Canadian Wolf (Paranormal Nocturne Romance)

by Linda O. Johnston

  “Sounds good—especially since despite all I’ve heard so far, I wasn’t sure where to look for the target locale, let alone zero in on the particular area.”

  “Great. Working together makes the most sense, then.” But when Selena looked into Owen’s face, working together didn’t seem to be what he was thinking about. Doing other things together was. His gaze was sensuous, and so was the set of his mouth.

  She didn’t even think about resisting. In moments, Selena was in his arms.

  When their mouths met, the whole idea of conducting research on her own to avoid him flew from her mind, even as her hands went behind him and grasped his buttocks to pull him even closer.

  His hardness against her was irresistible. “Owen,” she whispered against his mouth.

  “Good thing we’re in your bedroom,” he said hoarsely. “Or was this why you came in here?”

  Despite herself, she laughed a little without pulling back very far. “Believe me, I came in here to avoid this.”

  “Nope, I don’t believe you.” He softened his words by deepening the kiss.

  Selena moaned against him, even as her most sensitive body parts warmed and tingled in anticipation. Then she closed her laptop and set it on the floor.

  She still reveled in her memories of the last time they’d made love despite recognizing what a bad idea it had been. Having sex with Owen again would be an even worse idea...and it was absolutely foolish to even contemplate it here. They were alone, except for Lupe, but who knew when the others would enter this house once more? It could be at any moment.

  “You taste so good,” Owen said, backing off just a little to look at her. His hands were still upon her, though, and he moved them to her breasts, making her draw in a ragged breath yet again.

  “You taste wonderful, too,” she said, “and beings like me can really sense the best of flavors.”

  She half waited for him to be the one to back off after that. Did he care that she had reminded him who, and what, she was?

  Apparently not. He didn’t flinch.

  “Then what do I taste like to you?” he asked, dipping his head for a quick but heated kiss.

  “You taste like hot, delicious sex,” she said. “Addictive sex.”

  “Just my kiss? What if we taste each other’s bodies all over?”

  Just the thought nearly made Selena have an orgasm. But at least one of them had to remain sane.

  That had to be her, or so she told herself.

  “It sounds wonderful,” she said, even as she let her hand creep beneath his shirt and upward, caressing his warm skin with just a hint of chest hair. “But you’re as aware as I am that someone could come in here at any time. As much as I’d like to indulge with you again, we just can’t.”

  “Of course we can.” His hands began to play games beneath her T-shirt, cupping her breasts, flicking his thumbs over her nipples outside her bra in a way that made her want to forget everything sensible and strip again and have hot, mindless sex with him once more.

  Good thing she retained her senses. Didn’t she? “But—”

  “Here’s what we’ll do.” He moved his hands away and she felt almost robbed, deprived of the sensation that had made her willing—almost—to defy all logic.

  His hands moved lower, and she felt him pull her jeans away from her waist, beyond her hips and farther down, until her jeans pooled at her feet.

  “What are you doing?” she began, only to have him cover her lips once more as he pulled her closer to the bed.

  “Now you do the same to me. Just take my pants partly off. That way, when we make love, if we hear anyone enter the house we can get dressed again more quickly.”

  What a good idea, she thought. Or maybe she simply wasn’t thinking any longer. It was really a foolish idea, wasn’t it?

  But she had a desire to play along anyway. She had desire. Oh, yeah.

  “I don’t suppose you have a way to communicate with Lupe to tell her to bark softly if she hears anyone, do you?”

  Selena laughed. “She’s well trained, and I look a lot like her while shifted, but we still haven’t figured out a way to communicate with our cover animals that way. Maybe someday.”

  “So we don’t add to our delays, I’ll take care of this.” He pulled back just a little and waved the package containing a condom in front of her. She heard the plastic tear, and only a few moments later Owen was stroking her body in its most sensitive and moist area, making her nearly scream with need. “Are you ready?” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Are you?” she countered and reached toward him, feeling how stiff and hard he was beneath the covering of the condom. “I’d say yes.”

