Cravings

by Laurell K Hamilton, MaryJanice Davidson, Eileen Wilks

  “Were you frightened?”

  Instead of addressing the question, she stood and came toward him, and he felt his whole body vibrating with awareness of her.

  “You should be afraid of . . . me,” he answered for her.

  “Well, you can call me too stupid for that. Or too reckless.”

  “I would never call you stupid.”

  “I was waiting for the wolf.” With no hesitation, she reached out and took him in her arms. The shock of that first contact knocked the breath from his lungs.

  He gulped in a strangled gasp of air as she lifted her arms and cupped them around the back of his head, her fingers winnowing through his shaggy hair.

  The pressure was gentle, not a command but a question. With his excellent night vision, he looked down at her for a long moment. Then his eyes focused on her lips.

  As if she knew where his gaze had landed, her tongue flicked out, sweeping across the fullness of her lower lip.

  He would have pulled away from any other woman. But not this one. With a sound low in his throat, he lowered his mouth to hers. The first touch of that intimate contact was like a bolt of lightning, sizzling along his nerve endings.

  And when she made a small exclamation, he was pretty sure that she felt it, too.

  He would never have reached for her on his own. Not in a thousand years. But all at once he was too needy to stop himself from devouring her mouth with his lips, his tongue, his teeth.

  And she accepted what he offered and gave in return, her response frantic and subtle and overwhelming by turns, making his head spin and his body come to life.

  Her controlled exterior had vanished. She was a creature of pure sexuality now. He forgot where he was. Forgot time and space. There was only the woman in his arms, giving to him and taking anything he was willing to give her.

  When his embrace tightened around her, she made a small, needy sound.

  Or had he been the one to voice that strangled exclamation?

  Her hands stroked over his back, then under his tee shirt, her fingertips sending shock waves over his hot skin as he angled his head, first one way and then the other, greedy to experience her every way he could.

  Kissing wasn’t enough. He was ravenous for more. One hand slid down to her hips, pulling her lower body against his aching cock, so that he wondered if he was feeling pleasure or pain.

  When she moved against him, he thought he might burst into flames.

  With undisguised greed, he slipped his other hand between them and cupped one breast, taking the weight of it in his hand, and he knew he had been wanting to touch her like that since he had secretly watched her in the kitchen.

  As he stroked his thumb over the hardened tip, she made a low, pleading sound. Pulling up her shirt, he dragged her bra out of the way, then lowered his head, circling her nipple with his tongue before sucking it into his mouth. The taste, the texture of her made him drunk with need. And her little sob and the way she arched into the caress told him how much she liked what he was doing.

  He pictured himself pulling her down to the floor, striping off her clothing, then stripping off his so that he could enjoy the feel of her naked skin before he plunged into her. The anticipation of her sex clasping hot and tight around his cock made him tremble.

  Somehow, that erotically charged image brought him to his senses.

  He had lost his wife—his life mate. And now he was in the arms of another woman.

  Stiffly, he thrust her away from himself. “This is wrong,” he growled.

  He heard her swallow, watched her blink as though she was trying to orient herself again. Her cheeks were red, marked by the imprint his day’s growth of beard.

  Swaying on her feet, she fumbled her clothing back into place, then reached out a hand and steadied herself against the doorway. Slowly she raised her head and stared straight in his direction. “You aren’t betraying your wife. Do you think she would want you to live with no hope of human contact?”

  “She and I . . . made solemn vows.” The words sounded hollow, after the way he’d just been acting.

  “And you kept them. Long after most men would have given up.”

  He wanted to shout that he wasn’t most men. Instead he turned and left the house. Left her standing in the darkened room. He ran down the sidewalk, then across the street and toward the beach. But he couldn’t outrun the honeyed taste of her on his lips or the feel of her middle pressed to his erection.

  A cold wind blew off the water as if trying to hold him back. He fought against it, fought toward the sound of the waves crashing on the sand.

  Beyond that, he barely paid attention to his environment. His mind was focused on what had happened between himself and Antonia.

  He had responded to her as he had never expected to respond to a woman again. The way he had with Marcy, he thought as he clenched his fists in denial.

  But he couldn’t lie to himself. It had been sharp and fast and all-consuming. When he’d touched Marcy, he had known he must have her or go insane.

  And he had felt that sharp rush of desperate sensation once again.

  Why? Because he had experienced it before? Because he couldn’t live without it? Well, he hadn’t been prepared to live at all. He had been preparing for his own death for months. And Antonia had yanked him back into the midst of life.

  He resented that. Resented her power over him. Was that what had happened? She had told him she had psychic powers. Was she using them on him?

  She had said she had been waiting for him. What the hell did that mean? Waiting for him tonight? Or had she drawn him to her?

  Had she used otherworldly powers to enslave him? Bind him to her the way he could be bound to no other woman besides his lost mate?

  He wanted to clutch at that explanation. He wanted a reason why he had betrayed his marriage vows—a reason that had nothing to do with his personal failings.

  He had been running toward the beach; he stopped short when the beam from a flashlight suddenly stabbed him in the eyes.

