She swallowed and took another tiny step back. “Do you mind if I clean up anyway? I-I don’t know where the bathroom is --” But she had to get away from him and give herself time to steel her resolve.
He dropped his hand. “End of the hall. Take your time.”
Hazel fled.
The bathroom was simple and neat. A huge copper bathtub dominated one side, and she ran her fingers along the edge and wished the miracle of instant hot water existed out here. The thought of sinking up to her neck in a hot bath was so heavenly she sighed in longing.
But there wasn’t time for a bath, and even the thought of it conjured different images, images of sliding into that tub with Oliver, of wet, naked skin and his hands on her body. Of the sound of his voice, whispering to her as he made love to her --
“Fuck.” Squeezing her eyes shut, she banished the images. No lovemaking. No tender sex staring at his face. If lust rose in her body again she’d fuck him. And when it stopped…
A small, chipped mirror sat over the sink. She stared at her reflection for a few moments, her heart beating too fast. When the fever faded she’d go back to her life. She’d wait until the dreams of spending the rest of her life in his arms faded. And she’d move on.
She pretended it was the stinging pain from her finger that brought tears to her eyes as she sought out a towel and began to wash.
Chapter Four
By the time she returned to the kitchen Oliver had set out a platter of roast beef slices along with lettuce leaves and tomatoes. He stood by the table, slicing some bread. “I can’t bake, either, but the preacher’s wife makes a good rye loaf.”
“It looks delicious.” She settled into the chair, wishing she’d found something more substantial to wear than his discarded shirt. There was no way to keep the proper distance like this. No way to convince herself that she didn’t belong at his table, in his kitchen… in his life.
“Do you think we should get married?”
The words were so unexpected -- so unbelievable -- that she gaped at him for a moment, sure she must have misunderstood. “Should -- what?”
“Get married,” he repeated as he stacked the bread slices on plates. “I think it could work.”
For one second she allowed herself to believe that Oliver Russell had fallen magically in love with her. Or, even better, had always been in love with her.
She’d always had an overabundance of romantic fancy, but no one had ever accused Hazel Young of being naive. She curled her hands around the table and forced herself to meet Oliver’s eyes. “Do you want to marry me? Or do you just think maybe you should?”
He hesitated. “That might be part of it. But I like you, Hazel. We get on well, and I don’t really see any reason why we couldn’t make a go of it.”
“Oh.” She snatched up two pieces of bread and slapped them on the plate as she tried to rein in her temper. “So. You like me well enough to think we could maybe be happy if you married me out of… what? Guilt and obligation?”
So much for her temper.
Oliver stared at her. “I wouldn’t make both of us miserable out of guilt. I meant what I said. I like you, and I think it could work.”
He liked her. She added beef and tomatoes to her sandwich.
He liked her.
Hazel hated herself for wondering, even for a second, if she could settle for just being liked if the man doing the liking was Oliver.
The plate clattered against the table and she jerked her gaze up again. “You might find this young and stupid, but I don’t really want to marry someone who likes me unless he loves me, too.”
His jaw tightened, but he nodded slowly. “All right. I understand that.” The words were clear, but his eyes were dark, clouded. “Worth a shot, anyway.”
She didn’t realize that she’d been holding out hope until he crushed it. Her chair toppled back with a crash as she shoved herself to her feet. Tears stung her eyes and she spun, the only goal to get away before she actually cried.
But she heard the heavy stomp of boots behind her, and Oliver caught her arm. “What is it, Hazel?” he whispered. “I tried, but you -- What am I supposed to do?”
Love me. She couldn’t say it out loud. She’d humiliated herself enough for one day. So she scrubbed away the tears and turned to peer up at him. “Did you love your wife?”
He pulled his hand away as if burned. “Of course I did. Marissa was a good woman.”
It hurt so much it made her mean. “Then maybe you should hold off proposing until you find another good woman,” she snapped, stalking toward the table. “You know. One you can love.”
