He hesitated, as if knowing that it wasn’t the simple question it might sound like. “No e-mail exchanges,” he said.
“I figured.” Her heart twisted, but it was a small pain compared to what she’d be in for later on. Once they parted, they’d have no contact whatsoever. And that was going to hurt more than she could ever imagine.
Chapter 22
Roarke wanted to make love to Abby more than he wanted to breathe, but he had something to do first. And he would accomplish it better as a wolf. Yet as a wolf, he would have limitations that a human could overcome. He needed Abby’s help.
The moment they were inside the room, Abby sighed with longing. “This is gorgeous.” She walked over to the bed and threw back the covers. “First I want a shower, and then I want a nice, long, slow session in bed with—”
Roarke groaned. “We can’t yet.”
“Why not?”
“We need to go check on Donald.”
“But how? Not that I don’t want to check on him, because I do. He was incredibly brave when Cameron and his goons showed up. He’d promised you he’d watch out for me, and he did his best. But how could we find him?”
“I can find him. And this is how we’ll get to him without alerting Gentry.” Roarke walked over to a section of the wall and pushed against the revolving panel.
“It’s a secret passage!” Abby walked over and peered into the blackness beyond the opening. “Stairs and a secret passage. This is like something out of Nancy Drew.”
Roarke had never read Nancy Drew, but he was glad to see that she was excited instead of freaked out. “There’s a whole system of tunnels under the house, and if we work together, we can find Donald.”
“Then let’s go.” She started to walk out through the opening.
“It’s not that simple. I smelled him earlier, but this is a huge place and I was frantically looking for you. I don’t remember which stairway it was. I could probably find him again as a human, but I’d be much more efficient if I shifted and searched as a wolf.”
She glanced up at him. “Then shift.”
“Once I do, we won’t be able to talk. I can understand you, but I can’t speak. So my idea was that I’ll use my sense of smell to find the bedroom where Donald is. It will be very dark, so you’ll need to hold on to my fur as we go. When I find him, you can go through the revolving panel and reassure him that we’re here and we’ll take care of him. But he can’t see me and can’t even know I’m there.”
She nodded. “Of course not.”
“He might want to come with you, but you can’t let him do that. In fact, he has to stay in the room. We can’t have him wandering around in the tunnels. It’s risky to contact him at all, but I can’t let him think we’ve abandoned him.”
“Do the tunnels eventually lead outside?”
“Yes, but Gentry has posted a guard there. He’d report on anyone who tried to escape. I’ve given my word that we won’t, and besides, I’d never go and leave Aidan holding the bag. Warn Donald not to try to leave by way of the tunnels or he’ll be caught.”
“Okay.” She flapped her hand at him. “Take off your clothes, Roarke. Hurry.”
“God, I wish you were saying that because we were about to jump into that big bed.”
“Later.”
He nudged off his shoes as he backed toward the bathroom. “I’ll shift in there.”
“Shift out here. I don’t care. I’ve already seen you do it.”
“I know, but . . . I’ll be right back.” He stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. He wasn’t willing to believe she was as nonchalant about his shifting as she pretended to be. But this would be a test of sorts. They would have to interact while he was a wolf.
Folding his clothes, he left them on the counter and stretched out on the floor. The mansion’s bathrooms were generous, so he had the room. He was aware of Abby waiting right outside the door, and it affected his concentration. But eventually the shift began to take over, and at last he rose from the floor and shook.
The second shift had given him another dose of healing power, and his paws felt almost normal. But he’d closed himself in the bathroom with no way to get out. Feeling like an idiot, he scratched at the door.
“Just a minute.” Abby hurried to the bathroom door and opened it. “Wow.” She hesitated. “This is intense, Roarke. But I want to get to know you like this, too.”
Kneeling in front of him, she buried both hands in his ruff. “You’re one gorgeous wolf.” She leaned forward. “I even like the way you smell.”
He touched his nose to her cheek.
“I like you better as a human, of course, but this is kind of cool.” She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a hug, then straightened. “All right. This is getting a little bit too Ladyhawke for me. The sooner we do this, the sooner you can shift back and we can hop in that gigantic bed together. Lead the way.”
Roarke started down the steps. Dried blood marked where he’d been earlier.
“I’m right behind you,” Abby said, “and once my eyes have adjusted I’ll close the . . . God, what’s that on the steps? Is that blood? Wait, Roarke. These are paw prints.” She gasped. “They’re yours, aren’t they? You ran until your paws were bloody. Oh, Roarke.”
He whined to indicate his impatience.
“All right, we’ll go. But these bloody prints tell me a lot about you. Go on down the stairs. I’ll meet you at the bottom.”
At the foot of the stairs he looked up and watched her push the panel closed. During the short time light streamed out the opening, it created a halo around her red hair. Aidan had called it. Roarke was falling for her, whether he wanted to or not.
“I’m here.” She grabbed a fistful of his fur. “Take me through these tunnels. But don’t go too fast. I’m only human.” Then she chuckled. “A little joke, there.”
