by Linda Howard
“Not a year, not at the rate he’s going. But he’ll have to be seventeen, anyway. The senator has recommended him for the freshman class starting after he graduates. Less than a year and a half!”
Fierce pride filled Wolf’s face, the warrior’s pride he’d inherited from both Comanche and Celt. His eyes glittered with black fire, and exultantly he lifted her high, his hands under her armpits, and twirled around with her. She threw back her head, shrieking with laughter, and suddenly Wolf felt his entire body clench with desire. It was as powerful as a blow to the gut, knocking the wind out of him. She was soft and warm in his arms, her laughter was as fresh as the spring, and he wanted her out of the prim little shirtwaist she wore.
Slowly his face changed to a harder, more primitive cast. She was still laughing as he lowered her, her hands braced on his shoulders, but he stopped when her breasts were level with his face. The laughter died in Mary’s throat as he deliberately brought her closer to him and buried his face between her breasts. His grip shifted, one arm locking around her buttocks and the other around her back, and his hot mouth searched for her nipple. He found it, his mouth clamping down on it through the barriers of her dress and bra, but the sensation was still so exquisite that her breath caught on a moan and her back arched, pushing her breast against him.
It wasn’t enough. She burrowed her fingers through his hair, digging into his skull to push him harder against her, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted him with sudden, fierce desperation. The layers of cloth that kept him from her drove her mad, and she squirmed against him, low whimpers coming from her throat. “Please,” she begged. “Wolf—”
He lifted his head, his eyes savage with need. His blood was thundering through his veins, and he was breathing hard. “Do you want more?” The words were guttural, a normal tone beyond him.
She squirmed against him again, her hands clutching desperately. “Yes.”
Very gently he let her slide down his body, deliberately rubbing her over the hardened bulge in his jeans, and both of them shuddered. Wolf was beyond thinking of all his reasons for not becoming involved with her, beyond anything but the urge to mate. To hell with what anyone thought.
He looked around, gauging the distance to both house and barn. The barn was closer. Clamping his hand around her wrist, he strode toward the big open double doors that revealed the dim interior.
Mary could barely get her breath as she was all but dragged in his wake. Her senses bewildered by the sudden cessation of pleasure, she was confused by his actions and wanted to ask what he was doing, but she didn’t have enough oxygen in her lungs to form the question. Then they were inside the barn, and she was swamped by the perceptions of dim light, animal warmth and the earthy smells of dust, hay, leather and horses. She heard soft nickers and the muffled stamping of hooves on straw. Wolf led her into an empty stall and dragged her down onto the fresh hay. She sprawled on her back, and he came down on top of her, his muscled weight pressing her even deeper into the hay.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, reaching up to thrust her fingers into his long hair and pull him down to her.
“I’ll kiss you all over before I’m through with you,” he muttered, and bent his head. Her mouth opened under the force of his, and his tongue moved into her in a deep rhythm that she instinctively recognized and accepted, responded to eagerly. He was heavy, but it was so natural that she bear his weight that she rejoiced in the pressure of his body. She wrapped her arms around his thickly muscled shoulders and hugged him even tighter to her; she wanted to be as close as she could to him, and to that end her hips undulated slightly, adjusting to the carnal pressure of his loins.
The slow movements of her hips beneath him made him feel as if his head would explode from the rush of blood through his body. He made a low, rough sound in his throat and reached for the zipper at the back of her dress. He thought he would die if he didn’t feel her silky skin under his hands, if he didn’t sheathe his throbbing flesh inside her.
It was startlingly new to her, bringing a delicate flush to her cheeks, but it was still so right that she didn’t even think of protesting. She didn’t want to protest. She wanted Wolf. She was female to his male, warm and sexual, intensely aware of being a woman and offering herself to the man she loved. She wanted to be naked for him, so she helped him by pulling her arms free of the sleeves as he tugged the dress from her shoulders and let it fall to her waist. She had felt racy, daring to buy a bra with a single front clasp, but as he looked down at her breasts, barely covered by the thin, flesh-colored material, she was so glad she had done it. He deftly opened the clasp with one hand, a trick she hadn’t learned yet, and watched the edges pull back to bare her soft curves, stopping before her nipples were revealed.
