Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Dedication
This one's for Mary Ricksen and Laurie Vachereau with all my thanks for reading so many versions of so many manuscripts.
Chapter One
“I'm counting to ten, and if you're not out of that lake with your hands above your head by the time I reach ten, I'll start shooting.” Sheriff Gray White balanced a rifle on one shoulder and held a flashlight at eye level, effectively blinding the perp.
What the…? His eyes locked onto the most perfect pair of breasts he'd ever seen—rounded, uptilted, nipples pouting.
Gray's head whipped up. His jaw dropped; then he clamped it shut and swallowed.
Fuck.
Since when did a siren inhabit Lake Wickia? Wet hair plastered to skin the sun had never warmed, caressing each mound. His hold on the weapon slackened as drops of water, little love kisses, meandered down flesh so succulent and tempting, his fingers tingled.
The disciplined cop in him retreated as she advanced, slender legs spraying water with each step.
His eyes traced one translucent pearl as it dipped into a navel and wound around a silver belly ring dangling a delicate chain with a little heart on the end. It raced over a taut belly to its final destination, an Irish setter red triangle of curls. Oxygen didn't make it to his brain; blood crashed to his balls and his prick.
“My name's Sorcha McFadden, Officer, and as you can see, I've been skinny-dipping.” She stood tall and proud, chin jutting, a fiery defiance blazing from eyes the word “blue” couldn't begin to describe. “I'm going inside to find a towel.”
She turned around then and started up the stairs.
Gray's lungs had long stopped functioning; his reactions went on overdrive. Her scent intoxicated him. His mouth watered; he couldn't wait to taste her.
The white wolf in him roared and bellowed and seized control.
He sniffed and a whiff of her perfume, an intriguing blend of musk and cut lawn, went straight to his cock. Without a blink's hesitation he stalked after her, ogling her heart-shaped ass, his eyes darting from one cheek to the other as she mounted the three steps to the porch. High, pert, mesmerizing glutes with a hint of softness, the dimple in one winking as the other cheek tautened, hypnotized him.
Closing the distance between them, he stifled a growl when she twisted her hair to one side, exposing supple flesh pleading for his teeth, his tongue. The temptation to suck the honeyed spot and mark her with his scent dizzied him. He tucked the flashlight under the curve of his rifle arm and grabbed the banister with his left hand.
Steady, steady.
No way he'd get control over his raging hard-on during the interview made compulsory because he'd called in the trespasser. Gray planted his feet before the open sliding glass doors, gulping huge breaths of the chill April air, knowing the pine aroma should replace hers, but it didn't. Her fragrance sank into his pores; he inhaled her spicy aroma.
He had found his mate.
He was insane.
This wasn't possible.
This wasn't the way to find a mate.
Was it possible to erase a thought?
Willing his body under control, he stared as she pulled a throw off the edge of a sofa, her movements lithe, graceful. She stood no more than five feet three and yet had Vegas chorus-girl legs. His eyes found the source of her womanhood, locked onto one lone bead hanging over the cliff to the hood veiling paradise.
Hands shaking, he set the rifle and the spotlight down on a mahogany dining table. He couldn't choke back a groan as she hid all that delicious ivory flesh from his greedy gaze with a blue blanket, which she twisted in place above her breasts.
She spun around.
Her complexion paled. Her pupils dilated. She took a step back. “You.”
What had he missed?
She knew him?
“You don't remember me,” she said, her full lips pursed. “Figures.” She snorted. “What do you want, Gray?”
The effort to pull himself together didn't affect his raging arousal. Focus, focus. Gray studied her profile as she picked up a towel lying on the granite counter and attacked wavy locks that trickled rivulets onto the wooden floor.
His brain finally wrapped around her earlier statement. Sorcha McFadden, his sister's best friend. An image of her and Susie playing with their Barbie dolls stained his pupils.
“Sorcha?”
She swung back to him. “Bingo.”
A watershed of memories cascaded—a skinny ragamuffin of a girl, no breasts, not much of a backside, a mop of Shirley Temple ringlets, and the face to match. Sorcha had been a sweet kid, all quiet and shy, and she'd had the biggest crush on him for forever. She'd followed him around like an adoring puppy, never saying much, just staring at him with unblinking blue eyes as if she memorized his every action, gesture, word.
When had her hair gone from carrot to alluring auburn?
Why hadn't he noticed her eyes mimicked a Washington sky on the coldest, clearest winter's day?
“My condolences on your grandmother's death,” he said in an attempt to take the sexual tension and her anger down a notch. Her flushed cheeks and her white-knuckled grip on the towel didn't bode well for his intentions. “Aileen was a good woman.”
“She was.” A shudder racked her body, and she hugged her arms. “I inherited the cottage.”
She wouldn't meet his stare, her gaze landing here and there like a butterfly skipping from flower to flower. Through an enveloping sexual haze, Gray realized he'd set her nerves on edge.
The cloth slipped its tentative knot, giving him a ten-second glimpse of nipples as pink as the cherry blossoms that littered Twisp's Main Street every spring. She snatched the towel's ends together.
He had to adjust himself so baaad.
