by Anna Craig
Tamsin rifled around in one of the smaller refrigerators where easy snacks were kept for the taking. It was of course still filled with leftover sweets and treats from the wedding reception. Her eyes lit up as she spied a plate of one of the luscious devil's food chocolate type cakes she particularly enjoyed at the reception. Stomach rumbling even more, she pulled it out to cut herself a generous slice. Armed with that and a glass of ice water, she sat at the small table nestled into an out-of-the-way corner of the kitchen meant precisely for those who wanted to grab a quick snack while staying out of the way of any current preparations that might be going on in the place.
Although Tamsin had the ability, just as any shifter did, to magically adjust her appearance to mimic the latest fashionable body type, she never did. Oh, she knew she was blessed with natural good looks. To be honest, the vast majority of werewolves were. They were a healthy bunch, and since they made up less than 10% of the human or at least somewhat human population of the planet, they kept tight control over their own genetics. Tamsin liked her food, and she never once enjoyed any of the ridiculous fads that swept many corners of the world with demands that women be stick-thin or caricatured as overly sexualized little children's dolls. While she wasn't nearly as curvy as her friend and now sister-in-law Cassie, and in fact Cassie considered her slim by comparison, Tamsin was considered more generously sized than most female werewolves.
And that certainly wasn't her fucking problem if anyone had an issue with it. None of the men she'd ever invited to her bed had the slightest problem with her body.
It certainly seemed that Jackson had no problems looking at it with clear appreciation. Lifting a decadent bite of the cake to her mouth, which was good enough that she rolled her eyes in appreciation as the taste exploded in her mouth, she allowed herself another second to contemplate what the hell might be going on between her and him. Not that there was anything going on.
Except an underlying current of a wild attention should never feel with him. She couldn't have that sort of tension with him. They were on the same team, part of the same inner circle that guided and controlled this pack filled with volatile wolf shifters. There could be no room for motions or any other disastrous entanglements between them. Tamsin Reginald was expected to marry a werwolf of high standing. One who would add even more prominence to the pack. One with whom she could crate another dynasty of powerful werewolves.
Besides, it wasn't as if she was interested in Jackson. Jackson the careless playboy. She took another bite of cake into her mouth, chewing a little more aggressively. That bad boy. The smug, cocky, oh so sure of himself shifter who thought she was just going to lie down and let him have his way with her just as he did with every other woman. Well, that was definitely not going to happen. Ever. In fact—
"Midnight snack, hmm?"
Tamsin nearly jumped out of her skin, whipping her head up to look across the kitchen. Jackson the insanely sexy playboy stood in the doorway, watching her as she sat at the table enjoying her chocolate cake.
Oh, my. Tamsin knew she was staring. But really, there was nothing she could do about it. He was giving her quite an eyeful to stare at.
Jackson wore black pajama pants that clung low on his hips, and nothing else. Tamsin's eyes traveled from his dark, tousled hair and knowing grin down over his ridiculously sculpted broad shoulders and chest, down to the abs that were a genuine six pack, which tapered into a more narrow waist, below which just the hint of a line of dusky hair starting below his bellybutton headed down beneath his pajama pants, where—
Tamsin swallowed the last little bite of chocolate cake in her mouth as a prickling rush of heat roared over her entire body. From her scalp down to her toenails, she felt what she knew was purely primal arousal.
Damn him to hell. Standing there like some sort of naked sex god, smiling that smile that dropped panties and busted hearts all over the damn country, and knowing that she was looking at him just like thousands of women before her had looked at him. This was ridiculous. She couldn't do this. Barely thinking about the words that were about to come out of her mouth, she tossed a verbal missile at him.
"Yes, because I've been working hard through the evening in order to be prepared for the Council meeting in the morning. But you, of course, have been dallying in bed with your latest conquest and simply needed to replenish your energy?" Tamsin arched an eyebrow at the smug-faced bad boy lounging in the doorway, convinced that she'd hit upon the reason he too was raiding the kitchens in the wee hours.
