Wild Hearts 2: Wild by Night

by Jodi Lynn Copeland

  Was something the matter? Well, let’s see, she’d just been going at it with a wereman, or what ever the hell you’d call what Duane had been back there, in the pitch-black storage closet of a church. Yeah, that qualified as something seriously awry. A big damned something.

  If it hadn’t been for the judgment-awakening feel of his long claws digging into the soft flesh of her thighs, they would still be in that closet. He probably wouldn’t be on his knees, rubbing the wondrously rough hair of his goatee over her pussy or tonguing her any longer, though. He would probably be buried hilt-deep inside her and…furry.

  She shuddered at that last thought.

  How could she even consider getting that turned on by a man who had the power to grow a silky pelt of chestnut brown hair any canine would be jealous of? Worse, to lose herself and her control to him? She couldn’t let it happen again. Couldn’t allow them to be left alone with only her fleeting judgment for a bodyguard. He hadn’t hurt her this time but that had a lot to do with the fact she hadn’t let him. The moment she’d seen the animal in him start to emerge, she had done what she should have done the instant he’d entered the closet. Demanded he let her out and not stopped demanding until he did just that.

  “Earth to Candace. You feeling okay, sis? You look…flustered.”

  More like recently fucked. Maybe Duane had only managed to get his hands and mouth on her but she’d still been breathing hard, still felt the sizzling heat of orgasm slicing through her and tingeing her face with red. She’d still climaxed because of him.

  Refusing to reflect on the mind-numbing orgasm or the way his long, strong tongue felt lapping at her cunt, Candace lifted her shoulder in a careless shrug. “I’m fine and nothing is the matter.” She nodded toward the front of the church, then looked back at Nate. “Why aren’t you with the rest of them?”

  “Because I was coming to find you two and make sure everything was okay. It shouldn’t take over ten minutes just to grab a few chairs.” He glanced at her hands and frowned. “Where are they are anyway?”

  The chairs, right. She’d gone to get chairs, not have a closet quickie. One that left her nether regions hanging out beneath her short skirt and a cool lick of air caressing her aroused flesh. She grunted at the reality of how turned on she still was. She wanted to be back in that closet, seeing just how far Duane would take things. She wanted to take things further herself. And that just wasn’t right, damn it!

  She had to get a grip on her body. Had to learn to ignore whatever hold it was he had over her, one that made her give in when she knew damned well she should be running the other way. “They are…the door was stuck. You said it does that sometimes; well, it’s doing it again. Duane’s still trying to get it to loosen up.”

  He frowned. “It sticks from the inside, not the outside.”

  She rolled her eyes with his rapid response. Wasn’t that just her luck? She came up with an answer that was halfway reasonable and he had to go and prove it wrong. Not that she had any intention of letting him know it was wrong. She narrowed her gaze, silently daring him to dispute her. “This time it happened from the outside. The damned thing won’t budge.”

  Nate looked past her and his frown grew for just an instant before disappearing. “Guess it must’ve finally decided to budge.”

  Though her suddenly pounding heart told her it was the last thing she wanted to do, Candace turned to follow the direction of her brother’s gaze. Duane walked toward them, his arms laden with folding chairs. He nodded at Nate, then shot Candy a grin.

  Her heart sped faster and her clit tingled with awareness. Why the hell did he have to have such a sexy smile?

  Determined to avoid that smile and the masterful tongue hidden just behind it, she dropped her attention to his hands. They were free of claws now, thank God. Or maybe not thank God. She hated having to bear the burden of knowing what Duane was all on her own and yet she didn’t dare tell any of her family members for fear they would think she was due for a visit to the loony bin. If they found out on their own, then they would have to believe her. But what if they found out and shunned Duane? He scared her at times, yes, but she didn’t want her family to cast him out. He’d been a part of it for too long and didn’t have one of his own to fall back on.

