by Kate Douglas
She practically purred.
“This is what you’re looking for, isn’t it?” Deeper this time, until his balls slapped against her mound.
“Maybe…” Her answer was muffled in her pillow, but it was obvious Tia wanted anything he offered.
Tinker’s cock connected with the hard mouth of her womb on the next, hard thrust. She arched her back, cried out. Her pussy clamped down on his cock in a rippling, clenching spasm, squeezing him tighter, holding him deep inside as her entire body arched against him.
He opened his thoughts and caught her incoherent mental cries of pleasure. When he linked his mind with Tia’s, Tinker felt the thickness of his cock as if it pierced his own spasming sex, felt each ripple and contraction as if his body were climaxing.
Tinker held there a moment, unmoving, mind and body saturated with sensation. His balls throbbed, a deep, dark pounding in time with his heart, the taut sense of pleasure bordering on pain as he held on to only marginal control. Tia rippled around him, her strong inner muscles squeezing and releasing, her scent rising ripe and addictive to tease his sensitive nostrils.
Slowly Tinker withdrew, teeth clenched and muscles tensing as he made his slow, steady retreat. Tia’s velvet clasp tightened around his cock, attempted to hold him closer. He pulled almost completely free of her heat, then slammed into her hard and fast. Tia whimpered and adjusted her hips to take him even deeper. Her thick juices smoothed the way, her spasming sex pulled him in, and Tinker felt his hard-won control slip even more.
He slowed, rocking against Tia in a slow, steady rhythm.
Her fingers crept between their legs, tickling and scraping oversensitized flesh. He groaned when she found his sac and gently squeezed and massaged his balls in rhythm with each slow, even penetration.
Tinker slipped into a steady, leisurely cadence. Deeper, all the way in and slowly out to the very edge of her sex. His thighs trembled now, his gut clenched with need, and a slick river of sweat poured down his face and covered his chest. Almost as an afterthought, he searched for Tia’s thoughts and found her once more on the edge of climax.
Close. So very close, almost in sync with him, almost there. Tinker pinched her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, rolling the taut peaks hard enough to cause pain. Tia gasped, arched her back, and cried out. Her sound was low and haunting, more a howl than a moan.
Tinker joined his thoughts to Tia’s. Not a link such as mates might have, but a simple linking of pleasure, of sensation. He leaned back on his heels and pulled Tia with him. His cock bottomed out once again, filling her. Her round buttocks pressed against his belly, and his fingers flared across her middle. He held her close. Her heart pounded beneath his palm.
Tia reached between their legs again. She scraped her nails over his sac, then cupped his balls in her palm and gently squeezed. Her thoughts in his mind turned hot, her needy flesh tightened even more around his cock, and suddenly, before he expected it, Tinker flew over the top.
Had it always been so good? Hips thrusting, jaw clenching, and body shaking, his mind filled with Tia’s climax, Tinker experienced his orgasm as Tia felt it, deep inside her body.
Exquisite, to know it from Tia’s viewpoint as well as his own. He became the depth of her passion in the images, words, and sensations she shared.
Experienced the lush heat, the fullness, the desire, and even the regret. In the midst of climax, with Tinker’s cock filling her, his arms holding her, his seed pulsing into her warm and welcoming pussy, Tia thought of Luc.
Missed Luc. Wished he were here with them. Wished Luc was the one loving her. Loving Tinker. Filling her sex or her mouth or even her ass. No matter. Tinker knew her thoughts and knew Tia wanted her mate.
As she should.
Would a woman ever think of him that way? Would he ever know the deep, soul-searing link of a bonded mate?
Not with this woman, no matter how much he cared for her.
Tinker slowly lowered Tia to the bed, both of them drawing deep, gasping breaths of air into oxygen-starved lungs.
Tinker kissed Tia’s cheek, stroked her hair back from her face, and smiled down at her while he struggled for control of his breathing. Finally, when he felt he could speak without gasping for air, he kissed her again. It was time to let go of regrets, to think of other things. To think of the adventure that lay ahead.