  “Yes,” he repeated, and in moments he was inside her, thrusting and breathing hard.

  She came nearly immediately. Apparently so did he, for he groaned as he continued to move with determination, but for only another minute. And then he was still.

  They just lay there on the bed that was Selena’s while she was on this assignment, in this town.

  “Not bad for a quickie,” Owen said after a long moment.

  “Not bad at all,” Selena said, but what she thought was how wonderful it had been, maybe because of the risk as well as the intensity.

  That was when she heard Lupe, beside the bed, rise to her paws and give a small woof.

  “Maybe she did understand,” Selena said. “I think we’ve been warned.”

  Laughing, Owen responded, “Time to pull ourselves together and get back on your computer.”

  * * *

  A minute later, Owen and Selena, fully dressed once more and no longer out of breath, walked slowly down the hall and into the entry area together to see who was there, with Lupe already sniffing at the opening door. Owen wasn’t especially surprised to see who came inside.

  “Oh.” Rainey looked startled as she stopped and stared at them. The curls of her dark hair seemed mussed up by the wind outside, and the lids over her brown eyes were lowered a bit, as if she was in pain. She explained, “I didn’t think anyone would be here. I just came back for some aspirin to ward off a headache I’ve started fighting.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Selena said. “Can I get you anything?”

  “No, thanks. I always carry aspirin in my purse just in case. I’ll go upstairs and get some from my room.” She started past them down the hallway.

  Owen asked, “As far as you could tell, the practice surveillance is going okay with the shifted CAs?”

  “Yes, as far as Marshall and I could tell. He’s still there, and I’m going back to where he’s waiting.” Rainey stopped at the bottom of the stairway to the second floor. She turned, and the expression on her face now was both inquisitive and teasing. “I didn’t expect you to be here since I thought you two would be in the meeting house waiting to see what happened. Are you...working here?” She aimed a huge, catlike smile at Selena, who shifted where she stood beside Owen.

  “Yes, I wanted to research some things about the target area on the internet, so I came back here for my laptop.” She’d been carrying it and now gestured with it. “Owen had already done some investigation, online and otherwise. He came with me so we could compare notes and synchronize what we did.”

  Owen wanted to hug Selena for keeping her cool. Her response was logical and sound. But he couldn’t help thinking that Rainey guessed why they were really here, or at least what she had interrupted. Those brows of hers were raised now as she regarded her boss. “I want to hear all about that...research later.” She turned again and hurried up the stairs.

  Owen heard Selena slowly let out her breath.

  “Guess we dodged that bullet,” Owen whispered to her, putting an arm around her and squeezing gently.

  “Not with Rainey,” Selena said, also softly. “Even though she’s not a shifter, I suspect her senses help her to know everything.”

  * * *

  Rainey returned back down the stairs a few minutes later, a small pill container in her hand
. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said, heading into the kitchen. “I’ll bring a water bottle along with me, too, this time.”

  Selena hoped it wouldn’t be tainted, then chastised herself. She didn’t know for certain—yet—if the elixir had been tampered with somehow. And even if it had been, that didn’t mean there was a problem with everything stored around this compound.

  At least she hoped not.

  “Then I’ll leave you two alone again,” Rainey added, practically dancing into the kitchen on her well-worn tennis shoes.

  Selena said nothing, just shook her head and sent a wry smile toward her aide that Rainey, now with her face in the refrigerator, couldn’t see. Selena instead aimed it toward Owen, who remained beside her, where she was seated at the kitchen table with the laptop in front of her. He was grinning, but as Rainey turned back toward them his expression turned into what passed for an irritated frown.

  Rainey closed the refrigerator. She followed up her pills with a long draft of water. “Okay, done,” she said. “I’ll leave you two to your...research.” She grinned again.

