Haunted Wolves: Green Pines, Book 2

by Moira Rogers

  “I’m sorry,” Kaley rasped. “I’m sorry—”

  Zack flinched. “Sorry for what?”

  She mumbled a response, but the thunder of footsteps running up the stairs drowned it out. And then Lorelei and Mae burst through the door.

  “Kaley!” Zack didn’t move fast enough, and Mae went over him, jamming an elbow into his shoulder without seeming to notice. She curled around Kaley, whispering, and Zack backed away from the bed until he bumped into Colin.

  Colin steadied the other wolf with a hand on his shoulder. “What did she say?”

  “She said, ‘I didn’t know.’” Zack shuddered. “Jay?”

  “I’ve got them,” he said. “It’s okay.”

  Zack stumbled from the room, and Colin watched him go. “Should I head after him?”

  “No.” Jay leaned against the wall, scrubbed his hands over his face and followed through by dragging his fingers through his short hair. “Leave him alone.”

  “He’ll be all right,” Lorelei said quietly, her tear-streaked face bearing a relieved smile. She smoothed a tangled lock from Kaley’s forehead, and her smile widened. “Everything’s all right now.”

  Her smile was so brilliant, Colin believed her.

  Chapter Nine

  Kaley was pale and withdrawn. Quiet. Her normally healthy appetite had dwindled to nothing, and she stayed in her room, sat by the window and stared out at the front yard. She spoke when spoken to, but otherwise she barely made a sound.

  After three days, Lorelei was officially freaking out.

  “She almost died,” Stella had said, by way of explanation. “My guess? That takes a while to get over.”

  But Lorelei had seen Kaley hurt. She’d seen her rage until exhausted and then slip into the depths of depression. Highs and lows, but she’d never seen anything like this.

  It became another thing for Lorelei to manage, items on a mental checklist she was too scared to write down. First on the list was Zack. Nothing mattered to Kaley the way he did, but Lorelei hesitated to beg his help. Only one thing terrified her more than Kaley’s dead, flat stare—not seeing it melt into warmth at the sight of Zack.

  So she started with a small thing, a meal. She drove to China Star and ordered so much food they had to give her a cutaway liquor box instead of a bag. She nestled the box in the passenger seat of Jay’s truck, pushed down her fear and sang along with the country station on the radio.

  The dining room downstairs was too much, but Mae set up a folding table from the craft room, and they ate by the window as Kaley gazed out at the trees.

  “I missed this.” Mae ate her Mongolian beef straight from the takeout container, wielding her cheap wooden chopsticks with ease. “Having a Chinese restaurant a block away was the best thing about our apartment in Memphis.”

  “Chinese food and bad action movies,” Lorelei agreed. She swallowed a sigh and waved her carton in front of Kaley. “Do you want to try my orange chicken?”

  “No, thanks.” She poked at the remains of an egg roll she’d pulled apart.

  Mae glanced at Lorelei, worry clouding her blue eyes. “She got crab rangoon too. And fried rice. If you let me eat all of it, I won’t fit in my pants.”

  “Share it with the guys,” Kaley suggested dully.

  The guys weren’t around—at least, not Shane and Colin. They’d split early that morning, roaring off on their bikes. “They’re gone,” Lorelei murmured. “Official pack business, I guess.”

  “Too bad,” Mae said thoughtfully. “You know what I noticed yesterday? Shane has nice hands.”

  That got Kaley’s attention. She arched an eyebrow and reached for her beer. “Isn’t he off limits?”

  Mae shrugged and stole a piece of shrimp from an open carton. “No one told me not to look. And it’s nice, you know. To like looking again.”

  If confessions would pique Kaley’s interest where nothing else would, Lorelei had more than a few. “I kissed Colin.”

  “Really?” Mae’s eyes widened. “When?”

  “In Memphis.”

  Kaley ate a bit of her egg roll, her eyes just as wide as she chewed and swallowed. “You did not.”

