Chapter 5
Her news editor emailed to say the interview was great, and had she thought about dyeing her hair yet?
She deleted it. And then went to the village pub and ordered a Guinness. She sat there for the rest of the day, thinking about Alex. An entire life wasted. A man pushed into isolation by a world that would hound him to the ends of the earth if they ever found out his secret. A world powered by people like her.
She wandered down to the dock. Night was falling and another storm was raging. This time the rain was holding off but the wind was even worse than the day before. The surface of the loch was churning and crashing.
There was no way he was ever going to change his mind. She could wait her whole life and he’d still be out there on the island. He’d still always choose solitude.
Unless she didn’t give him a choice.
The fisherman from the first day was there, hauling his rowing boat well up the shore. “How much for your boat?” she asked him.
He looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “You want me to row you out there? In this?”
She shook her head. “No, I want to buy your boat. Not borrow. Buy. I can’t guarantee you’ll get it back.”
***
Rowing was harder than it looked. You had to sit with your back to where you wanted to go, and keep looking over your shoulder to check you were going in the right direction. Which idiot designed that?!
The wind was worse as she got out into the middle of the loch. The boat seemed to move sideways as much as it moved forward and it rose and sank with the waves do much that she thought she was going to be sick. Then the rain finally started, the drops stinging and freezing, soaking straight through her clothes. This was a bad idea, she decided. No, this was a terrible idea.
The castle didn’t seem to be getting any closer, so she gritted her teeth and hauled on the oars for all she was worth until, with agonizing slowness, it started to creep towards her. The waves were getting higher, now, and there was a worrying amount of water collecting in the bottom of the boat. Just the rain? She watched the next wave. No…shit, the waves were crashing hard enough to spray inside.
The stone dock by the castle finally crept into view. And then, as the wind died for a moment, it started to come towards her quite fast.
Too fast.
The wind had changed, she realized, as she came into the lull or the lee or whatever the hell it was called. And now she was heading straight for a stone wall, well away from the sloping dock she’d been aiming for. Brakes! Where are the brakes?!
She changed around on the seat, almost capsizing the boat, and tried to row in other other direction, but the wind seemed determined to dash her against the stone. She imagined the boat smashed to pieces and her limp, unconscious body sinking slowly to the bottom of the loch. He’ll never even know I was here, she thought.
It was almost impossible to judge distance, in the dark. The wall was a silhouetted cliff that could have been ten feet away or could have been a hundred…until the boat smashed against it with a sickening crunch. She clung onto the seat, and it was the only thing that saved her from going over. But the boat was already being blown back towards the dock, and this time it was sideways. Tipping—
The last thing she saw, before the boat flipped, was a pair of glowing, golden eyes watching from the dock. As she hit the water, there was a flash of gray fur.
She went down, down, her momentum taking her far under the water in a cloud of bubbles. She had no sense of which way was up. The sky was as dark as the water.
She kicked, without knowing if it would do any good. The chill of the water soaked into every bone and her clothes, sodden and heavy, slowed her limbs. Her lungs were already burning. I have to breathe! But one lungful of freezing water and she’d be dead, her body spasming and choking down to the bottom.
It suddenly went very quiet. Was the storm easing? No. I’m passing out.
That means I’m going to die.
An arm wrapped around her waist and a shoulder butted up into her armpit, powering her up…up…up—
Her head broke the surface and she gulped in lungful after lungful of sweet, clean air. She was staring right into Alex’s gorgeous face.
She did her best to kick in the same direction as him, but she was freezing and exhausted. He towed her to the sloping dock and then hauled her up until she could get her feet beneath her and stagger the rest of the way. Halfway to the castle, her legs gave out and he scooped her up into his arms and carried her the rest of the way.
In the living room, a fire was roaring in the hearth. Alex had her strip off her clothes—while he stood resolutely staring in the opposite direction—and wrap herself in a blanket. Only then did he dry himself off and finally wrap his soaking body with a blanket of his own.
He sat her on the cushions in front of the fire and poured them both a Scotch. Her hands were shaking so much she almost spilled it.
“I—” He was staring at the fire, his face hard. “I’m meant to be angry,” he said. “I’m meant to shout at you and give you a big lecture about what a damn fool thing that was to do.”
“I know,” she said quietly.
“But if I did that, it’d only be because I….” He closed his eyes. “Because I think I’m falling in love with you.”
She swallowed hard and nodded.
“But we can’t be together. Even now, frozen to the bone, I can’t stop looking at you. Thinking about you. Wanting you. If you stay around me, it’ll drive me mad—being this close to you and not having you.”
“Why can’t you have me?” she asked gently.
He shook his head.
“Please! Please explain! I saw you change before, when you kissed me. I—I was scared then, but not now. If it happens again, it’s okay!”
He shook his head again. “Rachel, that’s only the beginning. There are parts of…what I am…that I don’t want you to know about.”
They sat there for an hour, with her clothes hanging on a dryer, steaming in front of the roaring flames. When her bra and panties were dry enough, he handed them to her.
“I’m okay like this,” she said.
