by Wilde, Kati
“I didn’t know.” Wildly she shakes her head, her body stiffening up, her thighs trembling. “I only saw you. Only smelled you.”
Fuck, yes. I swipe my tongue on a hot path up her neck. “Because you’re mine. You’ve belonged to me since the first time I saw you through that laptop screen. You’ll always belong to me.”
“Yes,” she gasps, tilting her head as in anticipation of my bite.
Sweet baby. No way in hell would I hurt her. So I give her what she gave me, just a pinch from my fangs—and it sends her rocketing, muffling her screams behind clenched teeth, her pussy seizing up. Holy fucking Christ. Those exquisite convulsions on my pistoning shaft begin dragging me along with her, pleasure wrenching tighter around the base of my spine.
Not yet. I’m not fucking ready to come yet. Not until I have more. Gritting my teeth, I shove her left knee up onto the picnic table’s surface, spreading her wide open and slamming balls-deep. And this woman. God help me, this woman. She takes every inch of my long, fat cock like her pussy was made for nothing else, her back arching and hips tilting up to receive each brain-melting thrust. Planting my right boot on the bench, I angle her up higher, driving hard and deep and unleashing all the savage need building inside me into the soft, welcoming flesh of her cunt.
She begins to shake again, her fingers curling against the tabletop, gouging out splinters beneath her claws. So close.
Growling, I get my hand down over her hip to rub the slippery nub of her clit. Crying out, she twists against me like it’s too much. Probably is. Just like the way her squirming on my dick is too much. So good it’s damn near agonizing. But I need to feel that cunt squeezing me again. To make her scream and thrash on my cock. To know that I’m the only one who’ll ever hear her say she’s mine, the only one who’ll mount her and fuck her and make her my wife.
This time when the orgasm crashes into her, Alicia hauls me along for the devastating ride. Can’t fucking stop it. As her hoarse scream sends my name ringing toward the sky, her pussy cinches up so tight that even all the wet lust slicking up my shaft can’t ease my way through her passage, her cunt locking me in deep. The pleasure of that primal grip nearly blinds me. Chest heaving, I can only grunt and grind against her, molten fire surging up the length of my cock and spilling into her clenching depths.
She collapses flat on the table, panting and flushed. Even when her pussy eases its hold, I can’t stop pumping into her, letting her quivering inner walls coax every last drop from my softening erection.
Nuzzling the nape of her neck, I tell her softly, “You couldn’t get rid of me now, Miss Simmons. Not even if you tried.”
A smile curves her panting mouth. She reaches back, cupping my jaw. Her claws are gone, the glow in her eyes fading. I’m not sure if she even realizes they’d appeared. “I won’t try.”
Good. Though that golden chain still isn’t around my neck. She’s committed to me, but something’s holding her back. Something that’s keeping Alicia from giving herself fully to me and taming her beast.
But we’ve got plenty of time to discover what that is. For now, I’m taking her back to the hotel.
And doing this all over again.
8
Alicia
“You sly dog.” Maria tucks her elbow through mine and turns me so that we can both watch Ranger, who just left my side to grab a few drinks for us. Her big backyard is a madhouse, with kids screaming and playing in the aboveground pool, teenagers slouching about with their phones—most of them inhabiting that awkward intersection of an affected ‘I’m so above all this’ and a desperate ‘someone please notice me being so above all this’—and adults congregating around every table and seating area. “All the while I was telling you to fly to Alaska, you didn’t say a thing about Alaska coming to you.”
“I didn’t know then that he intended to.” Not until ten minutes later.
“Then you’re forgiven. But I’m still taking credit for getting you two together.” She makes a humming sound low in her throat when Ranger digs two water bottles out of a tin tub filled with ice, his huge biceps flexing and providing some impromptu arm porn. “You lucky girl. How is he even bigger in person?”
And he’s a lot bigger when he’s a werewolf. “Genetics, I guess.”
“It does seem to run in the family.” Her attention swings over to Samantha and Brandon, in a swimsuit and swim trunks and heading for the pool. “So what’s up with them?”
