Wolf (A Little Red Riding Hood Retelling) (Brother's best friend romance)

by J. A. Wynters

  He draws me to him, driving ever deeper as his rigid body bows and breaks beneath the carnality.

  He collapses, his forehead clings to mine for a second and our eyes collide. His face is painted in bliss and his lips drag a long blistering kiss from me before he rolls away, our lungs fighting for air, our bodies burning, humming flesh.

  44

  Wolf

  I wake up to her hot body pressed against me. Her delicate skin burning mine, I breathe her in. She smells sweet, like fruit, and body wash, and sweat, and me. I grin and shudder at the thought. Startled at the way it takes my breath away, knowing it’s not just her curves and softness I crave, but all of her. Aware that my feelings for her are already too big and too dangerous.

  I stroke the length of her neck and she purrs, making my body hum with electricity as her ass rubs my groin with her movements. Her lithe body, her soft moans, the sweetness of her skin—it does things to me, filling me with a sense of urgency that rattles me, like if I don’t show her how I feel, she’ll slip through my fingers.

  My teeth sink into her shoulder and she groans my name. I don’t care, I want her to know me. I want her to know my greed, to feed my need for her.

  I release her and her head slashes over her shoulder, her hungry eyes catching mine.

  “Good morning,” I whisper into her hair, and she squirms around me as my hands roam her naked flesh and dip between her legs, snatching her breath. I cup her chin and force her gaze to mine, I want her with me, I want to see how I affect her.

  Her mouth parts and her brow furrows a little as her hips begin to move, seeking the pleasure she wants to steal from me. I snatch my hand away and roll her on her back then capture her lips in a slow drugging kiss as I slip into her. A soft cry bleeds from her lips and I start to move inside her. Slow, calm strokes that have her writhing beneath me. I press my forehead against her and drive in again, savouring how good she feels—this girl, the only one I ever wanted, the only one I’ve ever felt anything for, the only one I’ll be willing to risk everything for.

  Her breaths are sharp and hard, and her clammy skin glues to mine as I pound harder into her. Her beautiful face twists and contorts in that delicious agonised pleasure she’s chasing. That only I can give her. Her nails dig long furrows into my back. I am transfixed. Her growing, desperate moans sear my soul, rip open a fierce ache to keep her clawing at me. Always.

  I slam into her, meeting the desperate way that she pushes into my thrusts till her hands grip at my waist and she cries out my name, and her pussy clenches around my cock, tearing a heavy groan from me as pleasure ripples through my spine and explodes inside me in violent, splendid waves of pleasure.

  I fall away catching my choppy breath and pull her to me, needing her body against mine, already aching for more of her. My need tinged with fear knowing this hungry, impatient thirst for her will never be sated, will always demand to be fed, and I realised, that for the first time in my life, I am willing to take desperate measures to not just make her mine, but keep her.

  “Shaw,” she snuggles around me, her limbs tangle around my body and send shivers that stir my desires.

  I kiss the top of her head and pull her closer. We lay in silence. Neither one wants to fracture the moment, to ask the questions, to wonder if this will end as soon as I release her.

  She pulls slightly away, and her lips brush mine in a delicate kiss that heats my skin, “Thank you for my birthday present,” she whispers, and my heart threatens to buckle.

  “Is that all it was?” I ask and find the long column of her neck, running my tongue along her skin then nip at her shoulder.

  She sucks in a sharp breath and our eyes lock. “I need a shower.”

  She slips out of my touch and I let her go. I watch her lithe body move, she’s delicate lines of sweetness, and I’m loath to watch her go.

  She flicks me a shy smile as she closes the door behind her, and my head falls back into my pillow. I screw my eyes shut for a second and make the decision for both of us.

  Red

  My body hurts, but it’s a good hurt; it’s the kind of pain that comes from being thoroughly fucked and owned—and Shaw made me feel like he owns me, like I could be completely his. But when it comes to him, I know everything runs on a ticking clock. By tonight he’ll move on and make another girl feel like she belongs only to him. So, I don’t examine how my heart feels or the kind of hurt that might be inflicted on if it I think about that reality too long or too hard.

  For one night he was my balm, stripping away the dead scarred remnant of a night that burned my soul to the ground.

  I step into the shower and let the hot water run along my skin, burn away the last remaining pieces of Wolf. If I keep lying to myself, maybe in the end, I’ll believe that letting him go is what I really want. What we both want.

  I let my head fall back and the water spill across my face when the door opens and Shaw steps into the shower with me. His beautiful face creased with emotion; his gaze ruthless, angry, full of savage desire. He cradles my face in his hands and his lips crush mine.

  He breaks the kiss long enough to glare at me with a scorching look, “You don’t get to wash me away,” he growls.

  A strangled sound falls from my lips as his smash against mine, and his body crushes me into the cold wall. His mouth hungry and bruising. My hands find his neck and slither up to his hair.

  He wrenches his lips away and falls to his knees, then tucks his face between my legs. His tongue punishes me like I’ve done something wrong. My hands rip into his slick, wet hair and my head falls back against the wall as he inflicts his torture on me. Heat bites my body and stings my feverish skin as he keeps me on the edge. Licking over, around and below the one place I need him to, bringing me to the brink just to hold back, over and over, denying me to the point of mindlessness.

