by Christa Wick
Desired by the Wicked Woodsman
Christa Wick
Contents
Description
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Copyright
Description
When it comes to Joshua Reeves, the alpha cat in the Night Falls pack, wolf shifter Clover Hughes is about to go from despise to desire in sixty seconds flat.
The bear that fostered her is about to have cubs of his own. Her big brother and her best friend are leaving on their honeymoon.
And her body has decided she needs a swift kick in the butt before she winds up a spinster.
A rare second heat has her heading for the hills—the same hills prowled by Joshua Reeves, her brother’s new second in command and the pack’s alpha cat.
Emphasis on cat.
Clover Hughes doesn’t do cats. Members of a pride in California slaughtered her parents and hunted her until she was on the brink of death. A crazy she-cat in Night Falls shot her with a poisoned bullet.
Rinse, wash, repeat—
Clover Hughes doesn’t do cats. She knows that. Her heart and brain know that.
But the rest of her body isn’t listening.
Chapter 1
Clover
Pink chiffon bouncing around my knees, I engaged in a one-player game of hide and seek as I snuck candid videos and still shots of my brother and my best friend or—as they would forever after be collectively known—Mr. and Mrs. Braeden Hughes. They sat canoodling at the bridal table I had set up near the stage area of the clubhouse, Braeden’s arm wrapped around Paisley and their mouths frequently touching. Occasionally, they stopped the kissy face stuff long enough to accept the congratulations of pack members.
It was weird thinking about how many of the people coming up and telling Paisley she was absolutely glowing and all that yadda-yadda bullshit had been ready to dig a secret grave and dump her in it when it was first known that the pack had been exposed to a human. Seeing Mallory put a grandfatherly hand over hers before walking away, I shot eye darts at the old alpha wolf when he glanced up and caught me watching.
He may have helped save Paisley’s life, but he was a hard wolf to trust. And he had certainly tried to stir up trouble for me when I had been shot out at Holly Ulster’s place.
Mallory threw a smarmy wink in my direction then bowed in front of the venerable Delilah Frost, a she-wolf at least two and a half decades older than him. He held out his hand, asking for a dance. A shudder ran through me at the thought of them hooking up. I wasn’t sure who would be getting the short end of the…stick.
#ba-dum-tsh
#Rimshot
Snorting, I pointed the camera lens on my cell phone at the stage, snapping a shot of the expression on Rooster’s face as he saw Delilah and Mallory head for the dance floor together. Capturing his attention, I gave the hand signal we had agreed on when I wanted him to switch to a slow dance. The black eyes twinkled, his beard hiding a bearish grin but not enough to cover up the flash of white teeth.
I smoothed out a hard wince as I realized I had just put myself in danger of having yet another male shifter ask me for a dance. I had stopped accepting invitations after the third song. By that time, it was crystal clear they wanted to discreetly grind their virile hips in my direction while blabber-whispering in my ear about how I was the only single female in the pack of breeding age.
#BeMyBabyMama
#ThanksButNoThanks
Even with the pack’s over abundance of males, there wasn’t a one among them with whom I wanted to get horizontal.
Sneaking from one white and pink tinseled column to the next, my knee length Maid of Honor dress catching on the decorations, I backed into Rooster’s brother Clark.
“Hey, Clo,” he said. “We haven’t danced yet.”
I taped a smile on my face as I turned to him. Clark wasn’t openly out of the closet, but I knew he wouldn’t start talking about the future we could have together while practicing the Pelvic Thrust from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. But if I did danced with him, that would put me right back in the danger zone of all the hapless hopefuls.
My lips parted with an excuse, my phone held up as proof I was busy recording precious memories.
He cocked a brow at me. “I’m pretty sure you owe me for getting Rooster to DJ.”
“He’s an attention whore,” I argued. “I could have put him in diva makeup and a princess gown and he’d still be up there…but I owe you for February.”
Clark and Rooster had been with Braeden right after that crazy hell cat Landa Judd had shot me out at Holly Ulster’s place. They secured the perimeter while Braeden threw down some alpha first aid on my dying ass. Then they sheltered me and Paisley in their basement fortress during the early days of my convalescence while parts of the pack were turning hostile against me and Paisley.
“Then I’ll call in that chip,” Clark smiled and extended his hand.
I slid my cell phone in the hidden pocket of my pleated skirt then took Clark’s hand and walked with him to the dance floor. I lifted my arms, my hands locking behind his neck as his locked against the small of my back, a fist of space between our two bodies.
Braeden and Paisley had left the table to dance, too. Watching them, I could forget about the next tap on my shoulder from whichever male was feeling lucky. It was amazing to see them like that. They looked so happy and Paisley really did glow. Both of them were alight with the flame they had secretly kept burning for one another.
