Idler (Norseton Wolves Book 3)

by Trent, Holley

  Fuck. He was already hard. His cock strained against the front of his jeans, painfully stiff.

  He eased out of the tub and took a deep breath through his mouth, because her scent was going to drive him insane. Maybe I’ll be the one begging.

  Seemed likely, the more he thought of it.

  “See?” She pointed to his bite. “Told you.”

  Sure enough, she bled freely. The crimson streaks nearly saturated the white hand towel she held over her breast.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and grunted. It was a damn fine bite. “I do good work.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head. Any wolf can tear flesh. Get out.”

  “What?” He ground his teeth and tried to suppress the growl rumbling up his chest. “You don’t seem interested in anything besides my teeth at the moment, but I assure you, I’m good at everything I set my mind to.”

  “So am I. Get out. I’m going to shower.”

  He didn’t know why he was goading her—why he had to have that last word—but he leaned in and whispered, “Come on, princess. You can’t shower my scent off, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re stuck with it now.”

  No, he knew exactly why he was goading her. It wasn’t Colt, but his wolf doing the talking. The wolf wanted her to react.

  She grabbed his hair again, yanking his head back. “You’re gonna want to watch how much shit you talk, motherfucker. I’m not the kind of submissive wolf who’ll be cowed by it.”

  Good, his wolf thought. The mouthy man part of him said, “I’m sure I’ve fucked someone’s mother before, though only once, and I didn’t learn her name.”

  Touch me again.

  She met his gaze for a long moment, and did just the opposite of what his inner wolf wanted. She let go of Colt’s hair and pointed to the door. “I’ll be out of here in five minutes. By the time I’m done, it’d be amazing if you got all those clothes cleared off the sofa so that we can sit down and have an adult conversation about our relationship.”

  In five minutes, we’ll be fucking. A born alpha just bit you. He grinned.

  “Sure thing. Anything else?”

  “Perhaps put them away, if they’re clean.”

  “They are.”

  “So why are they on the sofa?”

  “Why not? I think that’s the better question.”

  “Do you own a dresser?”

  “Two. I imagine you’ll be filling them with negligees and G-strings soon?”

  He must have been grinning like an idiot, because she furrowed her brow and pressed her lips into a tight line.

  “I don’t exist for your pleasure, wolf.”

  Wolf. His grin fell away. “My name is Colt. And no, no, of course you don’t. That would be too much like submission, wouldn’t it? And you’re not even a little bit submissive, are you, princess?”

  She ground her teeth and sneered at him.

  So damn sexy.

  “If that’s what you want, hold your breath for a while. I hear some people hallucinate when they’re oxygen deprived. Maybe you’ll get exactly what you want in psychosis.”

  “What were you saying before about talking shit? You seem to do more of it than anyone.”

  “Because I can back it up with action, and I will, baby. Now get out.”

  He did. He still wanted to have the last word, but his inner wolf got him moving.

  He scooped his pile of jeans and T-shirts off the sofa and carried them to the bedroom. Flinging all of it onto the bed, he scanned his inner sanctum and groaned. If Lisa thought the living room was a disaster, she was likely going to chew his ass out good for how the bedroom looked.

  He thought it was comfortable—like a nest. When he stumbled into bed after a late night after work, he didn’t care if he was surrounded by laundry, various unread magazines, and who knew what else. In sleep, none of it bothered him. He suspected she wouldn’t think that was a viable excuse. He’d probably have to clear it off.

  Later, though. First things first.

  He quickly wadded the laundry into random dresser drawers—it didn’t matter where it went, because nothing was sorted, anyway—and turned off the light. He was back in the living room straightening sofa cushions when the water in the bathroom stopped running and the door clicked open.

  Soft footsteps sounded down the hall, and his wolf-caliber hearing picked up breathing—heavy breathing—and his nose was flooded with that scent…

  Her scent, mingled with his, and…arousal.

  She was so aroused.

