by Desiree Holt
Even when the intensity of the orgasm began to abate, she was loathe to unhook her legs from Brian’s waist, to somehow disconnect them. His hot breath washed over her as he struggled to draw air into his lungs, and she wasn’t sure whose heart she heard thundering, his or her own.
Long minutes passed before he lifted himself and slowly withdrew. Bending his head, he showered kisses onto her stomach and in a line from hip to hip. Then he slid off the bed, and she heard him moving around in the bathroom, no doubt disposing of the condom. In a moment, he was back, sitting beside her on the bed and lifting her into his embrace.
“It’s dark,” he said, inclining his head towards the window and the blackness beyond. “I have to go. Go downstairs and be with Sierra, okay?” His kiss was brief but hard. “I’ll be back inside before dawn. Turn off your phone up here. If it rings, Sierra will answer it. If it’s a real call, she’ll just give it to you. We’ll see what shows up on the caller ID.”
“But—”
He pressed fingers to her lips. “If your stalker calls again, I don’t want you getting the call. So no questions. Not now. I have to get going.”
He dressed hastily, unlocked and opened the door and disappeared into the hallway.
Regan switched off the ringer on her phone as Brian had instructed. Then she pulled jeans from her closet and a light sweater from her drawer, slid her feet into soft moccasins, and went into the bathroom to brush her hair and repair her face. Her muscles were sore from the day’s activity with Brian, but she didn’t want to take the time to shower now.
She stared at herself in the mirror. The person looking back at her had a face that was flushed rosy and eyes sparkling with a bright light.
“I might as well wear a sign saying ‘recently fucked’,” she muttered to herself.
Finally, she made her way downstairs. Sierra sat at the kitchen table, a worn book lying face down next to her. Someone had made a fresh pot of coffee, and Sierra had filled a mug for each of them.
“Is everyone outside now?” Regan asked.
Sierra nodded. “Doing their thing. All the woods in back of your house make it dangerous for you but help the guys to conceal themselves.”
Regan sipped her coffee. “One of the reasons I bought the house was because it backed up to a conservation area. I never thought I’d have to worry about it hiding a stalker.” She put her mug down, carefully choosing her words. She hardly knew this woman, and wondered what on earth she could have to say that was so important. “So, how long have you and Luke been married?”
“Six months.” Sierra flashed a grin. “Six wonderful months, I might add. We met in Maine. He was taking some down time, and I was enjoying the cabin my grandfather left me and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. We were married four weeks later.”
Regan studied her. “Such a short time? Did you really know what you wanted that fast?”
“Oh, yes. I knew the first night we were together. We were meant to be mated.”
Regan’s eyebrows rose. “Mated?”
Sierra nodded. “There was something inside both of us that knew we were meant to be together. We had some… issues to resolve, but that didn’t take us long.”
“Then you won’t think I’m crazy if I tell you I feel the same way with Brian. As if we’re bonded forever.” She shook her head. “I know this sounds crazy, but the first time he touched me the word ‘forever’ flashed through my brain.”
Now Sierra laughed. “I don’t think you’re crazy at all. And I know Brian feels the same way. When he stepped out of your courtroom for a while this afternoon, he called Luke and talked to him at great length.” She paused and wet her lips. “Did Brian tell you he’d asked me along tonight to talk to you?”
“Yes, but I can’t imagine about what.”
Sierra picked up the book and flipped it over. Regan could see now how old it really was, the covering frayed in places. Across the front, in gold script, was written, The Legend of the Wolf. “How much do you know about wolves and shifters?”
Regan nearly dropped her mug. “You mean like werewolves?”
“Werewolves are an old myth started by people centuries ago. Shifters are an ancient race of people who evolved through generations into what they are today. Humans who have a specific gene that allows them to change—shift—into wolf form.”
Now Regan was sure she was losing her mind. Wolves? Shifters? She thought back to the logo on the business card and the shadowy form she’d seen lurking around the office building.
