Forever Werewolf: Forever WerewolfMoon Kissed (Harlequin Nocturne)

by Michele Hauf

  For a moment, he had wished the same thing. Because standing at the end of the alleyway, listening to his lover’s sweet coaxing and the human’s moans, Severo had gotten hard. From the temptation Bella offered with her sighs and touches. From the kiss he’d struggled to label sweet when he knew it was now dangerous.

  “Let’s go down Poplar.” She pointed out the street. “It’s not far from where I used to live. It’s quiet, but we may find a college kid walking around this late.”

  * * *

  In the quiet neighborhood, they found a new development. Bella approached an acceptable candidate with the same sensual daring she’d exhibited downtown.

  Severo parked and followed, but by the time he gained on them, Bella was holding the man close in front of a green Dumpster in an alleyway. Blood scent filled the air. Both her hands on the rim of the Dumpster, she sucked at his neck. The guy initially stroked his hands over her hips, but quickly his hands dropped to his sides and he let out a long, appreciative moan.

  His jaw tensing, Severo forced himself not to interfere. The guy was giving blood, so he deserved the swoon. And he wouldn’t get far with Bella if he did try to put the moves on her.

  Was this what his life had become? He must accompany his lover each time she sought blood in order to ensure no one touched her overtly?

  Hell, he’d have to get used to it. He couldn’t go along every time. It would kill him. And it wouldn’t be fair to her.

  Bella needed this. And he grew hard as he imagined stroking the hair away from his lover’s face to reveal her blissed-out expression.

  Yet he could not touch her. He didn’t want to disturb her. He didn’t want to touch what he could not approve of.

  Christ, but he breathed as heavily as she did. When the unconscious victim slipped from her and settled onto the ground, Bella remained, leaning against the Dumpster, hands fitted to the rim, her legs spread.

  She smirked and licked her lips. There was no blood. She was surprisingly neat.

  “Ivan taught me the persuasion,” she said. “Makes them forget I was ever here.”

  Looking over her arm at him, she sent him an air kiss.

  “Don’t look at me all judgmental like that,” she said.

  “I’m not judging you, sweet.” It wasn’t worth the wasted thought. Besides, he’d gone beyond that. Her bold and sexy position had made him consider taking her from behind. “I’m admiring you. A gorgeous vixen of the night.”

  “You’re turned on?”

  “Yes.”

  Before she could react, he stepped up close behind her, bumping her, and placed his hands over hers on the Dumpster. He fit his erection against her derriere, pressing, making her know what watching her had done to him. Kissing down the back of her neck, he bit at the thin fabric covering her torso and licked along her shoulder.

  Sliding a hand up her thigh, he swept his fingers across her silken skin and found her panties. The lace, crisp and barely there, gave easily at his tug. She wasn’t wet—which pleased him; the act of taking blood was not so sexual, after all—but with but a few flicks of his fingers, she was there.

  Stroking her and rubbing his erection against her, he brought her to a swift orgasm. Her quiet murmurs entered his ears as music. Her shudders he drew into his body. He hadn’t come, but he didn’t need to. Experiencing her bliss did it for him.

  “I’ll take you home now,” he said, and lifted her into his arms and carried her away.

  * * *

  A light dusting of snow whitened the brown grass behind the mansion. Bella had headed right for the shower, mumbling something about brushing her teeth.

  He’d done it. Watched his lover take blood from another man.

  And it had turned him on. How sick was that?

  Or was it sick? He’d shared an intimate new part of Bella. Something she would keep private from the world, except for him. He could only love her for allowing him to witness her new ritual.

  And he did love her. That would never change. But right now it felt tenuous. Yes, he was unsure. Would she want to bite him? And how could he refuse her when he knew the one thing vampires required to become close to their mates was sharing blood?

  The notion of being bitten or sharing blood did not appeal to him. The werewolf did enough of that for his taste.

