by Zoe Chant
He tossed back his scotch, stood up, and slowly, teasingly, let the leather coat slip down his arms. He carefully folded it and laid it over the arm of the chair behind him. She raked her gaze over the black tee that molded his shoulders, chest, and flat abs, her gaze zeroing to the bulge in his pants as he sat back down.
Oh, yeah. She was already soaking wet, and it had nothing to do with the rain.
“You win,” he said, low and husky.
One of the many fun things about strip poker is that the rules are always amendable, and nobody ever seems to care. “How about we wait on naming the ante until one of us wins. And then they pick the item of clothing?” she suggested.
“Your house, your rules,” he said again.
By now she knew where this was going, and relished how he let her set the pace. They toasted and drank after each deal. She lost her coat next, but by then she was no longer feeling the chill in the cottage—her internal heat glowed through her as she made a slow dance of unbuttoning her coat and sliding it off her, watching his eyes as she did so. The candlelight sparked in them, gleaming with twin lights.
Next round, he lost his shoes—revealing that he didn’t even wear socks. Ordinarily that would have grossed her out, but his feet, though scarred in places, were as clean as though he’d taken a bath in the rain. Clean and well-shaped, like the rest of him.
Her socks came next, and she was glad that she’d had a mani-pedi three days before. As she held up one foot, wiggling her blue-painted toes (no Valentine’s colors here!) he licked his lips, sending another jet of heat roaring through her.
After that, the cards snapped faster. She could feel the intensity of anticipation beating around them both. A four-to-eight straight got his shirt off. The light of the candles caressed his skin, stippling the blond hairs over his breastbone, and the darker ones starting right below his belly button, reaching straight down between the hollows of his hips, to vanish behind the barrier of his jeans.
Then she lost her shirt, feeling the swell of sweet power in the way his lips parted when she peeled it over her head and dropped it to the side, revealing her lacy black bra that didn’t hide how hard her nipples were. His thumbs twitched, and her breath hitched as she thought of those thumbs peeling the cups back. . .
“The hell with this,” she muttered, tossing down the cards.
Her head swam a little, but not unpleasantly. She knew her limit with liquor, and had hit it. Nothing, nothing, was going to ruin this moment, because every instinct cried out that she would never get another chance like this—ever.
She reached over the table, hooked her fingers in his belt, and gently tugged. “Come.”
He got to his feet. She put her fingers to his lips. And when he stilled, she caressed his lips slowly, enticingly with her thumbs, and then leaned up on tiptoe—the lacy cups holding her breasts brushing his naked chest—and kissed him.
And pure sensation hit like a tidal wave—from stillness to demanding, shaking, devouring kisses, tongues teasing and clashing, teeth nibbling until they were both out of breath. Every instinct howled inside, as if her entire life had been training for this moment. She didn’t want to talk. They couldn’t talk. There were far too many dangerous things that could be said, that could ruin this moment forever.
Still, doubt was never entirely gone. It chilled her now, causing her to pull back that one tantalizing inch.
“I don’t do relationships,” she whispered.
That light in his eyes flared. “Nor do I.”
“Tomorrow is another day. No promises, no expectations.”
“No promises,” he said, like a prisoner granted release. “No expectations.”
His gaze had gone diffuse, his gray eyes darkening with emotions she could not define, then the muscles along his beautiful, clean jawline clenched, and he looked down—and this time it was she who looked away, because she was afraid of what he would see in her face.
“You,” he murmured, “are so beautiful.” He brought his hands up to her shoulders. Now it was his turn to slide his thumbs in a slow, caressing circle, before he slid the lacy straps of her bra down her arms, slowly, slowly, a question in that tentative movement.
She answered the question by throwing her head back, and when the fabric reached her elbows, she pulled her arms out, reached behind her and undid the fastening.