  Selena wondered if her aide’s imagination was as much of a headache cure as the aspirin. “Oh, I think we’ve finished it,” she said. “I’m ready to go back to the meeting house to wait for everyone to return there. How about you, Owen?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m looking forward to getting a report from the shifters. And also about Sal.”

  Selena nodded. “All the more reason to wait where everyone’ll know where to contact us,” she said. Then to Rainey, who hurried toward the door ahead of them, she called, “I hope everything on the mountain continues to go well and that your head feels better.” Selena hurried to partially close the door until she could attach Lupe’s leash to her collar. “We’re going for a short walk first, before we go back to the other house,” she said to Owen. “Want to join us?”

  * * *

  Owen watched as Lupe tried at first to catch up to Rainey as she headed along one of the paths through the forest that led up the mountain. Selena didn’t let her, but tightened her grip on the handle of the leash. “This way, girl,” she said to Lupe.

  Not for the first time, Owen considered how this wolf-dog looked so much like Selena when she was shifted. He had seen her that way.

  But he hadn’t seen her get that way.

  Nor had he, that day, gotten to see Selena completely undressed even though they had made love.

  He wanted to see her naked again—before touching her and having more hot, hard sex with her.

  “Are you thinking about how I look shifted?” Selena asked. “And whether I do similar things as Lupe?”

  Startled, he looked toward her. Her smile was huge.

  “In a way,” he admitted. “Mostly, I was thinking about how I wished I’d seen you completely bare today.” His turn to smile. “Maybe next time.”

  “But—”

  “I know. There might not be a next time. But I can always hope.”

  She looked away from him. Her lovely face was pensive, even as she watched Lupe lift her nose and smell the air.

  “We’ve talked a lot about times that I get completely bare,” she reminded him. “Would you still feel so...interested if you saw me shift? You’ve seen the guys change, so you know what the process is. It’s cool, but it’s not sexy.”

  He hesitated, but for only an instant. And then he responded, “It’s you.” Her glance seemed to suggest she was startled. And did he see a ray of hope in her expression?

  Heck, letting her know he was attracted to her no matter what her background was fine, but he didn’t want to give her any hope that there would be something between them in the future. There couldn’t be. They were too different. They had to live in the here and now.

  Make love as much as they could...in the here and now.

  But to make sure she didn’t misunderstand anything on his mind, he grinned at her and said, “And in case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’ll take any opportunity I can to see you naked, Selena.”

  Chapter 17

  They were back in the meeting house.

  Needing something to do while they waited for the return of the shifted CAs—and word on Sal—Owen watched Selena start a pot of coffee for them as he wiped the kitchen counter.

  How she could look so lithe and pretty doing such a mundane thing? But he realized why. No matter how inappropriate it was, he was falling for her in more ways than just wanting sex with her anytime, anywhere.

  He liked her. A lot. Despite her being a shifter.

  Loved her?

  He wouldn’t go there—even though he had heard that her Alpha Force included a number of couples in which one was a shapeshifter and the other wasn’t. How did they get together? How did it work out?

  Plus, one of the things he’d gathered was that their kids would most likely be shifters. How would he feel about that?

  It didn’t matter. None of it did. They had no future. He would just live in the moment while they had professional reasons to be together.

  He’d started out not trusting shifters at all because of his family’s experience with the one who’d become a killer. He’d had to start trusting them, at least somewhat, because of his job—but that was all.

  A permanent relationship with one—even though that one would be Selena? That couldn’t happen.

  He sensed Selena step beside him, breaking into his thoughts.

  “I know you like it black,” she said as she handed him a mug of coffee. He put down the dishcloth he’d been using and accepted the coffee from her.

  He smiled at her. “Sounds as if you’re getting to know me too well.”

  She didn’t quite hide the look of panic on her face as she quickly turned away.