God knows. Last week, they took an overnight trip to Idaho following up on that website, and met a wolf whose wife had created the site from her father’s research. There wasn’t much more to learn from them—at least nothing that’ll help me tame my beast—just more legends and mythology. But Sam and Brandon have been as tight as BFFs ever since.
Now I watch as Sam whacks him over the head with a pool noodle, and he retaliates by lifting her up and tossing her into the water. When he launches his huge body in after her, the resulting splash is like a tidal wave over the side.
Maria raises her eyebrows at me, waiting for an answer.
“I honestly don’t know. But Sam says they’re just friends.”
“Maybe she is. He’s not.”
Probably not. Sometimes I see Brandon gazing at her like a lovelorn puppy, but she’s got him firmly in the friend zone. “Maybe it’s because Ranger and I are spending so much time together. So his brother has no one else in town to hang out with, and Sam…”
Well, I don’t know about Sam. She has other friends.
“Yeah, right. Because when I have no one else around, the first thing I do is spend time with my sister in-law.”
A sister-in-law whom Maria just spent an entire week with. “So how was camping?” I ask her sweetly.
“You bitch.”
I laugh and accept the water bottle Ranger hands to me on his return. He pops off the top of Maria’s hard lemonade, and she takes it gratefully.
“Thank you, Ranger Ranger. But seriously, though. That woman is just…” She pretends to choke the air in front of her, as if strangling her sister-in-law, then drags in a deep breath and offers a bright, totally-not-murderous smile. “So that was a real fun week. But now she’s gone back to her perfect little life in Seattle and I don’t have to see her again until Thanksgiving. The next trip is just Dan and me and the kids—and we’re taking the camper instead of tents. So it should be better. Hopefully.”
“When are you going?”
She gives a long-suffering sigh. “Tomorrow.”
I snicker.
“You’re so mean. I can’t wait until you have kids and a husband and evil in-laws and zero real vacation time.” She flutters her lashes at Ranger. “Please make my dream of dragging Alicia down into the marital trenches with me come true.”
“Can’t.” His long fingers tangle with mine. “No evil in-laws. Most are just like him.”
Brandon, who’s currently letting about ten screaming kids pile onto his giant shoulders in an attempt to dunk him.
“Well, shit.” But she only pouts for a second before reaching out to draw in a tall, blonde man with wire-rimmed glasses. “Speaking of marital trenches, look who apparently escaped the barbecue pit. Dan, this is Ranger Ranger. Ranger Ranger, my husband, Dan.”
“Or Travis,” Ranger says, shaking the other man’s hand.
Maria’s husband grins. “My wife has referred to you as Ranger Ranger for so long, I wouldn’t know who Travis is. Except that you’re the man who’s got half the town pissed off at him by persuading the mayor to enforce that fireworks ban.”
Unbothered, Ranger slides his arm behind my back, fingers curling around the side of my waist in a casually possessive hold. “Only half?”
“I was being nice, since you’re new around here.” Chuckling, he shares a look with his wife. “Hell, we’re still new around here and we moved in five years ago.”
“Yep,” Maria says. “Don’t let this crowd fool you. People only like us for the free booze and the pool.”
<
br /> “True,” I say and she gasps in mock outrage, then we both start laughing. Because it isn’t true. But it also is. Everyone genuinely likes Maria and Dan. Yet the booze and the pool still go a long way toward getting people to show up.
Even with a pool and booze, Sam and I could never get this many people out to our house.
“So…Travis,” Dan tries out the name that even I haven’t used yet, because it doesn’t fit so easily. He’ll always be Ranger to me. “You’re in the ranger’s residence now?”
“I am.”
When he’s not at my house. When he started his job at the station almost two weeks ago, he left the hotel and came to stay with me—and Sam and I offered Brandon our guest room. But although the residence is officially his now, he’s still in my bed every night.
At some point soon, that’ll change—and it’ll be me in his bed. Or rather, our bed.
