Hard Landing

by Ophelia Sexton

  A powerful orgasm began to gather inside her belly like a rising wave.

  She tried to wrap her arms around him, but he held her pinioned against the tiles with a steely grip as he marked her with savage kisses. All the while his rock-hard shaft mercilessly massaged her clit and her swollen folds with powerful movements.

  Then, the wave surged and broke over with crashing pleasure that sent bright golden sparks dancing across her field of vision. Her pussy pulsed, and she writhed helplessly in his grip, panting and making noises she was sure would embarrass her later.

  Carl didn't stop moving against her, and her climax continued on and on, the waves of sensation battering her like a storm hitting a rocky shore.

  Then he growled, the deep sound vibrating through her bones. His already tight grip round her wrists became bruising as his hips faltered and lost their rhythm.

  With a loud snarl, his teeth closed hard on her throat as he came, every muscle in his body tensing to steel cables against her. He shuddered as his hot seed hit the inside of her thighs before being washed away.

  When he released her wrists and her throat at last, Michelle wrapped her arms around him and embraced him, still holding his cock firmly between her legs as he shook and swore with the last of his climax.

  He collapsed against her, pushing her against the shower wall. They stood in each other's arms for a long time as their breathing slowed and the last ripples of her climax slowly subsided.

  "Damn, Carl," Michelle breathed in wonder. If last night had been an amazing revelation, what had happened between them just now had been…well, ten levels beyond amazing.

  He raised his head, and his eyes widened. "Oh shit, I hurt you! I'm so sorry."

  He touched her throat with featherlight pressure, his expression genuinely distressed. Only then did she feel the stinging bruises he'd left behind.

  "It was a good kind of hurt. The kind you get from a wild ride." She raised her face and rose on tiptoes to kiss him. "I don’t care if I walk around with hickies for the next few days. It was worth it."

  He laughed softly, his features softening with relief. "I'm glad. I've never met anyone like you." He stopped speaking. His face twisted into an unhappy frown. "Dammit, Michelle. I really wish I didn't have to leave."

  I wish you didn't have to leave either, she thought.

  But she didn't say it, because he hadn't asked to stay.

  After he left, she knew she would cherish the memories of this brief, amazing affair for a long time to come.

  ◆◆◆

  Her heart pounding, Michelle stood watching as a large black bear came ambling up to her apple trees. It was twilight, and thanks to the rain, daylight was fading imperceptibly into darkness.

  On Carl's advice, Michelle had taken cover on the other side of her vegetable garden, using the tall pole structures covered with the thick, leafy vines of the season's remaining beans to conceal herself. She clutched a shotgun loaded with rock salt, and tried not to pant with nerves.

  A giant wolf with glowing golden eyes stood on her left. In contrast to the butterflies in her stomach and the pounding of her heart, Carl looked alert but perfectly calm.

  Rain fell in an icy torrent, and her hands were quickly going numb. She thought wistfully of that amazing shower just before dinner, and wished she was still sharing naked time with her werewolf dude under blissfully hot water.

  Without thinking, she reached out and buried her hand in the thick, coarse fur on his neck. Under the sodden guard hairs, his undercoat was dry. Warmth seeped into her cold-stiffened fingers.

  Carl leaned against her hip briefly, then straightened back to his alert posture.

  Wait for my signal, he had told her before shifting from his human shape.

  His muscles bunched beneath her hand. She quickly pulled her hand away and raised her gun.

  Three…two…one… she counted silently, one eye on the wolf at her side and the other on the bear, which, apparently oblivious to their presence, was now rearing up on his hind legs and vigorously shaking her pear tree.

  Carl growled, a deep rumbling sound that triggered primal terror in the most ancient part of her brain. Predator! Danger!

  The bear's head swung around, and Carl leaped forward with a snarling bark that sent shivers down her spine.

  And that's my cue. But she stood frozen, watching the huge wolf charge the bear.

  The bear froze too, clinging to the lower branches of the tree.

  Snap out of it, chica! Michelle ordered herself. Or Carl's gonna get hurt.

  That thought was enough to break her paralysis. She flicked on the intense light fastened to her gun barrel, and took aim.

  Carl had been pretty sure that her high-powered shotgun light, combined with warning shots and his attack, would be enough to scare the bear out of its wits and send it fleeing for the forest, never to return.

  And even if she did manage to hit the bear, the rock salt loaded into her shotgun shells was unlikely to do more than deliver a stinging blow to its thickly furred hide.

  She fired. And missed, predictably.

  But as Carl had predicted, the sound shocked the bear into dropping back onto all fours.

  The bear's head swung around, its eyes glowing as she blinded it with the white beam from her light.