“Are you telling me Luke is a…a…wolfman?”
Sierra nodded. “The first time I saw him was in his wolf form, as a matter of fact.”
“My God.” Regan felt a chill sweep through her. “That means Brian is, too.” She stood up so quickly she almost knocked her chair over. “I think I need something stronger than coffee.”
In her family room, she opened the cupboard that held her liquor and brought a bottle of bourbon back to the kitchen. Dropping ice cubes into a glass, she poured herself a healthy shot and took a quick swallow, choking slightly as it burned the back of her throat.
Sierra was beside her at once, arm around her shoulders. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to shock you so badly, but sometimes you can’t work your way into these things.”
Regan flapped her hand in the air and caught her breath. “Give me a minute, and I’ll be fine.” She held out the bottle. “Would you like some?”
“No.” Sierra smiled at her. “Coffee’s fine. Come. Sit down again.”
Regan took a smaller sip of her drink. “Tell me. Weren’t you shocked when Luke told you? Did you see him shift? Have you ever,” she dropped her voice, “made love when he was in wolf form?”
The other woman laughed. “Yes, yes, and no. All the partners in the agency are shifters. They’re all that’s left of a pack from Minnesota that once numbered in the hundreds but were decimated by hunters when they ran at night as wolves.”
She went on to explain how they’d eventually migrated to Texas and were reaching out to find others like themselves. How, rather than be repelled by Luke’s admission, she’d been fascinated.
“I’ve always been intrigued by wolves,” she explained. “And really, when he’s in his human form, he is a truly magnificent male specimen.”
“What about children? Don’t you want to have a family?”
“Of course. Our children are called Halflings, and if they are born with the gene, they can be given medicine to repress it. But eventually, we’d like to re-establish a pack large enough that our children will have friends and accept their genetic differences.”
Regan pulled the book towards her and flipped it open, leafing slowly though the pages. Her heart was racing, but she was shocked to realise it wasn’t from fear but from fascination. From the knowledge that the man who had taken over her life was a rare and incredible being.
“No wonder he talked about mating,” she said.
“Brian asked me to leave the book with you. It’s the one Luke brought for me to read right after we met.” She stood up and held out her hand. “Come with me. Let me show you something.”
She turned out the lights in the kitchen and tugged Regan by the hand to the sliding door, opening the vertical blinds just a fraction.
“Look,” she said. “Watch carefully in the yard.”
Regan stared through the narrow slit in the blinds, her eyes open wide.
Chapter Five
With only moonlight to see by, if she hadn’t been watching carefully, Regan would have missed the dark shapes. Four of them, moving stealthily among the tall side hedges and into the thick trees at the back of the yard.
“I hope my neighbours don’t spot them,” she said.
“The guys are really good about not being seen. And if anyone does lay eyes on them, they’ll just think it’s a big dog. Most people don’t even know what wolves look like.”
The more the impossible realisation took shape in h
er mind, the more questions Regan had. Sierra willingly answered even the most intimate ones, until finally Regan felt the tight knot that had formed inside her unravel and a thrill of excitement take its place. She began to leaf through the book again, studying the history of shape shifters, until her eyes began to droop.
”Why don’t you go on up to bed?” Sierra suggested. “I’ll curl up on your couch. The guys won’t be in until dawn.”
“I think I will, if you don’t mind. I still have work tomorrow. I don’t know how Brian will keep going.”
“He can nap as a wolf and regenerate quickly. You’ll see. Go on. I’ll be fine.” She lifted the book from the table. “And take this with you. Spend some time reading it.”