  “Hold it right there. Put your hands up where I can see them.”

  Chapter 5

  HE might have a death wish, but there was enough reason left in Grant’s brain to make him stop in his tracks and raise his hands. He knew that voice. It was Scott Wright, and he knew the guy could blow him away if he made the wrong move.

  “What do you know about this clothing on the beach?” the officer asked in a grating voice as though he were confronting a suspect who had returned to the scene of the crime.

  If he hadn’t been standing with his hands in the air, he would have smacked himself on the forehead.

  “That’s my stuff,” he finally said. “I was swimming.” Carefully he shifted one of his arms so that it partially blocked the light shining in his eyes.

  “Swimming? In this weather?” Wright demanded.

  “I like a nice cold dip in the ocean.”

  “So why are you dressed now?”

  “A big dog scared me off,” he said, keeping his tone even, wondering if Officer Wright had been the man in the car with its lights off. “I got the hell out of here—then came back for my stuff,” he added.

  The light lowered, as though Wright accepted the dog story without question. Interesting.

  “Mind if I take my belongings?” Grant asked, cautiously bringing his hands to a more normal position, then reaching to pick up the clothing he’d discarded earlier.

  The cop fixed him with a displeased look. “Why are you still hanging around town?”

  “I told you. I’m looking for property where I can build a house.”

  “I think you’re up to something else.”

  Grant turned his free palm up. “Like what?”

  “You tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  They stood confronting each other for heartbeats. Finally he asked, “Is it okay if I take my clothes home?”

  Wright kept him waiting, then finally muttered, “Go ah
ead.”

  Picking up his belongings, Grant shook out some of the sand and rolled the items into a ball in his arms. Then he turned and left, feeling the cop’s eyes on him as he walked toward the road. He kept imagining the impact of a bullet hitting his back, but Officer Wright let him go—for now.

  ANTONIA sat in the darkness, trying to ignore the hot, aching sensations pulsing through her. But pretending nothing had happened was impossible because every cell of her body still throbbed with the aftershocks of Grant’s touch.

  It had been a long time since a man had reached for her with sexual intent. Well, excluding Scott Wright. He had put his hands where they didn’t belong. He had played games with the blind woman because she couldn’t see what he was doing.

  She would never label the encounter with Grant as play. When he’d touched her, something strong and scorching had leaped between them. Something they had both felt.

  Raising her hand, she slid her fingers lightly against her lips, bringing back the sensuality of his kiss.

  She had thought she understood passion. She knew now that nothing had prepared her for the wild, out-of-control ardor she had felt in Grant’s arms. Still felt, because there was nothing she could do for herself that would come close to satisfying the all-consuming need he had aroused. She ached for sexual release. It was all she could do to keep from sliding her hand down her body, to the throbbing place between her legs. It wouldn’t take much to push herself over the edge. But she knew that masturbation would be a pale substitute for what she craved.

  Her mind and body still rocked with needs she hadn’t known existed. And she knew it had been as powerful for Grant, knew it from the way he had devoured her whole, then wrenched himself away and fled into the night.

  When she had some control over the sensations clamoring inside her body, Antonia reached for the pack of cards on the table and began to shuffle them.

  They had been at her side for years, and handling them brought her a measure of calm. At first, she simply shuffled them, letting the hard rectangles slide against her skin. Then she went through the deck more slowly, stroking the corner of each card, reading the name. Usually every one brought her a vivid image. This evening, the pictures barely registered in her brain.

  All she knew was that the wolf was gone from the cards because he didn’t need to be there anymore.

  He had come to Sea Gate—in person. And, again, she knew she should be frightened. Any normal woman would be.

  Well, not any woman. He had been married to someone else—someone who had gotten past the fear of a man who could change himself into a wolf.

  Or was that the wrong assumption, she suddenly wondered. Had he been married to someone who was like himself—able to change into a wolf whenever she wanted?

  She longed to know the answer to that question. She had to know if the only woman he would consider for a mate was like him.

  A shaky laugh bubbled from her throat. She was certainly getting ahead of herself here. She should be running away from the man. Instead, she was worried about how she would cope if he walked away from her.

  Would he?

  Fanning out the deck, she reached for one of the cards, pulled it out, and laid it on the table.

  There were many ways to do a reading. For a client, she might lay out a Celtic cross, the most common pattern. For herself she preferred to simply turn over individual cards.

  Five years ago, she had asked questions about her life and gotten answers that had turned out to be true.

  Would she regain her sight? The cards had told her that was unlikely. They had also reassured her that she would be able to make a life for herself despite her handicap. They had said she was well rid of her fiancé, Billy Raider. He wasn’t the right man for her. But she’d known that as soon as he’d started worrying about how he was going to cope with a woman losing her vision.

  Still, it had taken her months to get over her hurt and anger. Conversely, it had taken her only hours to know that Grant Marshall was more important to her than any man she had met before him.

  Or was she making that up because she wanted it to be true?

