Wolf Prey (Wolf Cove Book 3)

by Nina West

  I can hear the rustle of his pants as he pushes them down and pulls himself out. I want to see him—all of him— but he’s too fast, his urgent hands finding the insides of my thighs and forcing them farther apart.

  I gasp as he rubs the smooth, round head of his cock against my slit once, and then he’s pushing in with a single thrust.

  I cry out.

  “Too much?” There’s a hint of humor in his voice but he pauses to let me get used to him.

  “You’re always too much for me,” I tease, even as I’m pushing back against him.

  With a sigh, he slips one hand around my waist and between my legs, to rub my clit with slow precision. His fingers slide all over me, I’m so wet. “You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about this these past few weeks.” His hips start moving, slowly and methodically.

  “Faster,” I whisper.

  “So you can come too soon? I don’t think so.” He keeps his leisurely pace. It’s both heaven and hell. It can’t be just for me, either. If he hasn’t had sex since he saw me, then that’s three weeks of hand jobs for a man with his appetite.

  Of course he hasn’t had sex since he last saw me. Get a grip, Abbi!

  A sudden hard thrust makes me yelp.

  “Where’s your head at?”

  “Nowhere.” I let my voice fade as he keeps pumping in and out of me.

  His hand leaves my clit to slide up and grab hold of my left breast, gripping it to just short of the point of pain. “Knees up.”

  I do as asked, kneeling on the bale, my ass in the air. Henry pushes my legs as far apart as they can go, until I’m resting on my elbows, my forehead down on the bale to balance myself, and I feel like I’m about to split open. But Henry, the expert he is, makes me forget the strain quickly, his thrusts growing hard and faster, until I’m fisting the material of my ruined dress in my fingers and trying not to scream. If not for the light breeze, I’d be afraid that our sounds would carry all the way to the house. As it is, all I can hear is his thighs slapping against my ass and the slurping sound of him plunging into my wet core.

  “You’re dripping,” he murmurs between pants.

  “I’ve missed you.” And if he keeps up with this pace, I’m going to come very soon.

  He slows for just a moment—and I curse myself for acknowledging that because he seems to know what I’m thinking—before speeding up, his hand reaching around to my clit. He’s pinching it this time. Gently, but enough to make me hiss because it’s already so sensitive.

  “Yeah? How much?”

  “So much.”

  “Have you thought of me?”

  “Every day and every night.”

  “And? What do you do at night?”

  He wants details. Henry loves dirty details. “Touch myself.”

  “Until you come?”

  “Always. You make me come every single night.”

  His pace is punishing now. I’m sure my knees will be scratched up from the straw tomorrow, even through the cotton. “Only me?”

  “Only you. It’ll only ever be you, Henry. I—” I bite down on my tongue to keep from blurting out what I really want to say.

  I am so in love you.

  Suddenly, he’s pulling out and flipping me over onto my back and gripping my thighs tight, lifting my hips clear off the hay. And he’s so deep. So impossibly deep, it’s borderline painful.

  Now I can see all of him—his blue eyes shifting between my face, my bouncing breasts, and where our bodies are joined; his hard chest tensing with exertion; that perfect washboard of muscles; that V that leads down to his beautiful length like an arrow; that cock, plunging in and out of me with abandon, slamming into something deep inside me with each pass.

  Blood rushes between my legs, sending my muscles into spasm and my sensibility into an abyss. His name slides from my lips in a breathy cry as I try to keep control. But that’s the thing about Henry, about what happens when I’m with him: I lose all control.

  A second later he lets out that deep, stomach-tightening grumble. I feel him pulsing inside me, filling me with spurts of his hot seed. Just the thought of that has me panting harder, has me stretching my thighs farther apart.

  With a sigh, I let my head loll to the side, my hair scattered everywhere, partially draping my face.

  Not enough to block my view of Jed, who’s standing at the corner of the barn, a stony look on his face.