  “Did too. So if anyone’s going to be getting in trouble, it’ll be me.”

  Mae’s gaze flickered over Kaley’s slowly disappearing eggroll, and Lorelei could almost feel the effort she put into sweeping aside the past year to create a beautifully mundane moment of gossip over Chinese food. “Well? Don’t be stingy with the details. Is he any good?”

  Lorelei’s cheeks heated. “I’d rather hear what you think about the parts of Shane that aren’t his hands.”

  “A weak diversion unworthy of you,” Mae retorted, brandishing the chopsticks. “What do you say, Kaley? I think that means Colin doesn’t know what to do with his tongue. Tragic.”

  “I think…if it had been bad, she’d be more than willing to say so.” A tiny smile curved the corner of Kaley’s mouth. “Which means it must have been really, really good.”

  “Traitor,” Lorelei muttered.

  “Whatever.” Kaley peered into the carton of shrimp and selected one. “I’m the one stuck with no prospects.”

  “You can have Shane and his nice hands,” Mae said, her tone light. “As long as I get to keep looking. But I thought you were noticing Fletcher, the man with the pretty everything.”

  “He’s a sheep in wolf’s clothing. A gentleman masquerading as a scoundrel.” Kaley shrugged. “But being alone isn’t so bad. It might be kind of nice.”

  No more chasing Zack. The sentiment hung in the air, even if she wouldn’t say it outright, and Lorelei’s heart ached. In a perfect world, Kaley could hold on a little longer, wait him out.

  But their world was far from perfect. Zack had run out as soon as Kaley had regained consciousness, and he hadn’t come back. Maybe he never would. That was the reality they had to live with.

  “There are worse things than being alone,” Lorelei agreed.

  “We don’t need men.” Mae offered her cardboard container to Kaley again while reaching for a steamed dumpling. “We’re werewolves, so we can do all our own heavy lifting. And you can stream porn anywhere.”

  “Heavy lifting?” Kaley arched both eyebrows. “Do I want to know what that means in this context?”

  Lorelei sipped her beer. “You could wait a couple months and ask Shane?”

  Mae heaved a melodramatic sigh. “You know what I mean. Furniture and boxes. And pickle jars.”

  A rusty laughed bubbled out of Kaley. “This conversation keeps getting kinkier. Save me, Lorelei. Tell me about Colin’s magic lips.”

  Her blush returned with a vengeance, and Lorelei occupied herself with another long, thoughtful bite before finally relenting.

  The barn had been partially converted to a workshop already, but the thing it lacked most was usable storage space. There were racks and boards on the walls, places to hang tools, but no shelves or cabinets. They’d been working on fixing that, slowly but surely.

  Colin was working on it now, and Lorelei hovered in the wide, open doorway and watched him pull a nail from between his compressed lips and hammer it into the side of a solid wooden rack.

  He’d discarded his flannel shirt in spite of the cool autumn breeze, and the muscles in his arms and shoulders flexed as he moved. She’d never been a fan of less is more when it came to her view of the male physique, but he did something to a tight black T-shirt that she couldn’t help but appreciate. “Hi.”

  He pulled the last nail from his mouth and turned to smile at her. “Hey. Kaley and Mae aren’t behind you, are they? This is supposed to be a surprise.”

  “Nope. They’re making cookies.” She eyed the rack, laden with shelves that looked just the right size to cure soap. “You’ve been busy.”

  “Not just me.” He hammered home the final nail and gave the rack an experimental shake. “If I’d done this on my own, it wouldn’t be this sturdy. But I can follow directions.”

  “Mm-hmm.” L
orelei pulled the door shut behind her. With no lights on and the waning sunlight from outside mostly cut off, deep shadows stretched across the barn’s interior.

  Colin flipped the hammer onto the nearby table and wiped the sawdust from his hands. His gaze swept over her, lingering on her face as his smile softened. “You look pleased with yourself.”

