Wolf in Waiting

by Rebecca Flanders

  He had moved close to me, and he seemed to tower over me, the mixture of body heat and intoxicating scent that was the essence of his presence enfolding me. I said, a little nervously, “I won’t take up any more of your time. Your secretary said you had a lunch appointment.”

  And he said abruptly, “Why do you let humans play with your hair?”

  I laughed, startled. “Who should I let play with it?”

  Have I explained about our hair? It never needs cutting or setting. It grows to a length that is predetermined by a chromosome or two and stays that way for the rest of our lives. Should it be cut, it will grow back in a matter of hours. Curled and sprayed it will hold its shape, but permanents are useless. Most of us have hair that reaches our collarbones at least, but there is no truth to the myth about the link between a male’s virility and the length of his hair. Michael St. Clare, for example, had hair almost to his waist, but look what happened to him.

  Noel, on the other hand, and his magnificent mane…

  “You enjoy it,” he accused.

  Again I gave a little laugh, confused. “What?”

  “Letting humans groom you, and put their hands on you. Why?”

  That was difficult to explain, particularly when he made it sound so shameful. Particularly when he was standing so close, muddling my thoughts. I looked at him. I had to tilt my head back to do so.

  “Well,” I said, answering the question for myself as much as for him, “I do enjoy it. It’s nice to be petted and fussed over and caressed. It makes me feel…special.”

  And he said softly, “Didn’t I do that last night?”

  His eyes were like jewels in the sun, their color pure and hot. He was so close that every pore on his face was clear to me, every glistening strand of hair. I could taste his breath, the sound of his blood rushed in my ears. His heat made my skin prickle.

  He reached up and plucked out one of the pins that held my hair, releasing a heavy lock onto my shoulder, then another. I could hardly breathe. I didn’t breathe. And he didn’t blink, he didn’t flicker a muscle or move an inch until all the pins were loose and then, with a single long and hungry inhalation, he gathered my hair in his hands and buried his face in it.

  I sank into him. The room swirled around me, I went deaf with the roar of heartbeats and mingled breaths, my skin flamed and I was helpless, helpless with the power of his touch.

  I linked my arms around his neck because without his support I would have surely fallen, simply melted to the floor in a single flood of sensation too intense to endure. His hair was spun silk between my fingers. His scent flooded my cells. I parted my lips to drag in breath and tasted the roughness of his face, the contrasting texture of his neck, the salt on his skin.

  He whispered my name and it sounded like music. He tugged at the buttons of my blouse, exposing the deep cut of my lace-trimmed bra. He cupped his hands beneath my breasts, pressing and lifting, and then dropped his face to the cushion that was formed there, kissing the sensitive flesh, inhaling deeply, adoring me.

  Adoring me. That’s what it felt like, this caress, this discovery, this unexpected and inexplicable gift of sensual exploration—adoration. For certainly that was what he evoked in me, and I responded greedily, thoughtlessly, helpless and hungry.

  He wrapped me in his arms, his face against my neck and his hands caressing the curve of my bottom, molding our bodies together at every point of contact. He pushed one leg between mine and I twined my leg around his, feeling muscle and sinew beneath the silky flannel of his expensively cut trousers, the shape of calf and ankle and strong lean flank that I knew so well. We embraced like this, breathing together, drawing in the essence of each other through this contact, the scent and the heat and the strength of each other. I wanted to be naked against him, and him against me. I wanted to be wrapped in him, absorbed in him, conquered by him, and I was like a child, wanting more but not knowing what, exactly, it was that I wanted. The intensity of the need frightened me, or perhaps it was the not knowing.

  I’m not sure what would have happened then if his phone had not begun to ring. I’m really not.

  For the longest time, he didn’t move or seem to hear the telephone at all. And I didn’t want him to. I tried to block out the sound with my will, with the sound of my breathing, with his heartbeat. But I was being foolish.

  I whispered, “Noel…”

  And he murmured, “I know…”

  His hands, tangled in my hair, tightened on the back of my neck once, then slowly loosened. He moved away from me, and to the desk.

