“They had a deal.” He shrugged and waved that off as though it meant nothing.
It wasn’t nothing. Landry felt her mouth pop open. “A deal? What are you talking about?”
“We’re shifters.” He belted the words out as though he were tired of her derailing him and he needed to get them out as soon as possible. “We spend most of our time in a human body, but we turn into wolves whenever we choose to. We are born that way. It’s not a werewolf thing like you see in Hollywood. No full moon issues. No allergy to silver. We aren’t immortal, but we are a bit healthier and maybe stronger and faster than the average human.”
Her brain was stuck. Zane was still talking. At least Landry could see his mouth moving. Her mind was registering stuff about fast healing and the lack of disease. It was almost as though she could not think past the memory of Zane on the football field. He had been invincible. There had been no defender capable of stopping him as a quarterback. He had rarely been sacked. His passes had always been perfect. He was never winded or tired. He never got hurt and never got sick. Even when the whole team was inflicted with a bad case of athletes’ foot and jock itch Zane had laughed it off and said he was immune.
Who could have known what he actually was? The thought was absolutely incredible to contemplate. She finally shook her head and put up both hands. “Stop!”
Zane went silent for a brief moment. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“Are you telling me that you change into a wolf and then you chase down these hoodlums—do people still use that word?” She was momentarily distracted by that thought, but her mind immediately circled back to the mental image of a giant wolf snapping its teeth at teenagers. “You sniff out these groups of teenagers and you what? Terrorize them?”
“Tonight I found a pair of young people at Washington Middle School throwing bottles at the windows trying to see if the bottles would break the windows or if the windows would break the bottles. They were talking about how a friend of theirs was supposed to have left the building unlocked so they could go inside and make trouble.”
He paused and Landry felt the horror of his words slowly sinking into her consciousness. “My school?” she whispered. “They were intending to go inside my school? But why?”
“What do kids do when they get a chance to be inside a school without any teachers present to tell them what to do?” Zane asked sharply. “I know what my brothers and I would have done. But we were never really destructive. We probably would have made stacks of the chairs and desks from floor to ceiling like some elaborate and completely unnecessary practical joke.”
“Lots of kids start fires,” Landry whispered. It was vivid in her mind. The many times that they had caught sixth, seventh, and eighth graders trying to set fires in the library. Kids were fascinated with fire. Some grew out of it. Others didn’t. “You stopped them?”
“Yes. And someone called the police, so I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that the young people are going to be sent in for the usual round of nothing happening.” He shook his head. “Don’t you see?”
“Stop.” Landry held up her hands. “It isn’t that. It isn’t the vandalism. This”—she gestured between the two of them—“isn’t about your decision to go play vigilante. It’s now all about the fact that you are claiming to me that you turn into a wolf! It’s ridiculous! What are you thinking? Do you honestly believe that I was born yesterday…?”
Her words trailed off because something was happening right in front of her and she could not even begin to believe what she was seeing. Landry stumbled back a step as Zane’s body seemed to fold over on itself. His back legs—no wait! His legs. His legs were changing. The joints seemed to be quickly rearranging themselves to look almost backwards. It took her a moment to put it all in place that they were becoming the back legs of a wolf. And then she saw that his hands were now tipped with razor sharp claws. They were on his feet too. His clothes seemed to melt away. It was almost as though his whole body and everything touching it, clothing, boots, whatever he was wearing was all melting together. It all became liquid and then just altered until there was an enormous wolf standing in the middle of her living room.
Everything seemed to stop. The house was so silent that she could hear the tick, tick, tick of the clock in the kitchen. The air was so still that it was almost eerie. The wolf was staring at her with Zane’s eyes. They were big and dark and warm, and for a moment the creature looked so human that she almost expected it to start talking. Didn’t animals like this talk in books and movies? So why wasn’t this one talking?
The beast was absolutely enormous. As in, there was no doubt that the animal’s back would easily be higher than her waist and its head would probably reach her shoulder. Bigfoot Wolf. Wasn’t that what she had heard someone saying? It fit. Although Landry did not know if Bigfoot was rumored to have fur that particular shade of gray.
The charcoal color was deceptive. In the soft glow of her living room lights she could see both darker and lighter highlights in the creature’s coat. Its ears were small and triangular and seemed to swivel as it obviously attempted to hear everything at once. Its mouth opened briefly and Landry got a quick view of the terrifying white teeth. Yes. This was a wolf and it was probably the biggest animal on record on the planet. If anyone ever kept track of that for—what had he called himself? Oh yes. A shifter.
And then just as quickly, the wolf began to change back into a human. It was as if the whole process were going directly in reverse. There was no time wasted. Every second was filled with the recession of fur, with the disappearance of paws and claws, and finally the wolf’s muzzle shrank back into the handsome and familiar profile of Zane’s nose.
“Now. Do you believe me?” he asked, a hint of snark in his tone.
The expression on his face was so...so irritating! Landry felt her temper rising quickly to the danger point. She was about to explode! She felt as though she could hardly begin to stop herself from launching right at him and bashing him over the head. She wanted to smack his handsome face over and over again until she got it through his thick skull that this was not the kind of surprise you just sprang on someone in their living room!
