The Wolf in the Woods

by Marisa Chenery

  Rutgar’s lips came down on hers as he took her lips in a hard kiss. He pushed his tongue inside her mouth as he yanked her shorts down. He lifted her off her feet so they fell in a pile under her. The sound of her panties being shredded as he ripped them off her sounded in the night. At this point, Red was beyond thinking. Need unlike any she had felt before pounded through her. If she didn’t have Rutgar inside her she felt as if she would die.

  He pulled away only long enough to yank his shirt over his head and drop it on top her shorts. Rutgar took her lips once again and sucked her tongue into his mouth as he undid his jeans before he roughly shoved them down past his hips. He wrapped his arm around her waist and held her to him as he spun around then sat down on the pile of their clothing.

  Red straddled Rutgar’s thighs but instead of positioning herself above his fully erect cock, she took hold of it at the base and swirled her tongue around the tip. Rutgar’s hips bucked beneath her. She wanted him inside her, but she wanted to taste him as he had tasted her. With the flat of her tongue, she licked him from base to tip before she opened her mouth and took as much as she could manage inside. He half growled, half groaned as she sucked.

  Rutgar cupped the back of her head as he pumped his cock inside her mouth. “Yes. Suck on me hard. Just like that.”

  Red felt his cock harden even more. Her pussy clenched as wetness leaked between her legs. The sounds Rutgar made--wolf-sounding growls and deep moans--pushed her arousal higher. She tightened her grip on the base of his shaft as she continued to suck on his cock. Then he was coming. She didn’t pull away, but took everything he had to give.

  She released him once his cock stopped pulsing. Red licked her lips as she moved to kneel above his still-erect shaft. “I love that you stay hard even after you have come.”

  With her hands on the tops of his shoulders for support, Red pushed down as she impaled herself on his thick length. Everything about Rutgar was big, right down to his big cock, which filled her to capacity. Red rocked her hips against his as she started to ride his shaft. He felt so good. She rode him faster as she clamped her inner muscles around his cock. Her orgasm inched ever closer. Rutgar pushed up into her as she pushed down. His finger found her clit and then she was there. She let her head fall back and moaned as her pussy milked his cock. Wave after wave of pleasure shot through her. When the last wave hit her, Rutgar took hold of her hips and rammed up into her until he reached his release. His growls filled the night as he arched up and filled her with his cum.

  Red collapsed on his chest. His still-hard cock stayed buried to the hilt inside her. “I’m sorry. I freaked,” she said softly.

  He took her face in his hands and forced her to look at him. “I’m mostly to blame for that. I should have given you the choice.”

  Even though her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Red still couldn’t see Rutgar’s face all that well. His eyes had dimmed, but they still continued to glow. “Your eyes. Why do they glow like that?”

  Rutgar chuckled. “They only do that when I’m either angry or horny.”

  Red smiled. “Well, that’s good to know.”

  He brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. “I want you to come back to my place, Red. I don’t want to be apart from you. Plus we need to figure out how we are going to make this work.”

  Rutgar suddenly stiffened as he sniffed the air. “What is it?” Red asked warily.

  He quickly pushed her off him and stood up. He pushed her shorts into her hands, then yanked his jeans into place as he did them up. “Get dressed. Now. We’re about to have company.”

  Red had just pulled her shorts up when a wolf’s howl drifted through the trees toward them. Rutgar pulled her under his arm protectively just as a large grey wolf stepped out behind one of the trees and moved to stand before them.

  Chapter Six

  Rutgar felt his upper lip curl back in a snarl as he watched the wolf shift into a man that had the same grey-colored hair as the wolf’s fur had been. His brown eyes flicked from Rutgar to Red and back again. Rutgar had recognized the newcomer’s scent immediately. “What are you doing here, Alex? You know this is my territory.”

  Alex tsked. “That’s a fine greeting. I happened to be in the area so I thought I’d come by and say hello. When you weren’t at your place I followed your scent here.” Alex sniffed the air. “Hmm, I can see you were a little busy with the mortal. How about you share her with me?”

