by Tamara Hogan
“I’m glad you think so,” she said with the slightest hint of amusement. She touched the rims of his glasses. “Mind if I take these off? Wouldn’t want them to get broken.”
His pulse jumped. Broken? Just what did she have in mind?
Did it matter? “Go ahead.”
His breath quickened as she slipped the glasses off, as what little he could see in the shadowy room blurred to fog. He heard soft twin snicks as she folded the titanium bows against the lenses. A click as she set the glasses down on what must be a bedside table.
She grabbed the fabric at the unbuttoned neck of his oxford shirt and yanked. Buttons flew, skittering against the hardwood floor. She dragged the shirt down his arms, baring his chest to her touch, leaving his hands stuck in the sleeves.
And then her mouth was on him. He jumped as her teeth grazed his nipple. She latched on, suckling strongly, and he felt the rhythmic tugs all the way to his balls. A growl pushed up out of his throat, rough and ragged. She was destroying him.
He fought with the cuffs of the shirt, tore them, frantic to touch her. He had to touch her. Had to. Every muscle in his body was coiled tight, ready to spring. But when he finally freed his hands, dropping the ruined shirt to the floor, he cupped her cheekbones instead of her breasts. Tipped her head up. Blinked against the last of the liquor swimming through his system. Did she know who she was with? Did she know how much he—
“Love me, Gabe.” Her mossy green eyes were shiny in the moonlight. “Love me.”
His heart leaped at her words, and his body quickly followed suit. Tipping them both back onto the soft bed, Lorin’s breath left her chest with a whoof of surprise. Rather than scrabbling for the dominant position, she wrapped her arms and legs around him, pulling him more firmly into her embrace.
Skin. He needed to feel her skin.
After a couple of mindless yanks and tugs, their clothes were gone. They rolled on the moonlit wreck of a bed, over and over again—skin to skin, hand to hand, mouth to mouth. He gasped as her legs twined around him, groaned as his naked, violently aroused flesh nudged her lush, wet center. After a tiny, helpless roll of his hips, he pulled back. Condoms. In his wallet—
She leaned over to the bedside table, grabbed something. A soft tearing sound, the scent of latex, and then her cool hands stroked a condom onto his cock. Pulling their bodies back into perfect alignment, she tightened her legs around him. Tugged. Hard.
And then he was inside her, thrusting and lost… lost in time, in the feel of her inner muscles milking him, in the humid puff of her breath against his shoulder, in the desperate cling of her strong arms and legs.
“Harder,” she moaned.
He pulled out, flipped her onto her stomach, and pulled her up on all fours. Ranging his body over hers, he touched her with every inch of skin he could.
“More, Gabe. More. Love me…”
Her words made his seed boil, his head swim, his balls pull up tight. Not holding back, using all his strength, he mindlessly thrust into her from behind, over and over and over again.
“Mate with me, Lorin. Mate with me.”
He loved her, as she asked, until they both broke apart.
Chapter 16
What a bed hog.
Lorin scooted back from the edge of the mattress she’d awakened to find herself clutching. Gabe sprawled over most of the bed, and if his even breathing was anything to go by, he was still deeply asleep. Sunlight flooded the room, painting a pale yellow stripe across the foot of the bed.
So much for that early start she’d threatened him with. Oh, well. They’d given each other a hell of a workout last night, and the featherbed felt like sin. No need to wake him up. Burrowing her head more deeply into her pillow with a contented sigh, she abandoned her ambition to get up and close the blinds.
At her side, Gabe snored softly.
She smiled. Gabe really couldn’t hold his liquor worth a damn, but thankfully his personal brand of inebriation leaned toward tactile and adorable rather than loud and obnoxious. On the drive home from Underbelly, the last tequila shot had hit him like a Mack truck, and he’d turned into a chatterbox, hopping from one subject to the next like a jackrabbit: How relieved he was that Glynna’s new prosthesis was working. How worried he was about his traveling parents, especially his mother. How he wished that Gideon would just jump Andi Woolf’s bones already and be done with it. Something about Gideon and purple panties. During this amusing, largely one-sided conversation, she’d had her hands full just keeping the truck on the road, because his kept wandering from the passenger seat over to hers, cruising her body, their usual skill and precision in no way impacted by the tequila swimming in his system.
