Michael eyed her again. “In the park, you mean?”
“This darkness covers more area than that. When I first sensed it tonight, I thought I might be the cause, because of what Dylan and Devlin had said. I don’t think I am. I don’t feel darkness inside me. I’m not like the other anomaly Dylan mentioned, am I?”
“I’m not sure what Dylan was talking about, and am pretty sure you’d know if you had darkness inside you,” Michael replied. “More than that, I’m sure I would have noticed.”
“I can’t be a vampire. You told me that. Yet I can sense them.”
“No vampire. I promise you that. You did not die by a vamp’s hand, and death is how their poison is passed along. Wolf and vampire can’t exist in the same body. And all Weres can sense vampires at times. This wouldn’t be news for your wolf.”
Maybe it was nothing new, Kaitlin thought, and yet Michael was thinking about the crazy werewolf in the library that had nearly completely covered its wolfish odor with that of its vampire kill, mixing up scents and causing confusion.
“In any case, that has nothing to do with you,” Michael said, aware that she probed his thoughts.
They paused near the street across from her apartment. She hadn’t been there since heading out to meet Michael earlier. Windows were dark, making the place that had been her haven seem uninviting. Traffic in front of the building was light, since most students near the campus walked or rode bicycles. She had no idea what time it was.
Michael had somewhere else to be, and they both resented that. He didn’t want to leave her any more than she wanted him to. Was she supposed to curl up in a chair and wait for any news they would eventually bring her if the pack survived finding nests of vampires and an escaped convict with an army of criminal-minded werewolves?
“That werewolf came after me tonight,” she said. “You believe that might not have been a coincidence.”
Michael’s scrutiny intensified. “That rogue, if it had anything to do with Chavez—the wolf Dylan and his friends are chasing—could just as easily have gone after any woman who was out here and alone.”
“Do some Weres do that? Chase humans?”
“Bad ones might.”
“What about the vampire attacks? So many of them?”
Michael’s green eyes were bright under the streetlights. “We are going to find out about that. I am going to find out.”
He stepped off the curb, pulling her along with him. He would leave her soon, and the thought of Michael fighting a wolf so bad that Miami Weres had chased it here, and that he might be hurt in that fight, was almost too much for Kaitlin to bear.
“You’ll have to,” he said.
She glanced at him.
“You will have to stay here this time, Kaitlin. You have to promise me you’ll do that.”
The energy sparking between them was exquisite and addictive. Kaitlin didn’t want to promise Michael anything that had to do with being separated from him. Though she was scared when she was with him, being without him seemed a terrifying idea. He hadn’t gone anywhere yet and her longing for him had already tripled in scope. The very thing that had been her first inconceivable anomaly had now become her safety net.
She found herself again chest to chest with Michael, not sure who had made the first move. His body heat was scalding. The sexy Alpha’s breath was rich.
Kaitlin cursed the night, the visitors and everything else that stood in the way of her having Michael to herself, including the guilt she harbored for being so selfish. Each second ticking by felt like an incredible gift, and also a monstrous mistake.
“All right, Michael,” she said. If I lie, you will know it.
“Let me hear you say it.” He whispered this to her, leaning down to capture her gaze. “Say the words, Kaitlin.”
“I promise to stay put.”
His lips brushed her forehead, setting off small internal explosions that mirrored the rocking ground beneath her feet. She wrapped her arms around Michael’s waist, frightened that this might be the last time to indulge in a stolen embrace, and that the danger tonight was too terrifyingly grim for any semblance of normalcy to return afterward.
“This isn’t wise.” His lips rested on her temple. She heard his intake of breath.
“No.” Kaitlin closed her eyes to absorb the riotous sensations he caused in her body by placing one brief kiss in the wrong place. “Probably not.”
But it is glorious, she silently added, slipping her hands beneath the hem of his jacket. You are glorious.
Michael wore no shirt beneath the borrowed tweed coat. He shuddered when her fingertips danced over him.
The jacket was too small to contain Michael. His wide shoulders stretched the seams. When his arms encircled her, the coat rode up his back.
Testing the limits of her craving for him and pushing thoughts of guilt and danger aside, Kaitlin pressed her palms to his warm flesh. She moved her hands upward, over his waist and abs, acutely aware of each inch she traveled and awaiting his response.
It wasn’t the response she had expected.
He released her, caught her wrists in a viselike grip and sucked in a breath. But she wasn’t going to let him off that easily. What she wanted from him wouldn’t take up much precious time.
She waited out the few seconds it took for Michael to loosen his hold on her wrist. When he did, he gathered her closer.
His kiss was a feverish devouring that captured her completely from the first touch of their lips. No light thing, and an action without warning, this kiss threatened to fade the rest of the world out of existence.
Lips. Tongue. Teeth. This was why Michael was so dangerous. He was a talented warrior for justice and sublime as a lover. She was going down in flames, craving him, wanting him, needing him, in spite of the dangers the night had brought. Their mouths were merging in an endless, mindless seduction of every other part of her.
Deep within her body, shocked by this kiss, Kaitlin felt her wolf stirring. The sensation was indefinable and disturbing, as if she had swallowed an animal whole and it was still alive.