Peeling my gaze away from the happy couple before I got weepy, I surveyed the clubhouse that I had spent all of the day before decorating. For the venue, everything was as perfect as I could make it. I had even rented a classy dance floor and had some of the Woodsmen move the existing stage to the opposite side of the room so Paisley wouldn’t be tripping the lights fantastic over the same spot where she had bled into the concrete three months ago.
With a sigh, I snuck a side peek at Clark. He and his brother were black bears, both with dark curly hair. Rooster had a beard, Clark had shaved his for the day. Both were near me in age. Both were handsome, each in a slightly different way. But I wasn’t attracted to either.
Still, if Clark wasn’t going to come out of the closet and I wasn’t going to find a shifter among the other males in Night Falls, I could have a wedding with him. I could wear the dress and eat the cake and not have to have sex with some one who didn’t ignite any warm, wet tingly feelings downtown.
#WhatItCouldWork
The song ended. Clark pulled back, catching my hand and brushing his lips against my knuckles in a gentlemanly fashion. There was no spark for either of us. I knew what Clark’s deal breaker was. My own reason for getting twitchy and itchy at the mere thought of pair bonding with any of the pack’s males was the continuing mystery.
Turning away from my dance partner, I collided with the brick wall of Joshua Reeves’ chest�
�the resident alpha cat of Night Falls. With his frosty blue gaze sparkling at me, Reeves wrapped his arms around my waist, his hands locking directly over flesh still warm from Clark’s touch.
Turning to stone, I stared at him. There was no way I could tape, glue or plaster a smile for the cat onto my face. I didn’t care that he was the new vice-president of the Woodsmen Motorcycle Club, hand picked by the club’s new president, who happened to be my traitorous but still adored big brother. Reeves barely got a single bonus point for having a hand in saving Paisley’s life a few feet from where he had me trapped in his arms.
One bonus point couldn’t wipe out the hundreds of demerits he had stacked up over the years. To start with, he was a hundred points in the hole for being a cat. Several dozen had to be deducted for all the times he had tried to subvert Taron and Braeden’s authority as the two top leaders of the pack and the MC. Then there was the hardly insignificant and utterly inconvenient fact of how he tried to court Paisley when Taron had declared she would have to pair bond with one of the pack’s shifters after discovering our true nature.
All total, the final tally was rounding in on minus one million billion points to House Reeves.
“So many parties here and we’ve never danced,” he said, pulling me toward him so that my arms smooshed against the broad chest.
“We’re not dancing now,” I responded, my lips mashing together to keep the words from coming out loud enough they would reach Braeden’s ears.
I still couldn’t believe my brother had appointed Reeves as his Veep. If that was a cunning act of diplomacy, then diplomacy could suck my big, hairy balls.
Opening up a little space between us, he glanced at my feet. Cocking both brows, he fired off one of his indifferent insults.
“Paisley wouldn’t sign off on the combat boots, I see.”
“I planned the wedding,” I growled softly. “If it was up to them, they would have eloped while Taron was still president.”
Seeing the big bear who had fostered me and Braeden when we first arrived in Night Falls, I shot him an imploring gaze to rescue me. With his very pregnant mate wrapped in his arms, he shook his head and grinned.
Reeves ran a finger along one of the ruches of my gown’s sleeveless bodice, trailing all the way to the corseted back. “So this was your selection?”
He plucked at one of the strings keeping me strapped in, his gaze climbing from where my full breasts were rocking the V-neck to the rich pile of mahogany hair I had grown out for the spring wedding. The slow inspection of my body made me itchy and hot. I stepped on his toes, my disapproval causing a temporary unibrow to mar my forehead. Bringing an elbow between us, I surreptitiously leveraged my way out of his embrace so that we were standing side-by-side rather than tits to steel-plated chest.
Pulling my cell phone out, I snapped another picture of Braeden and Paisley feeding one another strawberry bits.
“Do you have a valid reason for polluting the air around me?” I sniped in a whisper as I took one step to the side.
I knew keeping a low voice around shifters was close to pointless even with the music on at a steady eighty decibels. But it worked to telegraph a request that anyone listening not blab about it to those out of earshot. Given that I was the sister of the club’s new president’s and was getting a touch bitchy with the VP, there was zero chance of people not blabbing.
I just didn’t want the gossip to explode tonight—or before the honeymoon was over.
“Just so happens that I do, wolfling.” Hooking his finger through one of the bodice strings, Reeves reeled me back in. “As your brother’s second, it is my unpleasant task to look after your bratty ass while he is enjoying himself in Aspen. Now seemed like a good time to go over the ground rules.”
Bratty ass?
Ground rules?
#HellNo!
“Protocol, wolfling,” Reeves said, his lips hovering less than a centimeter from my ear while his hot breath steamed my neck.
#CatFumes
#LessRoadkillMoreListerine
I moved an inch away, my hand coming up to scratch at the flesh he had heated.
“I’ll keep it simple for you. If you encounter any problems, you will call me immediately.”