  So she had become the animal he already was, and he was having trouble dealing with it?

  Lifting his head, he sniffed the air through the open patio door in their bedroom. The snow cleaned the fall rot from his senses and his focus immediately found her. She was behind him, sweet with lemon shampoo and minty toothpaste.

  Yet he wasn’t confident he truly wanted to be here.

  Yes, he was.

  Probably.

  “Hell, pull it together, man,” he muttered.

  She smelled like the Bella he remembered. But there was something else. Some undertone he didn’t want to translate into thought. Yet his mind processed the scent and reacted to it before he could argue. His body stiffened, his fingers arching into claws. A defensive tickle ran up his neck.

  Vampire.

  “Severo?”

  Shaking out his hands at his thighs, he cursed his instincts and put on a smile as he turned to her.

  The white silk robe clung to her nipples. Like a bride marching down the aisle for her groom, Bella stepped up to him. Winter’s blossom—with a taint of blood.

  He hated that he could not make this perfect for her. For himself.

  You can. Just put off all doubt. See her for the woman you first fell in love with. Remember you savored her fear?

  He could scent that same fear now. And he hated himself for making her feel that way.

  “You look great, sweet. Two days away and I’d almost forgotten how bright your eyes were. Come here.”

  Yes, he could do this. He wanted to do this. He needed to make the effort of stepping into the usual, with the hope that it would erase his rising doubts for the future.

  Her body fit against his. The scent of lemon in her hair and the silk threads briefly overwhelmed her clean smell. And yet she was no longer clean or human.

  Her chest melded with his. He buried his nose in the crown of her hair. She might be tainted, but she was his mate.

  “I missed you,” she said. “I didn’t know if you’d welcome me into your arms. I know this is hard for you.”

  “Nonsense,” he murmured and stroked her hair down her back.

  The feel of her made his body react as it always did. He hardened and the lust surfaced. Good, then. He hadn’t lost the desire. The quick interlude out in the alley had simply been a reaction to something so intense. This was different. They were alone now. No secrets. No lies.

  “You’re mine, Bella. My mate. Forever. Did you learn what you needed from Ivan?”

  “He was a perfect gentleman and showed me the ropes. I’ve blooded my fangs, as Ivan called it.” She smirked. “I like that. Sounds so decadent.”

  She was different. Not so uptight, easier with him. Accepting of what, he imagined, was an incredible change in her life.

  A stroke of her finger along his beard, accompanied by sad eyes, made him look aside. “It made me feel good that you took me in the alleyway, after watching,” she said.

  “I needed you. It was an instinctual thing.”

  “It felt great. Like it always feels when I’m with you. You controlled me. I belong to you.”

  “As I am yours.”

  “Will you kiss me now?”

  A kiss?

  Why the hell had this been done to him and Bella? They had been so perfect. His future had been designed with her at his side. Even the werewolf loved her.

  All that had changed now. The werewolf would never accept a vampire. Never.

  “I won’t bite,” she whispered, a touch of hope lifting her voice.

  A nudge of her nose along his jaw sweetened the lust, which predominated over the all the emotions he’d rather not deal with right now. Maybe she had t
he right idea.

  Just let go. Concentrate on the now.

  Severo kissed the corner of her mouth. She tasted like Bella. Soft, salty, clean.

  Things would be fine. This kiss bonded two souls. It drew the two together, wanting and needing and giving.

  * * *

  They hit the bed stripped of their clothes. Bella couldn’t have dreamed of a better welcome home than this. He had accepted her. The werewolf had welcomed a vampire into his home.

  He’d once said to her that she would always have his heart. And she did still.

  Severo’s hand glided up her back as he pulled her on top of him. She bent to lick his nipple, a small, hard jewel. His satisfied groan heartened her. A familiar tune, yet one she could listen to over and over.

  His fingers massaged her breasts. Her loins tingled, aching for his entrance. He flipped her on the bed so she lay on her stomach. He trailed kisses down her spine as he slipped a finger inside her.