  Rutgar growled and snapped his teeth at Alex as a warning. “You’ll stay away from my mate.”

  “Your mate?” Alex started to laugh. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen. You were once the leader of your pack. Now look at you. You’re a lone wolf with a mortal female as your mate. Can you sink any lower, Rutgar?”

  Even though Alex and he were matched in height, Rutgar was the stronger of the two, and Alex knew it. “I would watch what you say to me unless you want to find your neck between my teeth,” he said with a growl.

  Alex held up his hands in surrender. “My bad. Aren’t you at least going to introduce me to your ... mate?” He looked Red suggestively up and down.

  At that moment, the beam of a flashlight landed on the small group. Alex’s attention was drawn to Red’s grandmother as she moved to stand with them. She smiled. “When you and Red didn’t come back, Rutgar, I thought I’d come look for you. It’s awfully dark out here.” She pointed the flashlight at Alex. “Oh, who would this be?”

  “It’s no one, Grandma,” Red quickly answered. “It’s just someone Rutgar is acquainted with. Why don’t you go back to the tent camper and we’ll meet up with you there shortly.”

  “All right. Just give me a shout if you need some light to find your way out of here.”

  “We will.”

  Once Red’s grandmother was out of sight, Rutgar leveled a hard stare on Alex. “Leave before you push me too far. I don’t want anything to do with you or your pack of thugs. I told you that the last time you came to me. I would rather stay lone wolf than join up with the likes of you.”

  Alex growled low in the back of his throat in a flash of anger before he pulled himself together. “We shall see.”

  After that cryptic remark, Alex turned and walked away. Rutgar stayed on guard for a few minutes longer before he let himself relax.

  “What was that all about?” Red asked.

  “Alex comes by every few years to see if he can somehow convince me to become part of his pack. He approached me shortly after I went lone wolf thinking since I no longer had a pack I would be more than happy to join up with his. He just won’t let it go.”

  Red looked up at him. “Were you really the leader of your pack?”

  He pulled Red closer as he turned her around and started to walk toward her campsite. “Yes.”

  “Why did you go lone wolf?”

  “All my family was gone. My pack’s numbers had dwindled down to less than a handful, something that has happened to a number of packs. The few who remained in my pack wanted to join up with some larger packs, safety in numbers and all that, so I went lone wolf so they could.”

  “I take it from the tone Alex used that being a lone wolf isn’t considered a good thing?”

  “For some it isn’t. When some males go lone wolf, particularly unmated males, they tend to be a threat to other males in other packs. Most go lone wolf because they are either kicked out of their packs for bad behavior, or they chose to because they don’t have to answer to a pack leader.”

  Red squeezed his waist. “Well, I guess you aren’t so alone now. You have me.”

  Rutgar didn’t say anything even though it did him good to hear Red say that. Maybe things would work out between them after all.

  ———

  Red spent the night with Rutgar at his place. Her grandmother had shooed them off shortly after they returned to the campsite. She’d been more than pleased to see that Red and Rutgar had worked out their differences.

  Now the next morning, dressed in the clothes she’d br
ought with her from the tent camper, Red sat in Rutgar’s kitchen drinking coffee. He’d gone wolf to do a perimeter check around his property to make sure Alex hadn’t decided to lurk around. Red looked out the sliding glass doors that led to the deck and smiled when she saw Rutgar run across his large backyard still in wolf form.

  Her smile broadened. She didn’t think she would ever get sick of seeing him as a wolf. She loved the wolf as much as she loved the man. Red slowly put her coffee cup down on the table as she realized what she had just admitted to herself. She loved Rutgar. Deep down inside her heart, just as her grandmother had said, she knew without a doubt she loved him. During the night, as he’d made love to her so many times she’d lost count, Red had felt their bond grow closer, stronger. As she watched Rutgar come up on the deck and shift to his human form, Red knew at some point she would have to screw up enough courage to tell him that she loved him, but she wasn’t ready to do it just yet.

