Wild Hearts 2: Wild by Night

by Jodi Lynn Copeland

  “Where what?” she asked, halting in her tracks.

  “Will you sleep?”

  Where she’d been en route to when he’d made it clear he was still awake. The same place she’d lain last night, right on the bed beside him. True, he hadn’t been conscious then, or human and gloriously naked, but once he was asleep that wouldn’t matter. She hoped. “That’s for me to know and you never to find out. Now get your ass to sleep before I decide to kick it out of this house.”

  * * * * *

  Duane opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. Soft beige walls, white lace curtains that revealed the late afternoon sun, a deep green comforter wrapped around him and a woman who smelled of slumber and orange blossoms curled in his arms.

  He was in Candace’s bed and Candace was in it with him.

  Her hand was at his back and it moved now in a gentle caress. The rush of her warm breath feathered along his chest. She was awake. Awake and under the belief he wasn’t, Duane realized in the next instant, as she moved away from him and pulled back the covers. His eyes were closed and yet he could feel the heat of her gaze as it roved over his body. She was checking on his injuries, the rational parts of him knew, and yet those parts didn’t seem to care any more than the irrational ones.

  His blood hummed to life. His cells heated as well, when her fingers returned to his body, sliding along his torso with a teasing lightness that spoke to every male part of him. His cock grew, thickened, throbbed. Candace’s startled gasp ensured she hadn’t missed the almost instantaneous transformation from nearly flaccid to stiff as stone.

  Duane knew it was time to open his eyes, to face her and what would happen now that he was healthy again. And he was healthy, healed—just one of the benefits of being a werewolf. Not that accelerated healing would’ve helped if that panther had killed him—not even werewolves could come back from the dead—but it hadn’t and he wasn’t going to think over the outcome if it had.

  He opened his eyes to find Candace leaning over him, her long blonde, sleep-tousled hair nearly brushing his groin as she stared in the general direction of his lap. Her fingers moved to his inner thigh, probed, while her tongue slipped out to dab at her lips. His shaft pulsed in response to the wet pink tip gliding over her full lips and his erection bobbed toward her face. With another gasp, her gaze snapped to his. The two connected and she jerked her hand away, leaned back. The look in her eyes went from inquisitive to furious in a heartbeat.

  He chuckled at her angry look, relieved beyond measure to see real temper on her features again and not just anger that she tried at for his sake. He needed to hear her laugh as well. To see a smile on that mouth that had been turned down in concern for over sixteen hours, happiness shimmering in eyes that had been murky with tears. He had been unconscious on many levels last night and early this morning, but he’d still been aware of her unyielding presence, of her pain, her fear. He wouldn’t think of those things now. Now they needed levity.

  Duane took hold of her arm, so she wouldn’t try to run, and grinned. “See anything you like down there?”

  Candace’s cheeks deepened with pink and she tugged on her arm, relenting when it became clear it was pointless. “That is so not funny, you idiot! I was checking on your wounds, making sure they weren’t infected or anything.”

  “And were they?” he asked, not letting up on his hold, not trusting her to stay.

  Her upset was replaced with awe as she nodded. “You’re healed. There are a few lingering marks, but nothing worth worrying over. Nothing that won’t be gone tomorrow morning if your progress so far is anything to go by.”

  Her expression and tone were both too serious, with no trace of the humor or even the passion he craved. Needing those things as badly as he’d needed the water she’d made him drink this morning, perhaps even more so, Duane gave her arm a squeeze and jerked his head toward his feet. Her gaze followed his, right to the swollen length of cock standing thick and tall and throbbing in wait of her touch.

  He looked back at her and allowed his grin to become wicked, wolfish, for the hunger that had clamored to life the moment he’d spotted her eyeing his groin to reflect in his voice. “Thanks to you, I’m even better than healed.”

  Candace’s nostrils flared and she again tugged at her arm. Thoughts tumbled around frantically in her head, spiraling into his. Give in. Run. Give in, then run.