  “So ready,” he growled. “So hot. I’ve missed this, Bella.”

  “Quickly, please,” she cried.

  Gripping the pillow, she spread her knees as he lifted her under her hips and brought the backs of her thighs against his. His favorite position.

  He pushed inside her and she gasped as his length filled her. Fast and frenzied, he worked them both up to a spectacular climax. Bella gasped and reached for the headboard. He drew her up against his chest. She wanted to wrap her arms around him. This position gave her an incredible orgasm, but it always left her aching for face-to-face contact.

  It was the wolf in him that liked to take her this way, and she loved it for that reason. When his body relaxed, he dropped onto the sheets by her side.

  Bella kissed him along his torso, licking the sweaty moisture and reaching to grip his semihard shaft. A lick to his biceps, and she trailed her tongue upward and kissed his neck. Opening her mouth wide, she leaned in—

  “Bloody hell!” Severo shoved her off him and scrambled away. The palm of his hand, held before him to keep her back, hurt worse than a slap. “No fangs, Bella.”

  “What?” She ran her tongue along her teeth and a sharp canine pricked it. “Oh hell, I didn’t realize. I would have never—”

  He stood. The back of him, naked and muscled, flexed as he gripped his fists.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” Bella offered. “I didn’t feel them come down. I don’t know why—”

  “Because your kind have sex and they want to take blood. And vice versa.” He spun on her. “Didn’t Drake teach you that?”

  “Well, yes, but like I said, he was a gentleman. We didn’t do anything…sexual.”

  Though the swoon had been sexual. She couldn’t deny that. Ivan had explained about the blood and sex desires being intertwined, though at the time, she’d thought it incredible. Every time she had sex, she’d want blood?

  That wouldn’t be good for this relationship.

  “I must need more time to get a handle on things. I’m so sorry, Severo. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  “Well, you did.” A heavy sigh lifted his chest. “I don’t want your bite.”

  His confession hurt. Deeply. He was denying her. Denying her very nature.

  He approached the bed to sit at the edge. “I mean, I love you, Bella. And I know you can bite me, and nothing untoward will come of it, save an increase in blood craving, but…there is a stigma attached to wearing a vampire’s bite.”

  “You were never bitten, and if you were now, it would mean you’d succumbed to the captivity once again.”

  He winced.

  “I won’t do that to you, lover. I don’t need to bite you. I think. I may need to give Ivan a call.” She rubbed a palm down her leg and shivered. Sex was over. But was the relationship? “Can we make this work?”

  The ferocity of his gaze chilled her. Once she had admired that look, so intense and ever focused only on her. Now it made her scared for what he might never share with her. He put up a good front, but the truth was Severo might never be able to accept her.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said carefully, so gentle. “Bella, I can accept you as you are now. And those fangs, which fit so prettily over your bottom lip? They’re kind of sexy.”

  He reached to touch her mouth, and only then did Bella realize her fangs were still down. She willed them back up.

  “Mine are bigger,” he said with a smirk.

  “What about the werewolf?”

  “The werewolf.” He pulled her so she sat with her back against his chest. The touch of his hair on her shoulder tickled her. “That is what is keeping me from surrendering to you, sweet. I know the werewolf, and it doesn’t like vampires.”

  “It loves me.”

  “Bella, the werewolf takes off vampire heads for entertainment. Why do you think it would be any different with you?”

  “Because it does love me. Aren’t you willing to find out? If the werewolf could accept me, could you?”

  “Of course I would, but I’m not willing to set you out as bait for a vampire-hating beast. I won’t do that. I can’t.”

  “The full moon is in two weeks. You can’t stop me from trying to seek out the werewolf. No matter how far away you go.”

  He hugged her tightly. Bella wanted him to break her, to fit her into his soul and keep her there forever.

  “Don’t ask me to sacrifice you,” he whispered. “Please, sweet. Just accept what we have now.”