  I moan in desperation and yank his hair hard—too hard—but he doesn’t seem to care. Instead, I feel his smile against me. At last his talented tongue finally hits my aching clit. He holds me as I buck, gripping my thighs. His nails dig into my skin, as my bones turn to jelly and pleasure splinters across my body. I cry out his name, a reverent, broken sound. His mouth remains locked on my clit till I shudder against him. When he finally releases me, it’s to stand and lift me up. My wobbly legs wrap around him in easy surrender.

  He kisses my neck, and licks his way up where his gritty voice growls in my ear, “I don’t just want one night with you Red.”

  He lines his cock up with my sensitive pussy.

  “What do you want?” I ask on a shallow breath.

  “More," he growls as he thrusts forcefully into me.

  My breath stalls and I don’t know if it’s the words or the way he’s pounding inside me, punishing, forceful, like he means it.

  His mouth closes on my shoulder and he bites the skin, groaning as he does. His thrusts get quicker, more demanding as my hands slide along and dig into his slick, wet shoulders, fighting for grip as our bodies collide.

  His fingernails bite into my hips, clinging to me in a possessive harsh hold Pleasure crackles inside me, and I cry out his name as he thrusts a final time. His body jerks, staggers, and shudders against mine as he lets out a new kind of groan, it quavers and breaks, and it’s desperate and loud and echoes against the tiles as he finds his own release.

  He sets me down and pulls me to him where I melt against his burning skin and his lips brush mine.

  “Shaw.” I give him a small smile as my heart skitters.

  “I want everything,” he whispers and nuzzles my neck, and I draw in a shuddering breath. My heart daring to beat a little faster at his words.

  “I want that too,” I try to push away, “But —”

  He cuts me off with a bone melting kiss that holds too many promises I’m afraid he won’t keep.

  “No buts.” He breaks away only to speak, then his lips are back on mine, feverish and demanding, making me his with every swipe of his tongue and stroke of
his hand along my back.

  “Shaw…”

  “We’ve wasted too much time. I’ve wasted too much time.” Regret shades his eyes, “No buts, just us. You and me. I want more, Red, I want everything.”

  “You’re selfish, you take what you want without consequences.”

  “I am selfish, and I want you all to myself.”

  “You’ve already broken me once.”

  “Then let me heal you.”

  I allow his mouth to claim mine, his hands to take what they want from me, and my heart to dare hope.

  He’s in the kitchen, his skin flushed, his wet hair tousled in a frenzied mess. His face splits with a sexy grin as he walks towards me and hands me a cup of coffee. His lips seal on mine and he kisses me, it’s tender and beautiful and my knees threaten to buckle.

  He steps away and grabs something from the counter, “You still haven’t opened your birthday present.”

  Heat stings my face as my body remembers the gift I did get. I reach for the wrapped parcel and put my coffee down.

  “Thank you.” I study the gift, his eyes locked on mine are coloured by anticipation.

  I pull the red ribbon and strip away the gift wrap. The breath rushes from me and my gaze darts from the book to Shaw.

  “First edition Count of Monte Cristo. How?”

  “You seemed to really want it.”

  “When? I’ve never told you anything about that.”

  He shrugs and his lips tilt at the corner, “That day when you had your interview.”

  My brow furrows as I search for the memory.

  “You stared at this book for ages.”

  “I could have just been looking.”

  “You could have, except that you have two other Alexander Dumas first editions.”

  “You went through my stuff?”

  “Hunter mentioned it once.”

  “Once?”

  “A few years ago.” His brow digs in as if he’s trying to remember.

  “And you remembered?”

  “Your favourite colour is blue even though most people assume it’s purple. You take your coffee with a half a teaspoon of sugar and just enough milk to tame the black. You never let your guard down and you don’t let anyone in, and that’s probably mostly my doing. You look down when you’re anxious and bite down on your lower lip when you’re concentrating, and the sound of you coming on my cock is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  I swipe at him with my hand even as a lump stretches in my throat and fire courses through my blood. Somewhere in all my anger for him I didn’t realise Shaw has been storing every little bit of information he’d ever learned about me.

  I gape at him with a slightly open mouth and question everything I thought I knew about him.

  His arm winds around me, “I know everything about you, Red, and anything I don’t, I intend on finding out.”

  His lips are on mine and the kiss is hard and long as my fingers weave in his hair, and my legs wrap around his waist and our coffee gets forgotten.

  45

  Red

  Stealing time with Wolf is my new favourite obsession. It’s like learning a new art form. Not just the sneaking around and hiding from the world, but learning Wolf himself. The way his body responds to mine, the way his tongue dances when he kisses me long and deep, the desperate sounds he makes when he slides his cock into me, and the way his eyes screw shut, and mouth falls slightly open when he comes.

  The more I learn about him, the more I want to know. The way his low laugh rumbles through me, and how his heart speeds up when he holds me close, and the way he kisses me, like it’s the last time each time he leaves my bed for his.

