by Sky Winters
The stranger returned just as she was putting her phone away. “So, what do you think?”
He nodded, looking around the bright living room. “I like it; and the price is right.” He peered out the window to check out the street.
“Well, if that’s everything my contact information is on the sheet I gave you if you’d like to put in an offer. I’m going to have to close up now, the open house is finished.” Her tone was a little more clipped than she intended, but something about the man felt wrong and she wanted him to go.
“Thank you. I’ll be in touch soon.” And he showed himself out.
Jana heart was in her throat as she tried to get her wits about herself, but she had a hard time shaking the sinister feeling that had settled around her.
“Jana, are you alright?”
She woke up from her reverie to find Stephen standing in front of her. “When did you get here?”
“Just a minute ago. Did that guy leave?”
“Y– yeah. I’m okay.”
Stephen wasn’t buying it. Something had left her spooked and he needed to find out what it was. “Stay here while I look around. I want to be sure that guy left.”
Jana nodded and clutched her stack of flyers to her chest as Stephen started shedding his clothes.
Her eyes widened as more skin was revealed. “What are you doing?”
With a wry grin he said, “Looking around.”
Jana’s eyes were glued to the long, lean lines of his body, the way his muscles flexed and contracted as he pulled his shirt over his head sent the butterflies loose in her stomach. He kept his back turned to her, but she was dying for him to turn around, so she could see the rest.
When he at last shucked his pants, he stretched and rolled his shoulders back. With a shudder, he shifted into his animal form. Jana’s jaw dropped at the sight of the timber wolf that stood where Stephen was only a minute before.
With only a single backward glance, he was gone.
Chapter 5
Keeping his nose to the ground, Stephen zig-zagged across the lawn, hot on the track of whoever it was that scared Jana. The scent trail was strong and oddly familiar, but he couldn’t place exactly why and that was going to bother him to no end later. The scent didn’t belong to a human, that much he could be sure of.
His ears perked up. An engine roared to life close by. Stephen dove into the bushes to hide and watch the street from the safety of the branches. If indeed he knew who the person was, then chances were good he or she would know him too even in his wolf form. A late model, black Toyota Tacoma crept past him, far slower than even the neighborhood speed limit required. The driver was watching and waiting, looking for someone.
I do know him. Stuck to the rear window was a decal that was only available to certain people of a certain rank. His hackles went up as the truck paused in front of the house a moment before rolling away.
Stephen waited in the bushes for several minutes after the tail lights disappeared to make sure the truck didn’t double back. It wasn’t until he was positive the coast was clear that he went back to the house.
Jana was right where he left her, leaning against the counter looking properly disturbed. He shuddered again and shifted back to human form. “Jana? Anybody home?”
“That. Was. Incredible! I’ve never seen anything like that before!” She stepped up closer and touched his face. It was warm, solid, and human skin not fur. “What’s it like?”
Stephen closed his eyes and pressed her hand to his cheek. “It’s hard to describe. You know when you get a chill and you have an involuntary, full body spasm? Shifting sort of feels like that, cranked to eleven.”
Jana stroked her fingertips down his neck, over the day’s stubble growth. “Does it hurt?” Digesting what she saw was difficult, her mind still had its head in the sand, refusing to acknowledge that her handsome man also happened to be able to go furry at will.
“Only if you fight it. Every shift is uncomfortable and not very pleasant, but the change happens so fast you don’t really have time to think about it too much.”
Jana was using the barest of touches, leaving goose bumps in the wake of her fingers. Stephen stood stock still, and it took all his control to just stand there and take the teasing without touching her himself. Outside of some making out, they hadn’t really gotten physical yet; and he wanted to so badly.
Jana was plucked straight from his fondest wet dream. At first glance, her slim stature wouldn’t cause her to stand out from the crowd, but on a second look, he was caught like an animal in a trap. Her long legs were strong and well-muscled. With the amount of time they had spent outside together he had had plenty of chances to admire them; and imagine how they feel wrapped around his waist or hooked over his shoulders.
