Panting, frantic, his howl echoed after hers, creating a fervent call and response that made dogs from distant alleys join in. Freedom be damned, he knew the moment he found her, the moment he slid against her and she fit him like a glove. Her whimper told him all he’d needed to know: She hadn’t lied. If so, it didn’t matter, he’d lie to himself for the both of them. She’d never had a heat with another lup. Tight, slick, wanton, wet female. Her first full belly needed to be loaded with his seed. He’d take care of whatever he made, just don’t stop moving under the moon.
He came so hard the first time that he almost bit his own tongue. Then she was gone, had slipped from beneath him while he was semidazed and had set him on her trail again.
Nose to the ground, he was on it. Once was not enough. She couldn’t go home, not yet—not now. He could not lose this woman; she was the one. That was no lie. And, naw, his daddy hadn’t lied either. There was a fragile breaking point when a lupine male just lost his nat’chel mind. Tonight he’d left his somewhere out in Fairmount Park; it had to be floating down the Schuylkill River—’cause he couldn’t get up off this woman if they put a crossbow to his head. The old man told him there’d be one out there, one day, or night, that would bring him to his knees and tame the wild in him. One woman, one howl that he’d answer to any time he heard it. It would put him on all fours, make him stupid nuts. Make him promise her the moon, and anything else she wanted to go with it. Yeah, no lie.
It was the deepest truth of his kind, ’cause, like his daddy had warned, that’s where he ultimately wound up. On his knees on his bedroom floor, stuttering, slobbering on himself, his face pressed against her supple back, no condom, sweating like a dog, getting it so serious and so hard that he thought he’d have a seizure.
Never had a woman smelled so good, felt so good, or ever been able to hang like this—take him all the way to the hilt, matching him lunge for lunge, panting and hollering, till he could barely breathe.
When she made him stop for a minute so she could get some water, panic claimed him. There was no such word as “stop.” Stop? Was she crazy? Now? He almost followed her into the bathroom, even though he knew that’s how the guy before him had died. But it was an animal thing not to let her out of his sight while hoping for just one more shot, hoping to coax her to stay in his townhouse, having left a stack of raw meat at her feet.
He watched her graceful strides as she crossed the floor—her shapely legs moving in a slow lope, her full breasts swaying while she stooped to eat—and then shape-shifted again back into wolfen form. And the way she did it was so awesome that it made his erection throb harder. She was beyond comparison. “Magnificent” was the only way to describe her as she ate, delicately licked her paw and then casually changed back into human form right before his eyes.
“You made me rob half a meat warehouse for you, baby, just to coax you back to my den,” he rumbled, stalking toward her, not sure which form of her he enjoyed most.
She shrugged, and picked at an uncooked piece of filet mignon with two dainty fingers. “Aren’t I worth it?”
He shifted his shape, coming to her on his hands and knees as a man, nuzzling her waist. Her taut, cinnamon-colored nipples drew his attention. “Yeah. Definitely.” His hands skimmed the surface of her damp, dark skin, reveling in the silken texture of it. Everything about her was like velvet, just like her silvery lupine coat. He stroked her hair and let it fall between his fingers, just staring at it. “You are so beautiful.”
“Where is this going, though, Michael?” She looked at him, her eyes searching his face. “I don’t want to be used. In the long run, I want a real relationship.”
He blinked twice. Trouble. “Uh, baby, why don’t we just—”
“No,” she said, her upper lip beginning to curl into a snarl. “I’m different, not like those hoochies you can just tell any ole shit to and it’s okay. My girlfriend’s cousin in Vegas said you were out there one summer, and messed with her married cousin, and—”
“I know, I know. See, what had happened was, I went out there with my brothers, she was in heat, her husband was old and—”
“That don’t make it right!” She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him.
He looked out the window. Damn . . . the moon was still full, his dick was still hard . . . true, he’d acted a pure fool out in Vegas, but he couldn’t think about anything like that right now. Not while the moon was still full anyway. “C’mon, baby, that was a long time ago, and—don’t be like that.”
