Down & Dirty (Bundle)

by Rogers, Moira

  He didn’t take his eyes from the mirror as he drove into her again, settling into a hard, slow rhythm of thrusts. “What do you see, Hazel?”

  “I -- I see --” She saw a desperate woman, rocking back to meet every advance. She saw flushed cheeks and glazed eyes that held more than a little gold. And she saw Oliver, his jaw clenched as he drove her toward release. The scent of sex and the sound of harsh breathing and skin on skin seemed so much more overwhelming when she could see his cock plunging into her.

  “What do you see?” His voice was low, harsh. He groaned and sped the movement of his hips, slamming his hips against hers. “Tell me.”

  Climax was so close she had to struggle to draw breath. “You’re fucking me,” she gasped. “Y-you… you’re taking me --”

  “Hard. Fast. Nothing romantic about it.” Except that, even as he spoke, he stroked one hand down her back, soothing and tender. She trembled under his hand and closed her eyes as the pressure became too much.

  But release wouldn’t come. Her body felt tight and heavy and she squirmed against him in an attempt to push closer. She was so close, so damn close to the sort of ecstasy that would wash away everything and satisfy that hunger inside her --

  He hissed out a curse, and the hand on her back slipped around and drifted down her belly, finally centering on her clit. “Give in,” he grated out. “Let it come, baby.”

  “I-I can’t --” Frustration cut through the pleasure, so sharp she wanted to cry. If it had been just sex she would have given up, but the painful drive to mate would be satisfied by nothing short of submission -- and not submission wrenched from her by forceful thrusts. She had to let go.

  Letting go terrified her.

  He stopped, and she whimpered and pressed her forehead to the comforter as she fought a shuddering wave of discomfort. “I’m sorry, I can’t -- I’m sorry.”

  “Shh.” He turned Hazel in his arms and lifted her onto the bed. Moments later, he crawled up to lean over her. “You just need a minute, that’s all.” He stroked her damp hair as he spoke.

  Oliver was going to break her heart, and she was going to let him. She knew it even as she twined her arms around his neck and pushed up against the warm strength of his body. “Help me,” she whispered, a soft plea for him to break the rules she’d given him. “Help me let go.”

  “Shh.” Oliver slid his hands under her hips as he nestled between her legs, urging her to meet the gentle thrust that brought him inside her again. When he rocked against her, he braced one hand on the bed and brought her chest up to his. “Don’t worry so much.”

  The intimacy was almost too much. Every rocking thrust rubbed their bodies together, and the strong hand splayed against her back kept her pinned against him as if it were effortless. She shivered and let her head fall back as pleasure twisted around her again.

  This time she didn’t fight it, even if her longing adoration of Oliver was twisted up in the mating instinct and rising warmth. For one moment she let her human side -- the side concerned with marriage and mundane concerns -- slip away. The man moving against and inside her was her mate, and in this place, at this time, she belonged to him.

  She whispered his name once before climax took her. She thought she might have screamed, but the rush of white-hot ecstasy made it hard to focus on anything else. The wolf howled her triumph inside as Hazel dug her fingers into his shoulders and bucked up against him, only one word coming to her lips. “Yes.”

  She felt the heat of Oliver’s breath on her neck and the sting of his teeth, and he shook above her. He kept driving into her, finally shuddering to a stop as he shouted against her skin.

  Floating on a wave of satisfied relief, she let the careful guard on her tongue slip. “I love you.”

  He kissed her and moved, drawing her against his chest. “Rest, sweetheart.”

  She shivered until he curled an arm around her, surrounding her in the warmth of his body and the power that burned so brightly inside him. The terror and dread from before had vanished, washed away by giddy relief as the mating fever eased for the first time. She slid one hand over his and curled her fingers around his wrist. “Stay with me?”

  He drew away to pull the quilt over them, then grasped her hand again. “Nowhere I’d rather be.” His lips brushed her ear. “Now sleep.”

  Chapter Five

  Oliver cleared his throat as Hazel folded a shirt and placed it in her saddlebag. “You sure you’ll be all right riding back into town on your own?”