  He’s gone in a heartbeat—just long enough for me to blink and open my mouth, but before the shriek actually escapes.

  “Oh my God!” Two minutes ago, on the edge of an orgasm, I might not have cared if he and the farmhands all pulled up chairs. But now, I’m horrified.

  Henry slides out of me and tucks himself into his boxers, seemingly unfazed.

  “Did you see him? How long was he watching?”

  He kneels to slip my panties on over my feet and gently slides them up my thighs. He pulls me off the bale to finish getting them on. “Just long enough to get the message, I hope.”

  What? “You knew he was there?” My voice is thick with accusation.

  “Yes,” he murmurs, leaning forward to run his tongue over my nipple and suck.

  It’s distracting, but not enough. “Henry….”

  “What? You like watching but you don’t like being watched?”

  “Not by Jed! He saw me completely naked!”

  He stands and tugs his shirt over his head. “He’s never seen you naked before?”

  “No! You were the first!” Well, and Katie, my friendly and promiscuous roommate at Wolf Cove, who took to barging in on me in the shower. But Henry was the first man.

  He chuckles. “Even better. Now he knows exactly what he lost.” He grabs my bra and frowns at it. “How does this one go on?”

  “Not an expert at something. Finally,” I grumble, tugging it from his grasp to pull on and fasten. “And this isn’t funny.”

  Henry sighs. “I noticed him just before we were coming. It’s not like I was going to stop that.”

  “Great.” My cheeks flush. Who knows how long he was standing there, then.

  “Hey….” He grasps my chin between his fingers and lifts my eyes to meet his. “He knew damn well he’d be interrupting something when he came back over, looking for you. So what, he saw us fucking. Maybe he’ll pack his shit up and go back to college like a good little boy now.”

  I’m not convinced he’ll do that.

  “Didn’t you walk in on basically the same?”

  “Yeah, I did. It hurt!”

  “But you don’t owe him anything. You guys are done, right?” There’s a challenge in his tone.

  “Yes, of course we’re done.”

  “So then, do you care that reality might sting for him, after how he’s treated you?”

  I think about that for a moment. “No, I guess not. It’s just… that was such a private moment for us.” Even out here, behind the barn, in the open. “I don’t want to share that with him.”

  He slides the ruined dress up over my arms and begins fastening the buttons that weren’t torn off. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. He stayed and watched because he wants what I have.” He pulls me to my feet to plant a sweet, warm kiss against my lips. “And he can’t have it.”

  Henry’s being possessive, but I don’t mind. I like it.

  The cooler evening air reminds me that my dress is gaping open.

  “How am I going to explain this dress to Mama?”

  He smirks.

  “She’s going to figure it out and hate you.”

  “She already hates me.” When I glare at him, he heaves a sigh. “I saw another dress hanging on the clothesline. I assume it’s yours. Why don’t you throw that on before you go in? She may notice that you changed but at least you won’t go in half-naked.”

  I can’t help but smile at his slyness. “Always one step ahead of me. It’s like you planned this out.”

  “You’re the one who seduced me back there, remember?
I was being perfectly respectable. Though, I’ve been thinking about tearing that dress off you all day.” He curls his arm around my waist and leads me back through the barn. “I do have to go now, though.”

  I rest my head against his chest, enjoying his warmth for a little longer. “Thank you for staying. I didn’t think you were going to.”

  “I didn’t think I was going to either.”

  We walk along the cut path, the five hundred yards to the house and his truck is suddenly too close. The evening sky is creeping up and, with it, the hint of many stars. “So, New York and then…?”

  “LA, Seattle, Alaska. After that… not sure. You’ll have to ask my assistant.”

  “How’s it going with… what’s his name again?”

  “Miles.” He smirks. “Well, I haven’t found him on my bed in his underwear yet, so there’s that.”