Regan’s mind whirled as she climbed the stairs to her room, undressed and brushed her teeth. As a prosecutor, she dealt in facts backed up by evidence. If you could see it, touch it, smell it, taste it—it was a fact. What Sierra had told her was so complex and demanded a huge degree of acceptance and unqualified belief on her part. Something completely opposite from the way she’d always lived her life,
But as Brian said, the connection between them had been instant and fierce, more than just great chemistry. So she had two choices. Walk away altogether or acknowledge what she’d just learned. And walking away just didn’t seem possible. She put the book on her nightstand and crawled into bed. Tomorrow, she’d do more than leaf through it.
As tired as she was, she still didn’t expect to fall asleep easily with all the thoughts whirling around in her mind. Yet her head barely touched the pillow before she was asleep, dreaming deeply of wolves leaping and playing around her.
The alarm woke her at six-thirty, and she reached over to punch the snooze button, relishing the fifteen minutes extra she always gave herself. As she rolled to her side, her gaze landed on the floor…and the huge black wolf lying on the carpet next to her bed. The weird part was it didn’t seem strange to her nor did she feel any fear. Safe. Protected. Loved. Those were the emotions that struck her full force.
He was awake and watching her with his all-knowing amber eyes. Brian’s eyes. She reached out a trembling hand to touch the rich black pelt and smoothed her fingers against its softness. He turned his head and licked her hand with his warm, pink tongue, sending shivers racing through her body.
Why am I not frightened? How can I just accept…this, whatever this is? I am a logical person, and this is not logical. But here I am, accepting it as a normal part of life. My life!
“Good morning, Brian,” she whispered. “Thank you for watching over me.”
Immediately, the wolf rose, a burst of stars exploded before Regan’s eyes, and Brian stood before her in human form, in his very magnificent nakedness. His hair was dishevelled, a twenty-four hour growth of beard shadowed his jaw, and he looked so mouth-watering her pussy began to throb.
“Hi, darlin’.”
The deep, warm timbre of his voice made her feel as if her bones were melting.
“Did I scare you?” he asked.
“No.” She couldn’t tear her gaze away from him. “And that shocks me as much as the knowledge that you’re…that you’re…”
“A shifter?” he finished for her. “Sierra said you didn’t freak nearly as much as she expected you to.” He lifted the edge of the covers and slid into bed next to her.
“I think it’s because she’s so calm about it.” Regan leaned on one elbow and ran her fingers over the thick pelt of curls on his chest. “One minute, I think I’ve gone crazy, and the next, I wonder why this whole business of shifting even disturbs me.” She ran her tongue over her bottom lip. “Is that why you’re so…? I mean…when we have sex…”
He cupped her cheek with his large, warm hand. “We make love, Regan. It’s a damn sight more than sex, and you need to admit that to yourself.”
“But how can you tell in such a short time?”
He ran his tongue over the lip she’d licked. “That’s one thing having the shifter gene does for you. When you find the person who’s your mate for life, your body let’s you know. There’s no mistake there. Trust me.”
As usual, when he touched her, a sensual fog swirled around her brain, making it difficult if not impossible for her to think. With a supreme effort, she placed her hands on his chest and managed to get a little space between them.
“I…I…I…” She let out a breath. “As impossible as it seems, I have to agree with you. It is what it is.”
He let one hand roam up and down the indentations on her spine and caress the upper slope of her buttocks. “I know you have to get ready for work. I’m going to shower and go in with you, and run this show from my phone. But I have to be inside you first.” His voice had lowered even more. Thickened. “And I promise next time you’ll get the full treatment.”
She wriggled in his grasp. “First, tell me about last night.”
Brian sighed. “Okay. Sierra said your phone rang not once but twice, but no one said anything. She gave Luke the numbers from the caller ID, and he’ll trace them today.”
Regan shivered. “I hate this.”
He kissed her forehead. “I know you do, but we’re going to fix it. Anyway, about a half an hour after the second one, Luke spotted a figure in the woods creeping towards your house, but we couldn’t tell anything about who it was. Black clothes in a black night don’t give much information. Plus whoever it was drenched himself with some kind of bug repellent, killing any human scent.”