  “I’m getting to know you a bit, too,” he persisted. He drew closer to her and, standing right behind her, put his arms around her and pulled her against him. “You like things hard, and sometimes fast, and—”

  She pulled away and spun to face him. The expression on her beautiful but pale face seemed taunting somehow, yet sad. “Yes, I guess you’re getting to know a part of me, too. But not all.” She bent and put her hand on top of Lupe’s head. The dog was sitting on the floor, looking up at her. “Right, Lupe?”

  “I’ll bet she knows the rest,” Owen said. And I’m willing to learn. But he didn’t say that. What good would it really do either of them if he did learn?

  Although he hadn’t been lying to her. He really did hope he got the chance to watch her shift from human to wolf, at least once.

  Maybe it would turn him off completely, shut off any avenue within his mind of wanting to get to know her better.

  But he suspected, right now, that it would have the exact opposite effect.

  As if she was reading his mind, Selena stood up straight and faced him. “Too bad we need to just wait here for now. Otherwise, I could go downstairs and bring up some of the elixir and one of the magical lights. I could change to look just like Lupe before your very eyes.” Talk about taunting him with her gaze—she was a pro at it.

  But instead of responding directly, he said, “Maybe we should bring some of that stuff up here, compare the vials to one another to see if we recognize differences. But I think it’ll be better to get the results of any testing when Sal comes back with Patrick and Jonas.”

  “You’re assuming he’ll come back with them.” She crossed her arms and regarded him dubiously.

  “Aren’t you?”

  She relaxed just a little. “Yes, I am, actually. Or maybe that’s just hopefulness. I want him to be all right. And I also want there to be a good explanation for his having become ill in the first place.”

  “Other than tainted elixir?”

  She nodded. “You already know how I feel about that. It wouldn’t have come from Ft. Lukman that way, but I can’t imagine how it was tampered with on the way here or by whom. And—”

  Owen’s phone rang. Selena stopped talking as he pulled it out of
his pocket.

  It was Anthony. This wasn’t a time scheduled for his superior officer to call. Owen immediately felt his shoulders stiffen, expecting he was not going to like the reason Anthony was contacting him.

  He was right.

  * * *

  Selena watched the expression on Owen’s face as he leaned his back against the kitchen counter and scowled as he listened to whoever was on the phone. Who was it? Whatever he or she was saying was clearly aggravating Owen.

  In a minute, he pulled his phone away from where he had been clutching it against his ear, looked at it and swiped the screen a few times with his forefinger. “Got it. I’ll listen and get back to you with any ideas. But I gather that priority number one is to get the CAs off to the target area fast, no later than the day after tomorrow.” Owen paused, then said, “Yes, sir.” He pressed the button to end the call.

  Selena didn’t wait. She wanted to know what was going on.

  She knew it wasn’t anything good.

  “Who was that? Anthony?”

  “Yeah. He received a message that he needed to pass along to me. Let’s go listen to it.” He led her into the dining room and sat down on the chair at the head of the table. She grabbed the seat beside him and just waited, while Lupe settled down once more behind her.

  He pulled his phone out again and fiddled with it for a few seconds. Then Selena heard a voice crackle out of it.

  It was clearly a disguised voice, probably male, much lower than any vocal range she had ever heard, slow and deliberate and understandable. It said, “Greetings, RCMP. You are running out of time to get that ransom paid. Too bad. We are increasing it now by another million dollars and decreasing the deadline by one day. That means we now expect it to appear in the designated foreign bank account no later than Tuesday. And we might change that again if we decide to. We already spoke with Mr. Brodheureux but decided to contact you, too, this time. You need to understand that you Mounties are not in charge here. We are. And if you pretend to do the impossible because you think that will scare us into giving up or allowing you to capture us, you will be making an even bigger mistake. We are much smarter than the RCMP, and you should never forget that. By the way, Mrs. Brodheureux sends her regards. She wants to make sure her husband gets more of his Xanogistics money together fast...or this will also be her goodbye.”