Wild Hearts 2: Wild by Night

by Jodi Lynn Copeland

  His wide shoulders pressed against her legs, tickling her with his fur. The coarseness of his canine tongue lapped at her pussy, caressing her most sensitive spots with an abrasiveness that had tremors surging forth in an instant. Heat unfurled in her belly, licked its way through her limbs and deep into her womb.

  The press of his shoulders grew and he buried his head further between her legs and sank his tongue deep into her sheath. He licked at the cream of arousal that slickened her core and then turned those licks to demanding stabs.

  Pressure sizzled through Candace’s body, brought flashes of dazzling light to her eyes and had her mind spinning out of control. Her lungs ached, burned. Her pussy felt much the same. Duane’s tongue moved faster, deeper, fucking her cunt with a fierceness that stole her energy and her breath. Still, she managed to arch up, lift her hips and growl out a scream of urgency.

  She fell back to the bed and fisted her hands in the sheets, panted out hasty breaths over the inebriating affect he had on her. She’d told herself it wasn’t magic he held over her but, damn it, it had to be. He made her feel drunk with uncontrollable lust, with the savage hunger to give in, to let go and give him the answer he demanded…

  Shit. She was losing perspective here fast.

  Concentrate! You have to concentrate.

  Through hazed eyes, she glanced down and her efforts to concentrate were forgotten as the sight before her brought a shiver coursing down her spine and a fresh wave of arousal pooling in her sex.

  A wolf was between her legs. A big, furry wolf with a beautiful coat of chestnut brown hair, and his tongue… His ungodly long, marvelously talented tongue was buried in her cunt, lapping at her, eating her, driving her slowly out of her mind.

  The harsh stabs of his tongue ceased, and Duane pulled back and bared his pointed fangs. The tips of his incisors snagged the moonlight, glinting with wetness she knew to be her own juices. “Say it, Candy,” he ordered. “Say ‘yes’. Say you will be mine. Say you will succumb.”

  Yes—but no! You cannot give in!

  No matter how much her pussy throbbed. No matter how badly she yearned to feel his long, hard cock—she knew well in his wolf form it was a cock to rival all others—pumping inside her, she could never give in.

  She had to stop this, had to make him go away.

  “Succumb,” he snarled again and bent his head back to her sex. He lapped at her clit, flicking back the hood and scraping his rough tongue over the inflated nubbin beneath, then moved to her dripping slit and drove hard inside her.

  Oh, God… The lights that before had been dazzling were now brilliant and moving before Candace’s eyes in a seductively mesmerizing dance. Tension pulled at her from her toes to her fingertips. She dug her nails into the mattress and bit her lip to keep from crying out. She had to stop this, had to make him go away.

  But she couldn’t.

  She couldn’t say or do anything when he was thrusting into her this way, when his cold nose and soft fur were brushing up against her pussy lips and racking shudders of pleasure from deep within her soul. Hell, she didn’t even want to send him away any longer. She just wanted… Just wanted to…

  She just wanted to say… “Yes! Oh, God, ye-esss…”

  Her hips shot up in the bed and she reached for Duane’s head and buried her fingers into his silky fur. His tongue continued its relentless assault, lapping at her, fondling her with sensual delight, and the tension that pulled at her released itself.

  She purred her exultation as cum flowed freely from her quivering sex and coated his rough, gifted tongue. An answering growl of fulfillment rumbled up from deep within his chest and the reverberations against her pussy brought another round of tremors surging forth. He continued to lap at her until the last of the juices was gone, then took one last long, slow lick and pulled back to smile up at her.

  Candace shouldn’t have known what a wolf smile looked like but this one she could read well. It was a smile of victory. He thought he’d won. He thought her “yes” had been for his sake. It hadn’t been. But that he thought it had took her moment of bliss and turned it into a thing of terror.

  “I knew you’d see things my way,” he said smoothly, smugly and bounded onto her chest with his front paws. The air cruised from her lungs on a painful wheeze and eyes that an instant before had been fogged with pleasure now filled with salty, stinging tears. “Lay still, sweetie, because things are about to get good.”