  As much as her family could be a real pain in the ass at times, she couldn’t imagine them not being there for her, just as she couldn’t imagine what life would have been like growing up without her fourth brother, Duane. The one who teased and goaded her along with all the rest and yet wasn’t a real brother at all. Considering her current feelings would be knee-deep in incest if he was a true sibling, it was a damned good thing he wasn’t. Feelings aside, she had to keep his secret and therefore her family’s close regard for him intact, and that meant making things seem normal between them.

  She returned to his smile and, urging back the heat that consumed her with that simple look, put on one of her own. “Oh, good. You got the door fixed.”

  Duane nodded, then looked to Nate. “I suggest you have your mom tell them they need to put a new lock on that thing, man. If I hadn’t moved Candace out of the way so I could give the door a yank, she’d still be there, trying to get into the damned room.”

  The calm she’d pushed into place frayed a bit as her temper threatened to spurn forth. She mentally forced it back. Somehow Duane had figured out what she’d told Nate as an excuse for their absence and, unless she wanted her brother thinking any differently, she’d best keep her mouth shut.

  Nate glanced at her, his expression one of expectancy, as if he thought she would comment on Duane’s remark. Not trusting her mouth, she nodded her agreement. Her brother’s earlier frown returned as he glanced at Duane then back to her again. The wariness in his expression said he knew something was off. Thankfully he didn’t ask on it any further but said, “Yeah, okay. I’ll make sure she knows,” then looked back to where everyone else was gathered at the front of church. “Forget about the chairs for now. We need to get the rehearsal started.”

  Candace waited for Nate to get halfway across the room before she asked in a low voice, “How did you know what I told him?”

  “The same way I knew what you wanted back in that closet.” The heat returned to Duane’s eyes with the words, rendering their typically hazel shade a surreal yellowish-green. “Hate to break it to you, sweetie, but your thoughts are like an open book.”

  Candy snapped out of the daze of his eyes as the meaning of his words settled in and curled her belly with anxiety. “My thoughts… You can read my mind?”

  “Only when you’re anxious.”

  Which is what she became every single time he walked into a room.

  Damn it. She had enough trouble convincing herself she didn’t want him; if he knew for a second the mixed feelings she had toward him, he’d never be persuaded into keeping his distance.

  “Then remind me not to get that way again any time soon,” she snapped, then turned on her heel with the intention of joining the safety of her family. At least she hoped their proximity would act as a safety net. Duane wouldn’t let on what he was to them any more than what she herself would do. Would he?

  No. If he’d intended to do that, then he would have long before this.

  “You’re still that way right now, Candy. Just my standing here, a foot away from you, thinking the things I’m thinking, has you so nervous, your mind and heart are both racing. Then there’s what’s happening south of your heart. You’re still wet, still hot. Still wishing we were back in that closet so we could finish things the right way.”

  She shouldn’t succumb to his taunting. She shouldn’t turn back and taunt him in return. She shouldn’t but it wasn’t in her nature to walk away. She pivoted back around, stopping short to fist her hands at her hips and glare at him. “You wish!”

  “Yeah, I do. I wish you’d accept what’s happening between us and give in to it already. It’s going to happen, we’re going to happen, so why fight it?”

&nb
sp; “It’s not going to happen and I’m not fighting a damned thing. I don’t want you, not now and sure as hell not forever.”

  “Candy, honey, is something the matter?” her mother asked from the front of the church.

  No. Nothing was the matter and why did people have to keep asking her that? If they wouldn’t keep asking, she wouldn’t have to keep lying to them or to herself.

  Candace eased her hands off her hips and back at her sides. She looked to her family, all of whom stood gaping at her, and smiled. “Everything’s fine, Mom. We’re just talking about…stuff.”

  “Having a lover’s spat’s more like it.”

  “Corey!” Carrie, Candace’s younger sister and Corey’s twin, swatted their brother on the arm. “Don’t be such a jerk.”