They locked together in another kiss, chest to chest, his tongue first demanding surrender, and when she moaned, her entire body on fire, he eased back, tentative with question, inviting her to lick, and nibble, and plunder his mouth. Oh, God that mouth—they kissed until her head reeled from her effort to catch her breath. Then his hands came up to cup her breasts, and she lost her breath all over again as he slowly caressed her nipples in deliberate circles. Then he kissed along her jawline, and down her throat, pausing to lick the hollow of her throat.
She groaned with yawning want—and then he closed his lips on her nipple.
Her knees gave way.
With a laugh he caught her up, and they stumbled together to the bedroom, and fell on the bed, she on her back, her hands outflung. He slid his fingers up her arms to her hands, palm to palm, then pressed them into the mattress as once again his mouth took possession of her nipple, and he took his time teasing, licking, sucking, and then a sharp nip that sent lightning shards burning deep into her secret places. Delicious throbs radiated out in echoes from breast and core, as he switched to the other nipple.
He took his time, and she writhed under him as urgency built and built—God, she was going to come just from this—
He bit her sensitive nipple, zapping her with another bolt of lightning, then he pressed a lingering, soft kiss on the sweet ache as she crested, tumbling down in quick rings of pleasure.
My turn. She fumbled at the belt buckle of his jeans. He sat up, his cock so tight against his jeans the zipper strained. But he let her yank the belt free, then press him down onto the bed so she could straddle his hips.
She took her time running her hands from his waist up to his throat, where she paused to rub her thumbs lingeringly over the bristle along his jaw as she enjoyed the way he watched her breasts. The flickering candle light from the other room was no more than an outline, striking glints of gold in his hair, and limning his contours. Where she touched, she left a trail of kisses. When her fingers encountered the puckers of scars, she caressed gently, and kissed those, too, causing his breathing to harshen.
She had this beautiful, mysterious man to play with—tomorrow he would be gone. The thought stabbed through her with unexpected pain, and so she shoved it away with a toss of her head, and unzipped his pants. She was going to make this last.
One more card trick would have given her all of him—he went commando inside those jeans. She gurgled a laugh of delight as his cock sprang free, hard and silk-skinned and gorgeous. She reveled in the shudder and tightening of his abs as she licked all around and over. Two could nip, she thought, and applied her teeth to the tip—causing him to rocket off the bed.
She laughed as he whirled her over, and with two moves he unzipped her jeans and yanked them off.
He skimmed his fingers over the top of her thong, then eased aside the fabric to slid his finger inside her. Finding her wet and slick, he grinned, as another finger slid in, and his thumb, callused from years of strings, found her clit.
It was her turn to jump, as the tide in her surged. “Now,” she pleaded, reaching for her night table. “I want you inside me.” She kept condoms in the drawer. She pulled one out as he kicked free of his jeans. She helped herself to an enticing look at his naked body, his cock hard and tight against his stomach, and said, “Let me put it on.”
“If you touch me again I’m going to lose it,” he said hoarsely.
“So?” she cooed as she slid her thong down and tossed it. “We’ve got all night.”
She’d seen more cocks than she could count, all shapes and sizes, but his mesmerized her with overwhelming desire to touc
h and taste. What was so compelling about West? She couldn’t get enough of his heat, his musky male smell, the contrast between his hardness and the silky skin of his dick. She wanted him inside her now, hard, fast, but she made herself take her time easing the condom down over every fold and ridge as careful as if he were made of glass. His breathing harshened more, and he gritted his teeth—
Then he rolled on top of her, and slid into her in one sweet stroke.
“Oh yes,” she whispered.
His hands caressed down her arms to her hips, stroking them before moving over her butt, and then down her thighs to her knees. Then he pulled her knees up—deepening him inside her, which caused her to writhe frantically.
She locked her ankles around his hips and he began to thrust, she rocking with him, harder and faster, until his hands came up again to press her knees open, higher, which gave his thrusts a friction deep in her folds that jacked her sensitivity to searing, brain-blitzing heat. Two hard thrusts and she came like a lightning strike, followed by thunderous throbs that clenched on him, sending him off. He stiffened, then relaxed on top of her, skin to sweaty skin, as they came down in breath-shuddering bliss.