  Duane shifted his weight, adding more pressure to his forearms and digging into her breasts with his long claws. Her heart ached. Her lungs screamed for air. She couldn’t breathe when he stood on her this way, couldn’t even move. She couldn’t—

  His head bucked down and the sharp points of his fangs sank into her breast. Pain welled in her joints, through her limbs. Horror seized her as his teeth dug in, gnashing into her flesh, tearing at her skin, ripping into her bones.

  Oh, God, it hurt. It hurt so bad. “Stop! Please…stop…”

  “Candy?”

  Candace silenced her pleading at her sister’s voice. Carrie was so close. If Duane heard her, saw her, he would go after her, too. He couldn’t hurt Carrie. She would die before that happened. “Please don’t—”

  “Candy?”

  No! She couldn’t get any closer. “Go away! Before he hurts you, too.”

  A hand connected with her arm. A hand that was cool and soft to the touch and free of fur. A hand that was her sister’s. Damn it, she hadn’t listened. She’d—

  “Hey, sis, wake up.”

  The hand shook her and the wolf at her breast snarled. You want me. You know you do. You are mine, Candy. Mine! He flashed his fangs, sticky now and crimson with her blood, in a conquering smile. Then he was gone.

  The hand shook her once more. “Wake up already, Candy. It’s just a dream.”

  Just…a…dream…

  The words reached Candace in a slow motion daze and then took effect in an instant. Her heart stampeding in her chest, she opened her eyes and blinked at the harsh light above her, illuminating her bedroom against the darkness of night. Then blinked again at Carrie’s worried face. “What are you doing in here?”

  “You were dreaming or having a nightmare by the sounds of things. You were screaming so loudly, you woke me up from three rooms away. You okay?”

  Her breathing coming out unsteadily, she glanced at the tangle of sheets wrapped around her and the sweat that clung to her flesh. No, she wasn’t okay. She was losing her mind, letting a fear she claimed not to have enter her sleep and attack her. She couldn’t tell that to her sister. “I’m fine,” she lied. “I don’t even remember what it was about.”

  “Oh, well in that case—” Carrie looked to the stuffed animal still taking up residence in the corner of Candace’s room, then smiled back at her, “—maybe the wolf’s helping at least a little.” She moved to the door and turned off the light. “Good night. And this time do us both a favor and have sweet dreams.”

  “Night.” Candace waited for her sister to close her door, then reached to her spare pillow and chucked it at the corner of her room and, more notably, the evil creature standing there that reminded her too damned much of another. One who had her so haunted she couldn’t even function normally any longer. “Goddamn, fucking wolves! I don’t care if you’re to blame or not, tomorrow you are so out of here.”

  * * * * *

  “I can’t believe you’re going out with him or that you’re wearing that.” Carrie took a long look at Candace’s attire of a hip-hugging leather miniskirt, all but see-through cream-colored top and strappy spiked heels, and shook her head. “You’re just lucky Nate didn’t find out before he and Kelsey left for their honeymoon. He thinks Andy’s great, awesome from an athletic standpoint, but he would never approve of either of us dating him in a million years.”

  Candace grabbed her calf-length jacket from the living room closet. She pulled it on and buttoned it up, trying to make it look like she was preparing for the moment when A
ndy arrived and not that she was hiding her body. She couldn’t believe what she’d worn either. She was going to freeze her ass off in it, not to mention get plenty of disapproving looks from passersby. Wearing the tacky, off-season outfit had been an act of pure desperation.

  After several assurances to Andy that she and Duane weren’t an item, she’d been able to make good on what she’d told Duane and get Andy to go out with her tonight. What she hadn’t been able to attain was the slightest bit of attraction for the man beyond agreeing he was decent to look at. And she needed to.

  Andy might be an adrenaline junkie, might even be the kind of aggressive male with a bed hopping reputation that she generally loathed, but he was also human. She needed to connect with, to physically want a nice, normal human being. They were safe, maybe not with her emotions for certain, but in many other ways. Ways that wolves were not safe.