  “I am.” She stepped close enough to touch, folded her fingers around his belt and tugged him across the remaining distance. “Want to be pleased with me too?”

  She might have imagined his low growl, but not the way he clenched his hands. “More pleased, you mean?”

  This close, she couldn’t keep up the teasing façade. He’d be able to hear the blood pounding through her heart, see it heating her skin. So she skimmed her hand around his waist, slipped it under his shirt at the small of his back.

  He shuddered, as if that small touch rocketed through him. His eyes drifted shut, and she heard his pulse hammering in time with her own. “Lorelei…”

  “I want you.” The truth, offered in a raw whisper. “But it doesn’t have to go too far. Just kiss me.”

  He exhaled shakily and pressed his lips to her temple. “Give me a line. I haven’t been good at finding them myself lately, but if you give me one…I promise I’ll hold to it.”

  “Second base.” Silly words, perhaps, but instead of feeling like an awkward kid, nervous about some boy’s hand up her sweater, she felt powerful.

  His laughter wrapped around her, low and warm. “What’s that? Anything above the waist?”

  The emphasis he placed on the word anything was downright filthy. “That’s the line. Think you can do it?”

  “Do what?” His hand slid to her hip, edged under the hem of her shirt. She shivered as warm fingertips traced a circle at the small of her back. “Stay above the line?”

  “Yeah.” If she didn’t give him the boundaries he seemed to need so much, he’d stop touching her altogether.

  He laughed again, the sound so much dirtier with his lips pressed to her ear. “You’re not wondering what else I can do while staying above the line?”

  “Wondering? No, but I do hope the answer is long and creative.”

  Colin closed his hands around her waist and hoisted her onto the sturdy worktable with an effortless flex of muscle. It was higher than a usual table, high enough to bring her to eye level with him.

  Smiling, he smoothed her hair, then spent an endless moment studying her, his gaze tracing her face. Memorizing every feature. “You are so damn beautiful.”

  She’d had the words bestowed as a compliment, but she’d also had them hurled at her in accusation. For a moment, Lorelei froze as her mind scrambled to sort out the moment.

  “Lorelei?” He stroked his thumbs over her cheeks. “What did I say?”

  She shook herself. “Nothing. It’s silly.”

  “Nothing’s silly if it matters to you.” He kissed one cheek and then the other. “Especially since you’ll have to hear how beautiful you are all the damn time.”

  Her doubt seemed even sillier in the face of his words. “I was just wondering if you resent it. My coming to you like this.”

  Colin threaded his fingers into her hair and tilted her head back. “Because of what Jay told me?” His lips traced her jaw.

  “You’ve been worried about it.”

  “He drew the line he needed to when none of us knew each other. But lines can change.” He closed his teeth playfully on her chin. “I think you get to draw your own now.”

  Her nipples tightened, and she cupped one hand around his neck. “Then it’s your turn to kiss me.”

  His teeth came back, a little higher. A little rougher. “Oh, I will.”

  Power rose around them, turbulent and aroused. Lorelei leaned away, out of reach of his mouth. “I don’t believe you.”

  He growled and dragged her to him, his already open mouth coming down over hers. The need for more seized her immediately, tumbling end over end past the sheer pleasure of the kiss, and she wound her arms around his neck.

  For all his rush in claiming her mouth, his kiss was lazy patience wrapped around a hungry edge. There was no mistaking the desire in every tense line of his body, but he took his time tasting her lips, licking one and then the other, pulling them between his own for lingering caresses or quick nips.

  Lorelei bit him back, catching his tongue between her teeth, but only for a split second. “That’s first base, right?”

  “Barely.” Colin trailed kisses to her jaw again, and lower, as his hands settled on her hips. “Plenty more to explore without going below the shoulders.” He swiped his tongue over the spot where her pulse beat rapidly in her throat.

  A helpless, pleading noise escaped her. He could probably think of a hundred ways to make her beg, and she didn’t care. She’d think of a few of her own. “Like this?” She ducked her head and licked his jaw, right up to the spot beneath his ear.