  Accept him as a lover, but never as a soul mate?

  “It’s my sacrifice, as well. Don’t you think I make a sacrifice when I’m out in the yard with the werewolf? A facsimile of you takes me quickly, and to fill a need, and then later, when you are a man, you have no recall!”

  “It hurts to hear you say that. I never asked you to make such a sacrifice.”

  “You wanted the werewolf to accept me so I could be your mate. Well, I’m asking a sacrifice of you now. Let the werewolf come to me. Give it the opportunity to decide if I truly am the mate it desires. I know it will harm me only if you allow it to.”

  “Bella, you know I have little control over it.”

  “But you can influence it.”

  “Yes, in small ways. But what if something goes wrong? What if…”

  “It tears me apart? That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

  Severo stood abruptly. “Vampirism has made you bold, Bella. Perhaps stupidly so.”

  “It’s freed me, lover. It’s made me not care about the past. Not care what others think. Give me this one small gift, please?”

  He grimaced but nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

  It was all he could offer, and Bella accepted that. But she fully intended to go out wandering when the moon was round and high in the sky.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, when the moon was full, Severo did what he had to do.

  He’d hated to do it. To lure her into the arsenal on the pretense that he wanted to lock away the weapons he used against vampires—as a sign of acceptance. But while Bella had collected the wooden bullets he’d purposely dropped on the floor, Severo had locked her inside.

  She’d pounded on the steel door, pleading for release. It had cut into his heart to hear her tearful pleas. She would be safe from the werewolf for the night.

  Now he tore away his shirt and stepped out of his pants. The air was cold and fat snowflakes fell like down from the heavens. He shivered and shifted into the furred wolf.

  Taking off through the backyard, the wolf loped into the valley, intent on tracking that rabbit Severo had sighted earlier in the day.

  Chapter 23

  “Bastard!” Bella kicked the steel door for the third time to no avail.

  She paced.

  Here she’d thought Severo had resolved to make this work. And the only way she could possibly foresee that happening? Let the werewolf decide.

  If it accepted her, Severo could banish his apprehensions and worries that she’d never be safe around it. And if th
e werewolf tore out her throat… Well, there wasn’t much of a way to argue if that happened, was there?

  Rationally, she understood his fear. So much had happened to them since coming together. He could have never anticipated that his girlfriend would be transformed into a vampire. And then to face losing her should the werewolf protest?

  This might be the safest place for her during the full moon, but having blooded her teeth, Bella had lost all trace of fear. And she was hungry.

  She gave the door one more good kick but succeeded in only denting the steel.

  Shouldn’t she have superpowers by now? she thought. The other vampires were so strong, they’d rip this door from the hinges.

  Though she had noticed many changes since the transformation, Ivan had said it would take until the next full moon before she was completely a vampire. Whatever that meant.

  Right now her senses increased. She could smell the gunpowder in the plastic containers at the back of the arsenal. And though night had fallen and she hadn’t switched the light on yet, she could see very well.

  Stalking to the table’s edge, she grabbed hold of the stainless steel. The corner of the table bent. “So I am stronger.” She glanced to the door. “But not strong enough for that mother.”

  Maybe if she pried out the hinges?

  Searching for a tool, she grabbed a crowbar and hammer and went to work.

  A ghostly howl outside made her stop pounding. Another howl sounded closer to the house.

  “He must not have gone far away. Is he coming for me?”

  Bella leaped onto the counter and peered out the ten-inch-high glass-block window. It was impossible to see through the distorted blocks.

  She jumped down and resumed pounding at the door. One hinge pin popped out and clanged onto the cement floor.

  She positioned the crowbar beneath the next hinge pin but paused. “Do I really want to do this? Do I think I’m some kind of big bad vampire now who can take on anything in my path? I don’t think I can win against a werewolf.”

  But she didn’t have to win; she just had to seduce.