by Ines Johnson
“I only have one leg,” Rory growled, stepping around the table. His body weight heavily favored one side.
Rhetta couldn’t help but look down his long and lean body. It was mostly covered by the apron with slivers of white in between the splotches of blood. At the bottom of the apron, she saw two legs there. Though one seemed stiffer than the other. Then he reached for his cane.
Jordan had said nothing about an injury. Though watching the big man walk toward her with a slight limp, Rhetta didn’t feel as though she was in the presence of a wounded animal. She felt as though she was in the presence of a caged beast ready to spring loose. She wanted to take another step back.
Instead, she held her ground. Wild animals, and male wolves could smell fear. Once the scent was on their tongue, they would never look at you as anything but prey.
“Or maybe you want to talk about the fact that it’s my brother’s fault that I lost my fiancée?”
Though his voice was deep and pitched with anger, Rhetta heard hurt there. It reminded her of a dog whose owners treated it badly. All the canine needed was a firm, sure hand to guide it and return it to a semblance of civility. Rhetta’s hand clenched and unclenched in front of her, but she didn’t reach out to this man.
“No, he didn’t tell me any of this,” she said. “He just asked me to come to you and—”
“Because he was afraid to do it himself,” Rory spat.
“He wants you to come to the wedding.”
Another of those dark laughs came from his barrel chest. “My brother, who has both his legs and now has his very own fiancée, whereas I no longer have one, wants me to attend his wedding?” Those rich eyes pinned her down once more. “That’s a laugh. Why aren’t you laughing?”
“Because I don’t find it funny. Listen, I don’t know what happened between you two—”
Rory spun; so fast Rhetta forgot he had a wound. “I lost my leg! I lost my fiancée. Jordan has his leg. Jordan has a fiancée. And you want me to come to my two-legged brother’s wedding to watch him marry his fiancée who didn’t reject him?”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“Shelly.”
“Yes, Rory?” said the birdlike assistant.
The woman unfolded herself from the shadows. Rhetta had forgotten she was even there. On the other side of the divider, every customer’s eyes were fixed on the back of the room.
“Shelly, go get me my father’s cleaver,” said Rory. “I’m gonna cut my throat.”
“No, Rory,” wailed Shelly. “I won’t do it.”
“She won’t do it.” Rory chuckled as he looked at her. Then he turned his attention back to Rhetta. “My brother takes my life. His fiancée comes to rub it in my face. And my assistant won’t give me my death.”
“You know,” said Rhetta. “I didn’t come to upset you. Maybe I should come back another time.”
“Do you know about me?” He used his free hand to indicate his wounded leg.
Rhetta frowned as she looked down at his foot. She couldn’t see the injury. It looked like a normal leg and foot covered with pants and a shoe.
“I’ve gone hunting with my father since I could walk. Learned to track and skin a deer before I hit puberty. Jordan’s my father’s child by a second mating. Our father passed away when Jordan was still young. But I decided to be a good big brother and teach Jordan to be a man.”
Rory laughed. The sound made a shiver claw between Rhetta’s shoulder blades.
“Jordan hated hunting,” Rory continued. “Hates the outdoors. Will only wield a knife if it’s in a sterile environment and the animal is on his surgical table. When he kills, it's with drugs and not his bare claws.”
“He doesn’t have claws,” said Rhetta. “He’s not a wolf.”
“You think that’s an excuse?” Rory shouted. “Every man should be able to hunt and provide for his family. But he was crap at tracking. He jumped at every branch that broke. So, I gave him the simplest task on our trip; to set the trap. But he couldn’t even manage that.”
The temperature in the room felt like it dropped and a chill slid down Rhetta’s spine.
“Something spooked him in the woods,” Rory said. “I went to him, to make sure he was okay, and I stepped into the trap.”
“Oh, my God,” said Rhetta. “I’m so sorry. But you have to see he didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Rory. “It’s done. And now I have no life. Jordan took my life from me. There’s bad blood between us. My blood.”
Rory turned and headed up a hallway. Effectively ending the conversation. Too bad for him he didn’t know Rhetta very well. The conversation wasn’t over until she said it was over. She followed him up the stairs.
Chapter Four
Just who the hell did she think she was? Rory stomped up the stairs that led to his small apartment over the butchery. It had been a long time since a woman broached his inner sanctum. Even Shelly knew better than to come to the back when he had a finely sharpened knife in his hand and an open carcass on his table.
Butchering was the only thing Rory had left in this life. Hunting had been his reason for waking up in the morning. That and Rosalind, the love of his life. But all of that—both of his passions—was taken away in one second orchestrated by his brother.
And now his brother had everything. Jordan had his work, he had his leg, and now he had a woman.
The nerve of that woman, coming into Rory’s shop, his holy place, the only thing left for him, and desecrating it with her haughty attitude, her demands. His brother was a coward, and it was clear to see who wore the pants in that relationship.
Rory threw his door open and then slammed it shut behind him. He hadn’t been this angry in years. He hadn’t felt this much in years.
