do about this intense physical longing now I’d found my mate. I longed to introduce him to Anna, and listen to them talk about books all night long…
But none of that would ever happen. I had to face that fact, and move on.
I threw off the covers, pulled on my work trousers and shrugged on my coat. I wasn’t going to sit here and think about it.
The rain had returned during the night, and it pelted me in huge drops as I emerged, bleary eyed, from my tent. The rest of the team were already in the caravan. I could see them moving around through the windows. I pulled the hood over my face and jogged through the trees towards them.
He’s dead. He’s dead.
A flash of memory. The first time my dad ever took me hunting. We were living in the Black Forest in Southern Germany, and I had just turned eight. When the full moon claimed us, instead of hiding me in our cabin while he went out alone, Dad took me deep into the woods, further than I’d ever gone before. Strange scents overwhelmed me, but he showed me how to discern different trails and map the forest with my nose. We sat together on top of a hill and watched the stars move across the sky.
“Your grandparents are up there somewhere,” he told me, pointing with his snout to the Milky Way smudged across the deep sky. “They’re shining down on us, along with the rest of the Lowe pack. We’re the last ones left, Luke.”
“We don’t need anyone else.” I hated how wistful he sounded, how lonely. I wasn’t lonely. I had him.
He’d ferreted out a rabbit from amongst the brambles, and I’d chased it along a ridge before cornering it by the river, and killing it with a single bite to the throat. I remembered the way the adrenaline coursed through me, my heart pounding in my ears as I closed in for the kill.
As we enjoyed our feast that night, Dad offered me the choicest haunch. “I am proud of you, Luke. You will be a fine wolf. One day, perhaps you will be the one to make the Lowe pack great again. If anyone could, it would be you.”
It would be you.
I spun around, and slammed my fist into the nearest tree trunk. Pain cracked across my knuckles, but the sting tore me back to reality, away from the memories. I glanced up at the sky, just visible through the bare branches. A few lonesome stars twinkled against the early morning haze.
I’m here now, Dad. I promise you I will succeed. I won’t let our family legacy be one of dishonour.
I sucked in a breath. Time to get over feeling sorry for yourself, Luke. I needed to have all my wits about me if I was going to get back to destroy the paintings without arousing suspicion. And I needed to keep my cool around Anna. It was better for both of us if we didn’t get involved.
I pushed open the caravan door. Everyone was there already. Ruth and Frances looked up from the table, one giving me a gleaming smile, the other, a disdainful look. Anna’s eyes flicked briefly to mine, and then she glanced away, suddenly engrossed in her porridge. Not wanting to make her more uncomfortable, I took a seat at the opposite end of the table, and intentionally provoked Ruth into a conversation about fossil fuels. If Anna was going to play at ignoring me, then I could follow her lead.
5
Anna
All through breakfast, I kept sneaking looks over at Luke. He sat down at the opposite end of the table, and was hanging off Ruth’s every sycophantic word. He’s forgotten about the kiss awfully quick, I thought angrily. He’s obviously going to have no trouble bouncing back.
If only things were so easy for me. After last night’s kiss, I realised how ready I was to move on, to attempt to date again, to maybe make myself vulnerable. Ben wasn’t coming back. The grief had dulled from the roar in my ears, the relentless voice screaming over every interaction, he’s dead, he’ll never hold you, or kiss you, or make you laugh ever again. I no longer stood in the supermarket queue and failed to comprehend how everyone around me was just going on as normal. Didn’t they understand what had happened? Didn’t they know I had lost the one guy who loved me? Didn’t they know the whole world had stopped?
But now I was ready to hit play again. I wanted to thaw the numbness in my veins, to unclench my body and feel again. But I had to be careful who I trusted with that. I wanted so badly for it to be Luke, but watching him flop his hair out of his eyes while he laughed at Ruth’s inane jokes, I realised it couldn’t be him. He was probably the greatest shag, but didn’t know how to be that person for me.
“I’m finished.” I pushed back my chair. The words sounded hard, final.
“Alright,” Frances grabbed my bowl and frowned at the pile of porridge I’d left behind. “Don’t go into the caves until I’m ready to join you. We’re not allowed there by ourselves—”
“I know.” I shoved the door open, cringing as it banged against the side of the car
avan. I hadn’t meant to push it that hard.
“Anna, wait.” Luke called out to me, but I raced across the camp without looking back.
I took my toothbrush and a cup of water and brushed my teeth behind my cabin. Then, I went over to the artefact storage and started work on cataloguing some of the artefacts from the previous week. We were always behind on cataloguing – it was supposed to be done in the evenings, but after a hard day on your knees in the cave and then chewing your way through one of Frances’s “meals” (and I use the term in its loosest possible sense), it was much more appealing to curl up with a beer and a book.
I pulled up the chair behind the small desk and started transferring notations from our notebooks onto the database we’d been creating. The mundane work started to calm me, to ease away the tension in my nerves. But then, just as I thought I was ready to face the day again...
“Anna.”
Luke’s voice sent a shiver through me. I could feel the weight of his body in front of me, the way the air around me seemed to shift to accommodate him. Goose pimples appeared along my arms that had nothing to do with the cold.
I didn’t look up from the laptop. “Go away, Luke. I have to concentrate on this work.”
“You’re angry with me.”
“I’m not.” I tried to keep my voice even. “I’m just busy.”
“You just feel the sudden urge to catalogue artefacts at six thirty-three in the morning?”
“Yes. I’ve had two cups of coffee. I need to burn off the energy.”
“If you’re feeling wired, I can think of a much more enjoyable way to burn it off.” That familiar smirk had crept back into his voice.
I looked up at him then, setting my face into an angry line. “You were the one who broke things off last night. So you don’t now get to come over here and flirt with me like nothing ever happened.”
“I was just teasing.” He grinned. “It’s nice to see you reacting. I knew there was a lioness beneath that geeky exterior. Besides, we both decided it was better to leave things be last night.”
Digging the Wolf: a paranormal romance (Werewolves of Crookshollow Book 1) Page 4