  Blinking and shaking its head, it peered between her and the snarling, growling wolf rapidly closing the gap between them.

  Michelle had more rock salt shells loaded in in her gun's magazine. She fired again, counting on the deafening noise and sharp scent of gunpowder to bewilder the bear.

  It worked. Between the huge wolf and the gun, the bear clearly decided that enough was enough. It turned and lumbered rapidly away.

  Carl pursued it for some distance, nipping and snarling at its heels.

  When he came trotting back into the circle of light from the LED lantern she'd brought with her, he looked positively smug.

  "Yeah, I don't think he's coming back," she told the giant wolf. "Good job, partner."

  He parted his jaws and gave her what looked like a triumphant grin, except with huge, very dangerous-looking fangs.

  Then, deliberately, he circled back around to her fruit trees, lifted his hind leg, and peed on the base of every single one, as an added service to discourage any other invaders from raiding her tiny orchard.

  Standing in the rain, Michelle watched him. At first, her jaw dropped in disbelief. Then laughter began to bubble up from a warm, happy place inside her chest.

  Dammit, she thought, giggling madly. Who'd have thought that I'd find the perfect man, and he'd turn out to be a real live werewolf?

  Then she sobered. Yeah, he's perfect…except for the part where he lives hours away in Denver and spends half the year traveling around the country, fighting wildfires.

  And let's not think about the fact that he's going to be marrying another werewolf soon, someone that his family has already chosen for him.

  She still wasn't sure what Carl saw in her and why he'd wanted to spend time with her badly enough to try and blackmail her. But she knew that despite her best efforts not to get emotionally involved with her wolf, she would be heartbroken when the time came for him to go.

  Enjoy every minute you have left with him now. You can cry later, she ordered herself.

  All of their naked time today meant she'd seen that his leg was healing up faster than she had thought possible. Yesterday's deep hole was thickly scabbed over today, and he seemed to be walking without much pain.

  And that means he'll be leaving soon.

  Chapter 15

  Unexpected Revelations

  Three days later

  "Mica, I need money," Beto said as he walked into Michelle's house without knocking.

  He stopped short when he caught sight of them in the living room, and his expression twisted into sour disgust at the sight of Carl, whose head was currently resting on his sister’s sweatpant-clad thigh.

  "Hey, Beto," Carl greeted him mi
ldly.

  Michelle looked up from her bookkeeping program. Her muscles tensed as she fought the impulse to jump up and move to the other end of the couch from Carl, as if she were a teenager caught making out.

  In fact, she and Carl had been enjoying a quiet evening, curled up together on the couch while he stretched out and read a book on his e-reader and she caught up with the ranch accounts with her laptop balanced on the sofa's wide arm.

  Even though they were cuddled up together, she didn't feel her usual unease about having personal space invaded.

  Not for the first time, she wondered, Why is this guy so different?

  Despite all the luscious kissing—and all the other things they'd been doing together for the past few days—Carl was also happy to do his own thing, while giving her the space to do hers.

  All the other men she knew, including her father and brother, expected to be the center of her attention while they were in the room.

  Both her ex and Beto got pissy when she interrupted their video games or TV watching. But they never thought twice about interrupting her when she was reading or watching something.

  Carl, refreshingly, wasn't like that. She had grown to love being in close physical proximity with him but at the same time having mental space.

  "How much money, and why do you need it?" Michelle asked her brother, trying to keep her tone calm.

  She wondered what on earth he wanted to buy. She paid him for his work around the ranch—not much, but then again, she also provided housing and most of his food. And he spent a lot of time over at the Dooley Ranch, doing odd jobs for Dennis as well.

  "Those fucking squirrels," Beto exploded. "They chewed through all of the wiring in my car. I found out when I tried to start it just now. And if that wasn't bad enough, the little shits stuffed the engine compartment with leaves, dried grass, and other stuff. My car is fucked."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," Michelle said with real sympathy.

  Over the past couple of years, she had been fighting a running battle with various mice, rats, and squirrels—and God only knew what else—attracted to the food stored in her barn and her house, as well as the prospect of a warm, dry place to build a nest and raise babies.

  She had adopted two barn cats, Coco and Tamarindo, and that had helped a lot with pest control.

  "So you're gonna give me the cash to fix it?" Beto demanded, crossing his arms.

  He glared down at Carl, but the big werewolf ignored him, apparently completely absorbed in his book.

  "I'm sorry, but I don't have any money to spare right now," she told Beto. "I'm actually trying to figure out how to scrape up the money to replace those goats that went missing last month." She sighed. "They're pretty damned expensive."