  Her own sense of confusion made her pulse pound as she stroked her finger gently against the ten of Swords. The card showed a graphic picture of a dead man lying on a desolate plain, ten swords sticking upright in his back.

  She grimaced. He represented the effects of war and strife and by extension major trauma in someone’s life. It wasn’t hard to get that from the image. But the extent of the card’s meaning was unclear to her now. The picture could signify a deep sense of loss. Her own? Or Grant’s? But it could also mean a cycle in her life or his had come to an end—which implied a new beginning. She wanted that to be true. But she couldn’t force her own meaning on the card. And as she sat fingering the raised braille dots, she knew it was impossible to decide what the image meant.

  Frustrated, she turned over another card, then felt a shiver go through her when she realized it was the nine of Swords. It wasn’t a card she usually got. Which said something about her present circumstances all by itself.

  The picture showed a woman sitting in bed, hiding her face in her hands, probably crying. It represented loss of hope, depression, bad dreams, desperation.

  “Oh great,” she muttered.

  If someone else had gotten that card, she’d think that they needed medical or legal help. At the very least, she would assume the woman was in big trouble.

  But maybe that was just her view of the situation—not reality, she added, trying to make herself feel better and succeeding only marginally.

  She turned over another card. The six of Wands—a horseman wearing a laurel wreath on his head and coming home to victory. That was better. The card could herald upcoming good news. Or guests arriving.

  Well, her guest had already arrived. The question was, would he stay?

  More possibilities turned themselves around in her head. The card could predict a journey. Did that mean Grant was leaving?

  Her thoughts were in too much turmoil to give a clean interpretation of anything.

  “Have you fallen completely apart?” she whispered, hearing the tears in her voice.

  In frustration, she clenched her hand around the deck, thinking about throwing it across the room. What stopped her was the image of herself crawling around on the floor trying to find all the cards.

  Instead, she sat where she was, clenching and unclenching her hands, her thoughts going back to Grant.

  He had lost his wife, and he had focused all his energies on finding her killer.

  He had made no plans for himself beyond that. He had wanted nothing more than the satisfaction of ripping out the throat of the man who had robbed him of his reason for living.

  But when they’d kissed and touched, she had reminded him that he was still living and breathing, and that had shaken him. Probably it had also made him angry—at her and at himself.

  Angry enough to make him walk out on her?

  She had only met him a few hours ago. Yet fear of his loss clawed at her insides.

  GRANT’S feet carried him toward Antonia’s house. He walked slowly now, trying to reach back into the past of a few hours ago and find the steady center of his being—of his purpose.

  The exercise proved to be impossible, because something inside himself had shaken loose and was twisting around in his gut.

  Deliberately he brought up scenes from another life, scenes that would help him remember why he had come to Sea Gate, New Jersey.

  He hadn’t thought for a long time about making love with Marcy—or anyone else. In the darkness he called on very private memories—of a time when they had driven to the state park near their home and slipped in after dark. He’d left her sitting on a rock by a stream that wound its way through mature trees and tangles of honeysuckle.

  He left her wearing a simple cotton dress. When he returned, a gray wolf moving through the darkness, she was naked. Sensing his presence, she pushed off from h
er seat, smiling as she came down on a bed of soft moss. He moved silently to her side and stood looking down at her.

  Slowly, slowly, she raised her arms, then circled the wolf’s neck and drew him close, scratching behind his ears and under his chin where he liked it, then stringing kisses along his muzzle.

  Since her death, he had ruthlessly kept memories like that out of his mind. Now he focused on her slender body, on her scent, on the way she touched him—the way she told him she wanted more than just to stroke and kiss him.

  With a groan, he cut off the scene before it could go any further. He had deliberately brought back memories of Marcy to wipe away the heated scene with Antonia. But the two had become entwined, and both had the power to make him hot and hard.

  “Jesus, no!” he denied. He hadn’t asked to get tangled up with another woman. Hadn’t expected it.

  With a growl of anguish, he changed the picture. Maybe he had some vague idea of proving to himself that he could resist Antonia—that he could control his reactions to her.

  His fantasy had her sitting outside in the moonlight, not by a stream, but on a blanket in the dunes. In his mind, he made the location far out of town, where nobody would disturb them. He was a gray wolf, standing twenty yards away, but he knew she couldn’t see him, which added to his excitement as she lifted her face to the wind, drawing in a deep breath. That same wind blew her long cotton shirt against her body, making her nipples stand out against the thin fabric. He liked the view, but it wasn’t enough.

  Unconsciously, he clenched his jaw as the fantasy continued—as he had her come up on her knees and unbutton the shirt. Her fingers weren’t quite steady, and it took a little time, drawing out his anticipation.

  She was naked now. He hadn’t seen her body, but he had felt it pressed to his, and he could imagine her smooth skin, her womanly curves and a dark triangle of hair at the juncture of her legs. As he trotted toward her, he waited for her to turn and run. It had taken months before he’d dared to come to Marcy as a wolf. Dared to trail his long, wet tongue over her breasts and down her woman’s body. Dared to taste the rich, female part of her.