“That isn’t fair.” The darkness in his eyes turned stormy. “This has nothing to do with her, and I didn’t say you weren’t a good woman.”
Being so damn hungry had ruined her dramatic exit, but if she wanted to lock herself in the bathroom she’d have to bring something to eat. Hazel picked up her plate and refused to look at him. “You’re right. It has nothing to do with her. But if you got to marry someone you loved once, I don’t really see why you’d settle for something less.”
Oliver started to speak, but snapped his mouth shut and drove his fingers into his hair with a harsh growl. “If you don’t want to marry me, don’t marry me. I’m sorry I offended you, but you don’t get to make me feel like shit about it. You’re the one who said no.”
At least he thought she was offended instead of broken-hearted. She clutched her plate and inched past him, praying she could keep the tears in until she’d found someplace safe to cry. “Fine. Let’s just not discuss it again.”
“Well, you -- I --” He scowled at her. “Fine.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Where are you going?”
She shuddered and spun away from him. “I don’t know. I suppose getting in bed with me isn’t very appealing at the moment, but I have no idea what will happen to me if I leave.”
He snorted. “Are you so horrified that running away sounds good?”
Her hands trembled so hard she had to curl her fingers more tightly around the plate to keep from dropping it. “If you could look me in the eye and tell me you loved me, I’d marry you tomorrow. But I deserve someone who loves me, even if it means I can’t have you.” She wanted to say something else -- to say something to make him understand -- but tears closed her throat.
Heartbroken and humiliated, she fled for the second time that afternoon.
God damn it all to hell.
Oliver stomped across the room, intent on going after Hazel, but a knock at the door stopped him. He crossed and yanked it open to find the Lonely River pack’s beta, Thomas Crawford, standing there. “What can I do for you?”
Thomas stared at him for several silent seconds before his nostrils flared. “Noah Hampton showed up in town with a broken arm and no idea what had happened to Hazel. Jack and Lottie were concerned.”
“Don’t really know. I guess he acted like a jackass, and Hazel thrashed him for it.”
“Oh.” The beta’s gaze flicked past him and fixed on the door to the bathroom, where Hazel’s faint sobs would be audible to anyone with their hearing. “Do you need some help? She sounds… distressed.”
“She is,” he shot back, his voice raw. “I asked her to marry me, and now she hates me.” He didn’t even know why her refusal bothered him so much.
Thomas cleared his throat rather noisily. “I… didn’t know you were interested in marrying Hazel.”
“I like Hazel.” Something about the beta’s tone put him on the defensive. “I’m not the worst catch ever. I don’t love her. I don’t know her. But I want to. What’s so wrong with that?”
The older man actually winced. “And from the fact that she’s crying in the other room, I assume that’s exactly what you said to her.”
“What else would I say?”
“Oh, for the love of --” Thomas bit off the word and stepped back, gesturing sharply for Oliver to follow him. “You can’t have been with her more than five or six hours
. There’s no way the mating fever has passed already. I need to know if you can handle her until it does.”
Oliver stepped out onto the porch. “Depends on her, mostly. I haven’t changed my mind about anything.”
“Hazel’s got a temper,” Thomas pointed out. “She broke Hampton’s arm in two places and might have cracked a couple of ribs, too. Can you handle that if she decides she’d rather fight than -- than have sex?”
The thought would have been disturbing if it hadn’t been so ridiculous. “I can handle it.”
Thomas snorted. “You’re an arrogant son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you? If I’d just made a woman cry with a marriage proposal, I’d be a little less cocky about my charm.”
“Now, that part was perplexing,” Oliver admitted. “But it’s still nothing I can’t handle. See you around, Crawford.”
Thomas ignored the obvious dismissal and raised his voice. “Hazel, it’s Thomas. Do you need anything, sweetheart?”
Oliver heard the bathroom door slam open, but only her voice drifted out. “Go home, Thomas. I’ll deal with Oliver fucking Russell on my own.”