“They warned me about you. All of them did,” she said, her voice quiet and laced with attitude. Tears of disappointment glittered in her eyes. “You can’t even give me half a commitment, can you? I let you be the first lup because . . . well, when you changed, had that deep, sexy voice, could hunt, had a good job . . . jet black coat,” she looked at his feet and chuckled sadly. “Huge paws . . .” She looked up from the floor, her voice faltering. “You stand fucking three and a half feet at the shoulders! What was I supposed to do? And to think, I wanted to have your children! We’re both from the same clans!”
She was on her feet in an instant and headed for the door, naked, tears streaming down her lovely face. He didn’t even know her name! How did he find himself in this predicament? That was the fifty-million-dollar question. He had two bodies to pin on a pimp mobster, a very fine lupine female in tears about to go into her first heat and a slew of human females blowing up his cell phone most likely—wherever it had landed when the moonlight hit him—not to mention, Neecy was gonna pitch a bitch in the station and be salty forever because he never came back to her place tonight.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” he said, blocking her exit with his body and opening his arms wide in self-defense. “You hunted me down, stalked me, left a trap filled with human remains, remember—on a full moon, girl, in the winter, when a brother can’t hardly get none from experienced females in the territory without getting his chest ripped open.” His hands found her shoulders, but she flinched away. “I didn’t know it was like that, that you were feeling some type of way, and Lawd knows, you’re fine and everything, but . . . I mean, we sorta talked about it earlier, but—”
“You couldn’t spend the rest of your life with me,” she said flatly.
“Baby, we just met,” he said, trying to bring reason into the standoff.
“With our kind, is there much more?” She looked at him hard. “We meet, sniff each other out, sync up age-wise, test each other’s hunting skills and, if there’s chemistry, then we mate under the moon, and it’s permanent. You know lups don’t play games with each other, especially with spring in the offing—so?”
“Aw’ight, true, but see . . . what I’m trying to say is, uh . . .”
“Fine. It’s over. I’ll just shape-shift back, go get my clothes, and I’m going home.”
“Just like that? Tonight?”
“Yes. Tonight.”
He stared at her. The woman’s body could stop traffic on Broad Street. Her threat of leaving now was definitely stopping his heart and his argument.
“Look, baby, let’s eat, calm down and talk about it.”
She folded her arms, her eyes blazing. “You are not ever mounting me again, hear? So, there’s nothing to talk about. And, when I go into heat this spring, don’t call me, understand? I ain’t answering no howls, don’t want to hear jack shit, okay? You call those human bitches of yours, and see if they can do for you what I just did, all right? Because all I know is, I came to you, found you, gave you my all, but you wanted—”
“No, no, no, you got it all wrong, baby.” He stood, arms opened wide, in front of the door, still body blocking her. Her threat was real, and it was giving him a nervous tick. The long, lonely, howling days of spring stabbed at his mind. Summer would be even worse. Last year he’d almost lost a limb messin’ with a chick from Georgia who already had a big dog on her porch. “Don’t you know I love you, girl? C’mon, now, why you wanna act like this?”
<
br /> “You love me?” Her voice dipped to a calmer octave, a throaty pitch that stroked his groin.
“Yeah, you know that.” He nodded toward the carnage of beef on the floor. “I don’t do that for everybody.”
“For real?”
He shook his head no. “Never did, before you.”
Her hot body neared his, making a slight shudder run through him. “You ain’t lying?”
“No,” he murmured. “It just sorta went down kinda fast.”
“You gonna marry me?”
He raked his fingers through his close-cropped hair and hung his head. He could feel her bristle and begin to turn away. But he opened his arms before she could. “Yeah, boo, I mean, I was gonna . . . do it right, and uh,” he glanced at the sky through the window. “Baby, stop playing while the moon is still high, okay? You’re compromising my shit, girl.”