  Bingo.

  He turned, letting his gaze track up from the wet feet that left puddles across his tile floor to the long, leanly muscled legs that came together at the apex that her hand now cupped and rubbed.

  She was touching herself, and her breathing, well—he looked at her face and found her lips parted and dark gaze intense—her breathing was ragged as hell.

  He scanned downward to his bite and found satisfaction in its neatness, in spite of the circumstances in which he’d given it. It’d stopped bleeding, so all that was left was the perfect impression of his teeth and her tempting, smooth flesh.

  “Drop—drop your pants,” she ground out through clenched teeth.

  “What? I’m not sure I quite heard you.”

  “You heard me just fine, wolf. Take off…your fucking…pants. Now.”

  “My name is Colt.”

  Growling, she grabbed him by the belt buckle and yanked the strap out of the loops in one easy tug before assaulting his fly.

  Shit.

  His pants were around his ankles and his ass on the sofa before he could even think of putting up a struggle—not that he intended to.

  She pushed his spine against the sofa back and put her face very close to his, as if she were holding herself back from kissing him. Her breathing was so fast and unregulated, she had to be moments from hyperventilating. It wasn’t a time for teasing.

  She was so wet, she was fucking dripping.

  And then he was in her, and it felt amazing.

  Fuck. He ground his back teeth and growled as she settled onto him. There was nothing better than a mate’s touch. He’d heard that time and time and again, but he didn’t know what it really meant until now.

  She threw her head back and murmured something in Spanish at the ceiling while digging her fingers into his tense shoulders.

  His Spanish was pretty rusty, but he managed to catch something about el diablo. Whether she was speaking in general terms about the supernatural being, Colt’s cock, or Colt himself, he couldn’t guess from context. Didn’t matter, though. Knowing the meaning wouldn’t change what he wanted to do.

  He rocked his hips again and tried to push more of him into her tight, wet channel, and she put her hands around his neck and squeezed, cocking her head in a daring way.

  He let out a slow breath through parted lips as his belly spasmed and tingles danced down his spine and settled into his loins. His nuts drew up tighter as she grazed her thumbs up the column of his neck.

  “I didn’t tell you to move,” she whispered and gave his neck another little squeeze. It didn’t quite cut off his air, but still managed to amp up his anticipation all the more.

  His head was in a pretty fucked up place at the moment, with his inner wolf urging him to let her have her way, and Colt not really wanting to put up much of a fight.

  Do want you want, princess.

  He nodded, slowly, so as not to rile up her inner wolf’s aggression any further. He was guessing that’s what he was dealing with. Usually after a woman received her bite, her DNA would start to shuffle immediately, so the part of her that was wolf came out of slumber. Depending on her innate tolerance, the process might take a few minutes to start, or a few hours. Colt was the son of an alpha, and a born alpha himself, so he imagined that his bite wouldn’t be of the garden-variety sort.

  Just do what you want.

  Sighing, she started riding him, using her strong thighs to slide her pussy up and
down his cock, and his breath came out in a growl.

  She clapped a hand over his mouth and bared her new fangs at him. Her first shift was starting, and she probably didn’t even know it. “Don’t. Talk. Shit.”

  He nodded slowly again.

  She squeezed around him tightly, and he held his breath so as not to let out the moan.

  “Good.” She stood quickly and turned, only to straddle him backward with her knees pressed to his thighs and her hands gripping his knees.

  Gods, please don’t…

  At that angle, he was going to come fast, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. There was no mind over matter treatment for being ridden reverse cowgirl.

  She bounced. And then again. A double, this time, as if she were checking him for durability, judging by the way she looked back at him and assessed his condition before going on.

  He put his hands on the delectable swells of her ass and parted her cheeks.

  What he wouldn’t give to run his tongue along her cleft and make her squirm.

  “You’re going to get yourself into trouble,” she said breathily.