God, it was good. He was good, like he had slipped inside her skin and mind and knew what she wanted before she knew it. Her head swam with contentment as he rose to slip off the condom. She took it, tied it off and tossed it into the trash, then lay back, trying to find words, but there were no words, only touch: she caressed him over his ribs, the hard ridge of his shoulder blade, to the tender curve of his neck, then pulled his head down onto her shoulder.
What to say . . . what to say . . .
With him in her arms, she slid deeply into sleep.
Four
West
He lay awake for a long time, his body so blissed out he couldn’t move. When he finally told himself he should get up, gather his clothes, and go, inside him his wolf howled.
Okay. It wasn’t like he was in any hurry. And her arms twined around him. Seemed rude to push her away, just to be running again in the rain. In fact, it seemed a crime against everything that was good in life to leave her without a word. So he’d wait, listening in contentment to every soft breath . . .
And sleep took him so deeply and profoundly that when he woke he had no idea where he was.
Astonishment was fast followed by wariness. He never fell asleep like that when he was with someone. He rarely slept as a human. That could get you killed.
Sex had been something he could give and take for trade, sometimes as a gift, but so far in his life he’d never met anyone who fitted him as if she’d been made for him, fitted so well he could sleep in the shelter of her arms.
He turned his head, to find he was alone. He heard the low murmur of her voice in the far room, so he rose on his elbow, then gave in to overwhelming temptation and buried his face in the sheets where she’d lain, sniffing up her sweet-salty, spicy scent. It wired straight to his brain . . .
Damn—he was hard again.
He spotted the bathroom, snatched up his clothes, and went in. When he came out dressed, he found her sitting on the edge of her bed, arms clasped around her elbows.
He’d meant to go—that was their deal, no promises, no expectations—but her downcast face dragged the words out of him, “McKenzi? Was it me?”
She looked up, giving him a quick smile, but it was perfunctory, almost pained. “Oh, hell no. West, last night was . . .” She shook her head. “It was awesome. You were awesome. Right now I don’t have better words than that because my head is full of my nephew. That was my mom just now. My dad and uncle are on a delivery run, so she asked me to drive down to the high school and pick up Rolf. Who I guess got in a fight with some young jerk he has issues with.”
West paused in the act of pulling on his coat. “A fight? Does he need help with self-defense?”
She gave him a questioning look, and again the words seemed to be pulled out of him. “Between twenty-seven different foster homes and hitting the road for good, I learned something about self-defense.”
Her brown eyes rounded in horror. “God, that sounds awful.” Then she shook her head again. “I’m afraid he might have caused it. He’s not a bully, or anything like that,” she added quickly. “I don’t know what’s doing this. Six months ago he was just a nerdy kid into Harry Potter and videogames. Now, it’s like he can’t get through a day without getting mad, or upset. Usually both. And he won’t talk to any of us anymore. I don’t know if he even knows what’s wrong.”
West said, “Then he probably won’t talk to a total stranger, either. On the other hand, sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone you don’t know.”
McKenzi’s head lifted. The small movement, the flick of her eyes, filled with hope, caused an ache in his chest, and they looked at one another while his nerves tingled as if bees filled with light crawled over him.
“Okay,” she said. “At this point we’ll try anything. If you don’t really mind. If you’re not in any hurry.”
“Got nowhere else to be,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said as she jumped up and reached for her coat. “There are blueberry muffins in the oven. If you’ll pull them out when the timer goes, help yourself. And the banjo is in that closet there, if you want to see it.”