  “My horse seems to feel a little better about me today,” Hazel replied, her voice so lighthearted it sounded forced. Certainly the tone didn’t match the tight look around her eyes. “Thomas swears an afternoon wandering the prairie without me did wonders for her temper. I’ll be fine.”

  He closed his eyes and remembered her face the way it had looked night before, tense with pleasure as he slid his fingers inside her and brought her to orgasm. “You have to be careful, though. Maybe I should ride with you, just in case.”

  She gave a tiny little sigh. “Oliver, I’ve been riding out to Ginny’s on my own since I was fifteen. And I’m sure you have things to do around here that you didn’t have time to deal with over the last few days. You’ve given me enough of your time.”

  His hands tightened around the bedstead. She’d been fine on her own, but that was before she’d been in his bed. Before she belonged to him. “Sure,” he muttered. “Sure, I’ve got things to do.”

  The quiet sounds of packing ceased, and she sighed again. “Look at me, Oliver.”

  He did, and he wished he hadn’t as memories surfaced again. Hazel, her head thrown back in ecstasy. Hazel, her lips around his cock. “What?”

  Her gaze softened. “I love you. Your instincts are all riled up now, but you don’t love me. If you’re still interested in marrying me, take some time and get your head on straight, then maybe you can get to know me. But I’m not going to sit around and wait, Oliver. I’m not going to go home and stop living on the off chance that you’ll fall in love with me some day.”

  Pain ripped through him. He wanted to say something to counter her words, or the gentle certainty in her gaze. “I still want to marry you. That hasn’t changed, and it isn’t going to.”

  Tears filled those huge brown eyes, and she looked down at her bag as she tucked a pair of pants into it. “Not for the right reasons. Maybe the wolf is content with the mating bond, but I’m human, too. And I’m too young to give up on being loved.”

  There was nothing he could say to change her mind, and Oliver wouldn’t have even if there had been. She was right; she deserved more than a convenient, comforting arrangement from a widowed rancher with more stubbornness than sense. “I understand, Hazel. And you -- you should be happy.”

  The last dress went into her bag, and she smoothed her fingers over it as if stalling for time. “If you think -- I mean, if you get settled down and think that you might be able to fall in love with me… People used to do that before the War, you know. Date. Take their time. You could come and see me.”

  “Courting, you mean.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Yeah. I imagine my circle of panting admirers will have mostly vanished now that I’m not going to fall into an uncontrolled lust at any moment, so I’ll have plenty of time.”

  Jealousy surged through him, and he fought to keep his expression neutral. “If that was all they wanted, you’re better off without them. You’re too good for that.”

  “I know.” She buckled the pack shut and finally looked up at him again. “So… maybe I’ll see you, once you’ve had time to think?”

  He couldn’t imagine being able to stay away. “I’ll be around, Hazel.”

  She smiled at him, shy and a little nervous, and hoisted the pack off the bed. “Thank you for taking care of me, Oliver. I’m sorry I got us both into such a mess.”

  He started to take the pack from her, but drew his hands back. “You’re welcome. And it wasn’t such a mess.”

 
; For one awkward moment she stared at him, her eyes alight with longing. Then she turned and cleared her throat. “Good bye.”

  He stood there, not trusting himself to see her to the door. He’d readied her horse, and all she had to do was ride away.

  Out of his life.

  He forced himself to sit on the edge of the bed as she walked out, and he stared at his reflection in the vanity mirror. She was right, and he knew it. She didn’t need to settle for someone who might love her. She deserved someone who knew.

  The only thing worse than a broken heart is feeling it break one day at a time.

  Hazel had set herself up for a peculiar sort of hell, that was for sure. She should have marched out of Oliver Russell’s life with her head held high and come home to cry over him for a few days. Maybe it would have been irrational and immature, but it would have been over. Instead she’d given him some sort of open-ended invitation to woo her at his convenience.