Barreling upward, this inner wolf clawed its way to her throat, where it made a rumbling sound that resembled a groan of pleasure.
Michael echoed that sound.
She climbed up his body by wrapping her legs around Michael’s hips. She clung hard to his shoulders as the kiss went on and on in a more provocative version of the first time Michael had placed his mouth on hers…in darkness, at death’s door.
They were on the street, at the curb, and his hands tore at her clothes without a care for who might be watching. Hell, she didn’t have to worry. No observer would have recognized shy, quiet Kaitlin Davies.
When Michael backed away from the street, she was sure they were going to finish this without a bed and four walls, and in this one case, the darkness might be a friend.
*
In the back of Michael’s mind, a warning light flashed. Time was short. Others were waiting, depending on him to join the hunt. He just couldn’t stop kissing Kaitlin. Everything he had always wanted was centered in her fragile, misunderstood body.
He liked to think that on some level he knew what he was doing, and that following his instincts about being physical with Kaitlin would turn out all right. He had never been delusional.
He could have taken her to her apartment, one rationalizing flash told him, but if he was late to the hunting party, Rena might come calling and break down the door. Instead, he carried her, with her legs around his waist, to the trees bordering the park; merely a few yards of backpedaling from the rest of civilization. He wanted her all to himself and was breathing hard. But then Kaitlin had always taken his breath away.
She was perfectly positioned to rub him the right way. Against the jeans he had nabbed from a student’s backpack, the space between her jean-clad thighs created enough friction to heat the planet. The only question left was how he was going to get her out of those pants in a semipublic place, in order to
explore what she was offering.
They were hungry, unashamed, wanting.
He didn’t plan on being disturbed.
There wasn’t time to treat this right, treat Kaitlin properly, and he hated that. However, her plans were crystal clear. She dug into his shoulders with her fingers. Her tongue danced with his. She was clinging to him as if her life depended on it, and he didn’t slow down long enough to tell her it didn’t.
As for himself… Michael Hunter enjoyed his reputation as a badass Alpha who had never been tamed, and didn’t want to be domesticated now, no matter how much he wanted Kaitlin. Those warning lights in his mind told him that if he and Kaitlin followed through with a physical merging, they’d have to deal with the repercussions of a hasty, spur-of-the-moment hookup for days to come. After imprinting with her, having sex would seal the contract their bodies had made.
Hell. He was damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t do what any normal male would have done to the female pressed tightly to him. Kaitlin being part wolf just made the decision easier. Wolves were all about action and satisfaction. Animals didn’t consider consequences.
He was hard, and aching. His wolf was cheering him on, pushing him, roaring internally with a desire for him to consummate this union and get it over with. Kaitlin eased back far enough to look him in the eyes. Maybe she saw his misgivings in the dim light.
“Now who is afraid?” she asked huskily.
Damn it, she was right. He was afraid…of himself and the magnitude of his needs. He was afraid of the female in his arms that he craved desperately in the middle of a crisis. Nothing else seemed to matter, except her, and this.
“Do it,” she whispered between deep, fevered kisses. “Let me see where this leads. I can’t stand not knowing what it’s going to be like. Hurry, Michael. The others will come for you, and I will have this before they do.”
His mind blurred as his hands moved over her firm backside, tugging her free of her attachment to him. Before her feet hit the ground, he had torn her sweater over her head.
She wore thin, see-through lace over her small rounded breasts. The lace was a very pale, very feminine shade of blue.
He heard the fragile thing tear in his hands; heard it float to the grass as softly as if it were a leaf falling from a branch over their heads. The softness of Kaitlin’s skin made him feel clumsy by comparison. The fragility of her bone structure was a turn-on. The big bad wolf had become mesmerized by Little Red Riding Hood. So, how would this new take on the story end?
Her body was just as he had imagined it would be—tight, compact and beautiful, with balanced shoulders, a narrow waist and slim, sensuous hips. Her clothes hid strings of lean muscle that he hadn’t allowed himself to look at the night she’d been mauled by the bloodsucker. On that night, he had covered her with a blanket and warmed up her struggle back to life. There had only been an inkling of this attachment to her. He recalled questioning his objectives even then.
Now, Kaitlin, his half wolf protégée, was offering herself to him, not out of duty to an Alpha, but because she needed to either put her lust out of its misery or pile on the flames. The next few moments were going to decide that for her.
“All right, Kate,” he growled, reaching for her zipper.
Chapter 14
The sexy sound of her zipper sliding down overpowered the erratic, audible pounding of Kaitlin’s pulse.
She caught a breath as Michael’s fiery fingers slid into her panties, heading for the moist spot between her thighs that awaited him. This was no-man’s land. But Michael wasn’t really a man, as far as definitions went, and he had already captured her mouth again with a muted growl of ecstasy.
Her shoes were off. She had dropped them when he carried her. Michael’s free hand rested on the sensitive skin of her lower back. When his fingers reached that special spot she wanted desperately for him to find, Kaitlin gasped. The moment was hedonistic, and magical.