  “You said I couldn’t have fun. I’m not having fun. I’m being tortured. You could at least give me something to hold on to.”

  “Maybe you need to be tied up so you won’t have to.”

  “Tie me up, then.”

  “Next time.”

  Next time.

  Gods.

  He squeezed his eyelids shut as she bounced and clamped down hard enough on his bottom lip to draw blood as he hit the end of her channel against and again, and fuck, he wasn’t even allowed to like it.

  His fingers curled into the sofa fabric and he heard the rip—the ruination of expensive material that was supposedly designed to survive even the most rambunctious of families. Apparently, that furniture designer hadn’t had werewolves in mind when sourcing the polyester blend.

  His thighs shook and belly shuddered with each aggressive rise and fall, and he had to look. Had to see that gorgeous ass rippling as she rode him up and down.

  Her nails dug into the flesh of his thighs and she let out an ear-rending shout, full of what he was pretty sure were Spanish expletives as she clamped so fucking hard on him, milking him. But she hadn’t said he could come yet.

  “Can I—”

  Abruptly, she stood and yanked him up by the collar of his shirt. “It’ll have to wait. Oh, gods.” Her fangs dropped even more and her eyes darkened. Her skin rippled with the beginnings of her shift.

  He pushed her toward the back door, kicking his pants off his ankles as he went.

  Time to run. Nothing killed an erection like an impromptu shifting to one’s wolf.

  She screamed, writhed, and clawed at herself as the moon compelled her to shift, and he shifted right alongside her, although he didn’t have to. His variant of werewolf wasn’t affected by the moon, though most others were.

  He had to shift right then to make sure that she didn’t get confused and lost in her new form. It would probably take her brain a few shifts for the wolf part to connect with the human one, and until then, she needed to be supervised.

  He could tell her what to do when they were wolves, and she’d have no choice but to listen. It would probably be the only time she’d listen to me.

  Again, he wasn’t so sure he minded.

  That scared him even more than that time he’d had a madman swing a machete at him in a tight hallway. Colt had known what to do then, and had managed to put the guy down without any bloodshed. Fighting was easy. Relationships? Not so much.

  It wasn’t his fault, though. He’d had training in fighting. Alpha had made sure Colt was as dangerous on two legs as he was on four. When he was fighting, he didn’t second-guess himself. Alpha couldn’t train Colt on how to be in a relationship, though. His parents were supposed to do that, and…

  Well, they failed.

  All of his relationships were fucked up, so what was one more?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lisa yanked open the screen door, and spotting her so-called husband on the sofa with a game controller in his hands, tossed her purse at his head.

  He easily dodged it and didn’t even have to take his gaze off the television screen. Of course he didn’t. His reflexes in both his forms were stunning.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “You seem upset, dearest.” He let out a volley of rapid gunfire on the baddie on the screen, and growling, she put her body in front of the massive display. She wouldn’t be able to cover all of it, but she could definitely annoy him. She wanted him annoyed—at least as annoyed as she was at the moment. After that first night when she’d lost control and let out her unleashed bitch, she’d been trying to rein herself in, but he made it so fucking hard. If anything, he seemed to be goading her on purpose, but she decided that couldn’t be true. A wolf like him couldn’t possibly want to be bossed around by his mate. He was a born alpha, after all. It had been evident to her after her wolf came out.

  He groaned and tossed the game controller onto the sofa. “What did I do wrong this time?”

  She sighed and batted a hair though her ponytail. “Oh, you know what you did. Seems like you healed okay, though.”

  He gave her that long, apathetic blue stare she was becoming so familiar with and let his hands dangle between his legs.

  She tapped her right foot against the floor and willed herself to stay focused. Pretty much nonstop for the three days since she’d gotten her bite, she’d been thinking dick, dick, dick—and not the word as an insult, either. Colt may have been batting zero in certain aspects of his personality, but his cock had certainly been worth the price of admission.

  Fuck, the man was going to drive her insane.

