by E A Price
One Night with the Wolf
(Book 14, Grey Wolf Pack Romance Novellas)
By E A Price
Copyright ©2017 by Elizabeth Ann Price
All rights reserved. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and doubtful.
Please note this story is intended for adults – it contains scenes of a sexual nature between a wolf shifter and a human, and lots, and lots of relationship angst that is not suitable for children.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter One
Susie stirred her cocktail again – a Screaming Orgasm. She’d already told everyone she’d never had a Screaming Orgasm before and there was a lot of laughter and jibes about how she was well rid of her ex-boyfriend. Now, she was just left with an over-sweet drink and a desire to go back to her room, don her pajamas and watch Mike and Molly reruns until she could go home.
But, she couldn’t. She was in Vegas for a bachelorette weekend, and she had to pretend like she was having fun. It wasn’t that hard to fake it – she had plenty of experience. She really never had a screaming orgasm before, but her ex still thought he’d given her hundreds.
Her best friend, Jules was getting married, and Susie was maid of honor. Susie wished she could be selfish and say she wasn’t going to the wedding, but she wouldn’t be so mean to Jules.
“We miss you, we barely see you,” said Jules, giving Susie a pout.
The other ladies chorused in with agreements.
Susie shrugged. “I’m only an hour away.”
She had moved away from the pack town she grew up in after she discovered her boyfriend was cheating on her. Like Jules and the other ladies surrounding her, he was a member of the pack. Susie was human but had grown up around all the wolves as an honorary member of the pack because of her close relationship with Jules.
Since she was a teenager, she always thought she would eventually mate with her – now ex-boyfriend, Allen, and would officially become a member of the pack. But that was a dead dream.
They grew up together, went to college together – they had a whole life plan of when they were getting mated, when they were going to have kids - it was all mapped out! Allen was the nephew of the alpha – a male many female wolves wanted. Susie thought she was lucky to be with him.
Then one day a waitress from the town diner called Helen – a young member of the pack - showed up to say she had slept with him and was pregnant. That kind of put a damper on his relationship with Susie.
Allen had easily admitted that he slept with Helen – he wasn’t even remorseful about it. He said he was a wolf who had wolf-like urges. He needed to slate his need every full moon and Helen had been available. Yeah, Susie bet she made herself available - the scheming, little hussy.
He didn’t see that he and Susie had to break up. But his pack had other ideas – his alpha insisted he mate with Helen. Given that the pup could have potential alpha genes, they didn’t want Helen running off to another pack with the pup. Which she had been threatening to do if Allen did not mate with her.
So, Susie was duly dumped, and Allen agreed to mate Helen. He had a choice – he could have left the pack if he insisted on being with Susie, but Allen wasn’t about to give up his high-ranking position. All the alpha’s family members had high positions in the pack. If Allen left, he would have to find a new pack and fight his way to a new position. He wouldn’t want to do that.
So, Susie duly left him and his skank to their mating and moved away, though not too far. She still had aging relatives to worry about, but she was damned if she was going to hang around and watch him raise his child with someone else. She just moved to the next town of Rose – another pack town, but at least the alpha didn’t have a nephew to cause Susie any grief. She managed to continue in her job as a sheriff’s deputy, so the move was pretty darn easy.
But, though she didn’t have to see Allen and Skankarella and their new cub every day, she still had friends like Jules that she didn’t want to lose. Which was why she had been dragged to the Vegas bachelorette party.
The bachelor party was also happening in Vegas. There had been an awkward moment when she ran into Allen in their hotel lobby. He gave her his smug, wolfy grin and asked her how she was. She said fine and then pretended he didn’t exist – like it wasn’t breaking her heart. Allen sure hadn’t been perfect, but she had loved him, and she had thought they would be happy together.
Susie rammed her stirrer into her cocktail, destroying a cherry. Well, she darn well wasn’t going to make that mistake again. She would never, ever give her heart away to a blasted wolf shifter again!
Jules patted her hand. “I didn’t realize he’d be here.”
She meant Allen – of course, she did. It was pretty much all they ever talked about anymore. Whenever Jules called, all she would talk about was what Helen had been doing, how she had been bossing other members of the pack around, how she had been wearing skanky outfits, and how much everyone hated her. They really needed a new topic of conversation.
“It’s fine,” Susie muttered.
Jules’ mate to be, Gregg, wasn’t particularly friendly with Allen – Allen considered him to be too low down in pack rankings for his attention – but pack was pack.
“I tried to ask Gregg not to invite him…”
Yeah, he’s the alpha’s nephew. The pack was all one big family group, apart from Susie who was now on the outside.