  A cocky grin turned up Corey’s lips. “Well, that’s what it sounds like from here.”

  “First off, we’re not lovers,” Candy bit out, “and secondly, what would you even know about the word? The only thing you love in this life is your own reflection.”

  His grinned deepened and he made a show of dusting his knuckles on his chest. “It is rather impressive, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, God—”

  “If you two are done, can we get this thing moving along sometime tonight?” Joe, the oldest of the five siblings cut Candace off. “Candy might not want to take advantage of time off and spend the night out unwinding but most of the rest of us have dinner plans. Duane, you’re invited to join us, of course. That is, unless Candy changes her mind and takes you up on your offer.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. What the hell was this, gang up on Candy night And who told him she’d turned down Duane’s dinner offer, anyway? Not that it should really surprise her—Joe had this uncanny ability to know everything about everyone and an opinion to go with that knowledge—but lately his time and thoughts had been wrapped up almost completely in his wife, Gracie, and the impending birth of their son.

  “I have things to do,” Candace said in her defense. “I have to get myself ready.”

  “What do you all have to get ready, Candy?” Kelsey asked. “Is there anything I can help you with? It is my and Nate’s wedding after all.”

  “No kidding, what do you have to get ready,” Duane asked, pulling her attention back to him and the sensual smile that had overtaken his lips, ”because from where I’m standing, you look pretty amazing right now.”

  Between the promise that seemed to fill that smile and the compliment, warmth charged through Candace’s body too fast to stop it. She blushed before she even realized what she was about to do. Obviously the color stinging her cheeks was apparent from fifteen yards away, because Corey’s cocky look returned and he said, “See, told ya, lover’s spat.”

  Candace bit back a groan and focused on the only sane person in the room—at least it seemed that way at the moment—the minister, who stood off to the side of her family, looking like he’d lost track of the conversation long ago. “Can we please do this already,” she pleaded. ”I want to go home and…” Pout. Or something very close to it.

  He gave her a grateful look. “Yes. Let’s begin. Everyone will start at the back of the church. Nate, you’ll be seating your parents. Since Kelsey’s brother isn’t here yet…”

  Candace moved to the back corner of the church and sat down on a pew as she waited for the minister to finish explaining how things would proceed. Much to her relief and her surprise, Duane left her alone. At least until he didn’t have any choice but to come for her, to escort her down the aisle.

  She stiffened at the feel of his arm twined through hers, recalled the thought she’d had yesterday, about the way they’d once been twined together bodily. The same way she’d almost allowed them to become a very short while ago.

  What was it about him? Did he truly hold some kind of magic over her the way she’d told herself on several occasions? Was that magic and the way he used it to enchant her to blame for her reeling senses and chaotic heartbeat? Was it the culprit behind her sudden desire to forget everything that had happened between them and start tearing his clothes off here and now to unveil the long, lean frame beneath?

  Her mouth watered at the vivid image that formed in her mind. There was definitely an upside to his wolfishness and that was the effect it had on his physique. Maybe it was from the time he spent scrounging the fields at night for field mice or trotting along the highway looking for road kill but the man had a dynamite body and a killer tight ass just made for gripping.

  Duane chuckled beside her as they started to advance down the aisle. She glanced over at his amused expression and mouthed a “What?”

  “You’re in serious need of an education if you honestly think that’s the kind of stuff I eat, let alone how I spend my nights. I spend them just like you do, Candy, lying in bed, thinking of what would be happening if we were together right then, the way we’re destined to be.”

  Candace’s thought slammed to a halt and she bit her lip to keep inside the squeak that welled up with his too-knowing words. She tried to concentrate on the fact he read her mind as clearly as if she’d voiced her thoughts aloud, tried to consider what else she might have unknowingly admitted when she hadn’t known he was listening in. All that was happening instead was that her body was responding to the implication in his words. Thoughts of what they would do if they were in bed together filled her mind in vibrant detail and had her pussy swelling with a fresh course of desire.

