As if on cue, rain began to fall.
Roarke glanced up at the gray sky visible through the tree branches. “I’ve never been a fan of setting up a tent in the rain. The cave sounds great. Lead on, hiker girl.”
She turned around and started back. Although they were going in the opposite direction from the Sasquatch pair, they wouldn’t lose too much time, and moving forward in the rain didn’t sound like a great idea.
“I’m glad you know about the cave,” Roarke said. “The rain’s coming down harder and we’d be miserable out in the open.”
“The cave could be occupied by a wild animal, of course.”
“I know. I’ll check it out.” He said it so nonchalantly, as if he wasn’t the least bit worried about what he’d encounter in the cave.
And he wouldn’t be, she realized. No matter how human he looked right now, he was capable of becoming a wild animal, himself. The blond wolf she’d seen wouldn’t be intimidated by anything that might live in this forest.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen many animals on this hike. A couple of squirrels, a rabbit, and several birds, but that was about it. True, the larger animals had mostly left the area as Portland had grown. Grandpa Earl said he hadn’t found bear tracks in years. But Abby usually spotted a deer or two when she went hiking.
She’d never gone hiking with a werewolf, though. Maybe Roarke had something to do with the lack of critters romping around. Maybe they could sense him. Maybe they could even smell him.
Now she was curious. “Roarke, do you smell like a wolf?”
He laughed. “No. Why?”
“I usually see deer when I’m out on Grandpa Earl’s land. I haven’t seen any today.”
“You’re on the right track. I don’t smell like a wolf, but I smell like a werewolf.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Yep. But deer don’t stick around when they smell a werewolf, either. Ever since we left the trail, the wind’s been at our back, carrying my scent to whatever’s ahead of us.”
“Like the Sasquatch?”
“They don’t have a good sense of smell.”
“Aha! That’s why they stink so bad. If they didn’t, they’d never be able to pick up each other’s scent.”
“You could be right about that.” He was silent for a moment. “Abby…”
“What?”
“Do you find my scent…unpleasant?”
“No, I love it.” Whoops. Better dial back the enthusiasm. “I mean, it’s nice.”
“I liked your first answer.” His voice carried a suggestively husky overtone.
She decided to ignore it. “So, do you wear some kind of cologne or aftershave? Because if I knew the brand, I could buy some for my brother for Christmas.”
“Sorry. I don’t wear any.”
“Then it must be the soap you use that has a woodsy fragrance.”
“I use unscented soap.”
“Oh.” Then it was just Roarke. She’d never thought much about how a guy smelled before, and most of the men she’d dated used cologne or aftershave. “So you don’t like fragrances?”
“Just the real ones. Anything artificial drives me nuts. Perfumes of any kind irritate my nose and interfere with my ability to catch important scents.”
Like mine. Apparently she and Roarke had an olfactory match going on. There was something primitive and exciting about that—a little too primitive and exciting. The more they discussed this, the more she tuned in and turned on.
Too bad about that. They’d decided to forego the pleasure, and even if they hadn’t, they were condom-less. She could just cool her jets and forget about being naked on a bed of moss with sweet-smelling Roarke hovering over her. It wasn’t going to happen.
Chapter Ten
A few minutes later, Roarke stood at the mouth of the cave. He pulled back the branches of a bush growing at the entrance to reveal an opening about five feet high and six or seven feet wide.
“Do you think anything’s in there?” Abby leaned down to peer into the murky depths.
“Nothing very big, or these branches would be broken.”
“Some small things can still bite.”
“I know. I’ll take a look.” He set his pack down and pulled a flashlight out of a side pocket. Flicking it on, he crouched down and edged into the cave. This reconnaissance would have been so much easier in wolf form.
But he didn’t want to shift in front of Abby. His reluctance made no sense whatsoever, but he couldn’t seem to talk himself into doing it. She’d seen him shift, so he shouldn’t care if she saw him do it again. Yet he did.
Shifting was a private event, even among Weres. For one thing, the Were had to get naked first, which set up a certain vulnerability. During the shift, a Were was extremely vulnerable. There was no protection from an outside threat in that state between human and werewolf.
Roarke didn’t consider Abby a threat, but he wasn’t ready to put himself completely at her mercy, either. He’d rather exercise some control over their time together. Besides, once he shifted, they wouldn’t be able to communicate, at least not the way they could when he was in human form.
So he suffered the handicap of being a biped as he duck-walked into the cave. Using his flashlight, he verified that no animal big or small, warm-blooded or cold-blooded, was curled up in a corner somewhere. The cave smelled musty, but he couldn’t pick up any evidence that a creature had lived here recently.
The ceiling rose to almost seven feet toward the back of the cave and he was able to stand. The floor was dry and plenty big enough for a couple of sleeping bags and the camp stove. They wouldn’t need to set up the tents, although he immediately understood that would eliminate one of the barriers between them.
The thought of such an intimate sleeping arrangement went straight to his groin. Maybe he’d be better off out in the rain. Damn it, that was stupid. They could cohabit in this cave without having sex. She was appealing, but not so appealing that he’d lose control.