  Finally, she said, “Don’t think just because I kept you alive it means that I care about you or that I want you or anything like that. I don’t.”

  No? Then why had she acted so alarmed when he’d voiced his thoughts about them not belonging together? About her being better off without him? He hadn’t wanted to admit that for the world but he also didn’t want to think about her having to tend to his wounds whenever he chanced by a pissed off panther or bear or whatever it might happen to be the next time. And what if next time there were no wounds that could be healed, what if he didn’t make it through? Even worse, what if she didn’t make it through? If they were to be together as mates, as the family he’d dreamt of being with her for so long, it meant her becoming a werewolf, too.

  The “what ifs” had been more than enough reason to do her bidding and agree to stop pursuing her. But that had been before Duane had heard her deny his words, before he read her thoughts of how much she too still believed they belonged together. Well before she—God forbid—admitted she’d been wrong. Maybe she hadn’t said the words aloud but she’d thought them, meant them. She wanted to give him—them—another chance. A real one this time.

  Duane’s heart swelled with that knowledge and he smiled up at her. “I think you do care, Candy, sweetie. I think the idea of my being dead scared the hell out you, even more than the idea of my being a werewolf.”

  He tugged at the arm he still held, this time with enough strength to take her off guard and have her collapsing onto his chest. The weight of her breasts rubbed at his flesh, her nipples peaking into rigid points that had the softest of sighs tripping from her lips. She wiggled her groin against his cock, pulling at his resolve, awakening both the urges of wolf and the too-long unfulfilled hunger of the man from their semi-dormant state. He couldn’t stop himself from pulling her the rest of the way up his chest and feasting on the sight of her plump pink mouth.

  Candace’s hands moved to either side of his head on the mattress, her pupils deepening to gold, dilating. Her tongue came out, moved over her lips in an impatient little flick. Her full sweet lips glistened from the action. His blood pumped harder, his tongue moved in his mouth, ready to plunge into hers, to give, to receive. To succumb.

  “You want me, Candy. Just like you want this kiss.”

  No longer willing to hold back and wait for the moment when she’d finally admit her desires aloud, Duane buried a hand in her hair and tipped his head to bring his mouth to hers. She met him halfway, her tongue the first to imbibe, to slip into his mouth and stroke, to rub against his with raw need and urgency. One of her hands moved from the mattress to feather through his hair, tangle in the short, thick strands, caress his scalp. Her tongue moved faster, diving in and out in a carnal move she soon mimicked with her hips, pistoning against his engorged cock, grinding the hard ridge of her pelvic bone and the far softer, wetter slit of her cunt with demanding pressure.

  His blood boiled, his cells ached. He felt as though they would explode with the need to change, to shift, to take what was rightfully his, what they’d both wanted for years now. Only he wouldn’t do that, not this first time. Not when it was clear she was still fighting some residual concerns. Soon though. Very soon.

  You want me, Candy. Just as I want you. You care about me. Just as I do you. We’re family, you and me. Soul mates. It’s the reason I can’t leave you alone, sweetie. The reason I gave you that wolf, so I knew the woman I love more than anyone or anything else in this world felt soothed, watched over, protected, when I couldn’t be here to see to it myself.

  Candace pulled back with his thought
s, tugged her hands from his scalp and sat back. Straddling his groin, she touched her fingers to her lips, looked at him through eyes dark with desire and yet something more, an emotion he couldn’t name.

  “I-I shouldn’t,” she admitted in a breathy voice.

  “Because you’re afraid of me?”

  “No. Because…just because.”

  Duane didn’t know what that “because” was and, judging by her thoughts, neither did she. What he did know was she wasn’t lying this time when she said she didn’t fear him. She also had no intention of moving off of him and tossing him out of her room the way she’d threatened to do several times in the last sixteen hours. She wanted him and she sure as hell cared. “Sorry, sweetie, but ‘because’ isn’t gonna cut it with me.”

  “I know—” the emotion he hadn’t been able to place left her eyes and she dropped back onto his chest while a seductive smile curved her lips and happiness lit her gaze, “—that’s why I’m not going to listen to it.”