  Apparently wooing her wasn’t very convenient. Or else he’d never wanted to at all. Maybe he’d taken her at her word that she’d move on, and this was just a way to avoid the awkward task of telling her to her face that he could never love her.

  Hazel marked the end of the second week of waiting with enough Scotch to kill a human man. It got her mildly drunk, drunk enough to flirt with Kyle Albertson, who was twice her age and hungry for a wife. This is moving on, she told herself as she stroked her fingers over the back of Kyle’s hand. But the buzz from the Scotch was already fading when she let him talk her out the door into the street.

  The sun rested low on the horizon, and Kyle’s hand had migrated down as well, from the small of her back to the curve of her ass. She snarled -- not at the presumption so much as the fact that he couldn’t even wait until they were in private -- but she didn’t get a chance to smack him.

  Oliver pulled Kyle away, spinning him around, and his enraged growl almost drowned out the sound of his fist hitting Kyle’s jaw.

  “Oliver!” Hazel grabbed his arm and tried to drag him back. “Jesus Christ, have you lost your mind?”

  “You snarled.” He seemed bizarrely calm, even as he watched Kyle stagger away. “He was doing something you didn’t like.”

  She opened her mouth to retort but realized they were drawing a crowd of onlookers, some of whom had stepped out of the saloon just to watch. So she ground her teeth together and dragged Oliver into the small alley beside the saloon. “I can handle Kyle Albertson on my own. As a matter of fact, I can handle most of the men in this damn town on my own.” The one exception, of course, being the one standing in front of me.

  “Doesn’t mean you should have to.” He glared at the onlookers, who scattered immediately. “He had no right.”

  “Most men don’t,” Hazel agreed. “Like the ones who ignore you for two weeks and then show up out of the blue to punch people on your behalf.”

  He scowled at her. “I took you at your word. You know, when you told me to take some time to get my head straight.”

  “I --” All her righteous anger disappeared, because it was true. Her chest felt tight as she turned away. “Yeah. I guess I didn’t think it would take this long for you to decide if you might be able to love me some day.”

  “It didn’t.” Oliver shoved his hand through his hair. “If I hadn’t been pretty damn sure I could love you someday, I wouldn’t have proposed. What I needed to get straight -- what I needed to figure out -- was that I already do.”

  Exhilaration rose at the words, and Hazel stomped it down with vicious ruthlessness. Not until she knew this time, not until she was sure. My heart can only take so much.

  She sought his gaze. “Are you saying you fell in love with me during the last two weeks?”

  He stepped closer and framed her face with his hands. “I’m saying I realized why I wanted to hang on to you so bad. I love you, Hazel. I don’t know how long I have, but I know it’s true.”

  “How do you not know?” she whispered, doubts still churning in her stomach. “I know exactly when I fell in love with you. The day Thomas told me that my mother had turned up dead. I hadn’t seen her in seven years and she’d deserted me anyway, but I still cried all morning. And you played chess with me in the saloon that night for an hour and didn’t say anything about my puffy face and red eyes, just played and let me win, though I didn’t figure that part out for another year.”

  He pressed his lips to her cheek. “I don’t know. There’s always been something in me that belonged to you, but I didn’t know what that meant or what to call it. I guess I was scared to call it anything, because then I’d have to worry about losing you.”

  She shivered and pressed her forehead to his chest. “Is that why you were so pissed off at me at Ginny’s house?”

  “You didn’t stay down and you almost got yourself shot, woman.” He folded his arms around her with a groan. “God, it took me a while to puzzle out why I was so damned mad about that.”

  “Well, I’m not exactly a trained gun fighter.” She curled her fingers around his shoulders and reveled in the warmth of his body. “Take me home, Oliver. We can get married in the morning. I want you to -- to make love to me tonight.”

  His eyes were dark, gentle. “Are you sure? You said something about courting, and I don’t want to rush you.”

  “I said something about courting because I didn’t want to rush you.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Unless you’re not sure you love me. I swear to God, Oliver Russell, if you’re not being honest, I’m going to murder you in your sleep.”