The beta rocked back on his heels and gave Oliver an almost sympathetic look. “Well, then. I suppose it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. If you hurt her with anything other than your deep and incurable idiocy on the topic of women, I’ll come back out here and shoot you myself.”
“As it stands, I think my incurable idiocy is the only thing we have to worry about.” Oliver jerked his head toward the hallway. “I’ll fix it.”
Hazel made a rude, angry noise loud enough to be heard from the bathroom and slammed the door again. Thomas winced. “Lottie packed a bag for her, in case it turned out she was here. Do you want to take it in to her?”
“I’ll take it.” Oliver rubbed a hand over his face. “If it turns out she doesn’t want to stay, I’ll bring her back as soon as it’s safe to.”
“I know you will.” He moved to his mare’s side and reached for the bag. “I know you’re a good man, Oliver, but she’s a woman who’s had strong feelings for you for a long time. And a few weeks ago…” Thomas hesitated and then sighed. “Everyone’s been telling her to get over you and move on. Maybe it wasn’t their place, but Jack and Ginny were worried. If you and everyone and their cousin’s been telling her you don’t love her, it’s not surprising she’s feeling a little uncertain about imminent matrimony.”
“It’ll work out.” He wasn’t sure what else to say, because he wasn’t sure how it would work out. Not yet.
Thomas held out the bag. “I hope it does. If anything happens, bring her out to Jack’s old place. I’m staying there now.”
“Will do.” He accepted the bag with a nod. “Unless she throws something heavy at my head and leaves me to bleed to death in the kitchen.”
“For all of our sakes, please dodge.” Thomas swung up onto his horse. “Take care of her, Oliver.”
He waved as Thomas rode away and then walked inside. He took Hazel’s bag straight to the bedroom, placed it at the end of the bed and sat down to wait for her.
She took her sweet time. He was starting to worry when he finally heard her footsteps in the hall and the floorboards just outside his bedroom creak. She stared at him from the doorway, her brown hair hanging in damp strands around her face and wearing only a large towel.
Though her eyes were red, she didn’t look sad anymore. She looked angry. “Did you and Thomas have a nice chat about what a stupid little girl I am?”
“No.” He rested his hands on his knees. “We had a nice chat about what an idiotic jackass I am.”
Her expression turned wary for a second before she resumed the annoyed, determined look. “We need ground rules. And the first one is no more talking about marriage while I’m out of my mind with mating fever. It’s not fair and it won’t do any good anyway.”
“All right.” He wasn’t going to mention it again, anyway. Not if it got him yelled at and made her cry. “That seems reasonable.”
His agreement seemed to throw her off her stride. Something vulnerable flashed in her eyes before she jerked her gaze away from his. “Okay. Um, second rule. No doing anything that’s meant to make me fall more in love with you. That’s not fair, either.”
His hands clenched involuntarily. “I’m not sure I can agree to that, seeing as how I wasn’t aware I was doing anything to make you fall in love with me in the first place. But maybe, if you tell me what those things are, I can avoid them.”
Color flooded her cheeks, but she refused to meet his eyes. “I don’t need sweet, gentle sex and tender touches. I just need whatever will shut the wolf up fastest, if you’re willing to do it.”
Her words startled him, mostly because he didn’t remember making an effort to be especially tender with her. “I can do that.”
“Okay.” She swallowed audibly as she loosened her grip on the towel. It slithered down her body to pool on the floor, leaving her naked and standing just a few feet away. “I don’t know if you can still stand the idea of helping me, but if you can… I need it. I need something.”
He reached down and tugged off one boot, then the other. He could do whatever she needed, except listen to her talk like touching her was a hardship. He’d give her what she wanted, what she needed, and he’d fix everything he could later.
There was always later.
It wasn’t fair that she could be furious and hurt and still so turned on she had to struggle for every breath. As upset as the woman was, the wolf was already hungry for the press of Oliver’s power wrapping around her.
