by Kate Douglas
Halo my ass. There was nothing the least bit angelic about Shannon Murphy. Full of the devil and twice as hot…
Sighing, Jake headed into the master bedroom and the big, lonely bed waiting for him. He should insist she join him, but what would that accomplish? He knew he could make her want him. Making her love him was another story altogether.
The jar of pills sat on the dresser, a reminder of everything he’d screwed up. If she didn’t take the pills, she would never become Chanku. Was Shannon hardheaded enough to deny herself her true heritage, just to prove a point?
Frustration washed over Jake in heated waves as he turned the spigots on in the shower. The cascade of hot water soothed his nerves, but not his libido. He washed himself, removed the scent of wolf and sweat, then lingered on his cock.
With soapy hands, he pleasured himself, wrapping his fist around his hard girth and stroking, slowly at first, working the foreskin back over the dark crown, rubbing the full length in a steadily increasing rhythm.
Jake imagined Shannon’s small hands encircling him, imagined her lips covering the crown. She’d done something no other woman had done to him the other night when she slipped the tip of her tongue under his foreskin, teasing the ultra sensitive spot just behind the head of his glans.
He shuddered, remembering the silken feel of her tongue, the tight clasp of her hands.
Her skin was so soft, her breasts full and firm, her pussy grabbed his cock like a satin fist and drew him in, deeper, deeper still until he felt the hard, rounded end of her womb, met the small cleft of her cervix and heard the soft moans she made when he touched her there, so deep inside.
He felt her fingers stroking his balls as she rolled each nut within his sac, then cupped the weight in her palm. Her mouth came down on him, taking his whole cock between her lips and down her throat, swallowing convulsively, tightening around his engorged flesh until the pleasure was too great, the sensations too powerful.
Grunting, one fist flying up and down his slick shaft, his other hand holding his ball sac in a parody of Shannon’s soft touch, Jake ejaculated all over the tile wall of the shower.
Chest rising and falling with each breath, he stared at the thick globs of semen flowing down the shower wall. It mixed with the water, swirling into oblivion down the drain. Jake shook off a sense of self-disgust, rinsed the wall, finished his shower and slowly, methodically dried himself.
His cock lay shriveled between his legs, the foreskin completely covering the once proud crown. It wasn’t the first time he’d beaten off in the shower.
It certainly wouldn’t be the last.
For the life of him, though, Jake couldn’t explain the emptiness he felt, the sense of loss that Shannon’s sweet touch had all been fantasy. The knowledge that while he stood alone in the shower with his dick in his hand, she lay asleep on the couch in the other room.
It didn’t get much more pathetic than this. Once again, Jacob Trent managed to screw up the one thing he had hoped to do right. Somehow, he had to find a way to fix things before it was too late.
Shannon had the coffee going by the time Jake crawled out of bed. He looked hungover and grumpy as hell, but she handed him a cup of coffee with a smile and went back to preparing breakfast. Jake nodded, took his coffee and sat down at the kitchen table. He stared at the cup for a long time before finally raising it to his lips for a sip.
“It’s good.”
Shannon turned with the spatula in one hand. “Well, don’t sound so surprised. I can cook, you know.”
Jake actually smiled at this. “Well, actually I don’t know. So far I’ve done all the cooking.”
She threw a potholder at him, but he ducked. At least he was still smiling. Shannon realized she had a stupid grin on her face as well. “Potatoes are warming in the oven with the bacon. How do you want your eggs?”
“Any way you fix them.” Jake took another swallow of his coffee and his expression was one of pure bliss. “You have no idea how it feels to walk out into the kitchen to find a beautiful woman fixing me breakfast. I could get used to this.”
Shannon laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t get too comfortable with the image. Breakfast is about all I know how to cook.” Still, the warm look he gave her made her feel good, sort of tingly all over.
Maybe it’s the pill you took earlier…
There was that. She’d taken the pill first thing this morning. Now she watched while Jake pulled the bottle out of his shirt pocket and emptied two capsules into his hand. He held one out to her.
She felt like a liar shaking her head. The look on his face almost made her confess, but something held her back. Was it pride? Or pure contrariness, as her mother might have said.
Shannon turned back to the stove and added some chopped onion to the butter in the pan. She’d been thinking of her mother a lot since last night, wondering what the woman who gave her life had really been like. A five-year-old’s memories couldn’t be reliable.
Still, she did remember hugs and kisses, and cereal at the table when she woke up. There’d been cartoons on Saturday mornings, wrapped close with her mom in an old blanket on the sagging couch in their front room. It wasn’t until she was older that Shannon realized she’d grown up in such a seedy apartment in the Tenderloin. As a little girl, it had been home.
Then her mom was gone and her father moved Shannon to his home in the Marina district, which happened to be close to her friend Tia’s house. Shannon recalled very little of her father, other than the fact he’d been cold and uncaring, unwilling to spend time with a frightened, needy child. Scared and alone, Shannon had latched on to Tia as her anchor. They’d been friends since they were barely more than toddlers. Shannon knew Tia’s mother knew her mother, but not how well or in what context.
Not long after, Tia’s mother had been murdered and the two girls had truly bonded.