“What. Is. Wrong. With. You?” Landry whispered.
He frowned and tilted his head to one side. “What are you talking about?”
She didn’t wait. Not anymore. She flung herself at him like some psycho monkey in the zoo. She was shouting and crying and tears were running down her cheeks as she pushed Zane back onto the couch and started smacking him in the head with her hands.
The blows were completely ineffectual and he fended them off as though she were a child, but it was still a way to let out some of the anger she was feeling. And she was angry! So angry!
Chapter Thirty
There was no doubt in Zane’s mind that he had surprised Landry on a pretty grand scale. He hadn’t exactly intended to shock her like that. Except he had just changed from a man to a wolf and back to a man in her living room all in less than five minutes. That was kind of shocking. Right?
“Landry?” Zane finally grabbed her hands and crushed her against his chest. “Landry, baby, stop. You have to stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
He took her weight with him as he fell back onto the sofa cushions. They bounced a little and she made an angry noise he could not interpret. He held her close and breathed in her scent and hoped that he hadn’t ruined this relationship for good.
“I already hurt myself!” Her whimper told him that she was very upset. “Hitting you is like punching a wall.”
He scooted himself into the cushions a little more securely and then let go of her forearms so that he could take her actual hands in his. He lightly rubbed them and then lifted them to his lips. His poor Landry. She’d had a rough couple of years. He wanted so badly to make all of this better for her. He knew that he could. He knew that he could at least provide for her. He could make sure that she had food to eat and a consistent roof over her head. He w
ould get a job. He would do whatever it took to make sure she was happy with the life that they were building together. That was what mattered.
“You’ve always been like this?” Landry’s brain was spinning. He could see it behind her beautiful expressive blue eyes. She looked as though she were totally confused and not entirely sure what to do about any of it. “Even when we were kids?”
“The ability to shift usually starts about puberty, but my brothers and I were all a bit early. I believe I started shifting back and forth at about ten. When it happened for each of us, our dad would take us out to the ranch and we would stay there until we could get control of it.”
“Your dad,” Landry whispered. She was lying on his chest, sprawled out atop his body. Her face was so very close to his. “Your dad knew?”
“My dad was a shifter.”
“Oh.”
She lowered her face to his neck. He could feel each and every inhale and exhale of air from her nose against his throat. It was a tickling sensation that was doing other things to his body. He moved his hands to her back and lightly rubbed circles over the top of her wrap. He knew that she had nothing but a thin camisole on under that old threadbare satin wrap. Between that and her tattered pajama bottoms there really wasn’t much in the way of clothing between them.
She exhaled a deep shuddering sigh. “So you’re still the same as you have been all your life. Nothing has changed.”
“No. Nothing.” Zane realized how this must feel to all of their loved ones. At least to anyone who had known them for a good span of years. How had Edward managed this with Diana? She had known him for just as long as Landry had known Zane. “I’m the same man as I was yesterday and the same one I’ll be tomorrow and all of them are absolutely totally in love with you, Landry Fisher.”
“I’m afraid.” The words were a whisper on her lips. “I’m afraid that I’m not interesting enough for you. I’m boring. I’m normal. I’m nothing special. And you? You’re a freaking wolf!”
Zane cupped her cheeks. He hated the idea that she would ever think that she wasn’t enough for him. Drawing her face closer to his, Zane kissed her on the lips. The kiss was sweet and light. At least at first. It turned hot and hard and carnal so quickly that it was like lighting a wildfire and letting it burn out of control.
Landry made tiny noises in the back of her throat that drove him wild. Moving her mouth against his, she scraped her teeth over his lower lip and then pushed into his mouth with her tongue. Her hands settled on his shoulders as she dragged herself farther up his body so that she could kiss him more easily. Her nails dug into the thick muscle of his arms. And within seconds she was grabbing at the fabric of his T-shirt to try and pull it off over his head.
It was awkward to get his shirt off when she was half lying on his chest, but Zane wasn’t about to refuse her anything. As soon as his chest was bare she began exploring with her fingertips. They skated over his muscles and lingered around his small pert nipples. He sucked in a gasp of surprise as she used her nails to lightly pluck at the sensitive spots. Then she growled at him as she made love to him with her mouth over and over again.
Everything was throbbing. Blood rushed to his groin. He felt as though he were about to become light headed because he was so very excited. He reached for the wrap covering her upper body and pushed it back. She wriggled eagerly to help get it off. The thing was flung across the room and landed somewhere. It didn’t matter.
Zane reared up and put his lips against Landry’s neck. He kissed his way down to her chest. The camisole was stretched out and gaping above her breasts. The creamy tops were easily visible. He kissed each one. Laving his tongue along the top of the fabric barrier, he lingered between the twin mounds until he could stand it no longer. Reaching up, he lightly bared each round breast by pushing the worn fabric down below them. That allowed him to lightly stroke her nipples with his tongue. He licked and sucked each one until she was moaning and thrusting her hands into his hair to drag his head closer and closer to her chest.