“At least you didn’t invite that bitch, Helen,” put in Candace. A she-wolf who was definitely not ‘Team Helen.’
After the truth came out, many females leaped forward to Susie’s defense. But a few others, Helen’s friends, and perhaps the smarter she-wolves, stuck by Helen. They said Susie wasn’t pack, and that Allen should be loyal to pack.
Jules let out a delicate snort. “Yeah, Gregg wanted me to because Allen asked him to, but I put my foot down at that.”
“Besides,” added Lila, “she’s got a new cub, it’s not like – ow!”
Candace just trod on her foot to shut her up. Lila threw her a furious look, but Candace was remorseless. She needn’t have bothered – mentioning it wouldn’t make it any more hurtful to Susie.
Susie had another sip of her cock
tail and licked her lips – it wasn’t bad. Ha, she could get used to having screaming orgasms – they were unlike anything she’d ever had before. Boy, she wished she could say that to Allen. It was her second drink that evening. Her third would be the last. She knew what it took to get drunk, and she had a plan about avoiding that. The last thing she wanted was to be so wasted she made her way over to Allen’s room in the night and screamed through the door about how much she hated him.
“You need to get over him,” declared Jules.
“No, she needs to get under another male,” giggled Lila.
“I haven’t met anyone I want to date,” said Susie. Yes, there were plenty of nice males in the Rose wolf pack, but she wasn’t about to get entangled with another wolf.
Candace snorted. “Who said anything about dating? We’re in Vegas, go grab someone for a one nighter.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I…”
It wasn’t something she did. No, she’d spent her whole life with one guy and had always been with him, and that blew up in her face. They had known each other for years before they had sex. She wasn’t sure she had the nerve to have sex with someone she’d only known for minutes.
“What about that guy at the bar?” whispered Lila, pointing.
“Where?”
Susie looked up and down seeing a handful of men in expensive suits with slicked-back hair and just plain slick smiles. The only other male had his back to them, and frankly, given the way his muscles and tattoos bulged, he looked like the Hulk’s larger, scarier brother. Susie was strangely aware of that guy the moment he walked in. He came in with another hulking male, but the other male was soon snapped up by a female. Her guy, though, while females approached him, resolutely seemed to prefer to drink alone. Not that she had been tracking his movements… he’d been to the bathroom once and was in there for two minutes. It wasn’t her fault - he just kind of drew the eye.
“The only one alone,” hissed Candace.
Yep, they were talking about the giant guy.
Instinctively, Susie blushed as her eyes wandered over all those muscles. “You’re kidding, he’s… not my type.”
“He’s sexy,” purred Lila.
“Sure in a ‘stay away from me’ kind of way,” admitted Susie.
The guy was huge – at least six and a half feet tall. He was hunched over, moodily staring at his beer. From their safe distance, Susie had noticed him – it was hard not to. Muscles and tattoos swelled out from under the short sleeves of his t-shirt, coupled with the buzzcut and worn jeans, he easily stood out amongst the suits and primped men in there. She was amazed they let him into the club, but then, who would be dumb enough to try and stop him?
A couple of women, all tall, leggy and wearing scraps of material as dresses, approached him. Susie and all her she-wolf friends watched with interest as he sent them on their way. Why on earth would he welcome Susie’s attention?
“Just go for it,” insisted Jules. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Well, she could walk over there, slip on an olive that had fallen on the floor, and then impale her eye on a drinking straw. That was just one scenario that sprang to mind.
“He looks like he wants to be left alone.”
“Well, just try and join him,” encouraged Candace, “if he says no, he says no – it’s not the end of the world.”
“There are worse things than some barfly not wanting to get a drink with you,” added Lila.
She knew that - she had lived through one of them quite recently.
“If he does want a drink, then charm him.”
Jules winked at her. Yeah, it was that easy. They forgot that the last time she had to charm a male she was only eight – she didn’t think that pushing muscles into the dirt and running away was an option now.
“I’m not sure I know how to flirt,” she admitted.
It had been so easy with Allen – after she made him eat dirt, she thought they were set for life.
Candace sniffed. “If I’m not mistaken, he’s a wolf shifter. I bet he’s great in bed.”
Big for a wolf thought Susie, idly wondering if she would feel suffocated under all that bulk. Generally, wolf shifters topped six-foot-one or two.
“Just the thing to forget the idiot ex,” sang Lila.
“I don’t know.”
She did not want to get involved with a wolf shifter again. But they weren’t talking about a long-term commitment…
“Well, maybe I should go over there then…” Lila started licking her lips.
Susie scowled, not liking the sound of that at all.