I just haven’t gotten there yet.
“All moved in? Because we’re not yet good enough friends for me to actually help you move furniture, but given the strength of the relationship between our women, we’re at the level where I can pretend to offer and then say, ‘Sorry, man, but it turns out I’m busy this weekend.’”
Ranger’s deep laugh rumbles out. “It’s done. I had exactly one bag to carry in. The house is already furnished.”
“Thank fuck for that.” Dan lets out a relieved breath like he dodged a bullet. “And, shit. If I’d known the ranger business comes with free, furnished housing, I’d have signed up.”
Ranger says dryly, “Most of that free, furnished housing is a leaky cabin and a cot.”
“Not the same, then. So what inspired you to make a career of cots and cabins?”
“I watched Bambi.”
Maria chokes on her drink.
I giggle, too, but I’ve also developed a good feel for when Ranger is joking—and I don’t think he is. “Really?”
He nods.
Now he’s in charge of wildlife and forest management. “Because of when the hunter kills the mother?”
“Hey now,” Dan protests. “Spoilers!”
“Not the mother,” Ranger says. “But the forest fire at the end completely fucking terrified me when I was little kid.”
Oh god, I can barely contain the giggles now. “So…Smokey Bear was your hero?”
Amusement lights his dark eyes. “Yeah, he was.”
Terrified of the forest fire. I can picture it scaring a little boy, but at the same time…Ranger personally didn’t have anything to be afraid of. Fire can’t hurt him. And something that I’ve learned in the past few weeks is that quite a few wolves and bears end up pursuing firefighting as a career, simply for that reason.
Another thing I’ve learned is how to refer to all these differences without actually saying it. “Did you not know…?”
That he was impervious to fire.
“I knew. Didn’t matter. It was watching all those animals flee for their lives, watching their home be destroyed. So I decided to save all of them. That feeling’s evolved a bit, but the reason is the same—and that reason is making sure we don’t destroy our home.”
Now I just want to rip off his clothes with my teeth. “So you’re saving the planet, Ranger Ranger?”
His gaze falls to my lips. “Doing what I can, Miss Simmons.”
“Yeah…so I’m an IT guy. Saving the world’s economy by restarting one computer at a time.” Dan scratches the back of his neck. “It’s cool to finally meet someone as dedicated to being a hero as I am.”
“And you recycle, too,” Maria says, giving him a sultry look over the cat-eye rims of her glasses. “That’s really hot.”
“Oh, yeah. I recycle all the time. She especially likes it when I take off my shirt while sorting those plastics—because sometimes they still have drips of rotting juice or soda in them, and I just don’t like getting that on my clothes. But then I sort them hard.”
“Don’t share our sexy private secrets, honey.”
“Sorry, darling. You just get me so riled up with your dirty recycling talk and then…Arrr. All my manliness comes roaring out for everyone to see. So, Ranger”—Dan tilts his head toward the grill—“how about I show you how I burn some meat and introduce you to some of my man friends and tell you which ones are complete assholes. Though most of them, it’s fairly obvious after ten seconds of conversation.”
Eyebrows raised, Ranger looks down at me and I give him a little shove. “Go on,” I tell him. “I’ve monopolized your time for three weeks now. You should probably meet other people in this town besides the ones at work.”
He nods, bending his head to brush his lips across mine—then stopping by my ear to say in a gruff, low voice, “I don’t give a fuck about other people. But I’ll be polite. And he’s a good sort, isn’t he?”
“He is,” I say softly.
“I like your friends, baby.” His teeth nip the upper curve of my ear, sending a hot shiver across my skin before he pulls away.
I watch him go, biting my bottom lip. Really, I shouldn’t be so shallow. But my god. His broad shoulders fill out a t-shirt like nobody’s business. And his thick arms and those big hands. And his ass in those jeans—or out of them, I’m not picky. It’s all just… Unf.
Maria bumps her shoulder into mine, her narrowed gaze searching my face. “Are you happy?”
“I am,” I say softly.
