by Jory Strong
She wanted to rub every inch of her body against him, to mark herself with him, and in turn, coat every inch of him with her scent. The wolf in her wanted a mate, a pack in this human world the woman insisted on living in. Khemirra wasn’t averse to the idea of a husband and children, but the stakes were made higher because regardless of form, Weres mated for life.
Conner’s relaxed features and deep, easy breathing told her he was asleep despite the erection pressed to her belly. Edging away from him, so she could think without the distraction of feeling his skin against hers, she wrestled with conscience, instinct battling rational thought.
She felt safe with him, couldn’t even remember the last time she’d slept so soundly. She believed he might be able to help her deal with Armand Scholes, if not directly then indirectly, by using contacts and resources she had no access to. But involving Conner would put him at risk in ways neither of them could predict. She couldn’t rule out the possibility a witch or psychic was being used to track her, or worse, a mage with ties to the one she’d killed.
A homicide cop with a bias against anything defying rational explanation was a bad choice. The day they’d met in the park to talk about Patrick Dean’s murder, Conner’s scent had changed, aggravation edging its way into his voice when he said psychic. She doubted he was even aware of it, though she suspected if asked he wouldn’t blunt his opinion of things supernatural. In her experience, people rarely liked to be jerked out of their comfort zone when it came to their beliefs and the things they knew were true.
I’m a werewolf, Conner. Oh, and by the way, I shifted because a charm forced me to and then I killed the mage who’d created it. That’s why I’m running.
Oh yeah, that would go over well.
She glanced toward the window. The night was still hours away but she could already feel the pull of the moon. She’d planned to wake at dawn, write, polish an article and send it off, then hit the road so she’d be in the mountains in time to hide the car and shift.
She needed to leave soon. Looking at Conner, she thought it’d be better for him—so much safer—if she slipped out and away.
And if he followed her? She frowned, wishing she’d asked him exactly how he’d managed to catch up to her, because if he could then maybe Scholes was using the same approach. Too late now. And at some point Conner would have to give up his pursuit and go back to work.
She eased off the bed, careful not to wake him. An ache spread through her, widening and deepening with each step she took, turning into the wolf’s howl by the time she reached the clothes she’d discarded next to the door.
Uncertainty crept in at the sight of the engaged security chain. The only possible reason for sleeping through Conner’s getting out of bed and moving around the motel room was because the wolf trusted him completely. It gave her pause, making her wonder if she was wrong to leave him.
Bonded pairs weren’t completely governed by the full moon. The forced change of its call in childhood was a way of integrating wolf and human personality, while in adulthood it came because of the need to find a mate.
She shook the misgiving off and picked up her jeans. Out of habit she touched the pocket containing her keys.
Panic hit at finding them gone, a knee-jerk response rather than true fear. She kept a spare taped under the car.
The sound of jingling sent a whole different type of panic scrambling along her nerve endings.
Her focus shifted to a pissed-off-looking Conner. Damn if he wasn’t gorgeous wearing nothing but a scowl. She was torn between the wolf’s desire to sidle up to him and lick his lips in a show of submission and appeasement, and the woman’s to run and let him catch her for some make-up sex.
“Missing these?” he asked, the growl in his voice one hundred percent alpha male.
He rose from the bed and stalked toward her, each step tightening her nipples and the coil of heat that had taken up residence in her belly. She shivered when he reached her, her fear entirely erotic in nature.
He trapped her against the door as he had the night before, leaned in so their faces were inches apart. “Don’t count on the spare key being in its hiding place.”
Surprise ripped through her. He couldn’t have outmaneuvered her so thoroughly without the wolf being complicit in keeping her human consciousness submerged in sleep. The knowledge weakened her resolve to leave him, but despite the heat between them, he wasn’t her mate.
Yet, the wolf whined, but because he wasn’t, and that deep bond between them didn’t exist, the urge to shift form would grow stronger the closer they got to moonrise. There would be no denying it at nightfall.
“I have to get to the mountains, Conner,” she said, hearing the desperation in her voice where she’d intended firmness. “That’s my best shot at staying safe.”
Conner’s pissed quotient edged upward another couple of degrees. His lips pulled back in a tiny snarl. “Are you saying I can’t protect you?”
“I’m saying I need to be in the mountains before dark and I can’t stand the thought of something happening to you because of me.”
He’d been spoiling for a fight from the instant she slipped out of bed and it became obvious she intended to bolt. Her answer mollified him, batting temper aside and clearing his mind until she dropped the jeans and placed her palms against his chest in an almost submissive pose, then the little head tried to do all the thinking.
His cock pulled away from his body far enough for the tip to touch her belly in a wet caress to her smooth skin. Goddamn. In a minute he was going to lift her and take her against the back of the door.
Stamina had never been a problem for him. But a couple rounds with Khemirra and he probably wouldn’t be able to summon enough strength to get to his feet, much less prevent her from leaving.