His bum leg had been so numb it had spread to the rest of his body like an infection. His heart was tattered and hollow. But that woman, his brother’s fiancée, she had incensed him. He had half a mind to turn back around and—
“We are not done.”
Rory turned around and saw her standing in his apartment. No woman had been in this apartment, ever. Not even his fiancée, former fiancée. But Jordan’s woman stood in his doorway with her hands on her hips. Rory could only stare. He was a bit afraid to move. He wondered if he did, would he end up in another trap of his brother’s making?
This woman, Rhetta? Was that what she said her name was? Rhetta was tall. Her clothing made it look as though her body was all lines with no curves. She reminded him of his grade school teacher with a bun of curly hair and a stern, pinched mouth.
He couldn’t imagine anyone kissing a mouth that looked like a lemon. She deserved his stick-up-the-ass brother. Maybe her sourness would make Jordan’s dick shrivel up, that is, if she ever went near it. Which she likely didn’t.
She looked like the type to do it in the dark with her night clothes on, missionary style with missionary commands. Left, more to the right, drop and give me ten strokes, and you’re done, soldier.
“You don’t walk away from a person in the middle of a conversation.” She marched farther into his small apartment, shutting the door she hadn’t been invited inside of, behind her.
“We weren’t having a conversation,” he growled. His growls usually made others—stronger men—jump. This woman simply raised an eyebrow at him and shifted her weight to one hip as though she were staking her claim in his space. Rory’s hackles went up.
“I talk. You talk. That’s a conversation,” she said. “And now it’s my turn to talk again.”
“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”
“Well, you’re gonna.” She marched past him and headed into his kitchen.
Rory shuffled his feet to hurry after her. By the time he reached her, she was in his fridge. Rory teetered on the edge of anger and incredulity. His lips couldn’t form any words as he gaped.
“We’re going to have a civilized conversation.” She rummaged through the shelve
s of his fridge and came away with lean meats he’d butchered the other day.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He marched over to her and glared. Another wolf would’ve been cowed, not this woman.
She raised her other eyebrow at him. “Sit down. I’m going to make you something to eat, and we’ll talk.”
The brow raise wasn’t a challenge. A challenge indicated that she saw him as a threat. There wasn’t a hint of uncertainty in her clear eyes. There was only expectation, an expectation that her order would be followed.
She turned to rummage through his cabinets. When she bent over, her skirts tightened around her edges and revealed that there weren’t lines beneath all that cloth. Rory got an eyeful of the curves under her voluminous skirts. Her ass was heart-shaped, two handfuls of fleshy meat which traded space as she reached deep into the cabinet until she found a pan.
Finding what she needed, she straightened. When she turned and saw him still standing, she aimed the pan at him. “Sit!” she commanded.
Rory found his legs giving out and sinking into one of the two kitchen table chairs.
Rhetta turned on the burner, oiled the pan, and dropped the meat in before she began talking. “It sounds to me like what happened between you and Jordan was an accident.”
“Doesn’t matter if he did it on purpose or if it was an accident. It happened.” Rory curled his large hand into a fist as he watched her flip the meat in the pan.
“Bad things happen to people all the time,” she said as she gave the pan a shake, which caused her ass to jiggle beneath her skirt.
After just another moment in the pan, she put the meat on a plate. It was still kicking as blood ran down its sides. Just how Rory liked it. He took a bite and had to stop his groan of pleasure. So, his brother was getting a woman who was at least good in one room of the house.
“I was raised to believe that a girl marries her strongest suitor,” she said taking the chair opposite him. “My family holds Moon Festivals where the males compete for a woman’s hand. No one ever asked to compete for my hand. So, I married the man who needed my hand. And then he gets bitten by a snake and dies. I grieved for him, but then I got up and dusted myself off, and came back out into the world again. Do you see my point?”
Rory picked at the whiskers on his chin as he regarded this woman. Her story sounded as pathetic as his brother. No wonder she’d wound up with him.
“My point is fate, bad or good, isn’t looking out for you. You gotta take the direction of your life in your own hands and direct the sails where you want to go. So, you got thrown overboard. It happens. You don’t know how to swim?”
Rory was a little confused at where the conversation was going. But he knew the answer to her last question. “I know how to swim.”
“Then stop pretending like you’re drowning. Swim for the shore. You still got two legs. You got a line of women queueing up for your attention. A wolf can love again after rejection. You just gotta make a choice and take control of your boat.”
“Take control of my boat?”
“Exactly.” She leaned back in her chair—his chair—like she’d just given him the meaning of life. As the last bite of perfectly cooked meat slid down Rory’s throat, he realized she had indeed given him the answer to all of his problems.
All these years he’d been looking for a way to get even with his brother, to take back some of the power he’d lost. And here it was, sitting right in front of him. His control snapped and his wolf, hungry for revenge, sprang to the forefront of the man.
“You’re right,” he growled low in his throat. It sounded nothing close to human.
With one paw, he cleared away the plate and cutlery off the surface of the table. The dishes and silverware smashed to the floor. Rhetta reared back in her chair to miss the spilling of the beverage she’d set out for him. Rory didn’t glance at the spilled liquid. He thirsted for something else entirely.