He wished he knew how to plan for the unpredictable. Impossible. He’d figure this trip out one step at a time. Until he came face-to-face with his ultimate goal, he’d have to wing it.
Tinker flopped down on the bed beside Tia and turned so he could watch her face. “I’m going to need a ride to SFO. Can you take me to the airport in a couple hours?”
Tia nodded. Her chest rose and fell with each deep breath. Her thoughts were now her own, gently yet firmly blocked. “Yeah. No problem.”
Tinker sat up, but Tia stopped him with a gentle hold on his forearm. He looked down at her fingers, their bronze color still many shades lighter than his own dark skin, and thought how beautiful her fingers were, how much he liked the contrast of their skin, her deep bronze to his dark chocolate.
Her softness to his hard, muscled body. Her feminine yet forceful spirit to his Chanku male soul. Tinker covered Tia’s hand with his, pushed those pointless thoughts from his mind, and glanced into her beautiful amber eyes. “What?”
“I’m…I…” She sighed and glanced away, the thought she hadn’t shared left unspoken. “Do you know how long you’ll be gone? Did Luc tell you anything at all? Did he find out anything?”
Tinker shook his head. “Not much more than we talked about. It’s a wolf sanctuary, privately owned and funded, yet licensed by the federal government. It’s in northern Colorado, up in the Rockies, though I understand the elevation isn’t too high. I’ll be looking for Baylor Quinn’s sister. Her name’s Lisa, unless she’s changed it. We know that Bay’s Chanku. So is his other sister Tala. It’s a given that Lisa is as well. I need to find her, convince her to take the supplement and hope it works. Then we’ll take it from there.”
Tia slanted him a coquettish glance. “Oh, I can guess where you’ll take it. Far, fast, and very, very deep.”
Tinker shrugged his shoulders, but he grinned. “One can only hope. It’s going to be weird, approaching a stranger who is definitely Chanku…and knowing she hasn’t got a clue. I’ll be honest and admit I’m going after her hoping she’ll be the one, that she’ll end up as my mate. Face it, sweetie. There are so few women among us. We have to take our future into our own hands, or someone else might do it for us.”
Tia nodded, her smile fading. “I know. I want you to find someone of your very own. It’s just…” She looked away again. Tinker grabbed her chin with his fingertips, turned her back, and was surprised to see tears on her cheeks. She sighed and covered Tinker’s hand with hers. “Things will never be the same again. I feel it, and I worry about you.”
“Sweetie, don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Everything will be okay, and I’ll be home before you know it. Hopefully with someone else for you to pick on.” He kissed Tia, then stood up. He had to put distance between them before he said or did something stupid. She was Luc’s. Tia would always be Luc’s, no matter how often she shared Tinker’s bed. She loved Tinker. He had no doubt of that, but she had chosen Luc as her mate. Loved Luc on a level far beyond any feelings she held for Tinker. It might have been confusing, had they still been human.
Among the Chanku, it was the way of the pack. Thank goodness Luc knew and was cool with the relationship Tinker had with Tia. Tinker sighed. Of course, maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. Maybe it made things too comfortable, all that much more difficult for Tinker to move on, to find his own mate, his own life.
Tia grabbed his hand and stretched her fingers over his knuckles, as if comparing their color differences. She looked down at their linked hands, not into his eyes as she normally would. “Do you have any idea what you’re going to do when you find her? What you’ll say?
It’s not like you can just introduce yourself and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m a shapeshifter and I turn into a wolf.’ She’d think you were nuts. You have to have some kind of plan.”
Tinker laughed. “Actually, I don’t. I’m just going to wing it with this one. I need to see what she’s like, get a feel for how she’ll deal with everything she’s going to find out about herself.”
Tia laughed. “I can’t believe that you, of all people, haven’t got a detailed plan of action. That is so not you!” She squeezed his fingers, then dropped his hand and stepped back. “I’ll miss you, Tinker. A lot. So will Luc.” She pouted, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. She looked like a pissed-off six-year-old.
He grinned. This he could deal with. “Good. You deserve to miss me after the way you manhandled me just now. A man should have some say in the matter of sex. Don’t you think?”