Before he left, he swept his flashlight beam over the gray walls. Something low on the wall caused him to squat down and study it more closely. He grinned. Somebody had been in here playing Hangman with a piece of chalk. They’d gone through a ton of games, too.
He wondered if Abby and her brother were responsible for the faint chalk lines on the cave wall. He had chalk in his pack. A tournament might be the perfect distraction from more dangerous games.
Making his way back outside, he discovered the rain was beating down even harder. “Nothing’s in there.”
“Good.”
“But I found some graffiti.”
She looked outraged. “Spray paint?”
“Nope. Chalk. Hangman.”
“It’s still there? Cool! Can I borrow your flashlight?”
He handed it to her and she slipped past the branches and into the cave. Hoisting his backpack, he followed her. Question answered. She’d been one of the people with the chalk.
But somebody else had been in the cave playing that game with her, and he had the unsettling thought that it might not have been her brother. It could have been a boyfriend. They might have spent the night in this cave playing Hangman and having sex. He didn’t like that, and he didn’t like not liking it. Her romantic past had nothing to do with him.
He found her kneeling in front of the row of Hangman games.
“We had such fun that night,” she said. “I’ll have to tell him it’s all still here.”
“By all means.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Who polished off your porridge, Mr. Grouchy-pants?”
“What did I say? I didn’t say anything.” He leaned his backpack against the cave wall and started pulling out supplies. First he turned on a small battery-operated lantern so they could see what they were doing.
“It wasn’t what you said, but the stuffy way you said it.”
“Maybe I have more important things to think about than some kids’ game you played with your boyfriend.” He
slammed pots and pans on the stone floor of the cave.
“My boy–” She sucked in a breath. “Roarke Wallace, you’re jealous!”
“Why would I be jealous? I have no claim on you.” He fumbled with the camp stove. “We need to get this going so we can eat.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Thanks. Good to know how you feel.”
“You have no idea how I feel.” Switching off the flashlight, she stood and walked over to where he was crouched as he assembled the camp stove. “But I’m beginning to get an inkling of how you feel.”
“Hungry. I feel hungry. You said you’d handle dinner.”
“What are you hungry for, Roarke?”
You. But he’d bite his tongue off before he’d say that. She was in this cave soaking up memories of another man, another night. He’d leave her to that.
He put the stove together and reached for one of the fuel canisters. “Once I get this together, you can start working on the food.”
“I’m not in the habit of cooking for a surly man.”
“I’m not surly. I’m just—”
“You most certainly are surly. And by the way, I’d consider it a great favor if you’d stand up and face me while we’re arguing.”
“We’re not arguing. We’re discussing dinner.”
“The hell we are! I’m not cooking a damned thing until you stand up and admit that something’s bothering you.”
He felt like an ass, because he had no right to behave this way. So she’d had another man in this cave with her. So what? So what if they’d stripped naked in here and screwed all night long? What was that to him? He needed to lose the attitude, and fast.
She stood before him, tapping the toe of her hiking boot.
Reluctantly he rose to his feet and gazed at her. He owed her an apology. “I’m sorry. Your relationships with other men are none of my business. If you were in here playing Hangman or playing Hide the Salami, it’s all the same to me.”
She began to laugh. “Hide the Salami? Did you really say that? Tell me you didn’t say that.”
“Abby, I’m trying to tell you that my reaction to knowing that you had another man in this cave is—”
“I was thirteen.”
“Thirteen? You were out here alone with a guy at thirteen? Isn’t that a little young to be having sex?”
“I wasn’t having sex. I was camping out with my big brother, Pete, who was fifteen. We used to go on overnight camping trips during summer vacations. I can’t say for sure if Pete got into the whole fantasy angle, but I’d pretend we were on an archeological expedition like Indiana Jones.”
“You were here with your brother.”
“Uh-huh. He was a lot more fun back then, but he’s all serious now that he’s an accountant. I’m going to take a few pictures of the Hangman games, to remind him of those days. I love that they’re still here.”
Roarke blew out a breath. He wasn’t sure how he’d dig himself out of this hole. He’d made it pretty deep.
“So you thought I’d spent the night in this cave with a boyfriend.” She continued to study him with a speculative gleam in her eyes.
“I made a mistake and jumped to the wrong conclusion.”
“So you did. But that’s not the part that fascinates me.”
He groaned. “Could we forget about it? I don’t know what came over me that made me act like that.”
“Don’t you?”
He looked into her eyes, shadowy in the light from the lantern. “If I do, I don’t want to admit it.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“There’s nowhere to get. Whatever this…feeling…is between us, we need to ignore it.”
“I was trying to do that, Roarke, and then you went ballistic because you thought I’d spent the night in this cave with another man.” She gazed at him. “You’re becoming possessive of me. What does that mean?”
“It means I have to stop being possessive.”
“But what if it’s something you can’t help? What if it ties into your werewolf nature?”
He looked away, not happy with the insight that she’d neatly handed him. He was the werewolf in this equation, and yet she, the human in the equation, had come embarrassingly close to the truth. He was naturally territorial, and somehow he’d made her part of his territory, which she most certainly wasn’t. Would never be.