  In the absence of him I was cold. I buttoned my blouse with clumsy, uncertain fingers, and tucked it into my skirt more securely. Then I began to try to twist my hair back into some semblance of order with the pins that I could gather from the carpet. Who was I trying to fool? The werewolves wouldn’t even have to look at me to know what had just transpired behind the closed doors of the heir designé’s office, and the human females would be smothering their smiles after one glance. And did I care? Would I have traded one moment in his arms for the secrecy of a monastery? I think you know the answer to that.

  He spoke briefly and tersely into the phone but I didn’t hear what was said. By the time he turned, I had almost finished rearranging my hair, but the heat of pleasure still scorched my cheeks and I had no way to repair my makeup. That was the least of my concerns.

  I smiled at him briefly and uncertainly and turned toward the door. “You have a lunch appointment,” I reminded him.

  There was a tightness to his expression that had not been there before, a gravity to the set of his mouth and an odd look in his eyes—somber and bleak, yet angry. I hesitated because I thought perhaps the phone call had contained bad news.

  But what he said was, “You didn’t ask me why Madame St. Clare was here.”

  I was surprised. “I—I assumed she came to see you. You are her heir, after all.”

  “Yes.” His tone was clipped. He stood very erect behind the desk, and he looked me straight in the eye. “She came to tell me it was time her heir chose a mate. She has even chosen the date—the fifteenth of next month.”

  I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach. I couldn’t speak. I could only stare at him.

  “It’s going to be quite an event,” he went on, and a streak of cruelty crept into his expression that I never would have imagined from him. “All the available females from the best families will be there, a positive orgy of possibilities, if you’ll pardon the double entendre, and I’ll have an entire weekend in which to choose. It will no doubt be the social event of the decade.”

  Finally, I found my voice. It was hoarse and dry. “No doubt.”

  And then, though it took more courage than I had ever known I possessed, I met his eyes and I found a smile. I said, “I don’t see any reason we shouldn’t have your business here wrapped up long before then. In fact, the timing is perfect. We can celebrate the successful launch of Moonsong and the mating of the heir at the same time—it will do wonders for pack morale. Madame St. Clare’s reputation for brilliance is well deserved. Congratulations. I’m sure you will be mated beautifully.”

  And with a final injection of sincerity into my smile, I turned and left the office, my heart breaking.

  The ringing of the doorbell awoke me at midnight. When I am depressed I sleep very deeply, so I can’t say how long the bell had been ringing. When I heard the voice, spoken softly from the other side of the door, say imperiously, “Victoria, it’s Noel. Open the door, please,” I was out of bed and on my feet in a single movement, pushing my arms into a heavy terry-cloth robe and my feet into fuzzy slippers as I stumbled toward the door.

  “What’s wrong?” I gasped as I pulled open the door.

  He came inside, pulling off his gloves and looking surprised to note my state of dishabille, the darkened room. “Were you asleep? Is it late?”

  I gaped at him, the adrenaline shock slowly receding from my body and leaving me shaky and irrit
able. “It’s midnight! Of course I was asleep.”

  He shrugged out of his coat and dropped it into its usual spot on the chair by the door. “Well, I’m sorry to wake you, then.”

  I pushed back my tangled hair and tied the sash of my robe. “Has something happened? Why are you here?”

  “No, nothing’s happened. Well, perhaps something.” But as he spoke, his eyes were going over me from tousled head to fake-fur-clad toe, and it was clear, even with my night vision, that he was not impressed with what he saw. “What are you wearing?” he asked.

  I rubbed one ankle against the other, self-conscious in my flannel nightie and heavy robe. But I retorted defiantly, “A nightgown, perhaps you’ve heard of it? It’s perfectly acceptable sleepwear in all fashion circles.”

  “Human fashion circles, maybe. You actually sleep in it?”

  I crossed my arms in an unconscious defensive gesture. “I get cold.”

  “That’s because you sleep alone,” he observed.

  “And you don’t?”

  “Occasionally,” he admitted. “But I’ve never resorted to a getup as ridiculous as that to keep warm.”

  That almost made me smile. Damn him for doing that.

  I tightened the sash of my robe. “What do you want?” I demanded ungraciously.