She glared at him, not an ounce of fear on her face. Just outrage. “You animal.”
“Again, you’re right.” He got to his feet, capturing her in his large hands. He pulled her to him. Her body was stiff as he did so.
They stood looking at each other for a second. It had been so long since Rory had held a woman in his arms that he’d forgotten how to fit all the limbs and bumps and body parts together. But knowledge came back to him swiftly.
He pressed his large paw into the small of Rhetta’s back and fit them together. She gasped. Her lips parted and Rory took advantage. He sunk his teeth into her lower lip until he felt the blood pulsing beneath the soft unbroken skin.
“I don’t like boats,” he said when he pulled away.
“What?” Her eyes were hazy with shock and confusion and something that looked like desire if he remembered it correctly.
“I’m a hunter,” he said, his lips grazing hers. “Not a sailor, and I’m setting a new trap.”
Rhetta tilted her head back. Perhaps it had been to glare at him. Perhaps it had been to get away from him. Perhaps it had been to beg for more. He’d never know because he sealed his lips over hers and licked into her mouth, claiming her.
She didn’t pull away from him. Sure, her palms pressed against his chest, but not hard enough to get away. And Rory could feel her strength. She could’ve gotten away if she’d wanted to. But as she pressed with her hands, she also pressed with her lips, and then her tongue.
Rory did some pressing of his own. He pressed his chest against her breasts until he felt the two tight points pushing back. He pressed his groin into her until he felt the V between her thighs rub against his thigh.
His plan was so good. He would seduce her, screw her in a way he knew his brother never had, never could. He’d do her so good that she’d be begging for him. She’d break off the wedding and leave Jordan all alone, just as Rory had been left alone.
But when they came up for air, she pressed back at him with her words.
“You have to stop,” she panted.
Her breathless command was lost on him though. “I’ll stop.”
He pulled back to look at her. She was dazed. Her eyebrows were down, not making any more demands. In fact, they looked a little disappointed.
“I’ll stop after I’ve had my fill of you. Which won’t be until you’re beneath me, writhing with pleasure, unable to moan any longer because your voice is hoarse from screaming my name and begging me not to stop. When you’re limp because I’ve wrung every ounce of pleasure out of you and you have nothing left to give. Then, once I make you give me more, then I’ll stop. And if you tell me to stop one more time before I’m done, I’ll make you wait for it. I’ll take you to the peak of pleasure and leave you stranded there until you beg forgiveness for not being grateful for what I’m about to give you. Do you understand me?”
Her eyes were wide, her mouth hung open. She made a choked sound in response. That satisfied him.
“I’m going to take you to my bed now,” he growled.
“Fine,” she said. “Fine, take me to bed. I don’t even care anymore.”
He lifted her up. It should’ve been a struggle on his bum leg, but she was light in his arms. He treaded to his room under the moon’s light. But somewhere between licking her plump lip and stealing into her mouth, Rory lost his way.
Chapter Five
Rhetta had never been swept off her feet before. She’d never been carried as a child by either of her parents. None of the wolves out in the valley had ever had the balls to step to her, much less pick her up. Even her dearly departed mate had never so much as lifted her hand to his lips for a kiss.
Theirs had been a relationship based on mutual respect. Passion was a fleeting emotion. Love was a dangerous condition. Rhetta spent her life as far away from both of those wretched states of being as possible.
But when Rory put his hands on her body, she felt a jolt. When his lips captured hers, she felt a shock. When he lifted her off her feet, she felt something spread throughout her body li
ke wildfire racing through the brush.
Her eyes opened as he pulled away. The bright, white light blinded her. She looked out the window and saw the rays of the moon shining brightly on her. It was the full moon.
The moon’s rays reached out and shone its light on her forehead. The heat of the rays forced her head back and Rory slid his tongue along the column of her throat. The rays made their way into her and she turned her head, causing Rory’s mouth to find her earlobe. If she tried to run from one, the other caught her.
So, you see, it wasn’t her fault. It was the moon that burned the backs of her hands until they moved up his body. It was the moon whose flame hit her ass and caused her to thrust forward into Rory.
Yes, that was it. That was the reason why she had lost her damned mind. It was the moon and not her. The full moon was known to induce high emotions in Moonkind.
True, it had never affected her like this before. But she’d never been pushed before like Rory had pushed her. She had never been manhandled before. She’d never had a man paw at her or lick into her mouth or make her feel so incredibly heated like her body was a bush and she was on fire.
And so, she would say it was the moon that made her do it.
She would blame the moon for not stopping Rory as he ripped open her blouse. Her favorite blouse that made her bust look perky. Rory was admiring the pert mounds now. He fisted them in his big hands, kneading them.
Rhetta’s head fell back when his tongue hit the tight bead of her nipple. She’d never had a tongue on her breast. The sensation was so overpowering that she had to shut her eyes.
She had enjoyed sex with her dearly departed husband. The closeness of the intimacy had been pleasant and welcome. What was happening to her now wasn’t intimacy. She felt like she was suffocating and burning and drowning all at the same time. But she didn’t pull away. She pressed her body into Rory’s.