Jackson raised his own eyebrows back at her, his smile deepening into pure panty-melting glory. "As usual, my reputation needs no introduction." Very slowly, he began to stalk into the kitchen. Straight toward Tamsin. "I'm glad you have a full understanding of my raison d'être in this world," he said, his voice dropping to a purely seductive register.
Tamsin knew her lips were parted as she stared at him. Her pulse was thumping so wildly she was fairly certain he could hear it. Oh, no. Mr. Uber Bad Boy wasn't going to attempt to use his charms upon her yet again, expecting a little action after he'd just been romping with another woman in his bed. Apparently Tamsin had become a new challenge to him. And with Trevor gone, Jackson seemed to think she would be easy pickings.
Nope. She had to nip this in the bud, and quickly.
Because her panties were definitely wet, damn her stupidly traitorous, sex-deprived body.
"Jackson," she began in a cool voice despite the fire racing through her veins. But he cut her off.
"Hold on," he said, still silently prowling on his bare feet across the floor toward her. “I have to do something first.”
Tamsin didn't move, even though she was fairly certain that not only her pulse but her heart was banging so hard inside her that something was about to burst.
The smile slowly faded from his face as he looked at her again with the sheer, naked hunger she had seen in his expression when they had talked at the reception a few days earlier. "Let me get that for you," he said in a low rumble, coming ever closer to her.
"Get—get what?" she asked, a slight tremor in her voice. He was about five feet from her and closing the distance fast.
"You have a tiny bit of chocolate frosting right at the corner of your mouth, Tamsin," he softly growled as he reached her side where she sat at the table.
She began to reach her hand up to her mouth, but he shook his head and reached out to grab her hand with his. "No," he said, the smile gone. "Let me," he whispered, reaching out his finger to the corner of her mouth.
Gently, he swiped at her lip, then pulled back his finger to show her just the tiniest bit of the frosting on it. Keeping eye contact with her, he brought his finger to his own mouth, reached out his tongue, and slowly licked the bit of frosting off his own finger.
Tamsin's breathing sped up as she began to pant slightly. Oh, no. Not fair. Not fair at all.
Something dark and longing shifted in Jackson's eyes. His nostrils flared just the slightest bit. Tamsin knew he could smell her arousal. Her heart still beat so fast that she began to feel a little lightheaded.
He hadn't let go of her hand yet. Carefully, still staring at her eyes, he turned her hand over so his fingers could touch her palm. A sizzle roared from where his touch grazed the sensitive skin on her palm straight down to the folds between her legs, which were slick and, she knew, plumped out with longing.
Somewhere in her short-circuiting brain, she knew something about this was wrong. This was not…. She couldn't be doing….
Slowly, Jackson began to trace small circles and random designs on the palm of her hand with his fingers. It was as if he were directly touching the softness between her legs, circling her clit itself. Tamsin couldn't control the small sound that tumbled from her mouth.
A small, suddenly thrilled smile returned to Jackson's face. "Yes," he said, voice still a whisper. "I've been wanting to hear you make a sound like that, Tamsin.
Tamsin would have replied, but her breath was gasping
out of her body in small, uncontrollable little pants. This was insane. He wasn't even touching her there—
Jackson's other hand reached out to gently, carefully touch Tamsin's shoulder. Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he let his fingers travel down over one breast, finger pausing to swirl around the abruptly taut nipple. "Oh!" Tamsin couldn't control the startled cry.
Still looking at her, still touching her through the diaphanous material of her top, Jackson murmured, "Should I stop?"
Tamsin literally found herself unable to respond, consumed by the tiny lightning darts that seemed to stab delicious little thrills all over her body the more Jackson touched her. Carefully, he slid his fingers farther down, lightly trailing over her ribs to the soft flesh of her stomach. He gently curved his fingers over the slight roundness of her belly and then the swell of her hip. Tamsin's brain roared with the confusion of half-finished thoughts that went nowhere. Jackson's scent, a wild mixture of pure masculinity with an underlying spicy tang that scattered her rational thought, curled into her senses and swirled around with the physical sensations happening where he touched her.