  He hesitated. I was still a little groggy with sleep, or I might have noticed there was more to his demeanor than was obvious on first glance. But I had suffered through a great deal in the past twenty-four hours; I should be forgiven if I was less than sensitive to the nuances of his mood.

  He said, “I came to tell you that I won’t be in the office tomorrow. I have an early flight to Seattle, and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

  Even at that hour I made the connection. “You’re going to see Michael?”

  What else, after all, was there in Seattle of any significance?

  “Yes.”

  He seemed uncomfortable for some reason, and it took me another moment to understand why.

  “Noel, you surely don’t think that Michael…I mean, granted, we don’t know much about his wife, but I can’t think that she—or he—would ever be involved in this!”

  “Probably not.” He didn’t quite meet my eyes. “But I can’t say I’ve done a thorough job until I’ve talked to him.”

  “Well.” I shivered a little, even in my robe. “I don’t envy you that task.”

  He looked at me oddly for a moment. It was late. I was confused.

  Then he said, “I also wanted to apologize to you.”

  “For what?”

  His eyes narrowed. I felt the tightening of his muscles, and detected a slight change in the sound of the blood that rushed through his vessels, indicative of a rise in blood pressure due, perhaps, to anger. I couldn’t think why he should be angry with me. But his next words, though spoken calmly, confirmed that he was, in fact, angry.

  “Damn it, Victoria,” he said, “don’t you care about anything?”

  I simply stared at him.

  He took a step toward me. His hands were clenched at his sides and it took me a moment to realize it wasn’t me he was angry at, but himself.

  “I used you,” he insisted tightly. “Last night—I deliberately tried to arouse you knowing it could lead to nothing, knowing we could never…And then again, this afternoon, when I knew I was to be mated to another in a matter of weeks! Don’t you care? Doesn’t that make you furious?”

  I bowed my head. “I didn’t think of it as being used,” I said in a small voice. “I thought of it as…pleasure.”

  He grabbed my chin between his thumb and forefinger and jerked it up, forcing me to look at him. His eyes were blazing with a low dark fire I couldn’t understand. “There can be no pleasure between you and me, don’t you understand that? There can only be me, taking my pleasure from you and knowing that I can never keep any of the promises those pleasures make! Damn it, why don’t you hate me? Are you so accustomed to being badly used, you take it as your due? Or don’t you care what I think of you?”

  I jerked my chin away, my heart pounding with hurt and alarm. “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”

  He grabbed my arms and bent his head to me, the fire in his eyes low and intense. I could almost feel its heat. “Last night,” he demanded, “when I left you, didn’t you wonder why? Didn’t you care?”

  “I—I knew why,” I mumbled, embarrassed. “I knew—”

  “No, you didn’t!” His hands tightened on my arms, hurting. He was incredibly strong. I thought sometimes he forgot that. “You didn’t know that it was because of you—you aroused me to the point of Change. That’s not pleasure, that’s passion! You did that to me, don’t you care?”

  I was stunned. I didn’t know how to feel, much less what to say. What was he saying? What was he implying? And how could any of it be true?

  I pulled away, turning from him, but he caught my forearm and held it firmly. I refused to look at him, but he would not let me escape his words.

  “I sent for your records, Victoria,” he said. “All of them. I spent the afternoon studying them and you know what I found? There’s nothing wrong with you, Victoria! Nothing! Our medics find no physical reason for you to be any different from the rest of us!”

  I snapped my head around to face him, my throat growing tight, my heart pounding. “Why did you do that?” I cried hoarsely. “How dare you! What gives you the right to pry into my private affairs, my medical history. How dare you!”

  He released my arm abruptly, and with such force that I staggered back a step. “This gives me the right!”

  He tore out of his jacket and tossed it aside, then stripped off his sweater. My stunned, disbelieving eyes had a moment’s glimpse of his magnificent chest before he turned, catching his hair aside with one hand and showing me his back. A series of parallel red lines marred the perfection of his skin across each shoulder blade.

  “These are claw marks, Victoria!” he cried. “You started to change last night, you did! And then you stopped it! Why?”