She watched, heart pounding, as he rose without taking his eyes from hers. The intensity of his gaze raised the hair on the back of her neck, but she couldn’t look away, not even when he reached down and slowly unfastened his pants.
He took his time. Once he was naked, he circled her once, not touching. Then he stopped in front of her and took a deep breath. “Don’t move.”
For some reason, the words made her shiver. “You just want me to stand here?”
“Yes.” He knelt in front of her and rubbed his thumb over the swell of her hip. “Just don’t move.”
She tried to obey, but he kept staring at her. His dark eyes studied her face and body so intently she wanted to squirm. She’d had plenty of men stare at her -- whenever her power flared every man in the saloon tended to gawk a little -- but those men had stared at a strong young wolf who might be ready to mate soon.
Oliver just stared at the woman, at Hazel, and it was too much. She closed her eyes and lifted her arms in an attempt to shield her body. “You’re making me self-conscious.”
He caught her arms and skimmed his lips and tongue up the front of her body as he stood. The hard length of his erect cock nudged her belly, and he turned her toward the bed. “Bend over.”
Her breath caught, and she struggled against a soft whimper as she curled her fingers around the rumpled quilt. He barely touched her except to grasp her hips and hold her still while he eased his cock into her, a slow, deliberate invasion that left her gasping for breath.
Somehow it felt all the more overpowering for being so careful and calculated. She felt every inch of him as he pushed into her body, a stark reminder of his size and strength. She groaned and tried to push back, to put an end to his slow taunting, but he held her tightly. “No. Feel me, right now, because I’m about to fuck you six ways from Sunday, Hazel. That’s what you wanted, right?”
She panted for breath and tried to convince herself it wasn’t what she wanted, but there was no point in lying. Not to herself, and not to him. “Yes.”
“Then that’s what I’m going to do.” He began to move, driving into her with sharp, sudden thrusts that were impossible to anticipate and seemed to hit every place inside her that was desperate for him. He pulled her hips back to meet every advance, heightening the sensation until her knees weakened and it was only his firm grip on her hips that kept her from collapsing to the bed.
It was hard
and intense and showed a level of skill that made Hazel wonder about all sorts of things she shouldn’t have. Her arms trembled, and his next thrust drove her to her elbows, sharpening the angle even more.
Oliver bent over her, his breath blowing warm against her back. “This is what you want? Really what you want?”
The wolf wanted it. That wild need inside her would have been happy with more, and harder. She wanted dominance and strength, to be pinned under Oliver’s weight as he drove her into exhaustion.
But the tiny part of her that could think past the mating urge wanted all the things she’d forbidden him -- gentle touches and whispered words and him watching her while she found ecstasy in his touch.
She thought he might press her for an answer. Instead, he gathered her up against his chest and nuzzled his face into the curve of her neck. “This is what I want.” He stroked up her stomach to cup her breasts. “I want to touch you.”
“Why?” It came out as a moan, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “Why do you want to touch me?”
“Because you’re beautiful.” His thumbs flicked her nipples, and heat shot through her as she gasped. “Because you fascinate me.”
He was breaking the rules already, and she didn’t know how to stop him. Truth be told, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to. It would hurt more, in the long run, but he was so good at touching her. And if this is all I’m going to get, I want it all…
But not the romance. She lifted her arms above her head and wrapped them around the back of his neck. “So touch me. Fuck me. Do the growly werewolf thing and dominate me. Isn’t that what will help the wolf?”
Oliver made a quiet, indecipherable noise. “Maybe.” He pulled her arms free and picked her up. Then he stalked around the bed and bent her over the other side of it. “Watch,” he ordered, one hand in her hair lifting her head. “Watch me fuck you.”
She opened her eyes and found their reflection staring back at her from the mirror over his dresser. She looked flushed and disheveled, tiny compared to the bulk of Oliver’s body behind her. Her gaze found his in the mirror, and the naked lust on his face made her whole body tense with anticipation.
Down & Dirty (Bundle) Page 10