Still looking at her, his face a mask of seriousness and interest that she knew must match her own, Jackson let his fingers room farther south to play with the band of the pretty yet comfortable pants she had donned earlier when first tackling her stack of paperwork. Gently slipping one finger, then another, under the band, he slipped his fingers back around the front of her hip to slowly tease in small circles. The sensation stoked the fire in her even more, sending surges of explosive heat roaring throughout Tamsin's body.
Jackson. This was Jackson touching her. Touching her in a way she'd never truly contemplated until that one oddly charged moment they'd had the night before he left for his vacation. The night before he left to screw any willing woman from here to the tropical islands ,where he no doubt had spent a debauched two weeks.
The remembrance dashed ice water onto her flaming skin. Tamsin shot out her hand to grab Jackson's just before his fingers managed to quest down into the thoroughly wet folds of her eager, apparently shameless flesh.
"Stop." Her voice was much closer to a growl as she felt her wolf side ready to push her into her baser instincts. "Stop, Jackson." Her voice was an order, even though his fingers already had stopped moving. "I mean it."
Forcing herself to picture Jackson tumbling with the typical wanton women in his bed, Tamsin just barely kept herself from opening her mouth and begging him to disregard her stupid request. To keep touching her until she exploded beneath his fingers.
That was the path to utter stupidity, not to mention ruin for her powerful position in the pack. And his. Focusing on the cool, analytical side of her personality with which she usually made assessments, Tamsin simply stared back at Jackson.
And she tried really, really hard to not breathe in his tempting scent, or to feel the way his fingers were like a hot brand where they still touched her skin.
"It seemed you are enjoying this." His voice was close to a growl as well. The certainty of how aroused he was almost made Tamsin waver again.
But not quite.
She somehow managed to disentangle herself from the chair, his hands, the proximity of his body about three inches from hers. Taking a graceless step to the side, she managed to put a foot of distance between them. Then, backing up another step, two feet. Three feet. When a wide enough chasm remained between the two of them that she was certain she wasn't about to lose her stupid mind again, Tamsin fixed Jackson with the darkest glare she could muster. "I am the alpha's sister." Ice cracked her voice as she force herself to remember the very thing she was stating. "And you are his beta. We are ruling this pack in his stead while he is gone. He's relying on us, Jackson,” she hissed, trying to remind herself as much as him. “This—thing," and she made a stupidly imperious gesture between the two of them, feeling like an arrogant bitch even as she did so, "isn't something we can remotely pursue."
Tamsin heard her still somewhat ragged breathing as Jackson looked at her from where he stood by the now vacant chair. Still all naked chest, with his gorgeous abs and pecs, his pajama bottoms that threatened to slip off of his hips at any second. She absolutely refused to look below his waist, almost certain she wouldn't be able to manage herself if there was the slightest bulge there.
And then there was the other thing she was pretty damn sure of. "Besides, the fact that you dare to think your charms would work on me right after you came from the bed of another—"
Finally, he reacted. "Tamsin, you don't—"
She flung up a forbidding hand between them, shaking her head at him she began to edge her way out of the kitchen. "No. I don't want to hear it. I don't know what you're thinking by doing this, Jackson, I am not a plaything for you. And I certainly want nothing to do with the pack's biggest playboy."
Ignoring the purely female part of her that was totally freaking out at everything going on, Tamsin expertly and tightly drew the mantle of pack leader around her. It always made her have a haughty presence that threw off other shifters whenever she didn't want them getting too close. Snapping her gaze away from his, she turned to stride out of the room. "Good night, Jackson. I'll see you in council chambers in the morning."
As she swept out of the room on still shaky legs, Tamsin wasn't sure if she was more upset that Jackson had just touched her and she really, really liked it...or that she had just walked away from him and he hadn't even bothered to try to stop her.