“Good. I worried about you this year.”
I know she did. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Yeah, well. That’s me. I care too much. My heart’s too big. That’s why I have such amazing tits. All the love that spills out of my heart has to go somewhere.”
Laughing, I glance down at myself. My blue cotton sundress isn’t as short as the one I wore that first night with Ranger, but has a more fitted cut and a tighter bodice—and not much cleavage to speak of.
“So I have a miserly heart?”
“Nah. Pretty sure all the love is just going to your ass, instead.” She winces as a crash sounds from somewhere inside the house, followed by young male voices shouting at each other. “Oh god. I told those boys to stay off Fortnite for one freaking afternoon. Just one! So—you’ve got a drink, great. Make yourself at home and all that jazz.”
Oh shit. “Do you need me to do anything? Preparing food or washing dishes or whatever?”
“You’re a doll, but I’ll kick your ass if you put yourself to work at my party! It’s all handled.” She starts off toward the house. “And these boys are about to be punished with dishwashing for life.”
“Alicia.” My name in Ranger’s smoky voice cuts through all of the noise of the gathering. He can’t have said it loudly—he’s watching me from across the yard, a drink in hand, but although Dan and a few others are near him, they aren’t looking at Ranger or reacting to what he says. As if they can’t even hear him when he tells me, “I love your tits. And your ass. And your big heart.”
A heart that swells even bigger after that. “I love you, too,” I whisper.
His hot gaze runs from my head to my toes, then Dan says something to him and he looks away—leaving me filled with so much sweetness.
The same feeling that’s filled me for weeks now. Being with Ranger has been simply amazing. Not just the sex or him loving me, though those are also incredible—more wonderful than anything I’ve ever dreamed.
But it’s more than that. After the trip to Aspen, terror and despair ruled my life for so long. With Sam helping me, I got through as best I could. But I wasn’t doing so well. My sister knew it. I knew it. Obviously Maria saw it, too. Everyone who cares about me noticed. Ranger told me that it was what made him push harder for a transfer, but that he would have come with or without a job…because he thought I was sick.
And I was sick. But the cure ended up being something I never expected—not becoming fully human again, or even taming the beast. What’s helped me most is learning to be comfortable again in my own skin.
Just like Ranger
is. And Brandon, too. Being around them, seeing how the things that terrified me were so normal for them changed how I look at myself. The hunger that used to scare me, the shame of eating so much—it’s nothing now. It’s just simply what my body needs. The strength and speed that made me fear hurting someone, that never let me forget how fast and strong the monster who attacked me was—they’re fun now. Almost like having superpowers, and I’ve spent more time testing their limits. My heightened senses of hearing and smell were often so overwhelming and confusing, to the point where I just blocked them out…well, sometimes I still do block them out. And when I don’t, they can still be overwhelming. But Ranger’s been helping me adjust to those changes, too.
So I’m not as afraid of myself anymore. And although I haven’t tamed my beast, I don’t fight her as much, either. I don’t need to fight her. Because more and more, she feels like I feel. Or maybe I feel like she does. I’m not sure there’s much of a difference, one way or another.
Except I haven’t changed forms again. I’m still afraid of that—and of how much it hurts.
Soon I won’t have a choice, though. The full moon is coming up in less than a week. I’d be a liar if I said that didn’t scare me, too. Because although I’m more comfortable with my beast…I hate not having control over my own body. And I hate not knowing where I’ve been or what I’ve done. I’m not as worried as I used to be, because I’ve begun to trust what Ranger said about my beast not hurting anyone—and he also promises to stay with her. But I want to be with him.
I’d like to be with him now. Becoming a werewolf didn’t make me any less awkward during social gatherings. Luckily, I figured out how to get through a party a long time ago.
Maria already nixed my favorite route: keeping myself busy by helping out, so that I’m not simply holding up a wall with a drink in my hand. I head toward option two, instead: watching whatever form of entertainment that’s provided, which gives the appearance of being engaged with something, even if it’s not other people.