  He is more than lines and shapes on paper, but a deep well of kindness and light he doesn’t show others. Shaw, the man I used to know, the one before he became a lone wolf.

  We find a dance that we master. He sneaks into my bed at night or finds me after work, where we sneak into the back alley and he fucks me like a whore while making me feel like his queen. We are shades of grey. Lack of sleep coats us as we find each other in stolen moments. But when I lie in his arms, I am wide awake pinching myself that this is my new reality.

  When I am not with Shaw or at work, I sink into my art, my portfolio almost complete. The last piece done. I stare at it and my body fills with a kind of warmth I’ve not felt for a long time. Pride. I have captured him in a way I never thought I could. I just hope that when it’s displayed everyone else can see his many faces, not the lone wolf act that he gives off so effortlessly—the cocky nonchalance—but his deep, bruising sadness and endless loyalty, his fierce protectiveness and his endless haunting love.

  I’m so deep into my work it takes me a while to realise my phone has been ringing.

  “Hi.” I can’t help the stupid grin that smears itself across my face. He makes me giddy.

  “I want to take you out.”

  “That’s a bit harsh, I thought things were good between us.”

  He chuckles and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I like that I can make him do that. “On a date.”

  “Date? You date?”

  “I want to date you.” He’s suddenly a little sterner and butterflies swarm in my belly.

  “I think I’d like that.”

  “I’ll pick you up after work.”

  “I’m not really dressed—”

  “—just the way I like you.” He quips and hangs up on me.

  I hate that I smile and melt into my chair.

  “A movie?” I ask as he walks me into the theatre. I feel cheated.

  “What’s wrong with a movie?”

  I think about all the reasons I can give him, and how I’d rather talk to him over a plate of food or a long drive. But even as I conjure up a hundred and one reasons, his lips meet mine in a long, burning kiss, and I realise any time with Shaw alone in the dark would do.

  “Nothing,” I shrug as he pulls away.

  He smirks and leads us towards the theatre.

  “Before we go inside—”

  “Yeah?” he quirks a single eyebrow.

  “I want to tell Hunter.”

  He nods, his lips stretch into a thin line and he squeezes my hand, “We will, just not yet.”

  “But why?”

  Wolf grips the back of his neck and sighs, “It’s not that simple.”

  “How is it not simple, you’re his best friend.”

  “And his business partner and his housemate…” he sucks in a deep breath, “It’s not the right time.”

  I sigh. “Okay, but we do have to tell him, soon.”

  He nods and smiles, and his mouth covers mine in a long warm kiss that makes my head spin and my heart flutter. “Soon, I promise.”

  I concede and he leads us to our seats.

  The room darkens and a hush falls around us as the movie starts playing. I relax into my seat and get absorbed into the movie. And as we continue to watch, his hand slips onto my thigh and his long fingers draw slow leisurely circles on my skin. He grabs my skirt and bunches it up, pulling it up my legs with no hesitation on his part. I look around, no one is in our row, which is why I don’t grab his wrist or ask him to stop as his fingers press into my underwear. When I look at his face he’s staring straight ahead, as if he’s completely immersed in the movie.

  He doesn’t look at me once as his fingers slip into my underwear. I suck in a stuttered breath and allow my head to fall against the seat, pretending to watch just like him, even as self-consciousness gnaws at my edges. Not that it matters. I stare into the big screen as Shaw’s fingers taunt and tease, images on blurring into colour.

  My body tenses against his fingers, my hands clutch my seat, my hips grind, seeking relief as pleasure builds inside me. He reads me, my needs, his rhythm matches mine. At last he turns to look at my face, his eyes dark and intent. My lips hurt from holding in my desperate sounds, my feet feel numb, and my hands cling to my seat as I implode with a force so intense my whimpers escape and
Shaw swallows them into his mouth, silencing me. When he pulls away, he takes his fingers with him and puts them to his mouth.

  “Fuck, you taste good,” he says as he licks his lips and his eyes return to the screen as if he didn’t just ruin me. “I can’t wait to have seconds later,” he growls.

  “Later?” I shudder.

  His gaze finds mine one once again, his face set in severe intensity, “And after that, and after that and always.” He’s so serious my heart forgets to beat.

  “You overwhelm me Shaw,” I barely manage.

  “I want to overwhelm you.”

  And he does, later when we’re alone, he shows me just how much more of him I get to enjoy.

  The days keep falling away, and moments without him become almost painful till sleep becomes a memory, and every waking hour is spent kissing him and touching him and having him for myself.

  46

  Hunter

  I step into the bright sunshine and squint for a second before I settle my sunnies over my tired eyes. Another long shift that ended in some girl’s bedroom. I need food and sleep. I start walking towards the tube station when I hear my name. I look up and down the road till I see a blonde girl. She walks right at me and smiles.

  “Hi Hunter.”

  I do a double take and examine her. She’s slim and a little mousey but I can’t seem to place her.

  “Hey.'' I give her one of my trademark smiles and wonder if I've recently spent some time with her. She’s definitely easy on the eye.

  “You’re looking good.”

  “Thanks, you too.” I track her face and take her in. “Sorry I’m really trying here but I can’t seem to remember where we met.”