Jules nudged Susie’s elbow. “C’mon, one night with the wolf – what could it hurt?”
Chapter Two
Barlow stared at his beer - his way overpriced microbrewery beer. What the hell was cranberry wheat? What was wrong with freaking regular beer?
He bet the bunch of pussies in this club just ate it up. Probably refused good old-fashioned cheap beer.
Coming here had been a mistake. This wasn’t his crowd; this wasn’t where he wanted to be.
But he had listened to that dumb lion shifter who had taken off with the first human who batted her eyes at him. Stupid best friend idiot. His wolf growled out a few more insults.
Female company would be nice, but his animal wasn’t in the mood to make idiotic small talk and go through the motions. The break up with his last girlfriend, Roxanne hadn’t exactly put him in a good mood.
His wolf huffed in annoyance, and Barlow soothed him. No need to dredge all that up.
Leaving the army had been the right choice. He had been away from home for twelve years, and he was about ready to go back. He left home because he was itchy for something new, and his young wolf had felt strangled by both his father and his alpha. But he was older now, ready for a quieter life.
He took a swig of his disgusting beer hoping to drown that thought. Vegas was his last pit stop before actually going home. It was a chance to blow off steam - again, the idiot lion’s idea.
He wasn’t blowing any off, more like gaining more steam. The more he drank, the more agitated he became about actually going home.
What was he even supposed to do? He didn’t know anything else other than being in the army.
He had left the pack when he was eighteen determined to… what? Just be free? Maybe. Now he was returning twelve years later without much to show for it. What was he going to do, crash on his dad’s couch until inspiration struck on what he wanted to do with his life?
He glared at his beer – didn’t it use to take less of these to make him forget everything?
A delicate cough pulled him out of his funk. His wolf actually raised his head to take an interest in the female hovering at his elbow.
She smells like magnolia thought the beast with unexpected interest. Huh. When was it that he actually noticed something like that?
“Ummm, may I join you?”
He was going to tell her to get lost like the other women, but she wasn’t like them. Hadn’t come swaggering over to him, hadn’t assumed he would just fall over his tongue to buy her a drink.
She was small but curvy and conservatively dressed in a blue sheath dress that seemed to be trying to cover up those curves but failed miserably, and flat shoes that did nothing to enhance her diminutive size. Her light brown skin looked luminous, framed by shiny black hair, and her big brown eyes regarding him somewhat warily sparkled.
She didn’t look like she wanted to be at the club. In fact, given the way her eyes were darting around, he’d say she wanted to be anywhere in the world but there at that moment.
He held her in his gaze for a few moments while she squirmed and he came to a decision.
“Sure, can I get you a drink?”
*
Why didn’t he say no? He said no to all the other women. Did he know how uncomfortable this made her and was, therefore, trying to torture her?
He raised an eyebrow waiting for an answer.
“Ah, a Screaming… white wine.”
“A screaming white wine?”
Yeah, she was going to ask for a screaming orgasm, but that opened her up to all kinds of retorts she wasn’t quite ready to handle.
“White wine,” she clarified. “I’m Susie.”
“Barlow.”
She tried clambering up on the seat next to him – apparently, the furniture in the club was not designed for anyone under five-foot-ten. Her five-foot-two-inch frame never stood a chance. Her foot slipped, and before she could crash to the ground in the least sexy act the club had ever seen, a huge hand landed on her waist and hoisted her up. It was on her for less than five seconds, but she swore she would be able to feel the heated imprint for days.
By the time she was upright and less flustered, he was no longer looking at her; he was signaling the bartender. Her embarrassment managed to ebb a little, and she took a moment to study his profile.
Crap. He was like a Greek god. Staring at him across a room had in no way prepared her for this. She looked at his size, his muscles, and his tattoos, without really looking at his beautiful face. Good lord, why on earth was he buying her a drink?
As a joke, maybe? Was he going to throw it in her face and tell her not to ever be so stupid in future by thinking that someone like him would want anything to do with her? Well, she couldn’t even hang on to Allen – he had stomped all over her heart, and Allen wasn’t nearly as intimidating as this guy.
No, she couldn’t take any more humiliation. She started climbing down, ready to storm off.
He caught sight of her movement and frowned. “Where are you going?”
“Ah, oh, just to the ladies,” she lied.
That steel gaze trapped her for a few more moments before he nodded shortly. He took her arm and gently helped her down. She wobbled a bit when he removed his hand, and momentarily tried to think of a reason to get him to put it back, but then she pulled herself together.
Cheeks blazing, she scurried to the bathroom. Her friends had already left, insanely thinking she was set for the night.