But she wasn’t his mate, couldn’t be his mate. He had to remember that.
There was, however, a mate’s service to provide to her. He had to satisfy her sexual hunger. He’d give her a big enough orgasm to keep her from shifting until they reached the Cascade Pack.
He buried his face between her thighs, reveling in her scent. He targeted her clit and licked all around it before setting his tongue to it in earnest.
Dara screamed her pleasure, pounding on the back of his head. “More! Ah, please don’t stop!” Her quivering thighs scissored against Zack’s unshaven cheeks, making it challenging for him to lick her as hard as he wanted to. He shifted just his tongue to make it longer and stronger. He grinned as her screams reached a new level of desperation.
Her trembling increased. He worried about what it meant even as he savored every moment of her frenzy. He worked her over, sliding his long tongue down and up, side to side, wriggling against her most sensitive flesh with a skill an ordinary man could never achieve. But his talented tongue was driving her a little too wild, which in turn was driving Zack to the straining edge of his control. Zack’s cock throbbed with pained frustration. Dara’s wet perfume inflamed Zack almost beyond his ability to endure.
When she grabbed his ears and commanded, “Fuck me now,” while arching her body and reaching with her legs to entrap him, he had to disengage and take several steadying deep breaths to resist temptation. Her sexual heat was real and powerful. More powerful than he’d ever imagined it could be.
She managed to wriggle beneath him. She was trying to force his vulnerable cock into her virginal opening! “Zack,” she begged. Something in her tone alerted him and he looked at her more closely. A yellow tint to her skin showed more fine hairs on her arms than she’d had a moment before. Dara confirmed his suspicion when she cried out, “I’m shifting! Help me. Fill me. I need you inside me.” In the middle of her shout her voice roughened. She was losing the battle against shifting before Zack could make her come.
Zack looked around desperately. He thought of something. He rolled from her, ignoring her mournful howl of frustration, reaching for a long, broken tree branch that had fallen to the ground some feet away. He acted quickly, knowing time was perilously short. Shifting just his teeth and claws, he attacked the branch, ripping the rough bark from it with skilled flicks of his fingers. Using his razor-sharp fangs, he whittled the sharp edges of the tip with inhuman speed until the tip was blunted and rounded, and the length of wood shone with a mellow gleam. Zack examined the smooth wooden shaft in his hand. It might be girthier than ideal.
Dara made an agonized sound.
It would have to do.
Zack whirled and saw her writhing on the ground. He understood she needed to be filled somehow. Without the ability to mimic the mating rhythm of an alpha penetrating her, to keep the shifting urge at bay just a little longer, Dara would be lost. And he couldn’t take her virginity, roughly penetrating her as a werewolf mate would. Not being an alpha, he’d seal her doom. He simply couldn’t hurt her that way—especially after what had happened to her mother. Dara feared the forest and the creatures in it, which definitely would include him if he acted like a monster.
But there was something he could do.
Without wasting a single movement, Zack bounded to Dara, shoved her knees apart and buried his face between her legs. He licked quickly.
Her passionate shout, only slightly marred by her roughening throat, rang in Zack’s head even as he worked her with his tongue. Her hot slickness made him groan with frustration, but he kept his mind on matters enough to allow generous amounts of hot saliva to drip from his mouth and over the crack of her ass.
Zack wetted the impromptu wooden dildo with the fluids available.
“Now,” she demanded. “Oh, now!”
A lurch of excitement rippled through his body, nearly stealing his control. Zack smiled without slowing his flicking tongue. Then, he parted the globes of her ass and shoved the moistened shaft hard into her sphincter.
At the same time, he tongued Dara’s clit with a speed and skill.
Her body arched and went rigid in response to the back-end invasion. She screamed, her hands on his shoulders clenched so tightly he groaned at the sweet bruising ache. The pain spurred him in the way of his kind. Rough sex was the only type worth having. The fierce discomforts of mating could add so much to the experience. Dara’s animalistic response gratified him almost as much as fucking her would have.