  I was gasping, my breath coming in great horrified gulps as I stared at him, incredulous, confused, terrified. “No,” I whispered. And then I cried out loud, “No, I didn’t, I can’t!”

  I turned from him then and ran. But there was no place to go, really, and he caught up with me in the bedroom. He caught my arms and I struggled against him, crying desperately, “Why are you saying this? Why are you doing this to me? You know it’s not possible, you know what I am! Why are you tormenting me?”

  “Because I want you to care, damn you!” His voice was hoarse and the emotion emblazoned upon his face was raw, powerful, terrifying. “I want you to let go of that composure you manage so well and just feel for once, just want as much as I want and hurt as much as I hurt and care, for God’s sake, just care about what we’ve lost!”

  His words were like knife wounds to my spirit. Bleeding and aching, I pulled away from him, turning so that he had to follow, to look where I was looking. And I said brokenly, “I care.”

  I directed his attention to the portrait over the bed, the one I had never imagined he would see. Noel, as a magnificent silver blond wolf, superimposed upon Noel in sleek, naked human form. Each incarnation was equally as powerful, equally as beautiful. I had painted it in colors of fire and ice, magic and mystery, because that was what he was to me. I had never wanted him to see it, not because I was ashamed of my work, but because this was my most guarded secret. He could not look at that painting without knowing that I had loved him forever.

  I thought he would be embarrassed, that he would withdraw from me in silence and leave. Instead, he turned to me, slowly, and drew me into his arms.

  I lost my heart to him then. I truly did.

  He cradled me against his chest, his one hand spread over my skull, fingers threaded through my hair. He rocked me gently back and forth, soothing me. And he murmured into my hair, with all the pain and helplessness of any lost lover who has ever li
ved, “I don’t know what to do, Victoria. I just don’t know.”

  I wanted to cry, but I didn’t know how, any more than I knew how to experience the Change. So I just clung to him, loving him, surrendering all I was to him and knowing it would never be enough.

  Then he stepped away, and pushed back my hair from my face. He looked deep into my eyes, telegraphing what he was about to do. My heartbeat grew heavy with anticipation as he dropped his hands, untying my sash, pushing the robe off my shoulders. He said softly, “Take off your clothes, Victoria. Let me lie with you tonight. I promise I won’t hurt you, or take you anyplace you don’t want to go. Just let me sleep with you, and keep you warm.”

  I watched as he unfastened his trousers, and stepped out of them. He was beautiful in his nakedness, the slim waist, flat abdomen, the thatch of light hair that cupped his sex, strong muscled thighs and golden-furred legs. I wanted to touch him all over. I wanted to claim him as my own. I wanted to be everything he needed me to be…everything I could never be.

  I unbuttoned the small pearl buttons at my throat and pulled the nightgown over my head. My skin prickled with the temperature of the room and immediately he drew me against him, warming me. Oh, it was so wonderful, his heat penetrating me, enfolding me. His body molding itself to mine, blending with mine. His hands, stroking my back, caressing my hair. His breath, whispering in my ear. His musky scent enveloping me. The beat of his heart reaching out to mine and capturing it. Oh, how I wanted this. How I wanted it to last forever.

  I whispered, “What does it feel like—the Change?”

  His muscles tightened, his heartbeat speeded. He slipped his hand between our bodies and pressed it against my belly. Ah, the sensation. I went weak with it.

  “It starts with a fire, here,” he said, pressing hard. His mouth was against my ear, his voice sending reverberations throughout every sensory receptor I possessed. “And here…” He slipped his hand down, between my legs. I gasped, and the gasp turned into a moan of pleasure as he caressed. “It hurts at first, but only if you resist…” Skillful fingers loosened my muscles, pushed inside. “But if you surrender, if you embrace the sensation…” His fingers stroked, tantalized, found my most sensitive spot and abruptly, powerfully, brought my body to an intense sexual climax that left me sweaty and gasping, trembling in his arms. “It makes this seem like nothing,” he whispered. “Like the mere caress of a summer breeze across your skin. Victoria, it is what you were meant to be, it is your right. Shall I take you there, my love? Shall I try?”