She’d allowed it.
Once they’d reached her townhouse, they’d spent an entertaining couple of minutes in her attached double garage, kissing, fumbling with their clothes, giggling like kids, until the overhead light timed out, plunging them into darkness. Taking hold of Gabe’s hand, she’d found the door, tugged him inside, and he’d wandered off while she dealt with the security system. She’d found him at the foot of the stairs, grinning at her favorite picture of Buttercup, Butter drooling through her massive bulldog underbite.
They’d kissed their way up the stairs. Heated murmurs, muttered demands, his lips and clever hands branding her skin. After removing her shirt, she’d torn his from his body—and her action had triggered something within him, something feral and urgent and so, so beautiful. In the lost hours that followed, Gabe had unleashed a positively alpha display of erotic skill and dominance—and she’d… allowed it. Reveled in it.
A breath of a moan escaped. Without opening her eyes, she reached over to his pillow and twined her fingers in his hair. She wanted to allow it again, right now.
Would he remember half of what he’d said—half of what they’d done—last night? Would he remember the incendiary words he’d whispered, barely audible in the dark?
“Mate with me, Lorin. Mate with me.”
Had he… proposed to her? If so, he hadn’t waited for an answer. Instead, he’d turned her onto her back again, stretched her arms over her head and covered her, full-length, imprinting her with his scent. And then, with their gazes locked, he’d brought their lips together and filled her, the long, slippery strokes making her gasp in dark delight until they both tipped over the edge.
Had he meant it, or had it been the liquor talking? Maybe he hadn’t sobered up on the drive home as much as she’d thought. And why hadn’t his words sent her hauling ass from the bed, scuttling away from danger? Because she hadn’t. Nope, she’d stayed right there, in the dark nest of the bed, taking everything he offered and making some heated demands of her own.
Lazy languor filled her, a low, luxurious ache. Her hand drifted south, stroking from Gabe’s head to the nape of his neck to his upper back. There was something to be said for lazy mornings in bed. Maybe she’d—
She stilled her hand against Gabe’s upper back. His… very hairy upper back. Tipping her head on her pillow, she opened her eyes.
There was a wolf in her bed.
Adrenaline spiked but quickly subsided. It was unmistakably Gabe: about two hundred lean, muscular pounds, a glorious black pelt, with that same small blaze of white behind his ear that he had in his human form. He lay sprawled on his side, four legs extended outright toward his side of the mattress. His breath puffed lightly out of an aquiline snout. One big paw twitched as he dreamed.
She stroked the white blaze behind his ear. He huffed a sigh in response but remained asleep.
She drifted back to sleep too, her heart filling her chest like an over-inflated balloon.
***
“This thing’s going to break apart if you push it much harder,” Gabe said from the passenger seat of Lorin’s ancient Ford truck. The vehicle seemed held together with little more than primer and Bondo, and produced so much ambient noise that they could barely talk—which was good, because he was still mortified she’d had to haul
his drunk ass home with her to her place last night. They were whizzing north on I-35 approaching Hinckley, and traffic clogged the highway like arterial plaque. All around them, cars, trucks, and RVs jockeyed for position as people drove north to cabins and campgrounds for the weekend.
Lorin turned down the old-school Bon Jovi blasting out of a stereo system worth more than the rattletrap truck. “What?”
He indicated her speedometer. Not that it worked. “Can you slow down a little?”
“Sorry.” Lorin eased her foot off the accelerator and rolled her head to stretch her neck. “How’s the head?”
“Fine,” he said testily.
His head was fine. What wasn’t fine was that he’d woken up in her bed that morning in wolf form. Thankfully, he’d shifted back before she woke up, before she climbed on top of him and ridden him, long and lazy, into glorious exhaustion. Two shifts and making love all night long had taken energy reserves he wasn’t used to expending. The huge breakfast they’d shared at Lorin’s place that morning had long since burned off, and he’d missed lunch.