She had snuck into his head and starred in many of his fantasies as of late and Stephen was ready to try a few of them out.
“Oh!” Jana dropped her hand. “I’m sorry. Did I go too far?”
“What?”
“You’re uh, still naked. I wasn’t paying attention. Sorry.”
Stephen glanced down to find that he wasn’t keeping his thoughts entirely to himself. He looked back at Jana with a wolfy grin. “Don’t be. I won’t do anything you’re not ready to, and I’ll be patient, but I’d like to take you to bed, Jana.” He slipped his hands around her waist, pulling her against him and just held her gaze. It was up to her to make the next move.
Jana’s breath hitched as Stephen’s hands pressed on the small of her back. Was she ready? Lord knew there were more than a few close calls between them, each opportunity came to a screeching halt when Jana pulled away. Stephen said he would be patient, but would it be fair for Jana to test that patience any more than she already had?
As she stared into the stormy depths of his eyes, she felt herself drowning in them. The storm brewing in them sucked her down deeper, pulling on her harder with each attempt she made to get air. He was getting harder to fight and she was running out of excuses, none of which had anything to do with him and all of them having to do with her.
For the last month, Jana forced Stephen to carry her baggage from Charlie and the other jackasses she dated. Stephen had proved he was nothing like them and quietly waited while Jana dealt with those insecurities, so they could move forward; together.
Even though she was sorely tempted by the cock pressed against her belly, there was still just one thing she needed to know. “When you said your kind mated for life,” her voice came out rough and barely above a whisper. “How do you know when you’ve found that right person or shifter?”
Stephen smiled and leaned forward to plant a gentle kiss on her lips. “We know when we’ve found the right person when the one we’ve found fits comfortably into our lives as if they’d been there all along.” He brushed an errant blonde lock off Jana’s forehead and tucked it behind her ear. “There’s a switch that flips inside us and that’s it. We can’t see anyone else but the one. It happens pretty fast after meeting that person.”
Jana’s heart did a little flip. She didn’t want to get her hopes up – after all the relationship was only a month old – but she couldn’t help but feel like Stephen wasn’t just talking in generalities anymore. The earnestness on his face and the way his eyes softened as he spoke, told her more than his actual words had.
She brought her hands to his neck, letting her fingers play with the soft curls at his nape. She was so done with fighting with herself. Raising up on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his. She drank him in as her mouth moved over his, exploring, tasting, allowing herself to be claimed by him, by finally allowing him in.
Stephen tugged her blouse out of the waistband of her skirt, and ran his hands up her taut belly to cup her breasts. When Jana sighed his name, his control slipped. He tugged her skirt up around her waist, and boosted her so she could sit on the kitchen counter. Fumbling with the buttons on her blouse, he nibbled along her jawline, and down her neck. He pulled down her bra, her full breasts spilling from
their restraints.
Jana leaned back on her hands, her head thrown back as Stephen devoured her. Her underwear was soaked through already. As Stephen’s mouth closed around her nipple, she thought she would come on the spot. Her hands tangled in his hair, holding him to her as he sucked, and the pink bud into attention. She gasped as he nipped at the skin of her breast. The jolt snapped her back to attention.
“Stephen! We can’t do this here.” He teased her outside of her panties. “Ah, I have to sell this,” she drew in a sharp breath as he parted her lips. “Ihavetosellthishouse!” The next words after that were choked off by a moan as Stephen slipped two fingers inside her.
Stephen quickly scanned the room. All the doors were shut and locked and the blinds were drawn. Nobody was going to know. “Don’t worry about it. No one can see in. Of course, I don’t mind an audience.”