Friends, then, when they’d reached puberty and their bodies were suffused with unexpected hormones, lovers. They were inseparable as teens, even going away to a private school together. Though she’d never been certain, Shannon suspected Tia’s father had paid her expensive tuition at Briarwood.
Was it out of love, or just to find a place to park the two of them? Shannon added the eggs to the softened onion in the pan, stirring carefully, remembering a life that somehow seemed to belong to another woman, another time.
Tia had found Luc. Shannon wished she knew the details. Had it been as simple as meeting the right guy and falling in love? She glanced at Jake, realized he watched her like a wolf staring down its prey.
How could she let him know he was the right guy, just not quite yet? She needed time. Time to adjust, to learn this new body, this new way of thinking. Already she felt the pill from this morning working its miracles in her bloodstream. Her arms tingled, her senses felt more acute. She felt as if she didn’t go out and run for miles she might explode.
That alone was the clincher. Shannon hated exercise.
She scooped a large helping of eggs onto a plate, added most of the fried potatoes and half a dozen strips of bacon. She set it in front of Jake, then prepared a smaller plate for herself.
Shannon stared at the small serving of eggs for a moment, then added what was left in the pan, piled the rest of the bacon on her plate and added the remainder of the fried potatoes. There was enough to feed two of her, but when she sat down across from Jake, Shannon knew she’d eat the entire serving.
Her legs twitched. She felt the need to run, to get out of the house and race through the woods. She might not be ready to shift, but suddenly Shannon knew she had to run in the forest.
Jake raised his head. “This is delicious. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Shannon took a bite of potatoes and smiled. They were really good!
“I’m going to be gone for a couple hours. Will you be okay here by yourself?”
Shannon’s head snapped up. “Where are you going?”
“I want to go to town without you, check and
see if anyone has been looking for us. If you’re with me, people will notice. By myself, I just won’t stand out as much.”
Shannon found that hard to believe. He was gorgeous. His body alone was enough to attract attention, but that over-long hair hanging in sun-ripened waves around his face, those gorgeous eyes…who was the man kidding?
Maybe he just needed to get away. She could certainly understand that. Shannon nodded. “Fine. I’ll be here. You might want to pick up some fresh eggs and maybe some fruit. A newspaper would be nice.”
“Do you need…uh…” He looked away, obviously uncomfortable.
“What?”
“You know. Feminine products. You said you’d started your period.”
Shannon shook her head. “No. It only lasted a day. False alarm, I guess.”
Jake nodded, took another bite. He smiled at her and some of the tension eased. His huge plate of food disappeared before Shannon had eaten half of hers. Jake stood up and carried his plate to the kitchen, rinsed it off and left it in the sink. “I can help you clean up when I get back.”
Shannon waved him off. “No problem. It’ll give me something to do.” She watched him walk back to the bedroom, finished her meal, rinsed her plate. Jake came out a few minutes later, dressed all in black leather with his helmet in one hand. He stood in front of her a minute, his stance uncertain.
Shannon reached up on tiptoe and kissed him. It was a brief touch, just a meeting of lips that could have been so much more, but she pulled away quickly. She saw Jake’s shoulders rise and fall with his deep sigh, then he turned and left.
She watched him straddle the big motorcycle, heard the low, yet powerful hum of the engine, watched him ride away. Multicolored leaves swirled in the air behind him.
Shannon felt bereft. As if her only friend in the world had abandoned her. Turning away from the window, she started the water in the sink to do the breakfast dishes.
Jake stopped at the one gas station in town and filled the tank on the bike, then slowly headed toward the general store. He loved the sound of the motor on the bike, a silken purr that made him want to aim for the road out of town and never look back.
Except that would mean leaving Shannon, and that was something he’d never do. Jake pulled into the parking lot. Even though it was still early, there were half a dozen cars in the spaces and a couple of old guys sitting on the bench by the front door.
Jake nodded as he entered the store. Shannon wanted fruit, so he checked the produce section, surprised to find a fairly good selection. He filled a basket with bananas and apples, some late-season grapes and a melon that had probably come from somewhere in South America and would probably cost as much as a plane ticket to Chile.
It didn’t matter. Shannon didn’t ask for much. He’d figured that out at the very beginning. She accepted, she dealt with the situation, she moved on.
Would she move on from him once the effect of the two pills she’d taken had worn off? Jake shivered, terrified of losing her. Standing in the produce section in a funky little country store, worrying that the woman he wanted for a lifetime might leave. Might choose her independence over the genetic heritage that made her something special, something better than human.
He picked up a loaf of bread, a dozen eggs, a couple of nice-looking steaks. There were deer in the forest and a big freezer in the back of the house.
Jake had no business buying meat, but Shannon would like this. He was certain.
He took his basket to the counter and set the items down for the grocer to ring him up. The man stared at him a moment, gave him a long, slow look that made Jake come to attention.
“You the fellow that came into town with that sexy redhead?”
Jake nodded slowly. “Yeah. She’s my wife.”
Well, maybe one of these days…
“There were a couple guys here this morning, asking about a big man on a new Beemer and a tall, sexy redhead with green eyes. You two fit the description.”