“You need to get to the mountains, fine. My parents have a cabin and I’ve got a friend between here and there. He’s ex-military with plenty of law enforcement ties. We leave your car with him, stashed in his garage so it can’t be used to track you. If someone shows up looking for you, he can take care of himself and gather information, enough to start applying pressure to whoever is causing you problems. I’ll even wait until we get to the cabin before hearing the answers you promised me.”
He pulled her against him, figuring to use every means possible to persuade her to say yes, though the touch of her breasts to his chest and her belly along the length of his cock just about chased every thought out of his head.
“Fuck, you drive me crazy,” he said, tightening his hold on her, pleasure pouring into him when she leaned forward as he leaned down, her mouth eagerly meeting his, her tongue quick to rub and twine with his.
Heated need pooled in his testicles and pulsed through his cock as the kiss deepened. Her hands moved downward on his back, fingernails scraping and sending fire ahead of them, his buttocks clenching in an effort to keep from fucking against her.
When she attempted to take his cock in hand, he denied her by capturing first one wrist and then the other, knowing he couldn’t allow her to touch him like that. A couple of strokes and he’d be coming on her abdomen like a porn star, a comparison that should have made him laugh. Instead it made him hunger to claim her in every way a man could claim his woman, to put up huge no trespassing signs with bites and kisses and the smell of his come. Son of a bitch, when had he gotten so primitive?
He needed her agreement before he gave in to the lust. “Say yes to my plan, Khemirra. Give me a chance to help you. You can’t keep running forever, not if you want to keep writing. Anyone looking for you will recognize your style.”
For good measure he nuzzled her neck. Took the skin between his teeth in a little love bite she responded to with a moan and the rub of her clit to his cock, naked hot skin against naked hot skin.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he murmured. “Say yes.”
Khemirra wanted to but couldn’t without warning Conner his plan might not reduce the risk. She didn’t know what Scholes would
do if he caught up to her while they were together.
“Hiding the car might not be enough. There’s a chance a psychic or witch is being used to find me. Maybe even a mage.”
She felt the instant tension in Conner, accompanied by a change in scent. Disbelief. Denial. Rejection. But not the cooling of desire. His cock remained hard and thick against her belly, proof against that.
“You’re not going to scare me away by parading out the weird, Khemirra.”
Her lips pulled back, the woman baring her teeth at his attitude. The wolf giving a show of submission in a pleading bid for acceptance.
He covered her mouth with his before she could come up with a rebuttal, the thrust of his tongue making her channel clamp with painful need. She let the argument go, accepting the fact that neither she nor the wolf were ready to be without him.
As if sensing her capitulation, he said, “You’ll stay at the cabin with me?”
“Yes. I want a shower first.”
“That works for me,” he said, releasing one of her wrists, but not the other until after he’d led her into the bathroom and then beneath the heated spray of water.
It works for me too, she thought as his lathered hands glided over her flesh.
The wolf loved the petting stokes, the admiration telegraphed by scent and sight and touch. The woman reveled in features made taut by desire, by an expression leaving no doubt as to how much he liked what he saw.
He crouched in front of her, smoothing his hands down one leg and then up the other, eyes following the movement before giving all of his attention to her cunt. She spread her legs, widening her stance, anticipation building with the proximity of his mouth to her clit and opening.
“You want my mouth on you, baby?”
She shivered, loving the way he could make her feel wicked and precious at the same time. “You know I do.”
Wet, his hair was a dark, dark blond. She tangled her fingers in it, urging him to give her what his look and his voice promised.
Pure bliss hit her when he did. She moaned with the hot press of his lips to her lower ones, his tongue delivering ecstasy with each lick and swirl and thrust as his hands gripped her buttocks and held her in place.
She wouldn’t have escaped even if she could, even if the tight confines of the tiny shower stall would have allowed it. She craved the feel of his mouth on her cunt and clit too much, loved the sounds he made as he ate her, hungry and satisfied at the same time.
Her hips jerked when he captured her clit. Her eyes closed and her head tilted back as she gave herself over to him.
He rubbed his tongue against the tiny head and along the underside. Sucked, shrinking her world to the pull of his lips, to the need building inside her.
His name became a litany. Her fingers tight in his hair, holding him to her, and then holding her upright until desire burst, an orgasm exploding in white-hot sensation and a shattering weakness that had her sinking into a crouch.
“Looks like you need resuscitating,” Conner said, making her smile with his play on their exchange the night before. “Good thing I’m here for some mouth-to-mouth.”
“Even if you’re the cause of my collapse?”
“Even if,” he said, touching his lips to hers.
Tasting herself on him was decadent, darkly carnal. It tightened her nipples so they ached for the punishment his fingers could deliver, for the sweet pleasure of his mouth.
She touched them, pleasured herself, swallowing the sound of his desire. Her hands dropping to his open thighs when the kiss ended, her focus shifting with them, to a cock darkened with need, the foreskin retracted to leave the head exposed, the small slit weeping arousal as if crying for her.