He made that rough sound again, almost like a growl, and bent to nuzzle the bra aside. His mouth, warm and wet, slid across her breast and clamped on the tightly beaded nipple. She jumped, her entire body reacting to a pleasure so intense it bordered on pain, as he sucked strongly at her. Mary’s eyes closed, and she moaned. She couldn’t bear it; it felt too good, a hot river of pleasure-pain impulses running from breast to loin, where an empty ache made her press her legs together and arch beneath him, silently begging for the release her body had never known, but sensed with ancient wisdom.
Wolf felt her move beneath him again, and the last shred of control he’d retained, vanished. Roughly he jerked her skirt to her waist and kneed her thighs apart, settling himself between the vulnerable V of her legs. She opened her eyes, a little shocked by what she could feel down there, but eager to know more. “Take off your clothes,” she whispered frantically, and tore at the buttons on his shirt.
He reared back on his knees and tore his shirt open, then off. His naked skin glistened with a fine patina of sweat; in the dim light, filled with floating dust motes, the overlay of sleek bronze skin on powerful muscles gave him the look of live art sculpted by a master’s hand. Mary’s gaze moved hungrily, feverishly, over him. He was perfect, strong and male, the scent of his body hot and faintly musky. She reached out for him, her hands sliding over his broad chest, lightly haired in a diamond pattern stretching from nipple to nipple. She touched those tight little buds, and he froze, a massive shiver of pleasure rippling through his muscles.
He groaned aloud and dropped his hands to his belt. He unbuckled the wide band of leather, then unsnapped his jeans and jerked the zipper down, the hissing of the metal teeth blending with their harsh breathing. With some last desperate fragment of willpower, he kept himself from lowering his pants. She was a virgin; he couldn’t allow himself to forget that, even in his urgency. Damn it, he had to regain some control, or he’d both scare and hurt her, and he would die before he turned her first time into a nightmare.
Mary’s slim fingers curled in the hair on his chest and tugged lightly. “Wolf,” she said. Just his name, just that one word, but her voice was warm and low and drugged sounding, and it beckoned him more powerfully than anything he’d known before.
“Yes,” he said in response. “Now.” He leaned forward to cover her again, then froze as a distant sound came to his ears.
He swore quietly and sank back on his heels, battling desperately to control his body and his frustration.
“Wolf?” Now her tone was hesitant, consternation and self-consciousness creeping into it. That inflection made him feel murderous, because she hadn’t been self-conscious before. She had been warm and loving, willing to give herself without reserve.
“Joe will be here in a few minutes,” he said flatly. “I can hear his truck coming up the mountain.”
She was still so far out of it that she merely looked confused. “Joe?”
“Yes, Joe. Remember him? My son, the reason you’re up here in the first place.”
Her cheeks flooded with color, and she jerked into an upright position, as far as she could, because her thighs were still draped over his. “Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my God. I’m naked. You’re naked. Oh my God.�
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“We’re not naked,” Wolf muttered, wiping his sweaty face. “Damn it.”
“Almost!”
“Not enough.” Even her breasts were rosy with embarrassment now. He looked at them with regret, remembering her sweet taste and the way her velvety little nipple had bloomed in his mouth. But the sound of the truck was much closer now, and with a low, obscene comment on his son’s rotten timing, he got to his feet and effortlessly lifted Mary to hers.
Tears blurred her vision as she turned her back to fumble with that blasted space-age clasp on her bra. What ever had possessed her to buy such a contraption? Aunt Ardith would have been outraged. Aunt Ardith would have fallen on the ground in a hissy fit if she’d even thought of her niece rolling naked in the hay with a man. And, darn it, she hadn’t even been able to finish her rolling!