My mouth puckered with the strain of holding in a dozen snarky retorts. Breezing through to the next rule, he didn’t seem to appreciate or even notice my impressive display of self-control.
“You will check in at nine each night with a text to me that you are at home. And you will be home when you send the text. You will stay home until after sunrise.”
I cut him a side eye, the two extra coats of mascara I had put on my lashes separating his smug feline smile into a dozen small slices that fueled my vengeful imagination.
“If you don’t text,” he growled, “I will show up and tuck you into your maidenly bed. I might even sew the blankets to the mattress. Understood?”
I turned to look at him straight on, my eyes slitting as I threw ice daggers at him. My grip tightened on the phone as I shook my head, my entire face working to wordlessly suggest where the hell he could stick his ground rules.
If he took my advice, he’d be walking around with his muscled butt cheeks tightly clenched.
Reeves captured my wrist, his other hand snatching my cell phone as I recovered from the shock of him grabbing me again.
“Give that back.”
Fighting to keep my tone conversational, a vibration ran through my body. I shot a glance toward the main table then at the dance floor to find Braeden and Paisley still blissfully lost in one another. No way was I going to let Reeves screw up the wedding party by making me lose my shit. No one—not even me—was allowed to cast the slightest shadow on this amazing day.
“When I’m ready,” he taunted. “If you want it before then, you’ll have to chase me around. Then everyone will know you’re sweet on me.”
“Not even sugar is sweet on you,” I growled as he wrapped an arm around my shoulder and drew me tightly to him.
Holding the phone out, he snapped a photo of us then opened my messaging app and plugged in his phone number, sending the picture to himself.
“There, wolfling, now you have my number—and I have yours.”
His cloudy blue gaze sparkled as he slid the phone back into my pocket, the heat of his fingertips warming my hip through the thin shell of fabric separating his flesh from mine.
“Stop…calling…me…wolfling,” I bit out.
Shaking his head, Reeves smirked then blew a kiss that made my blood boil.
“If I call you what I want to, you’d shred me.”
With the dance over, Braeden deposited Paisley in her chair then headed straight for me.
I scratched at my ear then my wrist and again along my cheek as I whispered a little prayer that Braeden hadn’t heard my exchange with Reeves or sensed the tension running through me.
He stopped two feet in front of me and grinned. “Have fun on the dance floor, baby girl?”
That was the thing about people in love—they wanted to infect everyone else with the emotion, even diehard future spinsters like me.
I tugged at my ear, the one Reeves had just finished breathing against, then reflected my big brother’s smile.
“Field marshal’s don’t have fun dancing—neither do wedding planners.”
My nails raked lightly at my chin. I had to force myself not to squirm in an effort to get rid of the itch squiggling against my hip.
#CatCooties
Braeden tilted his head to one side, his gaze narrowing as he scrutinized me from head to toe. I froze, every inch of skin on my body trying to crawl off my bones.
“You’re scratching a lot.”
I lifted my brows as if I hadn’t noticed—and because that was the only way to relieve a new itch spreading across them without scratching or rubbing and, consequently, reinforcing his point. Gritting my teeth, I smiled and offered a terse explanation that was shady as fuck.
“I don�
�t think I’ve ever worn chiffon before. Must be why.”
I had worn the material before, lots of time, but big brother was clueless beyond cotton, denim and leather. I could have wrapped Paisley in hospital gauze and he wouldn’t notice.
“Maybe,” Braeden said, his mouth flattening with a warning. “I seem to recall there’s something else that makes you itchy.”
I snorted, waved my hand then pressed it hard against the side of my tingling neck before countering his ridiculous suggestion.
“You are fully aware that I very carefully planned the wedding around that…particular affliction.”
I had gone into estrus almost as soon as the furor in February had died down and Braeden and Paisley started playing house. The heat was earlier than my usual timeframe, but I figured the datura Landa had dipped her bullets in had messed up my system in other ways.
Apparently, shooting me wasn’t enough for that insane hellcat.
#Overkill
Catching Braeden’s frown, I felt my plan for a perfect ceremony and after-party for him and Paisley begin to collapse.
“Baby girl, I can’t le—”
“Oh, no you don’t!” I softly growled. Stepping up to him, I used his big body to shield me from Paisley’s view, then jabbed my index finger three times in his chest. “I am all done with that for the year and you are going on your honeymoon.”
Gears spinning in my head for some way to put him on the defensive, I grinned as the answer came to me.
“Look, if you’ve got some kind of performance anxiety, you are not going to cancel and blame me.”
With a huff, he pushed his alpha energy at me, probably probing to see if I was hiding something before dismissing my accusation. I deflected the energy before it could penetrate me.
He huffed again, nostrils flattening. “I do not have performance anxiety, Miss Itchy.”
“Do, too,” I smirked, a little of my wolf poking through in the grin I flashed. “Now please collect your lovely wife. It’s time for the two of you to get on the road and start your honeymoon.”