  “Blame those stupid nylons you make your staff wear,” I say with a giggle, thinking back on my first days being Henry’s assistant. They were absolute hell. I had no experience and kept screwing up. I was sure he would fire me. Little did I know that he was attracted to me. What I’d do to be back there and his assistant again. Though, that would mean hiding our relationship and I don’t ever want to go back to doing that.

  I may be stuck on this farm in Pennsylvania, but at least I don’t have to hide us.

  “Has anyone figured it out yet?”

  “Belinda strongly suspects but she hasn’t come out and asked, surprisingly. Aside from that… no, not yet. I’m sure they will, soon enough.”

  “Will it matter to you?”

  He heaves a sigh. “I’ll catch some flack from my father, no doubt, but the fact that I transferred you to a different department and left Alaska will help. And now… it doesn’t matter. You’re not a Wolf employee, I own 61 percent. More, when my father passes.”

  He rarely talks about his father, or the fact that he has three years left to live, at most, before the pancreatic cancer takes him. I open my mouth to ask now, but a gust of wind distracts me, catching my dress, forcing me to fix my grip to keep it from flying open.

  He slows as we pass by the vegetable garden, eying the vines of plump red tomatoes. Beyond them are rows of peppers, zucchinis, and cucumbers. The string beans are almost over. “What do you do with all those?”

  “Sell them at the Saturday farmers’ market on Main Street. We preserve some for sauce, but I don’t see that happening this year, with Mama minding Daddy. We’ll probably just sell them fresh off the vine. That’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow. Super exciting, right? Life of a farm girl. Bet you never expected to be with someone like me.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I regret saying them. I just reminded him of how different our lives are.

  In case he momentarily forgot.

  “I assume that’s yours.” He nods to the line of clothes—dresses, tops, panties—that runs between two giant oak trees. I should have taken everything down before the party but I had too many other things on my mind, the biggest one being the tall, gorgeous man beside me.

  I peek at the house. The lights are all on, but I don’t see Mama’s scowling face pressed against the windowpane. Daddy must have distracted her with a request. “Yeah. Can you toss it over to me, please?” I ask, shifting to hide behind the trunk as best I can as I unfasten the two buttons left and let the dress drop to the ground.

  Henry pulls the sundress off the line but takes his time bringing it over, leaving me standing there in my bra and underwear.

  “Hurry up!” I hiss with a nervous giggle.

  If there’s one thing you can’t do with Henry, it’s rush him when he doesn’t want to be hurried. He throws the dress over his shoulder and leans against the trunk, a smirk on his lips as he gazes over my body.

  “Seriously, Mama is going to look out that window soon and when she sees me standing here in my underwear, she’s going to have a heart attack. I know you don’t care if she hates you, but I do. It bothers me.”

  The amusement slips from his face. He passes the dress to me and quietly watches as I slip it over my head. It’s a long black-and-white striped figure-fitting cotton dress that I dared buy, knowing Mama wouldn’t approve, because I thought it would be cool for the summer.

  I smooth my hands over my hips. “Okay, ready.”

  He’s still watching me. “It’s not that I don’t care if she hates me, Abbi. In fact, I’d be quite happy if she liked me, but I figure that if rushing you across the country and flying in the best trauma surgeon doesn’t earn me a chance, then nothing will. I’m not going to kill myself trying to please someone who has very clearly written me off. I’ve already spent enough time doing that with my own mother.” He grits his teeth, as if he didn’t mean to say that. With a sigh, he pulls himself from the tree trunk. He begins walking toward his truck.

  I speed up to close the distance, slipping my hand into his. “Have you seen her at all lately?” I ask tentatively.

  “No.” That’s all. One single word. Clearly this isn’t something he wants to talk about.

  I hesitate. “Belinda told me that you aren’t close with her?”

  His feet slow to a stop and tension begins radiating from him. “Why the fuck were you talking to Belinda about my mother?”

  “It just came up, back when Scott and your father were at Wolf Cove.”

  “My personal life just came up?”