  She wasn’t going to think about wolves tonight. She wasn’t even going to think about humans that could shift into the wily creatures. She was going to go out with Andy and spend the evening proving to herself she could both want and care for another man.

  Who knew, it could even work.

  She’d come to the conclusion, as she lay awake last night following that horrific dream, that Andy might just be her answer to moving past Duane, because they shared a similar background. Neither of them had parents and that called to the sympathetic nature she tried her best to ignore outside of at the hospital and, in doing so, opened her feelings to them. It had to work. It had to be because she was desperate. If she could just get another man into her head and want that same man in her pants, she might be able to forget the one who currently took up residence in both, at least in her thoughts and dreams if not reality.

  Candace focused back on Carrie. Her sister stood in front of the living room couch, hands on her hips and looking as though she expected a response. Candace could waste her breath explaining just how little she cared about what Nate or anyone else thought of the men she dated, or for that matter all the ones she hadn’t dated through the years, but why bother? She’d done it a hundred times before and no one listened anyway. “Don’t you have class to attend or something?”

  “It’s Sunday,” Carrie said dryly, “and Spring Break.”

  Oh. She should have known that, given that weddings typically took place on Saturday, but her erratic work schedule always had her so mixed up it could be Wednesday as easily as Sunday. “In that case, why aren’t you using the time off to find your own man? You’re so gung-ho on getting involved in my love life and yet I can’t even remember the last time you went on a date.”

  Carrie scrunched up her nose and made a face. “I have my reasons for being selective when it comes to men.” Her nose relaxed and a smile tugged at her lips. “If it makes you feel better, then you’ll be happy to know I have a date lined up very soon. As a matter of fact, I’m really looking forward to it.”

  “Oh. That’s…shocking.” In a big way. Carrie dated even less than she did. That she had a date now and with a guy, the mere thought of whom made her smile, was nothing short of a miracle. “It’s good shocking though,” Candy clarified. “Hopefully things will work out for you two.”

  Carrie sank onto the couch and her smile turned reflective. “Hopefully. There are too few good men out there to let them slip through your fingers when you finally find one.” She glanced up at Candace. “Know what I mean?”

  The question was rhetorical, the knowing look in her sister’s eyes wasn’t. Her happiness over Carrie’s mystery man faded to red-hot temper. “Damn it, Care, I told you last night to knock it off with trying to push me at Duane. Maybe I admitted to wanting him but I am not going out with him. He is a friend of the family. That’s it. All he will ever be. End of story.”

  Carrie’s calculating look faded and she shrugged. “I never said a word about Duane, though I won’t argue with you over his being a good man. He definitely is. Better than ever. He’s really changed this past year.”

  Candace bit back a groan and flexed her fingers so they wouldn’t be tempted to do anything unforgivable, like cross the room and strangle her sister. Why in the hell were they even still talking about Duane, and, for that matter, having the same conversation they’d had last night? “So you’ve said.”

  “He wants you. You want him.”

  Yep, same damned conversation as last night. Candace flexed her fingers a second time, then crossed her arms and glared. “Get it through your head already, I don’t care.” She let her arms fall back at her sides and strode toward the door. “Andy should be here any minute; I’m waiting outside.” Where I don’t have to deal with idiot little sisters.

  “You might not care but Duane does. Enough that the moment he found out about your sleeping problems, he gave you a guard wolf in the hopes it might help things.”

  The breath caught in Candace’s throat and she swiveled back around to gape at her sister. “He what?”

  Carrie lifted a shoulder in a shrug. She tipped her head to the side and fingered the ends of her long blonde ponytail as if she was bored. “You wanted the truth, there it is. It was from him. He knew you would never accept a gift from him, so he asked me to give it to you.” She stopped twirling her hair to give Candace a pointed look. “Since you didn’t want it and made it quite clear you didn’t want him either, he’s moved on.”