  The humor in Duane’s eyes turned to hunger. His nose twitched and he leaned closer, inhaled audibly and whispered near her ear. “I like this no underwear thing. Normally I can smell your arousal even when you have them on but off, it’s so strong, it makes my cock hard with just one sniff. Then there’s what it does to the rest of me.”

  Her gaze fell to his groin out of instinct. The bulge of his erection wasn’t so obvious everyone else would notice but the way it twitched against his jeans as she stared upon it made it clear it was definitely there and large. Her sex pulsed with the memory of just how large and her inner thighs grew damp as juices seeped from her crotch. Her clit tingled, flamed, and it was all she could do not to reach down and rub her hand against it in the hopes of bringing some much needed relief.

  Good God, she wanted to fondle herself because of the idiot and the thoughts he’d planted in her head. And in front of her family and in a house of God, no less!

  Magical or not, it was seriously wrong, this hold he had over her. It had to stop. Now. “Walk, Duane,” she gritted out, doing her best to shut out the wetness that leaked from her thighs and the heat that poured through her veins. “And if you want to live to see tomorrow, don’t say another damned word to me tonight but ‘goodbye’.”

  * * * * *

  Candace awoke with a start. Her pulse raced in her throat and fear wrapped around her limbs, locking them in place. Someone was in her bedroom. One sniff told her that the someone wasn’t her sister Carrie, who lived with her. Rather, it was a man. Or maybe the better word was beast.

  She couldn’t describe Duane’s scent if someone asked her to and yet, it called to her, made her limbs suddenly loosen and her body heat with awareness.

  She sat in bed and whispered, “Duane.”

  Silence was her only answer. A deafening silence that brought the tension careening back into her body. She bit down on her lower lip and let the covers fall away from the death grip she had on them. She would not cave to her panic. She wasn’t afraid of him. And even if she were, she would never let him see that.

  Candace released her lip and drew in a calming breath. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the pale light of the moon bleeding in through her windows, then called his name a second time, louder, “Dua…”

  She trailed off as a flash of movement snagged her attention. She looked toward the set of windows she kept cracked open, even during the cooler months, and her heart stopped for an instant, only to take off in a pounding rage.

  She didn’t want Duane to see her
fear but, damn it, how could she stop it when he was in her room, mere feet from her bed, hunched down in his full wolf form and preparing to attack?

  He’s not preparing to attack, Candy. You can’t even see any of him other than his outline and the glint of his eyes.

  Okay, so she couldn’t see him well but that didn’t change the fact he was in her bedroom at one-thirty in the morning. If he wasn’t here to attack her with logic-altering kisses and strokes, then why had he invaded her home in the middle of the night?

  Anger burst forth with the realization he truly had invaded her home. As much as she’d worried about him doing just this for months, deep down she’d honestly thought that her concern was nothing more than the result of an overactive imagination. She hadn’t believed he would really break into her room and pounce on her. For reasons that were now beyond her, she’d trusted him to leave her home as her sanctuary.

  Well, he might have destroyed her trust and entered her home without her permission but there was no way in hell she was letting things go any farther. Whatever he had come here for, he was going to tell her and he was going to do it now.

  Pushing away her fear, Candace let her growing frustration seep into her voice. “I can see you, you idiot, so there’s no point in keeping your silence a second longer. Say what you came to say, then get the hell out of here.”

  She’d expected at least a snort of humor, or maybe a laugh—or whatever sound it was a werewolf made when it was amused—but once again only silence answered her. Silence and his strangely overpowering scent.

  The odd aroma had grown stronger in the last few seconds, almost as if he’d come closer to her. In truth, he hadn’t moved an inch. He was still hidden in the shadows of night, only his outline visible. She couldn’t make out his eyes well enough to know if they were on her and, for that reason if no other, she shouldn’t be feeling aroused. Only she was feeling aroused, unbearably so.