At some point she had quit caring. The magic Stephen was working with just his fingers would have convinced her to fuck him as the halftime show at a Seahawks game. She didn’t notice he had squatted down, but with the first flick of his tongue over her swollen clit, she nearly shattered. “Oh my God, Stephen!” she cried as she white knuckled the edge of the counter. The man was talented. The pace of his tongue matched that of his fingers, driving Jana closer to orgasm. “Unless you want me to come on your face, you need to get up here and do me right now.”
“Yes, ma’am.” That was all Stephen needed to hear. He rose to his feet and pushed Jana’s legs open wide. In one swift motion, he slid her closer to the edge and pushed inside her. As he thrust, Jana wrapped her legs around him, fulfilling one of his simpler fantasies; and they felt as amazing as he thought they would.
Jana dug her nails into Stephen’s back and cried out. With the size of him, he stretched her, each thrust was pleasure bordering on pain. Exquisite and delicious pain.
“Look at me, Jana. I want to watch you.”
She leaned back on her hands again, allowing him to push deeper. The angle gives Stephen full view of her bouncing tits and ecstatic expression. She threw her head back as she came, pressing her lips tightly together to keep from screaming his name out. Stephen came undone quickly after her. The experience was worth the wait and then some.
Jana giggled as she sat upright.
“What’s so funny?” Stephen shrunk back a little.
Jana pulled him in and kissed him deeply before answering. “Nothing. This is the reaction of a woman who has been well and truly fucked properly and I can’t wait to do it again.”
Chapter 6
Jana sold the house within the week… to herself. She needed a place to live and while the cottage was nice, she couldn’t see it being home on a permanent basis. Besides, she had the itch to do another flip and at the open house, she realized the potential if someone would just put a little sweat equity into the property. There was also the little factor of selling a home she had already christened herself. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it; not with a straight face anyway.
Since that day, her feet hadn’t touched the ground. Jana hesitated to call it love – she felt it was too soon for that – but she was absolutely, positively, head-over-heels in lust with Stephen. He had awoken a sleeping dragon that refused to bed back down. It was a side of her she hadn’t known existed, but she was more than happy to get to know.
Her sex life in the past wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad, it just was. The relationships would start out hot and heavy right out the gate, and then slowly fizzle out starting with the quality, then the frequency, until finally she would settle into a sexless routine; and that’s what she just thought happened as time went by. Boy, was she surprised to find her forty-eight-year-old boyfriend had smoked every man that she dated in her twenties in just a few short weeks.
At first, she was surprised he could keep up with her; then she found that she had a hard time keeping up with him. Shifters had some amazing stamina. It was a good problem to have.
Jana had just settled in, in her office when a knock came at her door. Maura, the receptionist, poked her head in. “Ms. Oliver? There’s someone here to see you about purchasing a house. He says you met before?”
Jana furrowed her brow, trying to think of who it could be. “I’m not sure who he is, but I probably have and just forgot. Send him in.”
Maura nodded and pushed the door the rest of the way open, revealing the tall, brutish looking man from her first open house. The hair on her neck stood up, but she had to swallow her anxiety and put her most professional foot forward. The other one wanted to run screaming from the room. “It’s so good to see you again, Mister?”
“Walker. Theodore Walker, but you can call me Ted if you’d like, Ms. Oliver.”
His name in no way matched his menacing look. “Sure, Ted. How can I help you?”
“I am in the market for something a little older in the area. Something that might require some demo or rearranging a few features. Would you happen to have anything like that available?”
“Maybe. Give me a second to look.” She began typing the spec into her computer, but was quickly interrupted.
“That won’t be necessary. I know you have what I’m looking for what I’m looking for; I just can’t seem to find it. And by you, I mean you personally, not your company. My target is alluding me and I need a way to,” he waved his hand in the air as he groped for the right word. “A way to draw him out.” Ted sneered, revealing a missing front tooth.
Stephen! “I’m sorry, Ted. I don’t follow.” Jana figured if she played dumb, he’d go away.
Ted slammed his hands on the desk and lunged to his feet. He towered over her, the very presence of the man pressed down on her. “Where is Stephen Marciano?”