“Although you have no justification for feeling possessive, I think it’s kind of sweet.”
He glanced back at her. “I think it’s amazingly stupid. I have a brain, a pretty good one, in fact. I don’t have to be ruled by my instincts.”
“But nobody’s brain works as well if they’re tired and hungry. And wet. And sore, speaking for myself on that one.”
“I’m sure you are.” He hesitated. “And I’d like to give you a massage, which would help a lot, but I’m afraid that will lead to exactly what we’re trying to avoid.”
“Here’s the thing.” She placed a hand on his chest. “I don’t know if it’s possible to avoid it.”
Warmth from her hand seeped through his damp clothes and made its way to his skin, where it radiated outward. A portion of those warm tendrils went north, and a little bit went east and west, but the majority went straight south. His brain hadn’t been working very well before she touched him. Now it was totally MIA.
Still, he owed it to both of them to question her statement. He cleared his throat, because his vocal cords weren’t working too well, either. “Anything’s possible. We just have to exercise some willpower.”
She rubbed her hand over his chest. “We’ll need willpower for what I have in mind, because we don’t have condoms. But I’d like to propose a compromise between total abstinence and total indulgence.”
His brain cells must have retained a little bit of juice, because he quickly imagined what that suggestion would look like, and he was immediately on board with it.
“In other words, I’d still get my massage and some relief from sexual frustration.” She slowly unzipped his jacket. “If you don’t need the massage, I can skip that step and go straight for the main event.”
Oh, yeah.
“I understand all the reasons why we don’t want to get too involved, but this is more like fooling around in the back seat, minus the car. We’re simply letting off some steam before we become so preoccupied with sex that we can’t accomplish anything.”
He couldn’t argue with her conclusions. He’d been ready to duel with some imaginary lover who’d shared this cave with her. He was strung so tight that the slightest thing could cause him to let fly with arrows of anger and frustration.
Slowly she stepped away from him and unzipped her own jacket. “I’d like to get out of these damp clothes, but once I take them off, I’ll need to find a way to get warm.” In a move perfected by women over hundreds of years, she glanced up at him through her lashes. “Would you be willing to help with that?”
The move was still effective. His cock surged to full arousal mode. He couldn’t agree fast enough. “I’ll lay out the sleeping bags.” Now would be the time to tell her that they didn’t need to worry about condoms and could take it all the way if they wanted to.
But he decided against saying that. Maybe her method would allow him to satisfy his body…and hers…on a superficial, purely sexual level. Maybe he wouldn’t totally lose himself in the experience and forget that they were completely wrong for each other.
“I thought you might be willing to consider my compromise.” She peeled off the jacket to reveal a white spandex tank top. Her taut nipples pushed against the stretchy material.
Lust roared through him, and he wondered if he’d be able to keep this encounter superficial, after all. She wasn’t even naked yet, and already he was shaking.
“Sleeping bags,” she said gently.
He swallowed. “Right.” Somehow he managed to turn away from her and head for his backpack. His hands trembled as he pulled out both sleeping bags.
He could hear her taking off her clothes but he dared not look or he’d never get the makeshift bed prepared.
Still, her movements stirred the air and brought him her tantalizing scent. In this cave there was no escape from the temptation of Abby. If he’d imagined he could sleep here all night and not go to her, he’d been delusional.
He wasn’t usually clumsy, but he had a hell of a time opening up the sleeping bags and laying one on top of the other. He could still feel the stone underneath and wished they’d brought air mattresses, but it was a little late for that now.
“Are you ready for me?”
She had no idea how ready he was. He felt as if he had a rolling pin tucked between his thighs. He gave the top sleeping bag another quick tug and turned, still crouched down next to the makeshift bed.
Whoa, what an angle. His glance traveled from her bare feet, complete with toenails painted mint green, up her slender calves to her creamy thighs, and…his brain stalled. He’d assumed she was a natural redhead, but now he knew for sure.
That russet triangle covered all the secrets he longed to know about Abby. He allowed his attention to linger there. To his great joy, he discovered that the apex of that downy triangle was a slightly darker red, obviously moistened by the same desire that seared him with its heat.
Heart beating fast, he lifted his gaze higher, sliding it over her flat belly and upward. The plump underside of her breasts beckoned him to touch, to fondle, and finally to capture each dusky nipple in his mouth.
“You’re…beautiful,” he said. In fact, no woman had ever looked more beautiful to him, and that should have set off alarms in his head. But his natural caution seemed to have left the building, or in this case, the cave.
Pink tinged her cheeks, and as he noticed that, he also saw that she’d let her hair down. It settled over her shoulders, and even in the dim light from the electric lantern, it provided a glorious blaze of color.
Reaching up, he offered his hand to guide her down to the only bed he could provide. If he’d had silks and goose down at his disposal, he would have lavished them on her.
Instead he had two sleeping bags that were known for their ease of transport and their thermal capabilities. He smiled at that last part. He had a feeling neither of them would have to worry about being cold tonight.
Werewolf in the North Woods (Wild About You Book 2) Page 10