Zack ground his tongue against her clit even as he rubbed his frustrated cock against the cold unwelcoming ground, heedless of pebbles and pine needles. Dara wasn’t his mate.
But she was a woman. Zack might not be able to fuck her, but he could – and would – satisfy her the way she needed.
He nudged the shaft deeper, feeling her clench around it. He pushed the wood brutally past her reflexive resistance. She panted and made desperate whining sounds. He couldn’t tell if they were more animal or more human. Determined, he worked his tongue then pushed the wood into her so deeply his knuckles lodged against the crack of her ass.
Then he fucked her with the wood the way he’d have liked to with his cock: hard and mercilessly.
Her reaction was swift and violent. Her body jackknifed. She cried out with each thrust. Zack groaned against her mound, not losing his stroke with tongue or dildo.
He’d never been sorrier in his life he wasn’t an alpha.
Her fierce shout and the tightening muscles in her thighs let him know she was surrendering to his seduction. The trembles that presaged a shift receded, replaced by orgasmic shudders. Zack pleasured her with his tongue even as he violated her rear.
Zack shoved the wood in again and again, wishing bitterly he could do the same with his cock. But it was working. The crude, raw act of possession, and the pain it doubtless caused her back passage, had stopped the progression of her shift.
He licked with abandon, her hot slickness a delicious honey to him. Passion pounded through his veins, heart, and mind as he worked Dara to her shuddering ecstasy. He could feel the heat of her body sear and torment him each time she bucked against him, riding out her orgasm.
It seemed to go on forever, yet it wasn’t nearly long enough for Zack. The feeling that cascaded through him was much more than sexual desire.
After she quivered then stilled, he kissed her thigh gently and withdrew the wooden shaft. Her sigh of contentment roused a melting sweetness within him.
She sat up. “Wow. That was--”
A dog burst from the forest, barking and wagging its tail frantically as it slammed into Dara. The impact knocked her back to the ground. A Golden Retriever licked Dara’s surprised face.
6
“Shoo! Go on, git!” Zack waved his hands to scare the dog away.
Dara enclosed her arms around it instead. “Stop it. Goldilocks is staying here.” Dara glared at Zack for a moment, then her gaze dipped to his nudity. She blushed and started to pick burrs from the dog’s golden fur and examined the happily squirming Goldilocks for wounds.
The distraction had one good benefit. It helped Zack’s erection finally begin to deflate. He watched the girl and dog for a moment, bemused, then shook his head regretfully. “It’s dangerous. Your big heart makes it dangerous. That’s the same dog that influenced your emotions and caused your shift before. You’re not stabilized yet and you know it.”
Dara stared at him coolly, or as coolly as one could with an armful of wriggling dog. “Whose fault is that? You had your chance and you just toyed with me instead of… instead of stabilizing me. Anyway… I’m feeling fine now. You’ve made me feel, um, very stabilized.”
Was she blushing again? She was! Zack faltered in his approach. Goldilocks should leave. He knew it. If he was an alpha he’d enforce it. But if he insisted, he knew it would make Dara angry and hurt. Anger and emotional pain about that animal made her vulnerable to shifting.
It was a conundrum.
“Dara, t
here’s something you should realize,” he began slowly. He’d thought it had been difficult to refrain from having sex with Dara naked and writhing beneath him.
This was harder.
The hardest thing he’d ever had to do was look Dara Davies in the eye, with her “I’m your mate” pheromones still making a lustful mush of his brain, and say the words he had to say. “I can’t be your mate. I’m not an alpha. Only an alpha can bring your wolf out, and… he’s not me.”