“Why?”
Ted’s sneer turned up higher in the corners of his mouth. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you and we wouldn’t want that, now would we?” With a Cheshire cat grin, he sat back down, resting his hands behind his head and his feet on Jana’s desk. Crusts of mud crumbled onto her blotter. “He’s been avoiding my calls and I have an urgent matter to discuss with him. So, what you’re going to do is pick up that phone and give him a little ring for me. Invite him for a lunchtime quickie.”
Jana remained frozen in place. Whatever this guy was, she wanted him gone. “No. And I thank you to mind your own business.”
“Oh, we are way past that, my dear. I’ve seen it all. I was particularly fond of the little black number you wore last week, but my favorite had to be at that first house you were selling with your skirt tucked up around your waist. You painted such a pretty picture, I thought about it for weeks.”
“You’ve been following me?” A mixed sense of dread and violation coalesced into a lead ball in her stomach.
“Following, watching, taking photos. But don’t worry, it’s not you I’m after, it’s that lap dog of yours. The photos are for my eyes only.” Ted watched Jana pale at the news. “So, go ahead and call Fido home so he and I can have a little chat.”
Jana steeled herself and put her foot down. “No. You need to leave Mr. Walker. I’m afraid I have nothing here for you in your price range.”
“Oh, I doubt that. You should see what I did to the women I met in Iraq while on tour; and that was for fun. Just imagine what a guy like me can do with a girl like you when there’s a purpose?”
She didn’t dare call his bluff. She picked up the phone and dialed Stephen’s number.
“Oh, and by the way, the promise still stands if you give away that I’m here. Keep it casual.”
She dialed the last number and prayed Stephen wouldn’t pick up. He answered on the third ring. “Hi, honey! How’s your day going?”
He sounded so cheery, like he didn’t have a care in the world. “I was just wondering if you’d like to meet me for lunch today?” She tried hard to keep the nervousness out of her voice.
“Of course. What time should I pick you up?”
Jana looked over at Ted for a time. He held up one index fin
ger. “Can you do one o’clock?” The clock on her computer read eleven-thirty.
“Can you go a little earlier? Say noon? There’s this great little place I’d like to take you to, but they close at two and I don’t want to rush.”
Ted smirked and nodded in approval.
“Noon is fine. I’ll see you in a few.”
Chapter 7
Stephen stepped out of his truck and paused to sniff the air. Something was wrong. It was the scent he caught at the open house. He would catch a faint whiff of it when out and about with Jana sometimes too. It was an acrid combination of human musk and something bigger and furrier.
As he hurried inside, the scent grew stronger. “Please don’t be who I think it is.” The trail was at its clearest at Jana’s door. Right before he opened the door he had figured it out and Jana was in a dangerous position. He dropped his mask in place and entered the room.
“Stephen!” Ted greeted. “How’s my favorite soldier? What’s it been now? Three years?”
Stephen replied through gritted teeth. “Not long enough.” Jana peeped out from behind the big man, all the color had drained from her face. “If you hurt her at all– “
“You’ll what? Bit my ankles? Is that how you greet an old friend Stevie, with threats? Now I got a proposition for you and you’re going to take the job.”
Stephen’s mouth set in a hard line. He wouldn’t take his eyes off Jana. “It’s not a proposition then if I have to do it. What do you want, Walker?”
“Just a little political assassination; nothing you can’t handle. I recall you having done that once or twice before.”
“I’d rather not discuss this in front of her.” The anger coursed hot through his veins and he clenched his fists to keep from shaking.
Ted simply smiled and grabbed a fistful of Jana’s hair, yanking her, whimpering to her feet. “You’ll discuss this wherever I damn well please. I made you and therefore, I can destroy you.” He tossed a manila envelope on the desk with a thwack. “All of your instructions are in there. You have one week and as collateral, I’m going to take this gorgeous arm candy with me. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Ted started for the door, checking Stephen out of the way.