Ready to snap, ready to surrender to his wolf mating instincts, Gray knew he had to get her out of his presence—now.
“Why don't you go change, Sorcha? You look colder than a witch's—” Crap. He ground his teeth together. “Sorry—bad word choice.”
“I am cold, and I'm not fifteen anymore, Gray. I've heard the word 'tit' before.”
And have you heard the word “fuck” before?
He raked the outline of her hourglass figure. She had to be thirty, had to have fucked other men. But she wouldn't be fucking anyone else, not until he finished with her. Her aroma changed, the musk of her dawning excitement winding on a lake breeze curling around the log cabin. He gulped in her taste. His balls contracted.
“I repeat, why are you here?” Sorcha bent over and did that thing women did with a towel, wrapping her long hair into the cotton and securing it with a twist.
Gray's eyes locked on her neck. Not good to tempt a white wolf, honey, not when he can smell your pussy creaming.
“I spotted the lights from across the lake. This property's supposed to be unoccupied.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “You're going to have to fill out some forms. I called it in.”
“In that case, I'm going to have a hot shower and change.” She threw him a look that could only be described as petulant and pissed, and marched in the direction of the bedroom.
As she reached the doorway, she glanced over one bare shoulder and said, “There's beer and soda in the fridge. Help yourself.”
“Thanks.” As soon as the solid pine panel clicked shut,
he cupped his raging cock and shifted to the right. Relief made him slump on the table for a second.
How to get from here to fucking?
How fast?
Once wouldn't be enough, not with her scent ruling his actions, his prick.
When had she come back into town?
Aileen, her grandmother, had died two weeks ago. Tonight was his first night back on duty after two months of recuperating from a gunshot wound to his shoulder, and none of his officers had mentioned her arrival in town. He guessed she'd arrived either late last night or early today.
Gray checked his watch. After five—officially off duty. He wandered over to the fridge, plucked out an old-fashioned Coke bottle, and hunted for the opener. A fat candle on the two-seater breakfast table nestled in a floor-to-ceiling bay window drew his attention. Frowning, he edged over to stand beside the table. Miniature white roses in a squat glass, a single place setting of china, sterling silver cutlery, crystal glasses, and an antique lace napkin—all items he recognized from Aileen's collection.
A six-inch chocolate cake with fudge icing caught his attention, and his mouth watered. White letters spelled out Happy Birthday, Love, Miss L. Next to the torte stood a white box banded by a white bow and a white envelope with the words Happy Birthday to ME! A bottle of merlot from a local winery waited for decanting to the right of the card.
He knew the birthday present she'd get from him tonight.
Four or five times.
She'd tried to hide her reactions to him, but nothing, nothing, could mask the clear scent of her arousal, not from a white wolf.
Where was the food?
Spotting a bag on the counter, he set the soda down and pulled open the squished-together, familiar white bag.
“Did you get a…? Oh, I see you did.” Sorcha's creamy complexion held shades he'd only ever seen in Arizona sunsets. The way the tawny golds feathered to pink on her cheeks fascinated him.
“It's your birthday,” he said. “McDonald's?”
“Grams did the cooking.” One shoulder lifted and she smiled.
Fuck, what a perfect smile, rosy lips lifting at the corners, sculpting twin dimples in her cheeks.
“I never learned. And I didn't figure on driving for two hours to get decent takeout.”
“But McDonald's?” Gray knew he wore a pained grimace. Snatching the Coke bottle off the granite, he took a good slug of the icy liquid and waited for her reaction, hoping she wouldn't be offended.
“It's the closest,” she said as she marched over to the table and grabbed the merlot.
“Sorry, didn't mean to upset you.” Cock and brain connected. “Hey, I haven't had dinner yet. And I can cook. I'll throw something together, and we can have a nice meal and catch up.”
How old were the condoms in the glove box? Crap, think, think.
Her jaw dropped open, and if he thought she blushed before, she put on a kaleidoscope show now. Did she blush like that all over? Oh gods above, if there is a heaven, let her pussy blush like that when he got up close.
And only then did he notice what she almost wore. Gray gulped. He blurted, “Honey, I hope that dress is an invitation.”
“I was going to invite you to stay.” She wouldn't make eye contact for more than a blink at a time.
He almost dropped the Coke, her words the conflagration that destroyed his self-control, the fulcrum of the life he'd built to deny his bestiality. His cock, already impossibly hard, thickened to the point of pain.
“But there is a problem.”
Fuck no. Please, please, no.
Gray daren't get any closer, and he wished he had something in his other hand.
“Problem?” he croaked, his vocal cords strangling on the word, his prick weeping its loss.
“I arrived today, and I haven't had time to stock up.” She chewed on a cherry-ripe bottom lip.
“That's the problem?” Hope pushed oxygen into previously choking lungs.
She nodded.
“There's no other problem?” The cop in him had to get all obstacles out of the way; the beast in him battered his rib cage, wrestling civilized veneer into a stranglehold.
She shook her head.
“Say it aloud, Sorcha. 'There is no other problem, Gray.'”
“There is no other problem, Gray,” she whispered, the words directed at the wooden floor. One juicy big toe chased the line of the diagonal pine slat.