  He just laughed and rubbed his thumb over her jaw. “I know better than to try something like that, Hazel Young. I like all my body parts.”

  So do I. She laughed and caught his thumb between her teeth with a possessive growl.

  “I brought my fastest horse,” he informed her with a chuckle. “You can sit in front of me and wiggle, and I can grope you. How’s that sound?”

  It still sounded like an awful long time to get her hands on him. She slid one hand down and dug her fingers into his lower back. “Sounds like it had better be a lot of groping, or I’m going to take you right here.”

  He groaned. “Would it be faster to get to Lottie’s house?”

  “Maybe…” She was struck with the sudden certainty that she didn’t want to. “But I’ll make myself behave, because I want to be in your bed, Oliver. I want to be in it, doing naughty things to you, until it feels like our bed.”

  He stared down at her, hot and sweet. “Then we’ll ride real fast, but I’d better not grope you too much or we’ll fall off.”

  Hazel snatched his hand up in her own and all but dragged him toward the street. “Where in hell is your damn horse?”

  Oliver laughed, but the sound was strained. “In front of the saloon. And I’m about to throw you over my shoulder, woman.”

  “Well, that would cause a scandal, wouldn’t it?” She couldn’t help the tiny laugh that escaped. “Though you know, not as much as you punching men out if they look at me funny.”

  “The scandal will be when you disappear for another two days.”

  As if anyone would doubt what they were up to. Hazel imagined even the humans might be able to feel the overwhelming rush of energy that coursed off Oliver in waves. The power excited her, made her long to test herself against him. And to have all that formidable attention focused on her and her alone…

  She shivered as they hit the open street and tightened her fingers around his hand. “If we’re only at your house for two days, I’ll be amazed.”

  “Didn’t say that.” He reached the large, well-muscled roan and helped her up before untying the horse. “Just said you weren’t coming up for air ’til then.”

  A shiver of anticipation woke the wolf, and the horse shifted nervously beneath her. Hazel found Oliver’s gaze and knew what he’d see in her eyes -- the dangerous creature lurking just below the surface. “You’d best get me home before I’m so riled not a horse in town’ll get within ten feet of
me.”

  He climbed up after her and murmured to the horse, a gentle tug of the reins enough to send the animal toward the south end of Main Street.

  Oliver kept one arm wrapped tightly around Hazel’s waist until they got out of town. Then he handed her the reins. “Can you guide him?”

  She tightened her fingers on the well-polished leather and nodded. “Of course. But… why?”

  His only answer was to drop his hand to her upper thigh. “Because.”

  “Oh.” Breathing got a whole lot harder, and her eyes fluttered shut for a moment as she imagined the sheer illicit thrills to be had from Oliver’s hands on her body, and out in the open, no less. “Well, then. You go right ahead.”

  His teeth scraped the side of her neck as his fingers tugged at her skirt, gathering it high on her leg. He soothed the ravaged skin with his tongue and blew on it. “It’s a good fifteen minute ride out to my place at a faster pace than this,” he noted lazily.

  Her entire body felt tense as she urged the horse to speed up. “Tell me what we’re going to do when we get there.”

  “I haven’t shown you the barn yet.” His fingers pressed hard against her inner thigh for a moment. “Plenty of soft hay and clean horse blankets.”

  Closing her eyes wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but Hazel figured the horse wasn’t likely to run into anything. “More. Tell me more.”

  “We need more naked fucking,” he rasped. “We’re always half-clothed, and I want to be able to look at you while I make love to you.”

  The hand on her inner thigh taunted her. She fidgeted a little, half trying to rub against his cock and half hoping he’d inch his fingers just a little higher. “I’ll stay naked in your bed for the next week. You won’t even have to tie me to it unless you want to.”

  “Maybe for fun.” His hand crept closer to the juncture of her thighs. “Maybe you should tie me to the bed.”

  “I will,” she whispered, all her concentration fixed on the fingers brushing the sensitive skin of her leg. “And I’ll make you watch while I get myself off over and over again.”