She slid her palms along his inner thighs, her sense of feminine power deepening at the way his muscles firmed beneath them and his cock pulled farther away from his body, as if it would hurry to her had it not been attached. Like the rest of him, his erection resonated strength and the heavy globes of his testicles prowess, the wolf seeing both as indicators of a worthy mate.
Don’t go there, the rational part of her mind warned. But it was impossible to stop channeling the wolf this close to a full moon.
She opted for distracting herself by changing position. There was just enough room to move backward and then onto hands and knees, on all fours as she would have been in her other form.
Conner’s hand went immediately to his cock, his quick inhalation and the deepening of his aroused scent all the enticement she needed. Another time she’d make him beg. Make him demonstrate his dominance by exerting his will and his physical strength, but not now.
She took everything above his hand into her mouth, savoring the taste of him on her tongue, the feel of him against her lips. Hers. It reverberated through her with a savage intensity, translating into sucks that had him panting, thrusting. Yielding more and more of himself to her and unable to hold back anything as she swallowed him down, making him come.
Conner managed to lean back against the shower wall and go from a crouch to a sitting position without keeling over. It felt as if she’d just fried every brain cell and burned out all his nerve endings. He was surprised he could still breathe.
“I think that’ll hold me until we get to the cabin. What about you?”
Not the right thing to say given the flash of amusement in her eyes and the smile that warned his ego was going to take a hit.
“It’ll have to. You look done in.”
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll prove otherwise.”
She laughed and shook her head. “My bad, for teasing you when we should already be on the road.”
She stood, affording him a view of a pussy he could spend hours enjoying. And when she turned and reached for the shower door, of sleek buttocks he’d yet to spread and thrust between. He forced himself to his feet, not willing to risk letting her out of his sight in case she changed her mind and bolted.
Woman and wolf were both edgy as Conner parked the car in front of his family’s cabin. The woman at knowing she’d soon be faced with deciding how much to tell him, the wolf because dusk was rapidly approaching and with it, the undeniable call of the moon.
Already the urge to run was nearly overwhelming, not the fear-induced emotion that had kept her moving for most of the last month, but the joy of senses wide open and hot-blooded prey to be killed and consumed.
Khemirra’s human mind shied from the thought though her stomach growled, making Conner laugh and say, “I’ll get the grill going as soon as we haul everything inside.”
The cabin was one story, quaint with its porch swing and rustic appeal. It wasn’t as remote as she would have liked, but with her Jeep hours behind them, there was nothing to do but accept the choice she’d made.
Grabbing her suitcase and several bags of groceries, she followed Conner inside. Someone had been there recently. The lingering trace of cologne remained and the air didn’t have the smell of a place closed up for a long period of time.
A family room dominated, taking up much of the space. A kitchen opened up into it, as did a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom.
It took several trips to unload the car. On the last one she found herself smiling at the sight of Conner with grocery bags in one hand and a flute case in the other.
He was such a big, masculine guy. Most wouldn’t be caught playing an instrument like the flute, and yet it became another reason he appealed to her. He had the confidence of an alpha and with it, the fearlessness to pursue what interested him.
Including her.
Pleasure rippled through her, contentment eroding even the wolf’s edginess. A traitorous curl of longing took up residence in her belly and wound its way around her heart as she and Conner shared the task of putting away groceries. She could get used to being with him like this. If only he could accept all of her.
Light streamed in through the kitchen window. She didn’t need to read its texture to know how long she had before darkness, not on a full-moon
night.
There was maybe an hour before answering its call wouldn’t be optional. At the moment, she was still in control, and given how calm the wolf felt in Conner’s company, she decided she’d yield to magic and moon early, in the hopes of being able to shift back.
Conner wouldn’t put off his questions much longer. If she disappeared for any length of time after telling him who she was running from, he might think she’d been abducted.
“You mind if I explore a bit?” she asked.
“What you see is basically what there is. Two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and family room. Out back there’s a grill, some deck furniture and a tire swing, but no hot tub unfortunately.”
“I meant heading out on one of the trails. I’d like to stretch my legs, maybe do some jogging before it gets too much later.”
“I’ll go with you.”
She shook her head. “Alone, Conner.”
Determination etched every line of his face. The wolf urged her forward in a press of lips against lips and the swipe of her tongue against the seam of his mouth. “I’ll be back. Promise.”
“It’ll be dark soon.”
“Full moon tonight. Don’t worry about me getting lost. I’ve done search and rescue work. I’m good at memorizing trails.”
He moved into her, trapping her against the kitchen counter. His arms went around her, holding her tight as he deepened the kiss the wolf had begun in appeasement, turning it into a carnal expression of human desire.
She loved his taste, his scent. Loved the hard feel of his muscles and the rigid line of his cock, as well as the fierce protectiveness and growing possessiveness.
One kiss merged into another, swelling her labia and dampening her panties with need. She would definitely return to him, only necessity demanded she separate.
They were both breathing hard by the time their lips parted. He rested his forehead against hers. “You sure you want to hit the trails? I can think of other ways to stretch your legs.”