“Here, I’ll do it,” Wolf said in a far gentler tone than she’d ever before heard from him. He turned her around and deftly handled the diabolical clasp. Mary kept her head down, unable to look him in the eye, but the contrast of his sun-bronzed hands against her pale breasts made her feel hot again. She swallowed and looked at his belt buckle. He’d zipped his jeans back up and buckled his belt, but the visible swell of his loins told her he wasn’t completely unaffected by this interruption. That made her feel better, and she blinked the tears from her eyes as he helped her back into her dress and turned her around to zip it.
“You have hay in your hair,” he teased, and picked the straw from the tangled tresses, then brushed it from her dress.
Mary put up both hands to discern the state of her hair and found it had come completely down. “Leave it,” Wolf said. “I like it down. It looks like silk.”
Nervously she combed her fingers through the strands and watched as he leaned down to pick up his shirt from the hay. “What will Joe think?” she blurted as the truck pulled to a stop outside the barn.
“That he’s lucky he’s my son, or I’d have killed him,” Wolf muttered grimly, and Mary wasn’t certain he was teasing. He put his shirt on but didn’t bother buttoning it before stepping into the open door. Taking a deep breath, Mary braced herself to get through the embarrassment and followed him.
Joe had just gotten out of the truck, and now he stood beside the door, his ice-blue eyes moving from his father to Mary and back, taking in Wolf’s stone face and open shirt, and Mary’s tousled hair. “Damn it!” he swore and slammed the door shut. “If it had just taken me fifteen minutes longer—”
“My feelings exactly,” Wolf concurred.
“Hey, I’ll leave—”
Wolf sighed. “No. She came to see you anyway.”
“That’s what you said the first time.” Joe grinned hugely.
“And I just said it again.” He turned to Mary, and some of the enjoyment of her stunning news returned to his eyes. “Tell him.”
She couldn’t think. “Tell him?”’
“Yeah. Tell him.”
Slowly her dazed mind registered what he was saying. She looked in bewilderment at her empty hands. What had happened to the letters? Had they lost them in the hay? How mortifying it would be to have to search through the hay for them! Not knowing what else to do, she spread her hands and said simply, “You’re in. I got the letter today.”
Blood drained from Joe’s face as he stared at her, and he reached out blindly to rest his hand on the truck as if to steady himself. “I got in? The Academy? I got into the Academy?” he asked hoarsely.
“You got the recommendation. It’s up to you to pass the exams.”
He threw back his head and screamed, an exultant, spine-chilling sound like that of a hunting panther, then leaped at Wolf. The two of them pounded each other’s backs, laughing and yelling, then finally just hugging each other in a way two weaker men couldn’t have done. Mary folded her hands and watched them, smiling, so happy her heart swelled to the point of pain. Then suddenly an arm reached out and snagged her, and she found herself sandwiched between the two Mackenzies, almost smashed flat by their celebration.
“You’re smothering me!” she protested in a gasping voice, wedging her hands against two broad chests and pushing. One of those chests was bare, exposed by an unbuttoned shirt, and the touch of his warm skin made her go weak in the knees. Both of them laughed at her protest, but both of them immediately gentled their embrace.
Mary patted her hair down and smoothed her dress. “The letters are here somewhere. I must have dropped them.”
Wolf gave her a wicked look. “You must have.”
His teasing made her happy deep inside, and she smiled at him. It was a quietly intimate smile, the sort that a woman gives the man she loves after she has been in his arms, and it warmed him. To cover his reaction, he turned to look for the dropped letters and spotted one on the drive, while the other had fallen close to the barn door. He retrieved both of them, and gave Joe the one addressed to him.
The boy’s hands shook as he read the letter, even though he already knew the contents. He couldn’t believe it. It had happened so fast. A dream come true should have been harder to attain; he should have had to sweat blood to get it. Oh, he wasn’t driving one of those twenty-million dollar babies yet, but he would. He had to, because he would be only half alive without wings.
Mary was watching him with proud indulgence when she felt Wolf stiffen beside her. She looked at him inquiringly. His head was lifted as if he scented danger, and his face was suddenly as impassive as stone. Then she heard the sound of an engine and turned as a deputy sheriff’s car rolled to a stop behind Joe’s truck.