Jake took a deep breath as he handed the man his credit card. “Did you tell them where to find us?”
The grocer smiled. “I sent ’em that way.”
Jake looked in the direction the man pointed. Due east. His cabin was north. He nodded, smiled. Looked up and caught the grocer’s eye and winked. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Your money’s good here. They complained about the prices.”
Jake bit back a grin. “That’ll get you bad information every time. Personally, I think your prices are just fine.”
He signed the tag, gathered up the bags the man handed him and started to leave. Then he turned back to the grocer. “For what it’s worth, they’re Feds. They want her on a bogus charge and I’m trying to protect her. I appreciate your help.” Jake scribbled his cell phone number on the back of his receipt and handed it to the grocer. “I’d appreciate hearing from you if they come back.”
The man’s smile spread from ear to ear. “I just knew it. No one wears a suit that expensive around here. I didn’t trust ’em. Not one bit.” He pocketed the number and straightened his shoulders. “You can count on me.”
Jake held out his hand. The older man took his in a firm grip. When he left the store, Jake whistled all the way out to the parking lot.
Shannon finished the dishes and wiped down the counters. There really wasn’t much to do and Jake probably wouldn’t be home for at least an hour or more. She buzzed with energy, as if her body needed to move and move fast, and realized she’d been pacing back and forth in the front room, like a lion in a cage.
Or a wolf.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins and she chalked it up to the changes in her body, the changes Jake had warned her about.
It’s really happening. She stared down at her arms, imagined them turning into powerful wolven legs and paws. Felt the skin ripple beneath her gaze. The time was growing closer. Now that she understood the reason for the pills, all the sensations began to make sense.
It explained Jake’s nervous energy, the fact he rarely sat still for any length of time. Shannon grinned, giving in to the inevitable. Tia’s need to run with Luc even made sense. Finally she went into the bedroom and found Jake’s travel bag. She pulled out a pair of jogging shorts, a T-shirt and some socks. They’d be big on her, but better than running naked through the woods.
Shannon might not know how to shift, but the need to run was overpowering. She pulled on the shorts and tied the string at the waist to hold them up, slipped into the shirt, tugged the socks on and laced up her shoes. She thought of leaving a note for Jake, but he’d only been gone about half an hour and she didn’t expect him back for quite a while yet. It was obvious he needed his space.
Just as she needed hers. Checking to make sure the fire was banked and the dishes done, Shannon slipped out the back door and jogged along the narrow path to the forest. Jake had gone in from the front, but the trail here looked just as well traveled.
Putting her city-girl fears behind her, Shannon took off at a slow run along the well-trod path. One foot in front of the other, lungs expanding, nostrils flaring. She’d never felt so strong, so in control of her own destiny. In just a matter of days, if all went according to plan, she would run this distance on four legs.
Unbelievable. Impossible.
She couldn’t wait.
Chapter 9
Jake thought of going straight back to the cabin, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to face Shannon yet. His cock had been hard ever since he’d left this morning, which made the bike’s comfortable seat anything but. He wanted her with an all-consuming, gut-wrenching need, but right now he figured the last thing Shannon wanted from him was sex. Not as pissed off as she’d been.
She hadn’t acted all that angry this morning, but her distance had been palpable…and painful as hell. He needed time to think, time to figure out how to right all the wrongs he’d done.
This was as good a place as any. The sky was so damned blue and the air almost balmy on this mid-
September day. The more he thought about it, the more he recalled how Shannon hadn’t minded him leaving, in fact, she probably could use the time alone…and the bad guys were safely headed in the wrong direction.
Jake pulled the bike off on a side road near his property, tucked it in behind some bushes and stripped off his clothes. Things always seemed clearer to his Chanku mind than to the human side. Of course, the wolf didn’t carry nearly as much baggage as the human did.
Shifting, Jake put his nose to the ground and took off at a steady lope, heading across the brushy meadow toward the forest bordering his property.
He rarely ran during daylight hours, but the sun felt warm against his back and the grasses carried a richer scent than the meadow at night. He smelled warm sap and the aromatic resin of the pines. Even the fallen leaves had a unique smell that reminded him of clean earth and summers long ago.
Jake let his thoughts wander. Unerringly, they found their way back to Shannon. Would she ever forgive him? How in the hell was he going to make her understand his reasoning, his need to bring her over to the Chanku life? Uppermost in his mind was worry. None of them had ever started, then stopped the supplement before the change was complete. How the hell was he going to get her to take the damned pills?
Another thought surfaced, one that brought him to a complete stop. How was he going to get her to mate with him before AJ and Mik arrived if she wouldn’t take the pills? The last thing Jake wanted or needed was to find himself in a situation like Luc’s, with an available, un-mated Chanku bitch surrounded by a bunch of horny males.
Would serve you right, bastard. Payback’s a bitch.
It was almost humorous when he thought of it that way. Shaking his head at the vagaries of fate, Jake once again raced through the forest.
Shannon couldn’t believe how far and fast she’d run, but it was time to turn back before she ended up lost in the woods. She’d already lost the trail more than once, but her sense of direction seemed stronger, her awareness of her surroundings more acute.