  Rutgar poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table next to Red. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

  Red nodded. “I’m sure. Not that I expect my grandmother to be upset when I tell her I’m moving in with you. It’s just we have always been pretty close. We see each other at least a couple times a week, but with me living here and her living in Toronto, we won’t have that anymore.”

  “I told you I would be willing to move to Toronto with you. I have more than enough money to buy a second home there.”

  To say Rutgar was loaded was an understatement. The man had millions. She guessed when someone lived as long as he had they tended to accumulate a fair amount of money over the years. “No. You love it here. You have lots of land to go wolf and run. I would never make you give that up. And it isn’t as if I will miss being a librarian.”

  Rutgar pulled her to him and kissed her until her toes curled. “Well, let’s get this over with then so I can get you back into bed.”

  He drove her on his motorcycle back to the park. As they reached the campsites, Rutgar let her off so she could walk the rest of the way. After he told her he would give her fifteen minutes alone with her grandmother before he joined them, he drove away.

  Expecting her grandmother to be outside reading, or at least moving around, Red was surprised to find the campsite empty. Her grandmother usually didn’t sleep this late. It was already past ten in the morning. Red began to wonder if everything was all right with her grandmother as she crossed to the tent camper and went inside.

  “Grandma?” Red’s heart skipped a beat as her gaze landed on the huddled form of her grandmother lying in bed. She lay on her side away from Red with the covers pulled over her head. “Grandma?”

  Red went and put her hand on her grandmother’s shoulder and gave her a little shake. She then let out a shriek as the mound under the covers rolled her way and a male hand clamped around her wrist. Alex threw back the covers and gave her an evil looking smile. “Well, if it isn’t Little Red Riding Hood. Aren’t you going to tell me what big teeth I have?” Alex snarled and snapped his teeth.

  She tried to pull free, but Alex yanked on her arm and pulled her down onto the bed. He rolled on top of her to hold her in place. Red tried to pull his hair, but he manacled her other wrist with his hand and pressed both of them onto the bed above her head. Panting with a combination of anger and fear, Red asked, “Where is my grandmother?”

  “Don’t worry about her. I tucked her away some place safe. It was you I wanted.” Alex kept his grip on her wrists as he rolled off Red and got up. He roughly yanked her to her feet and dragged her out of the tent camper. He sat down at the picnic table and forced her to sit on his lap. “Now all we have to do is wait for your mate to arrive. With you as leverage, I’m sure he’ll be more than willing to join my pack.”

  Worried about what Alex had done with her grandmother, Red hoped Rutgar wouldn’t wait the entire fifteen minutes he had given her before he showed up. She frantically searched the surrounding area for any sign of her grandmother, but she couldn’t see anything. If the bastard had harmed her, Red knew she would take it out on his hide when she got free.

  The fifteen minutes went by. No sound of Rutgar’s motorcycle reached Red’s ears. God, she hoped he hadn’t decided to give her and her grandmother some extra time to be alone together. Red knew Rutgar was the only one who could take Alex out. She’d seen them both in their wolf forms, and Rutgar was by far the larger of the two.

  Alex started to play with the ends of her hair. Red smacked his hand away. He chuckled. “You are a feisty one. I can see why Rutgar would lower his standards to claim you as his mate.”

  “Who says he lowered his standards?”

  He chuckled again. “You’re mortal. That puts us werewolves far about your kind. In some ways, I think Rutgar watching you grow old and die while he stays young is fit punishment for not joining my pack for all these years.”

  Red felt herself blanch. She hadn’t thought out past the point of Rutgar and her accepting each other as mates. Rutgar still had another two thousand years to live at least. The sixty or so years she would have left were just a drop in the bucket. Not wanting to show Alex how his words had affected her, she said, “I doubt Rutgar will think it a punishment.”

  “Then he is an idiot if he thinks otherwise.”

  Red tried to jab Alex in the ribs with her elbow, but he easily blocked it. “The only idiot I see here is you. You do realize Rutgar is going to kick your ass.”

  “He can try, but he won’t find me so easy to put down.”