  Chapter Seven

  Candace reveled in the feel of Duane’s long, lean body beneath hers. She hadn’t wanted to have second thoughts. Last night and this morning she didn’t even think she could have them. This afternoon, as evening fast approached and it became clear Duane would be fine, the enormity of it all—of giving in to her worst fear even if she claimed it wasn’t—had caught up with her and had her retreating to her more severe persona.

  Between the way his stimulating scent grew stronger when he was aroused, the passion that had filled his kiss and his true reason for giving her that wolf—because he cared for her and wanted to see her protected—that persona hadn’t stood a chance.

  Any panic she might have felt was gone in a blink and then it had all come down to the order of events. She’d wanted to talk with him first, get out the things she’d been feeling, thinking. She hadn’t made it that far.

  Or maybe she’d made it farther, Candace realized on a whimper as Duane’s mouth returned to hers, his hands slipping beneath the waistband of her shorts. His tongue plundered, took, demanded, while his large, rough palms cupped the heated flesh of her buttocks. Rubbing her tongue against his own, she melted against the exquisite feel of his hands kneading her skin, his masterful mouth overtaking her senses, the hard press of his swollen cock against her inner thigh.

  He pulled away from her mouth and looked up at her, his eyes an eerie shade of yellow. His voice laden with an almost painful sounding rasp, he asked. “Are you sure?”

  If she had been feeling any lingering anxiety, it vanished with the question, the sincerity of his expression. He had her right where he’d wanted her for months—make that years—where they both had wanted to be, and he was giving her the opportunity to retreat. It showed two things on his part. He was in control and he cared for her more than what she’d ever even hoped to realize.

  Candace’s heart beat faster and her pulse took off with the understanding that his thought from a moment ago had been authentic, that he truly did love her. That he’d chosen her to be his family— something she’d always known he’d never had but, until now, hadn’t realized how badly he ached for. “I am so sure.” The thrill she felt came through in her words, lit them with happiness. “I’m more sure of this, of us, of the way I feel for you, than anything else in my life. I’m even more sure if we don’t get started soon, I’m going to come just thinking about it.”

  Duane chuckled and his mouth curved into the delicious grin that made her wet and hot every time it appeared on his handsome face. Bringing that sexy grin to her lips, he kissed her softly, sweetly, in a way he’d never kissed her before. No man had. There was such emotion, such tenderness and, beyond that, quiet control.

  It was the control that spoke to her the loudest. He was keeping his desire in check at a cost to himself. There was no reason for that, because she trusted him to let loose and still not hurt her. If there was ever a time he was going to turn wild on her, then it should have been in the small hours of the morning, when he’d been in his wolf form and extreme pain.

  Candace brought her hand to his face, stroked his cheek. She rubbed her thumb over the crisp hair of his goatee, imagining how it had felt on her feminine lips that night in the storage closet of the church. Her pussy exploded with juices at the memory of the way he had tongued her. It had lasted only a few seconds before she’d felt his claws and ended things, yet it had been so amazing… “Give in to me, Duane.” She allowed a fraction of demand to enter her voice. “Succumb. It will be okay.”

  His eyes filled with an indefinable emotion and then he pulled her tightly to him and laughed long and hard. Sobering, he loosened his hold to pin her with a serious look. “I’ve been saying that same damned thing to you for months, that if you just gave in to me, it would be okay—better than okay. You didn’t believe it, so why should I?”

  Here it was, the moment of truth. One she’d only just realized a short while ago. One that took the desire she’d been feeling and temporarily sedated it. “I did,” she admitted quietly.

  “What?”