  "But my car wouldn’t have gotten trashed if you and Mamá hadn't forced me to come and live way out here in the fucking boonies!" her brother protested. "And if our abuela hadn't decided that I wouldn't get my share of the inheritance until I'm twenty-five. It's not fair! I'm gonna be stuck out here for years!"

  The petulant note in that last sentence made him sound like a little boy rather than a legal adult.

  Michelle held on to her temper with both hands and suppressed her first, sarcastic impulse.

  This ranch was your dream, not his, she reminded herself. Be kind.

  "I'm sorry you feel that way," she said as gently as she could. "And I wish I could help you, but I can't conjure money out of thin air, manito."

  She lifted her laptop. "Here, see? This is all I have right now, and we still need to buy—"

  Her big, fluffy robe gaped open as she leaned forward to hand him the computer. intending to show him the current state of the ranch's bank account.

  Instead, he gaped at her exposed throat…and the fading marks that were still all too visible.

  "What the hell have you been doing with this guy, Mica?" he demanded, in a voice filled with horror.

  Michelle cursed silently. She'd been so careful to hide her hickies when she knew she'd be seeing Beto.

  "That's none of your business," she said as calmly as she could, pulling her robe back together.

  "It is my business if some guy is fooling around with my sister!" he retorted, his face flushing with anger. "I'm the man of the house!"

  "You're the what?" Michelle gaped at him, unable to believe her ears. "You're delusional. And still a boy."

  "I'm a grown man, Mica!" he shouted.

  He clenched his fist and took a step forward, his face twisted in anger.

  Carl moved with blinding speed. In the blink of an eye, he was off the sofa and standing between Michelle and Beto.

  Her brother recoiled, clearly startled.

  Carl deliberately moved forward, into Beto's personal space, and loomed over him. His body language wasn't particularly aggressive, but somehow, he radiated cold menace.

  "What kind of man depends on his older sister to support him but doesn't respect her?" he asked, his voice very soft.

  Beto was either brave or stupid. Or maybe both, thought Michelle.

  Her brother sneered up at the tall wolf shifter and retorted, "What kind of man shows up out of nowhere and treats my sister like a whore?"

  "What did you just call me?" snarled Michelle, launching herself to her feet.

  She came up to Carl's side. A sideways glance showed her that his blue eyes were flecked with wolf gold.

  Her heart began pounding as she realized that her brother might be in real danger.

  "I would never treat your sister with disrespect," Carl said, his voice cold as an arctic wind. "Michelle is very special woman, and this—" He slid his arm around her shoulders "—isn't just a casual fling. Not to me."

  It isn't? Michelle felt like she'd just been punched in the chest. She was stunned and breathless…but in a good way. I'm not the only one who feels like this?

  "Me neither," she managed. Carl's arm tightened around her in response.

  Beto's mouth open and closed soundlessly, making him resemble a fish out of water.

  Then he spun on his heel and all but ran out of the house.

  Michelle turned to Carl. Her heart was pounding so hard, she could barely hear herself. Conflicting emotions—hope and joy and terror—ricocheted around the inside of her head, knocking her thoughts every which way. "I–I think we need to talk."

  He looked down at her, and she noticed that the gold had vanished from his eyes. "Yeah."

  ◆◆◆

  As Carl led Michelle back to the sofa, the two of them clung to each other, trying to erase the physical distance that separated them.

  That wasn't just my wolf saying that just now. That was both of us.

  A soundless peal of deep emotion vibrated through his body and sank into the very marrow of his bones.

  Shit.

  He knew his life was about to go down in flames. Because now there was no fucking way that could bring himself to leave Michelle, go home to Alaska, and agree to an arranged mating with a stranger.

  But instead of fear and denial, his overriding emotion was wild joy, tumbling and frothing like an avalanche over the deep serenity that came with making the right decision.

  His wolf had been right all along. Michelle was the one. His true mate.

  And for that, he was willing to brave the wrath of his pack and face the rest of his life as a lone wolf.

  The realization had been sneaking up on him since he'd woken in Michelle's bed, injured and in pain.

  Since then, they had fallen into a comfortable routine of working and living together in harmony, with sweet lovemaking that just got better and better every time. The pressure to claim her fully grew more intense every time he covered himself in the sweet, musky perfume of her arousal.

  And he loved waking up next to her in the morning, when she was curled against him, snuggling into his warmth.

  He pulled her down on his lap now, the wound on his thigh little more than a deep ache after three days of good sleep and food.

&nbs
p; "Hey," he said huskily. "So I've been thinking…since fire season seems to be over for the year, how would you feel about having me stay here for a while longer? Once the road reopens, I could go get my prototypes and gear from the smokejumper base and spend the winter working here."