“He’s not you?” She cocked her head at him in a canine-like manner. “But, earlier, you said we’re meant to be mates. It’s your special talent, you’d said. You told me you can tell about those things. I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” The look of suspicion on her face tore him apart. “You said you could smell it. Did my smell change? Or did something else change? Did you fool me too?” Her voice had dropped to a tragic whisper. Her huge, rounded eyes speared him through the heart. Zack found it impossible to do more than stare back for a long moment. He had to remind himself to breathe though a throat grown prickly with hurt. Dara’s hurt had become his.
Tears threatened to fill his eyes. He turned away so she wouldn’t see. He stood, ashamed of his weakness. “I’m sorry it has to be this way.” He willed away the shameful tears. They showed him beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t an alpha.
How could he be brought to such mental wretchedness just by a woman’s emotional pain? It had certainly never happened to him before. Confused, he retreated. He edged away and walked to the cab of his truck.
He rummaged inside for a spare pair of jeans for himself, and tossed the tee shirt to Dara. “That one might fit,” he muttered as she caught it. “Sorry it’s not big enough to work as a dress but it’s better than nothing right? I don’t have anything your size.” Now he was rambling awkwardly and he knew it. He didn’t know what else to tell Dara. He pulled on the jeans. Why didn’t she say something? Even curses would be fine.
She finally spoke when she had the shirt on. Her voice put a chill in the warm night air. “Take me home. Right now.”
He turned to her. His heart twisted in his chest and he knew an anguished yellow blazed in his eyes. “You know I can’t do that.”
“What are you going to do? Kill me? Murder, to keep your werewolf secret safe? I knew something bad was going to happen to me in this damned forest. I knew it.”
“Kill you?” Zack blinked at her. “Of course not. I want to save you the only way I can. I have to give you to an alpha, and soon – before you shift again – and I only know of one close enough. He’s the packmaster of Cascade Pack.” Zack kept his personal feelings about the man to himself. He wouldn’t like anyone who mated with Dara, but the packmaster was a particularly galling choice. The man was a liar. He didn’t respect females. And he wasn’t much of a leader.
But what else could Zack do? Dara’s time was short. He had to help her somehow.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“You don’t have to lie to me.” Dara clutched at the yellow dog as if it was her only friend. The dog bore it stoically, giving Zack a distinctly unfriendly look. Dara’s look wasn’t any warmer. “You don’t want me anymore. Message received.”
“I do want you!” Zack could feel his flaccid cock inside his jeans, not proving his case at all. All the emotional stuff had killed his erection. “Dara, please understand.”
“Oh I do. An idiot could’ve figured it out. And did. Just please let me keep Goldilocks close.”
“She rides in the back.”
When Dara opened her mouth to protest, he interrupted. “The small separation is for your own protection. Do you want to be locked into an unchanging dog’s body forever?”
“Maybe,” she whispered, stroking the gentle dog. “Maybe I do. I like the company of dogs. People sure haven’t been as kind to me.”
“Dara…”
She shrugged and made a gesture as if throwing it all off. “No. If my mother could survive a wild man attacking and raping her in a forest then I guess I can handle a little werewolf exposure. Innoculation? He’ll be having sex with me won’t he? And you’ll let him.” Now she looked directly at Zack. His shirt hugged her generous curves, reminding him how she’d felt under his hands and fingers.
Zack clenched his fists. “I don’t have a choice.”
“It’s my choice, isn’t it? I could choose to be a dog forever… or let you give me to some stranger to have sex with me.” She looked at Zack. “Take me to him.” Zack felt the weight of her sorrowful regard. He wished her tee shirt wasn’t so tight. She was like a ripe fruit he couldn’t eat. She smelled more delicious than ever, more alluring and desirable than he could resist.
Zack turned away before temptation seized him again. He’d resist her charms because he had to. It was for her sake. Being lonely was nothing new to him, he told himself. “Let Goldilocks jump into the back. We’ll ride up front.
“I’m taking you to the packmaster.”
7
The truck’s heater warmed the nighttime air inside the cab. It didn’t begin to cut the atmosphere between Dara and Zack as they drive up the hill, not speaking to one another. With each mile, the silence grew thicker and more sorrowful.