  “’Moved on’? When the hell would that have been? Last night he was—” The buzz of the doorbell cut her off. She jerked back around to glare at the large, dark outline just past the beveled glass. “Shit. Andy’s here.”

  “I thought you wanted to go out with him,” Carrie said from behind her.

  “I did. Do. I do.” Even if the idea of spending the night with the man suddenly sounded about as much fun as pulling her hair out one strand at a time.

  Damn it, why did Carrie have to spring the truth on her now? And even worse, why did her belly have to tighten with a sensation somewhere between jealousy and animosity, as if she actually cared that Duane hadn’t lived up to his feelings any more than he had his words about her being the only one for him? Or maybe she was still his only one, maybe he was only pretending to go out with someone else in the hopes it would lure Candace in. That had to be it.

  Well, it wasn’t working. He could pretend to date someone else all he wanted, she wasn’t giving into him. No way in hell.

  The doorbell rang again and Carrie said, “Put your happy face on and go get the door. Andy’s a great catch. I’m sure you guys will have a wonderful time together.”

  Candace rolled her eyes and moved to the door. She gave her sister a glance as she reached for the knob. “Five minutes ago you thought Andy was all wrong for me.”

  “Hey, what do I know? I can’t even decide what I want to do with my own life, why should I know what you should do with yours?”

  Shaking her head, Candace turned back to the door. Carrie used to make such sense, used to be so easy to read and even easier to get information out of. Now she was a frigging walking enigma. One that Candy had no time to try and figure out.

  Determined to forget about her sister’s odd behavior as of late, she put on a wide smile and pulled open the door. “Hi, Andy. Sorry to keep you wait-ing.” Her heart lodged into her throat as the all too familiar form of the man before her materialized against the backdrop of the porch lighting and the blackness of night.

  Andy’s hair was black like Kelsey’s. This man’s hair wasn’t black. No, it was chestnut brown, the same damned shade as the silky pelt of the wolf from her dreams. The same damned man that wolf was supposed to represent.

  Duane stood with his back to her and she swore his ass had never looked so tight and graspable as it did in faded and well-worn jeans. Her cheeks heating, she dragged her gaze past his leather bomber to the back of his head and cleared her throat. He turned and his eyes lit when they landed on her. He flashed a sexy smile.

  Candace bit her tongue to keep from sighing. She didn’t have as mu
ch luck with the rest of her body. Her nose went to work, drawing in one hasty breath of his too tempting scent and her blood heated while her pussy swelled. Wetness seeped into her panties and her nerves stood on end with awareness.

  Fuck. That smile was going to be the death of her yet.

  She forced her own smile to turn to one of antipathy when what she really wanted to do was drag him out into the night, strip away his clothes and lick him from head to toe. Nostrils flaring, she bit out, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Duane’s gaze fell to her mouth, or maybe it was her nose, she couldn’t be certain. His eyes darkened and he stayed still, staring for several long, torturous seconds, then he shouldered his way past her and into the house. “Going out with your sister. Didn’t she tell you we have a date?”

  Chapter Five

  “Kitchen. Now!”

  Duane just managed to hold in his laugh over Candace’s order to her sister. He hadn’t been sure about taking Carrie up on her offer to continue to help him with Candy—not only did he not want to pit sister against sister but he wasn’t convinced that pretending to go out with Carrie would upset Candace. At least, not in a jealousy kind of way. In a fury kind of way, because she feared for her sister’s safety around him, that he was sure he could bring about. He was also sure it was fury shooting from her eyes right this moment.

  Carrie stood from the couch and looked from Candy to Duane, then back at Candy. “Sorry, sis, no can do. We have a dinner reservation at eight-fifteen and, unless we get out of here now, we’re not going to make it.”

  “I don’t care,” Candy growled, already moving toward the kitchen. “We need to talk. Now!”

  “We’ve already talked plenty.” With a dismissive wave of her hand, Carrie grabbed her coat from the closet and joined Duane near the door. She called back over her shoulder, “Enjoy your date.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Duane. “I certainly plan to enjoy mine, maybe even all night long.”