“Rachel, please,” he said tightly. “I’m not okay with you like that.”
He turned around while she slipped them on and pulled the blanket around her again. She drank a little more of the Scotch. It or the fire seemed to be bringing the life back to her, because her hands had almost stopped shaking. “You have to tell me,” she said. “If you want me to go, tell me.”
He looked at her. “You think I’m a man who turns into something else,” he said. “I’m not. I’m different. I’m something else all the time. You just can’t see it when I’m a man.” His gaze tracked down to the blanket, to the contours of her naked body beneath. “You know how much I want you. But you don’t realize…Rachel, if we kissed, if we even got that close….”
“Yes?” This was it. This was what she’d been trying to get at since she’d first met him. Every nerve was achingly taut as she listed.
“I wouldn’t be able to control myself,” he said.
She gulped. “You mean…you might change? The claws might come out?”
He shook his head. “No. I mean, yes, they probably would. But that’s not the point. He looked at her seriously. “It wouldn’t just be sex. It’d be…mating. It might be…rough.”
Rough.
“And I couldn’t treat you like that,” he said, looking into the fire. She could see the self-disgust in his expression. This is why he’d shied away from the world—away from women for so long. He was terrified of letting out the monster within.
A deep heat ignited in her core, spreading slowly through her. The blanket was around his shoulders, revealing those thick plates of muscle, the wide shoulders. He was much, much stronger than her. He’d have no problem at all doing…she gulped…whatever he wanted to her.
The idea, she admitted, wasn’t anywhere near as disturbing as it should have been. And a
hell of a lot more exciting.
“What if I was okay with that?” she said quietly.
He looked at her sharply. “You don’t mean that.”
“What if I do?”
They stared at each other in silence for a moment.
“There’s another side to it,” he said. “Another…urge. A need to continue the line.”
She blinked at him. She understood what he meant…she just didn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Breeding,” he said. “I’d want to breed you.”
She shook her head. “It’s fine,” she said, glancing away. “I’m on the pill.”
“No you’re not.”
She looked at him, astonished.
“I can smell it on you, Rachel. I can tell. Pheromones. You’re not on the pill and you’re ready right now. Aren’t you?”
She’d already done the mental math and she knew he was dead right. She nodded. They stared at each other for a second as thunder boomed overhead. She found herself running her hand over her tight, toned stomach.
That’s crazy. I barely know him!
“Would they be…like you?” she asked. “Your—our—children?”
He gave her a warning look. “Don’t tell me you’re seriously—”
“I’m just asking.”
He stared at her for a moment. “I don’t know. It’s a family…trait, but I don’t know how often it’s passed on. We wouldn’t know for certain until they came of age—eighteen, nineteen….”
She took a long look at his muscular chest. Those powerful thighs. The blanket had fallen away, a little, lower down and she could see the shape of his cock in the shadows, long and thick enough for her to go weak inside.
He was right, said the sensible little voice inside her. He was right all along. You can’t do this! Not let him take you and…and…breed you and—
And yet there was a heat twisting inside her like she’d never felt before. I couldn’t…but what if I did?
Thunder crashed outside. Rain smashed into the windows so hard it seemed it would break the glass.
“You need to go to bed,” he said.
She didn’t answer. She thought about it for a long time…and then she edged a little nearer to him.
“Don’t,” he told her.
“I want this,” she said. Her voice didn’t sound like her own—too low, too strained. She slid an arm around his waist and she could feel the tension in his muscles. “I’m not scared,” she told him—which was only half true.
He closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. “I’ll tell you one more time, Rachel. You don’t want this. You can’t want this. Go upstairs.” He was breathing through gritted teeth, his pecs hard as rock as his chest rose and fell.
In answer, she pushed closer and kissed him, her soft lips pressing against his in a question. And after a second, he gave her the answer she needed, his tongue pushing savagely into her mouth, his body twisting to pull her to him, mashing her breasts against his chest. The heat inside her raged and built, filling her entire body, as he explored her mouth.
When he broke the kiss, they were both panting. “This is your last chance,” he told her. “Don’t start what you can’t finish. I’ll fuck you. I’ll mount you. I’ll breed you.”
Rachel took a deep, shuddering breath…and nodded.
He growled. A long, low noise that started deep in his chest, the sort of sound a human shouldn’t be able to make. It made every hair on the back of her neck rise and the heat inside her crackle and blaze. Strong arms grabbed her waist and, with one hard twist of his powerful body, he spun her beneath him.
The air came out of her in a rush as she landed on her back on the cushions. His mouth was on her immediately, his lips tracing lines of soft kisses along the edge of her ear…her neck…her shoulder. She felt him nip her there, the edges of his teeth on her soft skin, and she let out a gasp.
His hands were on her breasts, squeezing them through the lace, and then coming up beneath them to scoop them upwards. A palm slid down over the smooth flatness of her stomach…and stayed there. She looked into his eyes and saw the golden fire there, something inside her flip-flopping. She imagined herself swollen with his child, her body changing….