  Great. Now I’ve pissed him off. Angry Henry has never been easy to talk to. “I asked if she’d be there and she said your mother… hasn’t been around in a while.” Had enough of them, were Belinda’s exact words, if I recall correctly, but I’m not about to repeat that.

  “She doesn’t know the first thing about my family.” He makes to keep walking.

  I step out in front of him, reaching up to rest my hands on his chest, rubbing as soothingly as I can. “Neither do I. But, I’d like to. Talk to me.”

  He’s not even looking at me, his eyes locked beyond me, on his truck. To escape. “I don’t talk about my personal life with women I’m f—” He cuts himself off, his jaw tensing.

  I caught the gist of what he was going to say. I back away slightly, unable to hide the hurt from my face.

  I’m unable to stop the question from slipping out. “Is that all I am?”

  Finally, he settles his steely gaze on me.

  And I suck in a breath, terrified of the answer.

  “She walked out the door when I was eleven. Said she’d had enough. Sent her lawyers to collect her divorce settlement and that was the end of it. We spent our years in boarding schools and summers in Alaska. I didn’t even see my father until I started working at Wolf.”

  I frown. “And you haven’t seen her since?”

  “Not in almost twenty years.”

  I’m trying to wrap my head around this but I just can’t. “How does a woman just do that?” I don’t even have children, and yet I can’t imagine just walking away from them. Granted, Henry and Scott wouldn’t have been babies, but still….

  They were her children.

  “I don’t know, Abbi. I guess some women just aren’t made for it. That was her excuse, anyway.” He clears his throat. “I’ve got a plane to catch.” Stepping around me, he opens the driver door and tosses his wallet into the console. “I’m glad to see your father doing well.”

  I want to say something to him about what he just revealed about his mother. I just have no idea what. “So am I.”

  I can feel the sudden strain between us and I hate it.

  He must feel it too because he heaves a sigh. “Come here.”

  I step forward until I’m within arm’s reach. He pulls me into his body, one hand curling around my back, his other brushing the hair from my face. “Thank you for an… interesting day.” He leans in to plant a soft, sweet kiss on my lips. “And an amazing fuck.”

  Despite the tension, my thighs clench with his words. I can still feel him inside me and it’s a delicious burn. “I wish you could stay.”
r />   He smirks. “And what? Climb up your TV tower and sneak into your room?”

  My cheeks flush. I feel like such a child right now. “There’s an inn in town, just off Main Street. Maybe next time you come, you could stay there.” Will there be a next time?

  “What’s it called?”

  I hesitate. “The Inn.”

  “That’s… original.”

  “It’s an old Victorian house. Small but quaint. Really pretty. People seem to like staying there. I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes would go out of their way to make you comfortable.” Preferably not in the cat-themed room. “I mean, I know it’s not exactly at your level but—”

  “I’ll consider it for next time. Gotta go. I’ve got a packed schedule and I’m meeting with a new business partner.”

  Wolf Hotels is partnering with someone? The curiosity gets the better of me. “For what?”

  He smirks. “Stop trying to stall me.” He leans in again for another kiss, this one quick and chaste. “Your mother’s watching.”

  I glance over my shoulder. Sure enough, her silhouette fills the den window. She doesn’t even try to hide the fact, having pulled the drapes wide open, standing there with her hands on her hips.

  Did Jed call and tell her what he saw? No… she’d be on the porch, screaming at Henry to get the hell off the property and never come back.

  “Call me when you land.”

  My heart is heavy with disappointment as I watch Henry drive away until his taillights vanish around a bend in the road. Then I drag my feet into the house.

  Creak…

  Thump.

  Creak…

  Thump.

  Creak…

  Thump.

  Mama’s in her rocking chair in the den and, judging by the tempo, she is fuming.

  She loves me, I remind myself. I have a mother who loves me and would never abandon me because she didn’t feel like being my mother anymore. I’m lucky to have that.

  “Abigail!”