“You think…” She shook her head. “No. There’s no way whoever it is could know about you being shifters and taking that kind of precaution.”
“I agree. I think it might have been to fool any dogs that might be in the area. Or that you might have acquired as protection. Luke took off after whoever it was, but even in wolf form we couldn’t catch him. Or her. They just disappeared.”
“Her?” Regan cocked an eyebrow. “You think this might be a woman?”
“I’m not ruling out anything. Whoever it was sure moves fast. Or had a quick escape hatch of some kind. Someone’s definitely after you, Regan. We’ll try again tonight. The guys are doing some more digging today, going through the information on the top suspects. You may need to create a secondary list for us, too, because I have a feeling we’re running out of time.”
“I keep trying to think who would want to hurt me so badly.”
“Whoever it is won’t get close enough to you to do any damage. I promise you that. Now let’s see what we can get done in five minutes.”
It was quick and hard and raw. Regan was already wet just from seeing Brain’s naked body and feeling his long, lean length against hers. In seconds, he retrieved a condom from the nightstand and rolled her to her back, yanking the pillows from behind her head. Spreading her legs wide, he opened the lips of her cunt, positioned the head of his cock at her entrance and penetrated her with one hard thrust.
“Oh, God.” The harsh cry ripped from his throat. Bracing himself on his forearms, he held himself completely still as the walls of her pussy gripped his shaft, tiny quivers racing through the muscles.
Regan lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist, locking her ankles at the small of his back and pulling him in even deeper. When he began to move, he thrust into her with deep, firm strokes, driving into her again and again, He moved one hand and slipped it between them, taking her clit between thumb and forefinger and chafing it in rhythm with the movement of his cock.
Her whole body was on fire from the assault, her pussy slick against his latex-clad cock. She matched his pace, her hips rocking as his body slammed into hers, again and again. The orgasm roared up without warning, consuming her, shaking her, her hot liquid bathing his cock as he spurted hot cum into the reservoir of the condom.
He held her through the aftershocks, his forehead touching hers, his body shaking from the force of the shared climax. When they finally got their breathing and heartbeats under control, Brian slid from the tight grasp of her cunt and fl
opped onto his back.
“You know, we may just kill ourselves, but what a way to go.”
Regan reached down and linked her fingers with his. “I’ll second that. Think you have enough energy to help me into the shower. We have to get going. I have to find out what happened to my files from yesterday, too. I have hearings in court today, and I’ll need them.”
Brian sat up and looked down at her. “I thought you misplaced them?”
“I never misplace files,” she said with vehemence. “Someone wants me to think that’s what I’m doing. Maybe it’s the same person, but then that means…”
“That it’s definitely someone from your office.” Brian hauled her out of bed. “Shower. We need to get moving. Now.”
* * * *
“So tell me,” Regan said as Brian manoeuvred through morning traffic. “How often do you…um…change?”
“Shift. It’s called shifting. I usually can’t go more than three or four days without shifting once. I do it at night, someplace where I can run. That satisfies the need, but rage can exacerbate that and call up the urge more often.”
“But where do you go? You can’t run around in the city.”
“My house is just north of the city where there’s plenty of undeveloped land. And now with Sierra in the family, we can go to her cabin in Maine, where she has five thousand acres of woods.”
Regan shook her head. “Are there just the eight of you at the agency? No one else? Where did you live before?”
She felt the tension surge through his body. “Minnesota. We had a pack of nearly seven hundred. But someone declared open season on wolves, and we were decimated. Those of us left fled as far as we could.”
Her throat tightened as she imagined the sadness and anguish they had suffered. “I’m so sorry.”
He let out a long breath. “When this is over, we’ll talk about it more. I’ll tell you the whole story of shifters and about everyone at Sentinels. ” He slid a quick glance at her. “If you want me to, that is.”
“I want you to.” She reached over her hand and squeezed his thigh and was rewarded with a tiny smile curving his hard mouth.