She jammed her phone in her pocket, grabbed her car keys and her purse, and ran out the door. He sat where he was until he heard the VW’s engine fire up, then he straightened slowly, looking around the little cottage, feeling his way into new emotional territory. Usually he was gone by now, weaving his experience into a song. Or, if he needed to run as a wolf, pausing for a howl—
He looked around, wondering if he should shift and explore. It was then that he became aware that his wolf had been very quiet since he fell asleep the night before. That, too, was something new. Ordinarily the wolf would be restless, scratching at the inside of him to be on the move. He shut his eyes, listening inside, and sensed his wolf waiting. Watching.
She’s not a wolf. If she’d been a wolf shifter, he would have known as soon as he’d walked into the cottage. But he hadn’t even thought about shifters, or shifting until this moment. Every sense had been too filled with McKenzi.
Rain poured in sheets outside. He looked out the window at it, knowing that he could leave. As a wolf, he was used to running in all weather. But he’d promised McKenzi he’d wait. Try to talk to this nephew. And there were those muffins baking.
These were excuses, and he knew it, but his wolf was still so quiet within him.
He walked to the closet and found the banjo. It was a decent five string with a tone ring, expensive some twenty or thirty years ago. Someone had restrung it since. He tuned it, then began playing softly until the oven dinged. He found an oven mitt, and was sliding the muffins out, which filled the room with a delicious smell, when the VW growled up the hill again and parked.
McKenzi came in, her tight mouth and squared shoulders indicating tension. She was followed by a skinny kid whose lank hair hung in his pimply face.
“Want some muffins, Rolf?” McKenzi said in a too-casual voice. West suspected that the problems had been worse than she’d said—or maybe that was her worry. Did the kid not know how precious that was, having people who worried? Of course he didn’t. The most useless words in the world were nags about gratitude. It wasn’t just the young who took for granted things like safety, a warm house, a clean bed, and people who cared enough to make sure you had them.
“I know you like blueberry,” McKenzi said. “Looks like they just came out, nice and hot. Hungry?”
“No,” the kid said sullenly. And to West, “Who are you?”
“Name’s West.”
West picked up the banjo, to have something to do with his hands. The kid glared at him in obvious suspicion, his reddened knuckles telling their own story. West strummed a couple of chords on the banjo, his mind sinking into music.
After a minute or so, Rolf said in a completely different
voice, “You can really play that thing?”
For answer, West jammed out a Scruggs-style bluegrass chorus, then shifted to a more melodic ballad.
“Wow,” the kid said, then his eyes flickered away and down, as if he’d been caught at something forbidden.
West just kept playing, as McKenzi brought out plates, muffins, a knife, and butter. Then West set aside the banjo and grabbed a couple of muffins. McKenzi did as well. Rolf also took one, with a slightly challenging air, but when nobody said anything to him, he chomped down, making the muffin vanish in three bites, then snatched another one and ate that, too, with the ferocious appetite of the young cub.
West bent his head to hide a smile, then it hit him, what he’d been sensing. Smelling.
This kid was a cub.
No. Yes?
He leaned over to get another muffin, sniffing carefully. Even his blunted human senses picked up undertones in the boy’s acrid sweat. Here was another wolf, this one on that painful threshold between cub and young wolf.
West’s gaze lifted to consider McKenzi. Did she know it? Did any of Rolf’s people? West was certain he was right. That instinct was too subtle to define in words, but the inner animal somehow knew its own kind.
West ate the last bite, then picked up the banjo again, and started playing one of his old travel songs, composed when he was young. When the intro was done, he began to sing. The rhymes weren’t very good, the rhythms predictable because he’d made the song when all the rhythms and patterns in music were still new to him.
But he watched Rolf’s face slowly lift, the tension dissolving from his bony shoulders and knobby, fast-growing hands as he listened to the song about chasing the dream of endless summer, packmates at your sides as you run for the joy of running.
When West was done, he set aside the banjo. “Do you want to talk about what happened, Rolf?” he asked.
Too soon.
Rolf’s face tightened into anger—betrayal—and his voice cracked as he yelled at his aunt, “You blabbed to a stranger?”