His heart swelled in admiration. She was quite a woman. Any man would count himself lucky to spend a lifetime with her. Any werewolf, too, he silently acknowledged. Aidan had told him to listen to his heart, and it was talking to him now as Abby walked trustingly beside him down the narrow tunnel, her fingers buried in his ruff.
He paused at the first set of stairs and pulled away from her so he could climb them. Nothing. He returned and shoved his nose into the palm of her hand. She reached blindly for his ruff and they set off again.
On the fourth try he found Donald. Returning to Abby, he nudged her toward the stairs, and waited in tense silence as she felt her way up in the darkness. She stumbled once, but didn’t cry out. Good girl.
When she pushed open the panel at the top of the stairs, the room beyond was dark. Roarke reminded himself that it was nearly five in the morning and Donald was probably asleep. Roarke counted on Abby to wake him up without sounding the alarm.
She was gone for what seemed like forever, but at last she came out, pushed the panel shut, and slowly descended the stairs backward, feeling her way to each step. When she reached the bottom, Roarke moved in close so she could find him.
“Oh, Roarke, I’m so glad we did this. Donald was feeling alone and scared. But he’s better now. I told him everything you said—that we would make sure we got him out, but that he shouldn’t try to escape, especially not through the revolving panel.” She hesitated. “Just to be sure of that, I said there were snakes down here.”
He nuzzled her hand. She’d done well.
“I hope there aren’t, though. I don’t mind snakes, but I like to be able to see them, and it’s very dark down here.” She took his ruff firmly in her right hand. “Let’s go, Roarke. I’m trying not to think of you as my service dog, but it’s beginning to feel like that. I’m eager to lay eyes on your manly self again.”
He didn’t blame her. But she’d done an incredible job of dealing with him as a wolf. He didn’t want to put too much importance on that, but she’d handled the experience with a calm acceptance that made him start to dream a little.
Once they found th
e stairway leading back to the room he was using, she made the trip up with a little more confidence and opened the panel. On impulse, he held back and stretched out on the stone floor of the tunnel. Then he commanded his body to shift again.
“Roarke?” She called to him from the opening in the wall. “Roarke, are you all right down there?”
Slowly the wolf disappeared and the man emerged. Before meeting Abby, he would have said he preferred his wolf shape to his human one, even though he spent far more time as a human. The wolf felt more majestic to him, and he gloried in the physical strength and the heightened senses.
But Abby had changed that. His human form allowed him to communicate with her, and until tonight he hadn’t realized how important that was to him. He’d been frustrated listening to her talk and being unable to respond. And, of course, he could make love to her in human form.
Heart beating in anticipation, he climbed the stairs.
Abby quickly figured out that Roarke had decided to shift before coming into the room. He was shy about transforming in front of her, and she didn’t want to push him. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure how she’d react to witnessing the act firsthand. Before getting to know Roarke, the transformation might have bothered her.
Now she didn’t think it would. Spending time with him in wolf form had been strange at first, but she’d soon become used to it. Although he couldn’t talk to her, he’d managed to let her know what he wanted her to do. And he was a most magnificent wolf.
But as he walked into the room and closed the revolving panel, almost godlike in his naked glory, she forgot all about the beauty of the wolf as she contemplated the majesty of the man. She could see traces of the wolf in his dark blond hair and green eyes. His lithe movements suggested extreme athleticism, which made sense when she thought about the distance he’d covered tonight in order to find her.
Once again she remembered the bloody paw prints and wondered if duty had driven him to such great lengths or another emotion, the same one she was battling every time she looked at him. He’d said back in the forest that he was growing attached. But she was attached to any number of things—her hybrid car, her cute little apartment in Phoenix, her favorite Mexican restaurant.
He turned to her. “You were terrific.”
“You’ve been pretty terrific, yourself.” She glanced at his hands, although to do that she had to ignore another part of his anatomy that held great interest for her. “By rights your hands and feet should be all torn up.”
“One of the benefits of shifting is rapid healing. I’ve shifted twice since my run through the forest, and all I have are a few red spots.” He held up his hands, palms toward her, and sure enough, they were practically healed.
“Thank you for getting here so fast.”
“I had to.”
That sounded like the call of duty to her. So maybe he felt lust and a great sense of responsibility, and logically, after all they’d been through, he felt attached. She, on the other hand, was falling in love. With a werewolf.
“Grandpa Earl is the one who told Gentry I was with you, Roarke. I’m so sorry about that. Gentry said he got suspicious about the trip and went over to talk to my grandfather, who was so proud of our expedition that he bragged about it.”
Roarke sighed. “That’s my fault. I should have told him not to tell anyone, but I didn’t imagine that Gentry would go over there.”
“I think we all underestimated Cameron Gentry.”
“Yeah.”
“But did you find the Sasquatch pair?”
“I did, and they’re holed up in a cave waiting for me to come and help them board a helicopter.”
“That’s wonderful, Roarke.”
“Maybe not. It was supposed to be Gentry’s helicopter, and I’m not sure how that will work now.”
“Oh.” She had to admit having Gentry turn into a smarmy kidnapper changed things.