“Promise, or my daddy will rip your throat out.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the door. “That’s not right.” Say what she would, he still wanted her so badly that his shaft was dripping. “I’m not marrying you because I’m scared of him. I’m agreeing to this because . . .” He looked at her, the moonlight reflecting in her eyes, “because you’re one of a kind. Until you rolled up on me, I didn’t know it could be like this, didn’t know they even made one like you that was available. One that could hunt like a male, negotiate like one, too . . . and—” Her hand against his stomach stopped his words. “You want the rock, I’ll give you the rock—but don’t threaten me, or rush me, hear?”
“All right. I’m sorry.”
“Just tell me your name, girl.”
A warm murmur coated his ear. A hot body fused to his. The moon was his enemy, his tormentor, because this was not at all what he’d planned tonight. But the woman was fine, the night was a drug, and what was a brother to do? He couldn’t send a woman like this back out to the streets, or send her out West for some human bastards to mess over. She was everything he’d always wanted, had dreamed of, and she was scaring him to death. He was lying to himself when he thought he could make this casual. That became clearer as she wrapped her legs around his waist and backed him up against his own door, then blew his mind again till he howled.
“You look like shit,” Captain Thomas said with a chuckle. “Rough night?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Michael muttered, and threw a stack of new evidence on his desk. “I’m in no mood, Cap. Didn’t get much sleep.” It didn’t help that Neecy wasn’t speaking and had simply rolled her eyes at him as he’d passed her desk. All these females could take a hike. In the cold light of day, with his head on straight, he could think clearer, and that new chick wasn’t making him do jack before he was ready. But, if she had only stayed till morning, hadn’t left him all messed around and in an empty bed. His body still ached for her, and he’d never be able to forget her voice. Shit! “I’m out, Cap.”
“Seems like you were working hard last night, man,” Captain Thomas said, sounding impressed as he looked over the evidence and not at Michael.
“You have no idea.” Michael massaged the tension in his neck. Sunlight made him squint. Stubble was still on his face. He hadn’t even had time to shave, and was wearing the same clothes he’d left the station in.
“You wanna make the media statement when we go get this bastard?”
“Naw. But a few days off to rest could work.”
A few days didn’t help. Nor did he have any interest in Veronica, Neecy, Angela, Shantae, Melanie or Kim. He simply got a new cell phone, changed his number and worked. That was all there was to do.
The problem was, there was this distant scent still in his nose. Every now and then, it sent a shudder through him. He’d even been so crazy as to hang onto his old sheets, from time to time looking across the bedroom toward the overflowing hamper and inhaling her long-lost scent with a whimper. If she never came back, he’d never wash them. They were a shrine. How could she do him like this?
But he was a man, all-male lup, and wasn’t gonna be held hostage by the one who got away. He could tough this out. He wasn’t going to no damned Kansas, no matter how horny he got. He wasn’t ready to settle down yet. No female was gonna steal his pride and back him into a corner. Uh, uh. Damn, where was she?
Days turned into weeks, and weeks soon became almost a month, and his willpower began to erode with the coming moon. Sleep was impossible, wet dreams for her the norm. He couldn’t eat. Didn’t shower. Just moped.
Her voice was an old razor, cutting dull and slow and painful in his memory. It got so bad one night that he found himself on his fire escape howling. Shit, baby, I’m sorry. Call me. If he wasn’t a cop, the neighbors woulda called the police. The day before the new cycle, he was rocking on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands, near tears. Damn, he missed that woman! That night he was so jacked up, he would have mounted anything walking. But that was the problem. He didn’t want any ole tail; he wanted hers.
Plus it was almost spring, too. The month of April was gonna kick his ass for sure. She hadn’t answered his calls, obviously meant what she’d said. No meant no. Why were women like that—so cold?
The next thing he knew, he was at Philadelphia International Airport with a ticket in hand. How he got there, he wasn’t quite certain. All he was clear about was the fact that the moment he touched down in Kansas City and the doors to the plane were opened, he smelled her.