“No way. Not when he steals my batteries. You take my toys, I get to play with yours.” Tia ran her fingers lightly along his cock. Her slightest touch brought it back to life.
“Looks like you don’t need batteries. This sucker’s under his own power.” Laughing harder, Tia jerked her hand back, jumped off the bed, and headed for the bathroom, wriggling her hips with a lot more sway than usual. “Next time, I’m gonna hide my batteries and you’ll just have to deal with the dark.”
Later, Tinker thought of Tia’s quip as his plane crossed over the Sierra Nevadas, headed for Colorado. Deal with the dark. Sometimes he felt as if he spent every waking moment dealing with the dark. His own darkness, both figuratively and literally. He’d never had it easy, a black man with his convoluted background, living in a white world.
Once again he wondered what his life would have been like if his mother hadn’t abandoned him. She would have carried the Chanku genes, whoever she was. Carried them, but never brought that part of herself to life, other than through the birth of her son. For all he knew, she was still alive. Tinker often wondered if he had siblings anywhere, other young Chanku men or women, living lives of quiet, or not so silent, desperation…but that was neither here nor there.
What would have happened if the foster family who raised him had been black instead of white? They’d loved him unconditionally and done their best, but they were a typical suburban, white, middle-class family. When they died in a car accident the year Tinker turned fifteen, he’d been thrust headfirst, unprepared, back into both the foster care system and the local black society, lacking those skills needed by a young African American male.
Add the overactive libido and chaotic thought processes of the typical undiscovered Chanku, and no idea at all how to interact with guys, much less African American girls, and Tinker knew he’d been a mess.
Literally a stranger in all worlds. A man apart and unaccepted in both black and white society, unable to fit in any world. All through the formative years in high school and college, even in the military, Tinker remained apart. The closest thing he had to a family who understood and accepted him was the pack.
Even there he was the odd man out. Luc Stone had Tia. Jake had Shannon. Hell, even AJ and Mik had Tala. There was the new guy, Baylor, but he seemed perfectly happy with Jake and Shannon. For now, anyway.
A flight attendant stopped beside his seat. Tinker glanced up and managed a smile. The woman was beautiful, tall and slim, with her black hair sleeked back into a neat bun at the back of her neck. She looked to be about his age with skin the color of coffee with cream, but he didn’t encourage conversation. That was the problem with first-class seats. Flight attendants were always checking to see if you needed something, though from the flirtatious look on this woman’s face, she might be the needy one.
Tinker shook his head when she asked if he wanted something to drink, and turned once again to stare out the window. He never thought of his looks one way or the other, though women always seemed interested. The attendant moved on to speak with the couple in the seat behind his. Tinker sensed her curiosity, and with his heightened Chanku senses, even scented her arousal, but it did nothing for him.
When he looked at beautiful women, why did he always compare them to Tia? He loved her, but he never thought of her as a mate. No, not in those terms. She was Luc’s. She’d always be Luc’s.
Which left Tinker once more alone in the dark.
Chapter 2
It was obvious the woman didn’t hear him. Either that or she chose to ignore the sound of his car. Tinker had pulled in close behind the battered pickup truck, positioned his rented convertible at the side of the narrow road beneath a huge fir tree, and shut off the engine. The loud whine of a straining winch motor explained why he’d been able to park so close without notice, and he took advantage of his position in the little red car to watch the woman for a few moments.
She was tall, tan and lean, with broad shoulders and ropy muscles in her long arms. She wore hiking boots, faded jeans, and a tight-fitting faded red tank top. Though she was turned partially away from him, he could see that her breasts were high and small, the nipples sharply visible through the thin cotton. Tinker’s gaze lingered there a moment before moving on to study the rest of her. The woman’s dark hair was all tied up in some sort of lopsided knot that hung over her left ear. She appeared to be trying to load a badly mangled dead deer into the back of her truck.
HIGH MOUNTAIN WOLF SANCTUARY was printed on the truck door.
The winch didn’t look as if it could lift the weight of the animal, which must have been killed recently because the body was limp and the front legs flopped around. The woman had tied a stout rope around the hind legs and attached it to the winch, but the motor groaned and whined, and the bloody body didn’t budge.