Chapter Five
Jackson's breath heaved out of him as he surged up the hill. His paws barely hit the ground despite the effort it took to keep up this pace. He was more fit than most wolves in the pack. A twenty mile run wasn't common among shifters, but they easily were capable of it. For Jackson, this was nothing more than a casual training run to keep in shape.
Or to keep thoughts of a damnably elusive female at bay.
When he reached the top of the hill, Jackson finally slowed down. First to a trot, then to a long striding walk as he let himself cool down. Although being in wolf form was of course different than being in human, he treated his body the same either way: like a well-honed fighting machine.
He took a long time to enjoy the sweeping views from this hillside spot as he allowed his breathing to come back to her regular pace. He had the world at his feet. Anything and everything he wanted. Right?
Well. No. Tamsin had studiously been avoiding him all week long. They had council meetings, and corresponded almost daily via text and email. But she held him at arm's length otherwise.
He knew she was still angry at him from the other night. The night in the kitchen, when she assumed he'd rolled right out of bed with another woman to come grab a snack as well as a little more action with her own untouchable, blue-eyed beauty. Well, that was an idiotic little fantasy she had made up in her head.
For fuck's sake. He hadn't had sex with anyone else since his vacation. And he could, for crying out loud! He was a single wolf. He had no commitments to anyone. He could fuck the entire pack if he wanted to. Jackson Rule, playboy of the century.
He huffed out an irritated snort and dug his claws into the dirt. The thing was, he didn't want to. He literally hadn't had eyes for another woman since he'd come back and Tamsin had slapped the sense out of him. He sure as hell hadn't touched one.
The only one he wanted to touch was the one who'd let him feel her gorgeous, full breast for a few heartbeats the other night. A few heartbeats that still had him questioning his sanity. And solidifying in his mind that Tamsin was more fascinating than any woman in the entire damned world, now that he was back and knew she felt the same way.
After another long moment contemplating the stunning views, barely seeing a thing, Jackson finally turned to head back down the mountain. When he came to a small meadow, though, he took a right-hand turn instead of heading straight downhill. It was a hot day. He deserved to cool off at the secret waterfall. Naturally, it wasn't really a secret. Wolf pack members wen
t there on occasion to enjoy a dip in the beautiful pool just beneath the waterfall. It was located a fair distance from the estate. Nearly every time Jackson went there, he had it to himself.
But when he reached the waterfall, he realized today wasn't one of those days. A naked woman stood at the edge of the pool, on top of the rock that made diving in an easy thing to do.
Tamsin.
Long, wavy dark hair streamed over her back, ending just above the beautiful, wide flare of her hips and her sweetly dimpled ass. She raised her arms overhead, steepling her fingers together before she neatly dove into the pool, entering it with barely a ripple of the blue-green waters. She broke the surface, her head sleek as a seal's, and began a graceful stroke toward the waterfall itself.
Not even pausing to check in if this was a good idea, Jackson shifted back into his human form, easily striding on his two legs to the edge of the pool. His entire body shivered with the knowledge that she was here at the same time he was. Her gorgeous, naked body had just reached the lazy slip of the gentle waterfall as it slid off smooth rocks to create a sheet over what Jackson knew was a small space behind it. He watched her swim beneath the little falls to disappear into little grotto behind them.
Deliberately turning off his mind and allowing only his instincts to guide his movement, Jackson easily vaulted to the top of the same rock, dove into the pool, and swam towards the waterfall and the woman he was realizing with every passing day he couldn't bear to not touch.
The one he could not claim as his own, no matter what sort of insanity that might mean.
The one woman he had to claim, or else probably go insane for sure.
~~~
Tamsin let her head break above the cool waters of the pool as she emerged into the little secret grotto behind the waterfall she thought of as her own place. Oh, she knew other shifters came here. She'd played here often as a cub, and sometimes small groups of shifters would run up here in their wolf form, because it was quite a few miles from the pack's estate, and spend a hot summer's afternoon relaxing in the waters. But generally, she preferred to come here alone. It was far away enough that running into anyone else here was a relatively rare occurrence. Today, she had needed that space and time away from the pack.