Never in his life had anything so intense rippled through him. It set his teeth on edge, sharpened his senses like a new blade and made him very impatient as he waited his turn for a rental car. By the time he got his keys, he was snapping and barking at everybody. All he had was a first name, a scent and a desire that wouldn’t quit.
Now, you have to understand, Kansas is a huge, flat state. One can drive for hours and still be in the same county. But this afternoon, distance wasn’t an issue. He didn’t need a map, just the windows rolled down to find her.
And, of course, she was way out in no-man’s-land. The farmhouse she grew up in was on a lonely section of road that had no markers. He brought his car to a stop in the dust, and breathed in. Her people kept pigs and goats and sheep and cows. Cool.
Although instinct made him want to jump out of the vehicle and rush her door, he had to chill. She’d warned him. Her daddy was old school, and he had no idea how many brothers still remained home on the farm. So he did what any reasonable man would do. He got out slowly, picked up the freshly cut steaks he’d couriered all the way from Philly and advanced with caution.
Instantly, two burly males appeared from the side yard and snarled.
“You here for our sister?” one growled low in his throat.
Michael quickly appraised the smaller of the two males, who stood six-six, wore tattered overalls covering a thick, ebony body and had him by weight and reach. The younger one had a crazy look in his eyes, and his wild, lopsided Afro made him truly appear insane. His biceps bulged under his sleeveless T-shirt, making the wolf tattoo on his swing arm move with a warning. The other male, wearing a blue mechanic’s one-piece, whom he hoped was just her brother, was even thicker, taller and darker. He didn’t look as crazy, just meaner—scary cool. Sunlight glinted off the grease between each cornrow on his head. Shit. It was now or never, a time when a man had to stand his ground or die trying.
“Yeah,” Michael said, adding bass to his voice. He might be dead meat, but at least they’d have to respect him. “I brought something for your pop. She home? My name’s Mike.”
“She home,” the bigger one said. The elder brother glanced at his sibling. “You the guy she met in Philly?”
“Yeah, I’m from Philly.” True, he wasn’t no punk, but he was wise enough to adopt a semisubmissive tone of voice this time. He watched her brothers sniff out his package from where they stood, their glares almost withering. The taller of the two nodded and, after a while, seemed to relax.
“I’m Bo, dis is James,” the elder broth
er finally said.
“You the one that made our sister cry, and sent her home from back east?” the younger one asked, bristling. “You know that’s our boo.”
“I came to apologize,” Michael said quickly, backing up a bit to give himself lunge range, if it came to that.
“All y’all young pups is all alike,” a low, thunderous voice said from behind the screen door, making the three men in the front yard look up toward the porch.
Michael’s voice halted in his throat. Pure darkness had filled the doorway to the wood-frame farmhouse. The biggest, burliest, meanest looking dog he’d ever seen slammed open the door, brandishing a pump shotgun. Without being told, he knew it was her father. The scent of silver also told him that the shells in his double-aught were meant to put a lup down, and put him down hard. A golden-eyed gaze narrowed on Michael until he lowered his head.
“Y’all come sniffin’ around here in the spring every year, looking for my baby girl. But she ain’t like the others, to be messed over and played with. State your intentions, and state ’em clear, boy. I’m old school, and you don’t want me to come down offa dis here porch fer yer ass.”
“No, sir, you’re right. I don’t,” Michael heard himself say. Survival instinct eclipsed all pride. “I’m not playing with her, sir, or with you. I brought this to make amends. We had a little misunderstanding back in Philly, but I’m not like that. She’s—”
“The marrying kind,” the old man said through his teeth, glancing up at the waning sun.
“No doubt, and, uh, that’s why I’m here.”
Quiet filled the yard. All eyes were on Michael. He swallowed hard as the sun dipped behind the trees.
The old man smiled and calmly leaned his shotgun against the porch rail. “You know how this was done in the old days.”
Voices From The Other Side Page 17