Tinker glanced down at his freshly washed and ironed slacks, new Italian leather shoes, and crisp white shirt and sighed. It wasn’t in his makeup to drive off and let any woman deal with her own problems.
Much less one who looked as good as this lady.
Tinker opened the car door and climbed out just as the winch made a loud grinding noise and stopped.
The woman kicked the animal’s body in obvious frustration and muttered, “Aw, fuck.”
“Need some help?” Tinker stepped forward, hand outstretched.
“Shit! Who the hell are…?” She stepped back a pace, hand over her heart, eyes wide. “Oh God. I’m sorry. You scared the crap out of me! I didn’t hear you drive up.”
“Obviously.” Tinker bit back a grin as she realized what she’d said. She slapped her hand over her mouth, blushing beet red.
Tinker nodded in the direction of the dead doe. “You sure you want to touch your mouth with that hand?”
“Oh yuck.” She pulled her hand away and wiped her mouth with her forearm.
Chuckling, Tinker added, “I hope you’re not planning to have that for dinner. It looks a little ripe.”
The woman laughed. Tinker’s head snapped up at the familiar sound. She laughed as though she enjoyed it, as if life was there to be lived. She laughed just like Mik and AJ’s mate, Tala Quinn.
Sometimes it appeared his luck wasn’t all bad. Tinker looked her over with a fresh eye. He’d expected small and wiry, like Tala, not this tall, healthy Amazon of a woman who checked him out with the same interest he showed her.
“Not for my table, thank you very much. I work at the High Mountain Wolf Sanctuary. We’ve got county permits to collect roadkill for the wolves. It’s better than feeding them commercial stuff all the time. More like their natural diet.”
Suddenly everything sort of fell together in Tinker’s head, not to mention his agreeable cock. His assignment to find the missing Chanku female took on a whole new impetus, one that had him grinning like an idiot. He stuck out his hand. “That’s where I’m headed. The wolf sanctuary. I’m Martin McClintock. Tinker to my friends.”
She looked down at her filthy hands, wiped them on her jeans, and shook his. “I’m Lisa. Lisa Quinn. It’s nice to meet you.”
“I thought you must be Lisa. Yo
u laugh just like Tala, your sister.” Tinker held on to her hand, aware of a sudden and powerful current between them. A link of souls that had to be her Chanku spirit. He sensed the wildness in her, whether Lisa recognized it or not.
Saw it in the questioning glint in her beautiful amber eyes. Eyes very much like her sister’s…eyes just like his own.
Tinker thought of the supplements stored in his bag, the ugly looking pills that made dreams come true for those with the right genetic soup. She would recognize that wildness soon if Tinker had anything to say about it.
Lisa blinked, her lips parted in surprise, but she didn’t pull her hand free of his. In fact, she tightened her grip, holding on to Tinker as if he were a lifeline. “Tala? My sister’s name is Mary Ellen. You must be mistaken.”
Tinker shook his head. “I’d forgotten. You’re right. She told me she’d changed her name to Tala. It means ‘wolf’ in some Native American language. Can’t recall which one. Interesting, though, that she choose that name, especially with you working in a wolf sanctuary.”
Suspicion flashed across her face, but she didn’t release his hand. “I haven’t seen Mary Ellen or heard from her in years. Not since…”
Tinker nodded, still preternaturally aware of the contact running between them. He wondered if she felt it, if she recognized the link, the sense of a kindred spirit. “Your father’s trial, right? That’s what Bay, your brother, told us. He recently reconnected with your sister, and they’ve both been trying to figure out where you ended up.”
The look of disbelief on her face turned to complete shock. “Baylor, too? Where? I’ve tried for years to find him. To find both of them. Where are they?”
“Mary Ellen’s been in a little town in New Mexico where she went by the name of Tala Quinn. She had amnesia. Up until a few months ago, Bay worked for the government as a special agent. They only recently located you and sent me to track you down. Look…” Tinker released her hand. Immediately he missed the sense of connection. “There’s a lot I want to tell you, and I imagine you’ll have even more questions.”