  Then it all seemed to happen at once. Rutgar charged out of the trees in his wolf form and ran straight for Alex and Red. Alex shoved her off his lap onto the ground as he went wolf and met Rutgar head-on. Red quickly scooted back from the snarling wolves as they bit and clawed each other. As the wolves fought, Red rushed back into the tent camper to see if she could find some clue as to what Alex had done with her grandmother.

  The sound of a muffled cry had Red rushing back over to her grandmother’s bed. She pulled off the mattress to reveal the top of the storage box under it. Flipping open the wooden lid, she sank to her knees and yanked the gag from her grandmother’s mouth. Alex had gagged her and tied her hands and feet before he’d shoved her inside the storage box.

  “I’ll have you out of there in a minute, Grandma, as soon as I get these ropes untied.”

  Once she had her grandmother free, Red helped her out of the storage box. The sound of a wolf yelping in pain had her looking toward the open flap of the tent camper. She needed to go outside to make sure Rutgar was holding his own against Alex, but she didn’t want to leave her grandmother alone.

  Her grandmother gave her a worried look as the wolves’ snarls grew louder. “The man you and Rutgar spoke with in the woods last night... I don’t think he’s human. He changed into a wolf and cornered me here in the tent.”

  “It’s going to be okay, Grandma. Rutgar will take care of him.”

  Her grandmother rushed to the open window and looked out. “There are two of them now?”

  Red came to stand next to her as she watched the wolves tear into each other. Rutgar seemed to have the upper hand. “The wolf with the light brown fur is Rutgar, Grandma.” When her grandmother turned eyes rounded with shock on her, Red said, “They’re werewolves. Alex just happens to be one of the bad ones.”

  At the sound of a wolf yelping in pain, Red turned to look outside once again. Alex had somehow managed to get one of Rutgar’s back legs between his powerful jaws. He yanked Rutgar to the middle of the campsite as he continued to bite on his leg. With a cry of denial, Red raced out of the tent.

  Not thinking about the fact that she was about to walk into the middle of a battle taking place between two very large wolves, she snatched up one of the bigger pieces of wood near the fire pit and slammed it down onto Alex’s muzzle. She kept hitting him until he let go of Rutgar. When he turned and snapped his teeth at her, Red swung at him again. This time Alex expecte
d it. He managed to catch the wood between his strong jaws and yanked it out of her hands. Now weaponless, Red slowly started to back away. Alex dropped the wood, then growled as he bunched his back legs under him to leap.

  As Alex leapt, Rutgar slammed into him and took him down to the ground. He quickly took the back of Alex’s neck in his jaws and bit down until Alex whimpered. Rutgar growled then slowly released his hold. Defeated, Alex rolled onto his back with his tail between his legs and whimpered at Rutgar who stood over him.

  Both men shifted back to their human form. Clothes appeared on their bodies a split second later. Rutgar kicked Alex in the ribs. “If you ever set one foot, or paw, inside my territory again, I’ll take you out permanently.”

  Alex kept his head bent low as he got up and slowly backed away. When he reached the trees, he went wolf and raced away.

  Red threw herself in Rutgar’s arms. “Are you okay?”

  Rutgar tucked her head under his chin as he held her tight. “I’m fine. I heal fast.” He then tipped her head back as he took her lips in a heated kiss. When he pulled away, they both were breathing hard. “You may not be a werewolf, Red, but you are just as fearless as any female werewolf I know. I’m proud to have you as my mate. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  Red yanked Rutgar’s head down for another kiss. They pulled apart as her grandmother stepped out of the tent. From the look on her grandmother’s face Red knew she and Rutgar would have a lot to explaining to do.

  “Grandma, I think you need to sit down.” Red helped her to sit at the picnic table. “I know this is a lot to take in, but I can explain everything.”

  Her grandmother flashed a worried glance at Rutgar. “I don’t know if my old heart can take any more excitement.”

  Red took her grandmother’s hand in hers. “I’ll try to put this as simply as I can. Rutgar is a werewolf. I know it’s hard to believe, but you saw him shift from his wolf form to his human one.”