  She closed her eyes and balled her hands into fists at her sides. She could be calm and composed. “I heard Christina clawed you up.”

  Sweet little Christina—the prayerful one from the day of the matches. She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t hurt a fly. During a grocery outing with Mrs. Carbone and the other mates, Lisa had observed Christina to be the kind of woman who’d go out of her way to not step on a worm on a wet sidewalk. But apparently, even an unassertive wolf like her had limits.

  He shrugged. “Just a little swipe. I shifted soon after, so the cuts went away.”

  “What’d you do to earn it? Keep in mind that I already know.”

  “So why bother asking?”

  “Because I want to hear your side of the story. Perhaps I’m missing something. Maybe you’re not actually that big of a jerk, and people just overstate things because you’re large and imposing.”

  He scoffed. “Imposing, huh? Doesn’t seem to affect you one way or the other.”

  “I’m immune to that bullshit and so much worse, let me tell you. Now you tell me, what did you do?”

  “Usual shit. I was yanking Beast’s chain a little. He’s used to it.”

  “Anton, you mean.”

  “Beast. We all have nicknames.”

  “Really? What’s yours? I haven’t heard it yet.”

  Again, he shrugged.

  “I see.” She tapped her foot impatiently. “Well, let me tell you what I heard. I heard that you were talking shit to Anton, and Christina didn’t like it, so she gave you a swipe.”

  “Sounds about right. I’m sure you would have done the same thing.”

  “For you?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned sideways a bit as if to see the television around her body.

  She turned and pressed the game console’s power button with her foot.

  “Goddammit.”

  “I don’t know if I’d do it for you, to be honest. I might have thought you deserved the insult. You just can’t keep your mouth shut, can you? Not everything in life is a pissing contest.”

  He put his booted feet up onto the coffee table and crossed his legs at the ankles. “Oh, but it is. It’s just one big pissing contest. That’s what happens when you have the makings
of five alphas in one confined area. Some of us handle it differently than others. Beast somehow manages to compartmentalize that shit. Loner keeps himself separate from everyone. Scion just puts his head down and tries to find shit to distract himself from all of the compulsions. Me?” Once more, he shrugged. “I crack jokes.”

  “You’re trying to start fights.”

  “No, no, no, princess. I’m not trying to. Wolves try to assert their dominance whenever possible, and I often do it with words.”

  She was going to break him out of calling her “princess” somehow and some way, but at the moment, it was the least of her problems. “How’s that dominance thing working out for you?”

  He turned his hands over. “It is what it is. Doesn’t seem to be working so well on you, huh?”

  “Like I said, I’m immune to that shit. I’m an alpha’s worst nightmare.”

  “I’ll say. You won’t consider me dominant in my own house?”

  “Well, you do seem to think you’re the one running it.”

  “You haven’t even been here a week yet.”

  “That’s right. When I commit to something, I commit one hundred percent. I said I’d stay and be your mate, but I’m not the complacent sort of girl who’s going to coast on the status quo. You’re thirty-four years old. You need to do better.”

  He scoffed. “You throwing my age into this, princess? You’re no spring chicken. You and those pretty tits of yours are twenty-eight, and as far as I can see, you haven’t solved any major world crises yet. What, precisely, should I be aspiring to? I’ve got a roof over my head, a pretty good job, and scheduled downtime. That’s far more than we had before we settled here. I’d like to enjoy it.”

  “You’ve been here for more than six months.”

  “Yep. I think it’ll take a little while longer to make up for a lifetime of shit-tastic situations. I’ve lived out of vehicles for the better part of my adult life, and left my birthpack when I was sixteen. That’s when my father got challenged. He lost. He was perfectly willing to stick around and be some guy’s ass-sniffing lieutenant, but I didn’t get to choose. I got sent away. Adam collected me after my mother sent him out to find me, and here I am. So, yeah, I’m enjoying this sofa and my television and my free time very much.”