“Feel like stopping at Tobies to eat?” he asked. The exit was just ahead, and he was hungry enough to gnaw through the truck’s ratty upholstery.
“Sure.” Lorin hit the blinker, checked her mirrors, and muscled the truck to the right-hand lane.
Despite their plan for a morning departure, the day had gotten away from them. After leaving Lorin’s place, they’d stopped at his, but then what was supposed to be a quick stop at Sebastiani Labs to pick up a few things before heading north to Isabella had turned into a couple of impromptu meetings instead—including one with Elliott, who’d wanted to make sure there’d been no unfortunate fallout from Gabe’s discussion with his alpha after yesterday’s Council meeting. When he’d finally made his way to his own office, he found a fully configured Bat Phone sitting on his desk, right next to the purple satin panties Gideon had so thoughtfully set there the night before.
Living in a tent. Panties on his desk. Feeling Lorin up on a crowded dance floor. His life sure had taken some unexpected turns since Lorin opened that box.
The old truck rattled and shuddered up the exit ramp. Lorin had somehow convinced him to take only one vehicle up to Isabella—they’d save on gas—but why did the one car have to be hers? He was now completely dependent upon her for mobility, and what sounded like a busted muffler rendered her environmental argument completely moot.
He glanced at her, a suspicion sparking to life. Damn it, he could still see well enough to drive—in the daylight, at any rate. There was no need for her to treat him like he was damaged. Feeble. “Lorin, we could have taken my car.”
“You wanted more scratches in that paint?”
Her reasonable answer doused the embers of his annoyance. She had a point, which was… annoying.
Lorin parked in the overflow lot, and they walked to the restaurant. The scent of cinnamon rolls and grilled beef hit him as soon as he opened the door, making his stomach growl. The hostess seated them at a table for two near the windows and handed them plastic-coated menus. While he loved fine dining, he also appreciated casual family cafés like this one, with their bright lights, worn Formica tables, plastic tumblers of ice water, and the menus featuring meatloaf, hot beef sandwiches, and BLTs.
He needed meat.
He picked up the menu, opened it—and the words swam, then disappeared into the void. Damn it. He held the menu out at arm’s length, and when that didn’t work, he brought it close again. He tipped his head to the left, the trick he usually used to work around the gaps in his field of vision. No go.
“Need some help?”
Her matter-of-fact offer made his diaphragm clutch, but after a blink and another tilt of his head, the blurry black letters finally formed words. “I’ve got it, thanks.”
When the middle-aged waitress came to take their order, Lorin said, “I’ll have the meatloaf with double mashed potatoes and gravy, a side of onion rings, and…” She pursed her lips. “A piece of apple pie with extra whipped cream, please.”
The waitress didn’t blink at her order, just scribbled on her pad. “And how about you, sweetie?”
Gabe shoved aside thoughts of what he could do with extra whipped cream. “Hamburger and fries, please.” He’d snitch a bite of Lorin’s pie for dessert.
As the waitress walked away, Lorin smirked. “No green salad?”
Was he really so predictable? “I decided to indulge myself. I’ll run it off tonight.”
Indulging. Running. Ordinary words suddenly seemed spoken in bold font, and Lorin’s dilated pupils indicated that she felt it too. Shifting in her red vinyl chair, she fiddled with her napkin-wrapped silverware, removing the paper ring that secured the bundle. Her breathing was a little fast, and her pulse throbbed at her neck.
Just the two of them, sitting at a restaurant. No weathered picnic table, no noisy, rowdy crew, no blaring tunes. No paperwork, no ticks and mosquitoes, no meeting agenda.
It felt like… a date.