For her part, the nauseating sinking of despair inside her kept Dara from saying a word. Zack’s presence was a torment to her. His musky, woodsy scent was familiar as home now. Everything about him drew her to him, but she couldn’t have him. How had he penetrated her emotional defenses so completely? If she spoke, she knew she’d burst into tears.
So much had happened to her in too short a time. Turning into a dog, being chased, meeting Zack. Being touched by Zack until she screamed with joy.
It was wild enough she’d actually been a dog, with a canine’s thoughts and impulses.
Dara let her mind veer away from that memory. If she thought about being a dog too much she might start to shift into one again, and she sensed it was true that would be catastrophic to any chance she had of retaining her humanity.
With Zack right next to her, it was simplicity itself to think about him. On his erotic skill, his wolf-like presence, his devastatingly masculine good looks. On the miracle of their erotic connection. It anguished her, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Zack.
Which was a problem. Zack didn’t want her.
She was assailed by a terrible sense of embarrassed bitterness. The problem was her large size, of course. He’d seen her naked, gotten a good close look and been totally turned off. He’d told her that nonsense of “it’s not you, it’s me not being an alpha” as an excuse. She should’ve realized when he’d called her jiggly. Then he’d even actually make that comment about his tee shirt not being big enough for her size. It was obvious.
She should’ve expected that disappointment after all the comments about her size she’d endured in her life. She’d let her guard down, thinking the supernatural events had created some kind of exception to the rule with Zack. Thinking that her sexual response and willingness, and his uninhibited enthusiasm, created a bubble in which they could live happily ever after. As werewolves.
The insanity of the situation rocked Dara again. It was surreal and totally impossible. But she couldn’t deny the reality of changing into a dog.
Or of her unfortunate sensual response to Zack the werewolf.
He’d toyed with her, taken advantage of her feelings when she was naked, vulnerable, and confused. Worst of all, Zack was delivering her to another man.
It wasn’t the kind of thing she could forgive.
The man would be another werewolf. An alpha, this time. Perhaps he’d have the answers Dara needed.
This time she’d be on guard against seduction, and disappointment. She’d guard her heart and get answers to help her deal with all of this better.
She turned to check on Goldilocks and saw with relief the Golden Retriever was wagging her tail. The dog seemed to be doing well after her trek through the forest. Dara had heard of dogs crossing miles to find th
eir owners, but nothing like it had happened around her before. It made her heart glow, a little, that Goldilocks would go to such trouble to track down Dara. The dog, at least, was devoted to her.
Dara snuck a peek at Zack. His ruggedly chiseled features and his naked torso were works of art. Her hands ached to touch his glorious muscles, his lightly furred chest, his taut belly. She thought she could see a yellow color in his eyes as he watched the moonlight-bathed road ahead. She definitely could see the downturned corners of his lips, his mouth dipped into a frown. Butterflies fluttered in her belly as she remembered that mouth pressed against her core, working her with his matchless tongue. She’d never felt anything like it in her life.
She trembled, looking away. Why did Zack have to be so damned attractive to her? She was actually falling for him. That was bad.
Maybe all werewolves had Zack’s innate charisma and sex appeal, she told herself desperately. Maybe the alpha she was to be given to would capture her imagination more strongly even than Zack. Maybe he’d be even cleverer with his fingers and his tongue and have a superior and diabolically large, sexy cock.
Maybe the alpha would be even more fascinating than Zack. He might even be attracted to Dara for more than an hour or two.
It could happen.
As Zack slowed to the gated entrance of the Cascade Pack’s community, Dara took a deep breath and adjusted her smile. She was about to meet an actual pack of werewolves. That didn’t happen every day. The alpha would help her, unlike Zack. Whatever happened, she wouldn’t be trusting Zack again.
Howl & Growl: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 4