A thirty-second debate waged in his head as he stepped forward: try to get to home base, or be civilized and have dinner first.
He'd resigned himself to dinner when she said, “I'm not really hungry, though. I had a big lunch.”
The Coke bottle clunked around in the sink when he dropped it. Two strides, and he had her in his arms, his mouth on hers, open, thrusting into sweet heat. The merlot hit his kneecap when he inserted his thigh between her legs. The pain brought him back from the brink. He took the bottle from her hand and set it on the counter.
“Condom… Car… I'll be back.” He sat her on the granite kitchen counter, the image of his cock plundering her pussy his sole goal. “Stay.” Tongue thick and heavy in his mouth, Gray could barely manage speech at all. An image of her rising from the lake stained his pupils, and at the door he turned and pointed at her halter straps. “Untie.”
Mine.
Claiming Sorcha McFadden, scent-marking every inch of her delicious body, just the thought hazed his brain, and rational thought ceased.
Gray didn't remember the journey out or back, but when he skidded to a halt between her dangling legs, he saw she'd obeyed his last command and held the triangles of the halter in place only with her arms.
“Oh, honey. Thank you, thank you.” He buried his face between her breasts and shoved the jersey material to her waist. Drunk on her flesh, he sucked his way up one rounded mound, lapping and teasing the taut cherry blossom, slowing for the return journey, inhaling soap and a flowery scent. “Oh God, you smell good. You're so soft here.” He couldn't resist lingering on the underside when she whimpered a sweet little series of double moans.
A dog barked.
Barked again.
Let out a growl.
He heard, but the sounds didn't penetrate.
Loud, insistent barking continued.
Gray lifted his head.
“My dog.”
Cradling her face, he licked the seam of her lips. “Bedroom, and no dog.”
“Okay.” Her mouth curled into that smile, the one that made his prick weep, and he wanted to drown in her twinkling eyes.
Turning her head to the left, she addressed the black Labrador. “Down, boy. Stay.”
The dog obediently lay down and curled around himself, his tail flicking up and down.
Gray wrapped her legs around his waist.
“Arms around my neck,” he ordered.
She complied, kissing his throat as he raced to the bedroom, toed the door shut, and stumbled toward the bed. Fuck, she felt good, her mound all soft and wet, slicking up the crotch of his pants. They fell on the mattress, him on top. All he could think about was being inside her, that first entry, how tight and hot she'd be. He bounded off the bed and put three condoms on a handy bedside table.
Her eyes followed his movements.
“We'll get more when we go shopping,” he promised.
Spotting an alcove above the headboard, Gray removed his gun and holster and stashed them in the narrow space. Aware her blue eyes tracked his actions, he tried to get out whole sentences while stripping off his shirt, losing most of the buttons and not giving a crap.
“I'm on fire, honey. It's not going to be long the first time.” The blasted belt finally unbuckled. “Second one will be better. Third will be a nice, slow one.” Zipper down.
The bewildered look on her face made his stomach do a three-hundred-pound clench-and-jerk. “Sorcha, honey, listen to me—You're not a virgin, are you?”
Reddish brown eyebrows climbed to her hairline.
His khakis
sunk to his knees. “Honey?”
She covered her face with her hands and mumbled, “No.”
“That's great.” He'd forgotten his boots. Crap. “It'll be okay. It'll work.” His cock knew enough to let his brain continue coaxing as he finished undressing. Snatching a condom packet, he ripped the plastic open with his teeth, then began to slide the rubber on over the crown.
“I'm on the Pill. You don't really need that.”
His mind shut down.
He could go bareback.
Gray shuddered, let the rubber fall from his fingers, and crushed the mattress with both hands. He couldn't look at her.
“Gray?” The little quiver in her voice crashed over him, and a smidgen of rationality seeped into his brain. His head bent, he inhaled deeply and shifted to face her. Wrong move. He groaned as the perfume of her sex emptied all thoughts from his skull.
“Scared?” He needed to know where her mind was at.
Her ivory complexion held no hint of roses, and her eyes widened as she gawked at his cock.
One white tooth clamped her bottom lip. She shook her head and raised those Washington blues to his. Mouth curving, dimples playing peek-a-boo, she replied, “Good scared.”
A hell storm roared through him, boiling desire bubbled and danced in his veins, and he almost climaxed on the spot. Sweat bombarded his forehead, and he clenched his fists, willing himself under control.
Moving slowly, he lay on his side next to her, lifted the stretchy black material of the skimpy halter dress to her waist, and drank in his firsthand view of paradise. Wet and glistening like diamonds of dew on silk, her auburn curls made his mouth go dry. This first up-close-and-personal glimpse of her pussy would be fixed in his brain forever.
Fitting himself between her legs, Gray stilled for a breath, imprinting the sight of her glazed eyes, half-parted lips, the dreamy expression she wore, in his mind. His head fell back in sheer ecstasy, his balls hanging between her thighs, her cream polishing them so the little hairs quivered and pleaded for more contact. He nudged her with his knees, she let her legs fall open, and he lowered his mouth to her earlobe and bit.
“Yes,” she moaned, the breathy little sound pure music to his ears.
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