She stood within the circle of Michael’s strong arms, completely naked from the waist up, and Kaitlin didn’t give a damn. Michael’s wolf voodoo was heady enough for her to see this through. His inner fires were all-consuming.
She was ravenous for him. Wild inside.
He didn’t undress. There was hardly time to breathe, let alone master more details like that. When he lifted her again, it was to place her over the hardness tucked inside his jeans. This hardness was for her, and Michael’s erection had to be as glorious as the rest of him. The questions left unanswered, as well as the holes in her life story, were about to be filled by someone with secrets of his own. They were two of a kind, really. They had secrets in common.
Michael…
His kisses never stopped, and his lips had a direct link to her soul. Kaitlin wanted inside his jeans, remembering clearly how buff and beautiful his body was. She might even tear his jeans apart with her teeth. Another minute without having him inside her would be an unacceptable eternity.
This wildness was new, and so strange, she didn’t recognize herself. When Michael’s mouth finally left hers, Kaitlin growled menacingly and leaned closer, already mourning the loss. The bruised ache of her quivering lips was nothing when the look in Michael’s eyes promised there was more pleasure to come.
With a graceful move and very little effort, Michael took her to the ground. Stretched out beneath him on the grass, Kaitlin’s body buzzed with anticipation. The electrical connection they had threatened to bring up a shout.
Her arms were pinned over her head. Michael’s mouth hovered above hers as he searched her face.
What are you looking for, king of the pack?
His mouth was millimeters away from hers. His wolf-green eyes blinked, and the memory of when she had first seen them returned, along with a swell of internal heat.
Her pulse drummed, kicked. She ached in places so deep, her entire body throbbed.
Bite. Kick. Scratch. Take him. Have him.
Those weren’t proper things for a nice girl to think. With his weight holding her down she couldn’t move her legs or make room for him to slide between them. Michael’s longings echoed hers. His body quaked with need and his arms were corded with tension. If he’d freed her hands, she would have ripped into him, raking his back with her nails, pulling his hair.
When she arched her back and raised her hips, he let a hot breath escape that was the equivalent of a whispered curse. He ground himself against her as if he was ready to get to the good part of this union.
The wildness inside Kaitlin was growing to alarming proportions. Each nip of his teeth drew whatever the thing was that she possessed closer to the surface. That thing swam upward through her bloodstream, through her muscles, pushing against her organs and expanding outward.
Michael let go of one of her hands to run his fingers over her face, her throat, her neck, with a touch like velvet. The musky scent of his arousal was like perfume and told her that Michael was ready to consummate.
Her eyes closed as she waited for what was to come next. It was all she could do to count the seconds until then.
His mouth slid downward over her neck and chest. A damp lap of his tongue over her right breast made her insides spasm. He circled her raised bud slowly, taking time they didn’t have.
She bucked beneath him, wanting more, wanting everything. But his mouth returned to hers with another mind-numbing kiss that threatened to rob her of all remaining breath. And then his kiss became softer, lighter, until Michael’s wonderful manipulations ceased so abruptly, her eyes flew open.
He blinked slowly with his gaze riveted to hers as if he wasn’t sure what had happened, or what had interrupted the act they both wanted so desperately. But something had.
He released her, backed up and got to his knees so quickly, the motion left her winded. He stood up, reached down to grab her by the waist and pulled her up beside him, silently warning her not to speak, protest or argue by giving her a worried look.
Freed from his spell, breathing hard and fast
, Kaitlin easily discovered what had separated them. There wasn’t just a new scent in the air. What rode the wind was a malignant stench that could mean only one thing.
Company.
Michael sent her a glance that could have been perceived as an apology, and didn’t waste any more time. Swooping down to gather her sweater, he said, “Change of plans.” He helped her to dress, and led her away from that spot, adding, “Christ, I should have known.”
With a cautious glance over her shoulder, Kaitlin saw shadows gathering on that street that must not have belonged to the good guys—which meant that hiding out in her apartment was no longer an option. Like it or not, she had to go along for the pack’s next shadow-busting session and hope she had the nerve to see it through. She and Michael had to place their needs on hold in order to set wrongs to rights.
Maybe the interruption had been a good thing, she now thought, because as she tried to probe Michael for information on what they were running from this time, she felt him raise a mental wall that couldn’t be broken down, even when she tried really hard.
*
“Where are the others?” Michael asked as Rena and Devlin approached at a jog. He scanned the area with his senses wide-open, noting two other Weres in the distance, within a tight radius of where the rest of them were standing.
“The Miami crew are nearby,” Rena replied. “Those Weres are serious hunters and kind of spooky.”
“They have good reason to be good at what they do,” Michael said. “Imagine how many bad guys migrate to Miami for the weather alone, not to mention the fact that a city that size makes it a hell of a lot easier for Others to find hiding places.”
“As well as victims,” Devlin said.
Rena turned to Kaitlin. “Bad night for anyone’s initiation. Tough luck, Kate.”
Michael sent Kaitlin a warning not to pursue that thought. Rena was riled up, and the kind of wolf who thrived on danger. She would have been a good addition to a pack like Dylan’s, where the concepts of daring and danger were interchangeable. His fear had always been that Rena might desire wider pastures someday.
Half Wolf Page 13