“And there’s another thing. I said I’d come as a wolf so they’d recognize me. If I lead them out to the helicopter that way, it takes Earl out of the running as an observer.”
She tamped down a rush of disappointment. “He’ll never know what he missed, anyway. If I can see them, he’ll be thrilled. It’s way more validation than he ever dreamed of.” She shrugged. “But at this point, we don’t know what’s going to happen. We have to get out of this mess first.”
“Yeah, we do.” Roarke glanced at the pile of camping gear in the corner. “I should have told Gentry to send your stuff up here.”
“Good thing you didn’t or the person bringing it might have found us missing when we went to visit Donald.”
“True.”
“My stuff’s not important.”
“Guess not.” Roarke gazed at her, his expression guarded. “Look, I know what we said we’d do after finding Donald, but you must be wiped out. We don’t have to—”
“But I want to. It’ll probably be our last chance.”
Regret flashed in his green eyes. “Probably.”
“But I desperately need a shower first.” She began stripping off her clothes.
“I could wash your back.”
“To hell with my back.” She tossed her underwear on the floor and headed for the bathroom. “If you’re climbing in the shower with me, pay attention to the good parts, please.”
Laughing softly, he followed her. “Yes, ma’am.”
After only a few minutes in the shower with him, she could vouch for his ability to take direction. She’d never been washed so thoroughly or enjoyed it more. He chose not to bother with a washcloth and used his talented hands instead. After her second climax, he hoisted her up against the shower wall and pinned her there with one firm thrust of his cock.
On yet another adrenaline high, she watched the water cascade over his powerful back and run in rivulets through his wet chest hair as he pumped, driving her inevitably toward another climax.
He held her slippery body easily and she never gave a thought to falling. His display of strength was a turn-on she never would have expected, perhaps because he wasn’t vain about it. He used his physical abilities for good . . . and this was very good.
When she came again, her cries echoing off the marble walls, she thought he’d take his pleasure, too. Instead he simply held her. A muscle in his jaw tightened, which was the only indication he was under any sexual stress.
As her tremors subsided, she gave him a questioning glance. “Roarke?”
“Soon.” Slowly he withdrew and eased her feet to the shower floor. His cock quivered as he turned to shut off the water. Grabbing one of the large towels hanging beside the shower, he wrapped her in it before scooping her up, towel and all, and carrying her into the bedroom.
He didn’t seem to mind that he was still wet, although holding her towel-wrapped body in his arms soaked up some of the drips. Then he laid her like a precious package in the middle of the bed. It was a king-sized bed, so she could only imagine the upper-body strength required to place her in the exact center.
She was not a small woman at five-nine, and no man had ever made her feel dainty until now. No man had ever made her feel cherished, either. Maybe it took a werewolf to do that. Climbing into bed, he unwrapped the towel.
Once again she had the image of being a gift that he treasured. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?” He smoothed back the white terry-cloth towel and began to kiss her, starting with her cheeks and moving to her throat.
“Make me feel precious.”
“You should feel that way.” He dotted her shoulder with more kisses. “You are precious.”
“But I’ve never thought I was.”
He placed soft kisses on her other shoulder before moving to her breasts. “Then you were in bed with the wrong guy.”
And now she was in bed with the right guy . . . one last time. She wanted to be able to enjoy this without thinking about the inevitable parting, but the more he kissed her as if memorizing her body, the more emotional she be
came.
Finally she pushed him away and sat up. “Damn it, why do you have to be so good at this?”
He sat up, too, and gazed at her. “If you want me to stop, then—”
“Of course I don’t want you to stop!”
He reached for her, and she backed away. He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his wet hair. “Abby . . .”
“It’s just not fair. You’re the perfect guy, and you’re . . . you’re a werewolf.” She hadn’t meant to cry, but it had been a very long day and an even longer night. The more she tried not to cry, the faster the tears came.
Roarke reached for her again, and she jumped off the bed, still crying. “I’m ruining this,” she choked out between sobs. “And I can’t seem to help it. I’m ruining our last time together, and you didn’t even get to come, and . . . I hate this, Roarke!”
“Maybe I should go.”
She stared at him through her tears. “Maybe you should. I thought when you left camp yesterday that was the end, but it wasn’t. Here we are again, and you’re making beautiful love to me . . . again. It’s like pulling a bandage off bit by bit, drawing out the pain, instead of ripping it off all at once.”
He nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.” Leaving the bed, he walked into the bathroom. “I’ll get dressed.”
She swore she heard the crack of her heart breaking, but instead it was the sound of the revolving panel opening about two inches. She grabbed the towel off the bed and wrapped herself in it. “Roarke! Someone’s—”
“It’s me, Abby.”
She recognized Aidan’s voice as Roarke charged out of the bathroom with his shirt half-buttoned. He pushed open the panel. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Busting you out.” Aidan stepped into the room. “If you were having sex, I apologize, but we need to get the hell out of this house. Gentry is crazy.”
Chapter 23
Roarke glanced at Abby, whose eyes were huge with distress. “It’ll be fine,” he said gently. “Just get some clothes on and we’ll go.”
“Not without Donald.”
Werewolf in the North Woods Page 23