His mouth descended on her there, strong lips against soft tan skin, working down the length of her, circling her dark little navel. He reached the edge of her panties and she could feel the heat of his breath through the thin fabric. His elbows pushed her thighs apart, his mouth leaving a trail of fire down her inner thigh, hands stroking down the outside of her hips and then underneath her to cup her ass.
He reared up over her for a second, his cock bobbing above her, staring down at her body. She could see every muscle in his body standing hard, lit up by the firelight. When lightning flashed outside, he looked like a statue caved in marble, every curve and ridge perfect. And his cock, now fully hard and straining, took her breath away.
His fingers brushed lightly through her soft, honey-blonde hair and then trailed down her cheek. As they neared her neck, she felt something change. A hardness. A sharpness. As his hand reached her chest, she saw the flash of black, shining claws.
A single swipe, and the front of her bra was slashed through. She cried out in shock, but he was already pulling the front of her panties away from her groin with his other hand. Another two lightning-fast swipes and the waistband was cut on both sides. He dropped the front panel to fall between her spread thighs, her body now completely exposed to him.
She was panting now, her naked breasts aching for his touch. When she looked at his hand again, it was normal, the fingers pink and perfect. He grabbed her breasts in both hands, his fingers digging into the soft flesh, squeezing them upwards and together as his mouth came down on her nipples. She arched her back, thrusting up towards him as his hot mouth enveloped her, tongue lashing across first one nipple and then the other.
His knees were between her thighs, pressing them hard outward, and then as he continued to lick and suck at her breasts his knee began to press lightly against the soft lips of her sex. She began to grind against it, needing the friction, hotly ashamed at how she was acting but unable to stop. She could feel the moisture inside her starting to soak down to her lips, making her ready.
His teeth began to bite at her nipples—not enough to be painful, but enough to give a hard edge to the pleasure. She started to writhe under him, hair lashing on the cushions as her head shook from side to side, her breath coming in hot little gasps. She could feel the heat inside her twisting and building, gaining momentum like a hurricane.
He slid down her body, leaving her breasts throbbing and spit-shiny. His hands replaced his mouth, thumbs rubbing across her achingly hard nipples as his mouth reached her groin. He began with just the tip of his tongue, tracing the shape of her puffy outer lips and then the hidden inner ones, coaxing them to flower open. She could feel herself getting hotter and hotter, wetter and wetter, and though his shoulders were forcing her thighs brutally wide, she found herself straining to get herself even wider. She wanted to be completely open to him.
His tongue circled her clit, just once, and she let out a sharp groan, aching for it again. But he made her wait, returning to tracing her lips until she moaned and panted, her hands grabbing hold of the edges of the cushions and crushing them hard. His tongue came again, quickly lashing over the throbbing bud, and she groaned again, louder. She could feel his lips beginning to push against her outer folds, his breath hot against her. She knew that at any second his tongue would plunge inside, the penetration she’d been aching for.
Everything seemed to freeze for an instant. His hands were on her breasts, kneading and squeezing, his fingers and thumbs rubbing and tweaking. His mouth was hard against her pussy, shoulders spreading her thighs wide. She had her head lifted, gazing down at the beautiful man between her legs, his powerful shoulders hunched as he prepared to—
She cried out. His tongue slid long and deep inside her—God! So deep! De
eper than a man’s tongue should be able to go, as deep as some cocks she’d had, and yet, as it began to move…better than a cock. A cock couldn’t twist or point, or switch between soft and firm, stroking at the slickened walls of her tunnel as it stroked in and out.
His upper lip was stroking her clit, grinding against her each time he went deep. His tongue was finding every secret spot within her pussy, exploring every moistened inch of soft, pink flesh and sending shockwaves through her, a million nerve endings firing at once. She started lifting her hips off the cushions, humping the air as he drove into her, and only the pressure of his mouth held her down. She could feel the orgasm approaching, spinning out of control, now, collecting all thoughts into its cone and destroying them, leaving nothing behind. His tongue thrust, his lip ground and stroked at her clit, his fingers pinched hard—then harder—at her nipples and suddenly—
She was over the edge, the orgasm exploding inside her. Her entire body went rigid, her head grinding back against the cushions, her body lifting in an arc as she took all her weight on her feet and shoulders, groin thrust hard against his mouth. She could feel herself clenching and shuddering around his questing tongue, the smooth flesh quivering. He responded by thrusting even faster, going even deeper, the root of his tongue hard against the back wall of her pussy as he pushed as far as he possibly could. Spots exploded in front of her eyes as her orgasm multiplied in strength, stretching out and leaving her breathless. Her legs were trembling, her bare heels tapping on the stone floor. With two more long arches of her back, it was over and she fell limply back against the cushions, drawing in a shuddering breath.
“Now,” he intoned, his voice shattering the silence. She saw him kneel up between her legs, his hands dropping to her hips as if to hold her steady.
She gasped. His cock—she thought it had been fully hard before, but it seemed to have swollen still further. The head was perfectly shaped and shining, the shaft thick and veined. It was big—big enough that her insides went liquid. God! I’m not sure I can take him!
The Reporter and the Billionaire Scottish Wolf Lord (He Wanted Me Pregnant!) Page 4