Joe turned, and his face took on the same stony look as Wolf’s as Clay Armstrong got out of the county car.
“Ma’am.” Clay spoke to her first, tipping his hat.
“Deputy Armstrong.” Two hundred years of strict training on social behavior were in her voice. Aunt Ardith would have been proud. But she sensed some threat to Wolf, and it was all she could do not to put herself between him and the deputy. Only the knowledge that he wouldn’t appreciate the action kept her standing at his side.
Clay’s friendly blue eyes weren’t friendly at all now. “Why are you up here, Miss Potter?”
“Why are you asking?” she shot back, putting her hands on her hips.
“Just skip to the good part, Armstrong,” Wolf snapped.
“Fine,” Clay snapped back. “You’re wanted for questioning. You can come with me now, the easy way, or I can get a warrant for your arrest.”
Joe stood frozen, fury and hell in his eyes. This had happened before, and he’d lost his father for two nightmarish years. It seemed even more terrible this time, because just moments before they had been celebrating, and he’d been on top of the world.
Wolf began buttoning his shirt. In a voice like gravel he asked, “What happened this time?”
“We’ll talk about that at the sheriff’s office.”
“We’ll talk about it now.”
Black eyes met blue, and abruptly Clay realized this man wouldn’t move a foot unless he had some answers. “A girl was raped this morning.”
Sulfuric rage burned in those night-dark eyes. “So naturally you thought of the Indian.” He spat the words like bullets from between clenched teeth. God, this couldn’t be happening again. Not twice in one lifetime. The first time had almost killed him, and he knew he’d never go back to that hellhole, no matter what he had to do.
“We’re just questioning some people. If you have an alibi, there’s no problem. You’ll be free to go.”
“I suppose you picked up every rancher in this area? Do you have Eli Baugh at the sheriff’s office answering questions?”
Clay’s face darkened with anger. “No.”
“Just the Indian, huh?”
“You have priors.” But Clay looked uncomfortable.
“I don’t have…one…single…prior conviction,” Wolf snarled. “I was cleared.”
“Damn it, man, I know that!” Clay suddenly yelled. “I was told to pick you up, a
nd I’m going to do my job.”
“Well, why didn’t you just say so? I wouldn’t want to stop a man from doing his job.” After that sarcastic jab, Wolf strode to his truck. “I’ll follow you.”
“You can ride in the car. I’ll bring you back.”
“No, thanks. I’d rather have my own wheels, just in case the sheriff decides a walk would do me good.”
Swearing under his breath, Clay went to the car and got in. Dust and gravel flew from his tires as he headed back down the mountain, with Wolf behind him slinging even more dust and gravel.
Mary began shaking. At first it was just a tremor, but it swiftly escalated into shudders that rattled her entire body. Joe was standing as if turned to stone, his fists clenched. Suddenly he whirled and slammed his fist into the hood of his truck. “By God, they won’t do it to him again,” he whispered. “Not again.”
“No, they certainly won’t.” She was still shaking, but she squared her shoulders. “If I have to get every judge and court in this country involved, I will. I’ll call newspapers, I’ll call television networks, I’ll call—oh, they don’t have any idea of who all I can call.” The network of Old Family contacts she had left behind in Savannah was still there, and more favors would be called in than the sheriff of this county could count. She’d hang him out to dry!
“Why don’t you go home?” Joe suggested in a flat tone.
“I want to stay.”
He’d expected her to quietly walk to her car, but at her words he looked at her for the first time. Deep inside, part of him had thought she wouldn’t be able to leave fast enough, that he and Wolf would be alone again, as they had always been. They were used to being alone. But Mary stood her ground as if she had no intention of budging off this mountain, her slate-blue eyes full of fire and her fragile chin lifted in the way that he’d learned meant others could just get out of her path.
The boy, forced by circumstance to grow up hard and fast, put his strong arms around the woman and held her, desperately absorbing some of her strength, because he was deathly afraid he’d need it. And Mary held him. He was Wolf’s son, and she’d protect him with every ounce of fight she had.