Gabe glanced out the window, trying without success to ignore her luscious scent. So much had happened within the last twenty-four hours. Gabe’s presentation to the Council—which, under most circumstances, would be a career highlight—somehow seemed… insignificant now. The tense discussion he’d had with the alpha after the meeting barely registered. What lodged in his mind like a sliver was Lorin’s response to the question that Woolf had asked. “Loved ones are loved ones, regardless of their health issues.” Was it possible that Lorin didn’t see his genetic weaknesses as a barrier to a relationship? Or had she simply been making a point about the alpha’s attitude toward his own son?
Could both be true?
Then last night at Underbelly. He’d been eaten up with jealousy watching Lorin dance with that slinky vamp, but he hadn’t felt even one tug of regret seeing Kayla with her new bondmate.
Later, in Lorin’s bed, he’d shifted spontaneously in his sleep after making love with her. His wolf had known it was safe sleeping at her side.
Must be love.
He watched her shred her paper napkin. They could never turn the clock back, pretend they were simply work colleagues anymore, even if he wanted to. But now what? So many things were yet unsaid, but if he said too much—asked for too much—he’d lose her for sure.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your eyes?”
Her soft question, and the slight hint of hurt feelings under the surface, blindsided him. All these issues swirling around them, and that’s what she wanted to talk about?
“You’ll need surgery soon?” she prompted with an ideal balance of interest and concern. Not too blasé, but… not wigging out either, prompting him to offer comfort rather than accept it, as was usually the case. Before he knew it, he was actually telling her about the blurriness, the black voids in his field of vision, and in more detail than he’d felt comfortable sharing with anyone except Gideon. His head-tilt trick. How driving was sometimes a challenge, especially at night. That he’d discovered in the lab that using an old-school microscope was now pretty much beyond his capabilities. That only yesterday, he’d been forced to increase the default font size on his laptop.
She reached across the table to twine their fingers together. “Schedule the surgery, Gabe. What’s up at Isabella has been there for hundreds of years. It can wait a little longer.” As she asked pointed questions about the procedure, risks, and aftercare, her expression riveted him. Soft, caring, yet battle-ready. Willing to fight on his behalf—and apparently willing to postpone at least some of their work until he’d recovered and could join her again.
Their work.
A weight he wasn’t aware he carried lightened. Tangling his feet with hers, he leaned in closer to the table separating them.
“Is your vision better or worse when you shift? Could you see me this morning?”
Shock rocked him back in his seat. She’d… seen him? Seen his wolf? And she’d still made love with him, with such sheet-tumbli
ng abandon? “I’m blind when I’m shifted,” he admitted. He indicated his glasses. “Until Sebastiani Labs creates glasses for wolves, or implantable vision correction lenses that can bridge a shift”—he shrugged fatalistically—“I’m shit out of luck. At least in human form, glasses can help with the myopia.”
“But your other senses aren’t impacted? Scent, touch, hearing?”
Of course she’d focus on capabilities instead of deficiencies. Despite claiming to possess not a single molecule of sentimentality in her spectacular body, she was definitely a glass-half-full girl. And she cared for him. The question was, how much?
He had to know. “Lorin, what are we doing here?”
“Eating?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Shagging each other senseless?”
He couldn’t let her joke her way through this conversation. “I’m serious, Lorin.”
“Believe me, so am I.” Under the table, her sneaky foot stroked north along the inner leg seam of his jeans. “Excellent sex is no laughing matter.”
The waitress approached, carrying a circular serving tray. “I’d say not.” She looked at their linked hands as she set steaming plates on the table. “You folks enjoy,” she said, departing with an amused backward glance.
At the table next to theirs, a toddler screamed, gleefully pounding silverware against the tray of his high chair.
Hell. Why had he broached such a sensitive topic at the busiest roadside restaurant in the state? No matter how the conversation went, he and Lorin would have to spend three more hours together in the tight confines of her truck—unless she decided to turn right around and drop his sorry ass back at his place.
For an intelligent man, sometimes he wasn’t very smart.
“You’re my lover, Gabe.”
The tone of her voice as she said “lover” made his stomach jump. He heard a banked sensual heat, exasperation, and affection—as if, maybe, he wasn’t just the most convenient candidate for the job. He said as much.