“Please,” she begged. “More!”
He loved the way it felt to know that she wanted him. Just that was enough to make him feel like the luckiest guy in the world. Soon he could not stand the barrier of that camisole. Tugging it over her head, he was glad when she scrambled to help him get it off as quickly as possible. She pulled his hands toward her breasts as though she could not get enough of his touch. They were making out on the couch like a couple of teenagers, but somehow that didn’t matter one bit. In fact, there was something almost exciting about it.
“I need you,” she panted. “Zane, I’ve never felt like this before. Please?”
She was squirming out of her pajama pants and trying to strip off his athletic bottoms at the same time. Zane felt her fingers lightly scraping his belly as she struggled to find the elastic band at his waist. Figuring it was definitely in his best interest to help her out, Zane braced his feet on the couch and lifted his hips. He pushed his pants down his legs. They got tangled up with hers as the two of them struggled to get naked.
Finally Landry started laughing. “My God, we’re worse at this than kids!”
“Maybe that’s because we’re just as eager, hmm?” Zane did not waste one more second.
Once the pants were off he pulled her back onto his body and began kissing her in earnest. He swept his hands up and down her back and let them linger over the curve of her buttocks. He loved the way it felt. Each and every contour of her body was utterly feminine and completely perfect. He had never wanted another woman more. It had nothing to do with the physical. He loved her body, but this was Landry. She belonged to him in every way that counted.
Her hands moved up and down his torso. Then she broke off their kissing and sat straight up on his body. He could feel her crotch spread over his hips and the enticing nearness of the wonderful center of her was almost more than he could bear. His erection was trapped between them and it was a delicate sort of torture that he would have happily endured all day long and more.
She gazed down at him. Her red hair was tumbling over her shoulders. Long locks lay against the curve of each breast and made her look like some mythical goddess. The warmth and hazy desire in her blue eyes made him feel like a million bucks. But when she drew her fingernails down the center of his body from his sternum to his groin, Zane knew that he was going to die if she did not sheathe him inside her body soon.
“Landry, please?” Zane whispered.
She did not wait one second longer. Using her knees, she reared up just far enough to fit his body to hers like the perfect finishing piece of a puzzle. Then she lowered herself slowly onto his erection as though she were loving every single second of the experience. Her eyes closed. A blissful expression crossed her face, and he knew that he would never get enough of this woman.
Then she began to move and Zane forgot everything else. He settled his hands on her hips and felt each and every sinuous glide of her body against his. His eyes slid closed for a moment. He exhaled and inhaled and thought that he might very well lose his mind.
The subtle friction of Landry’s body rubbing against his in the most intimate of ways was arousing. But the sight of her was something else entirely. Zane had never seen a sexier sight. She flung her head back, her hair falling over her shoulders as she closed her eyes and gave herself over to the pure pleasure of their coupling. Her breasts bounced with each movement of her hips. The dusky pink tips of each pale mound grew taut as her core began to get hotter and wetter.
She was getting close. Zane hissed as her body tightened around his. His own body was climbing toward the peak so steadily that he knew he would never be able to deny it. Sweat beaded on his skin. He wrapped his hands around her hips and felt her belly muscles tighten too. She was so feminine. So delicate and small in his hands. Zane felt protective and unbelievably tender toward her.
He let his fingers slide lower toward the place where their bodies were joined. He touched her there, letting h
is fingers lightly brush the swollen jewel of her passion between the folds of her sex. She gasped and cried out his name as she came hard and fast and so very suddenly that she had to place her hands flat on his chest in order to keep herself upright.
Zane gave a shout as his climax took him to the top. His eyes closed. He held tightly to her hips and thought that he might have died and gone to heaven as every part of him strained into her body with the need to be closer than close. And there he stayed until he felt the wave of passion receding just enough for his brain to begin to creak into action once again.
Landry fell forward onto his chest. He wrapped his arms around her body and held her close. It was pure bliss. All of this, but especially the moments of tenderness they shared as the night seemed to wear on in the background. Neither of them cared. It didn’t matter. Nothing did.
“I love you,” Landry whispered. “Even if you’re a wolf some of the time. I suppose I can get used to that. I’ve always thought about getting a dog.”
Zane snorted. “That’s just what ever guy wants to hear. His woman alluding to the fact that she might feel the need to make him sleep at the end of the bed every once in awhile.”
“Oh, I was thinking about having you fetch a ball for me out in the yard actually.” She giggled and rubbed her cheek against his chest.
“I love you, Landry,” Zane whispered as he pressed his face to her hair and inhaled deeply of her familiar scent. “I never want anyone else. You are mine. I am yours. And maybe I’ve never wanted anyone else.”
“I don’t know about that.” She sighed. “But none of the past matters now. Right?”
A low-pitched, vibrating noise drew Zane’s attention away from the moment. It irritated him, but in a moment it went away. Then it came back again. He grumbled a bit. “What time is it?”
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 70