  “I did believe it. At least, part of me did. The truth is…” Candace faltered at that and tried again, forcing her voice to ring steady, clear, “The truth is you didn’t hurt me so much that last time. You did some but you scared me more than anything. Enough to make me fear what might happen if there was a next time. If the pain would get worse or if maybe…maybe there would be no pain. Maybe if I just gave you a second chance it would be just the way you promised it would. That you would stay in control.” She inhaled deeply, then said on a heated rush, “I thought I wanted that, you staying in control, but I don’t. I want you to give in to me and show me the way you really feel, not hold back for fear the truth will scare me away. I’m a hell of a lot stronger than that. We both know it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I want you to let loose, Duane. Succumb to the wolf.”

  His features lit with elation. But then he shook his head. “Not this first time. Next time, yes. Absolutely. But this time is for you, to make you understand that, while the wolf might be a part of me, it isn’t what rules me. It isn’t what makes me want you. It isn’t what made me fall in love with you years ago. That’s all about you, Candy. About the remarkable woman you are.”

  To hear him say he loved her again, that he had for years and well before he’d changed, swelled Candace’s heart with joy and yet she couldn’t ignore the tautness of his limbs and his body beneath hers. “You’re too tense like this. I can feel it, taste it. You can’t even enjoy yourself.”

  Humor flashed in Duane’s eyes. He shifted beneath her, rubbing his thick shaft against her thigh and pooling a fresh course of desire in her sex in the process. “Do you feel that, sweetie? Does that really feel like I’m not enjoying myself to you? I am. Very much so. And soon I will be even more. Now shut up and kiss me already.”

  Part of Candace still wanted to deny him, wanted to demand he give in to his baser urges the way she could sense he craved to do, but the rest of her responded to the delicious friction of his cock sliding along her heated flesh. Her pussy pulsed with the thought of him plunging into her, slamming his shaft deep into her wet channel. She needed that, had needed it for so long.

  Placing her palms on the defined muscles of his chest, she scooted down his body, until his erection brushed against her mound and had fire flaming to life deep in her womb. She slid her hands lower, curled her fingers over the sides of his chest and leaned back to grind against his long, thick cock. Her clit flamed with each intense rub and her cunt throbbed for so much more.

  “Is that all you want, Candy?” Duane taunted, his voice a low growl and his eyes afire with appetite. “Just to rub against me with your clothes on? Or do you want more? Do you want me to tear off those shorts and ram my cock deep inside you?”

  Between the explicit suggestion and her ceaseless grinding, she was breathless, achy, on the verge of exploding. “Yes,” she panted. “That’s what I want. I want y
ou wild. Feral. I want you to show me my limits and take me past them. Please, Duane. Give me what I want.”

  Duane had already said he wouldn’t let loose the werewolf this first time and he planned to stick to that promise. He hadn’t said a word about letting the darker urges of the man come forth and give her everything she pleaded for.

  Pulling her flush to him, he rolled them over so that he straddled her from above. He moved down her body, until he reached the heart of her, the heat. The scent of her arousal was thick, musky and he inhaled it and let it affect him just enough to grant her the most pleasure possible and yet still allow him to remain in his human form. Mostly, anyway. His cock throbbed, burned as it grew thicker, longer, skirting the edges of the one he claimed as a wolf. His tongue lengthened as well, grew wider, stronger, while the very tips of his fangs emerged.

  Power rippled through him with even those minor changes and he took that power and turned it on Candace. He pushed her knees up and her thighs wide, buried his face against the darker gray area of her shorts. The cotton was damp against his nose, damp and sexy as hell. He rubbed his nose against her pussy through the shorts until she whimpered and brought her hands to his head and then he dug the short edges of his fangs into the material and wrenched his head to the side.

  The cotton tore free as if it was hooked together by no more than a single stitch and then her pussy was before him, dark blonde curls damp and parted and her lips splayed wide, gleaming with her essence, heavy and pink from her excitement. He sniffed her and her hips arched up, all but pushing her cunt into his face.

  “Please…” Candace breathed. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

  He couldn’t even if he wanted to. His tongue was on fire to thrust into her, lap at her cream, feel her tremors of ecstasy as she exploded into his mouth. Gripping her thighs, he pushed into her, drove his tongue all the way to her core and, fitting his mouth to her feminine lips, suckled.