  His fingers flexed at her waist, and a low noise escaped him. “Not so gentle. Let me feel your teeth.”

  “Or what?” She traced her tongue over his earlobe.

  The low noise shifted toward a growl. “Or I’ll use mine.”

  “That’s a shitty threat.” But she bit him anyway—hard, unforgiving. To the point of bruising.

  He shuddered under her touch, and then his hands were in her hair, his mouth on hers. Deep kisses this time, fast and a little rough, his tongue driving past her lips.

  Lorelei shifted on the table, eager to get closer, to cross the line she’d laid out herself. She dropped her hands to his hips, then slipped her fingertips just inside his jeans.

  Colin drew away, panting, as he caught her wrist in an iron grip. “I’m not changing my mind,” he murmured against her cheek. “You can touch me wherever the hell you want, but no matter what you do, I’m not crossing that line.”

  “I believe it.” She turned her face until her lips pressed to the corner of his mouth. “Don’t worry. You’re nowhere near it—yet.”

  Another heartbeat, and his grip eased. He stroked her wrist and trailed his fingers up her arm and over her shoulder before claiming her mouth again.

  Lorelei expected the kiss to spark a more fervent need, and it did, but somehow that need was now tempered by a different one altogether. To slow down, to find another line—his. The point at which control would melt into undeniable passion.

  After a thorough exploration of her mouth, he shifted his kisses to her jaw, dropping them one after another in a ragged arch marching along her throat. Each was its own sensual attack, a silken brush of his lips followed by sharp nips and teasing licks.

  She couldn’t stop herself from stretching up as she threaded her fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck and pulled him closer. Lower.

  He growled as his mouth found the neckline of her shirt. His hand tightened, tangling in the fabric for a tense moment, as if he’d tear it free of her body.

  She slid her arms free of her unbuttoned cardigan and tugged at the hem of her T-shirt. “I could take it off—”

  “Shh.” The command came out low and hoarse, and his hands trembled as he smoothed them up her body to cup her breasts. “Close your eyes.”

  Lorelei sank her teeth into her lower lip to hold back a moan as she complied.

  With his thumbs, he stroked a taunting path just shy of her nipples. “Now tilt your head back.”

  “Colin…”

  “Mmm?”

  Not being able to see him, to gauge his reactions, was nerve-wracking enough. But to have her throat bared… She swallowed hard and dropped her head back. “I’m trusting you right now.”

  “I know, honey.” Colin trailed one hand over her collarbone and up to the nape of her neck. His thumb traced a delicate line from the hollow of her throat to her chin, reinforcing the vulnerability of her position. “You don’t know how much that means to me. How it makes me feel.”

  She shivered. “Then tell me.”

  He showed h
er instead, a groan thundering out of him as he closed his teeth gently over her pulse.

  Not hard, not exactly, but firm. Resolute. He meant it, and she lifted her hands to cover his, pressing them closer to her breasts.

  Another groan, and she barely had time to gasp before he tugged at her T-shirt. He hauled it over her head and let it drop, and then he was touching her, hands warm and strong and a little rough as he bent her back over his arm and pressed his open mouth to one fabric-covered nipple.

  His name caught in her throat, along with the breath she had left. All she could do was wiggle closer and damn herself for bothering to put on a bra that morning.

  He sucked hard enough to arch her back before nipping the curve of her breast. “I can’t cross the line, but you can.”

  It took a moment for his meaning to sink in, and when it did, her cheeks flamed and her pulse kicked into high gear. “Me with my hands in my panties? That has to qualify as third base.”

  Colin kissed her flaming cheeks. “We never said you couldn’t get to third base with yourself.”

  “It’s cheating,” she admonished with a whisper, even as she dropped her hand to the button on her jeans.

  “Only if you don’t want to do it.” He closed his thumb and forefinger around her nipple, pinching just hard enough to elicit a gasp. “You draw all your own lines now, right?”

  “I do.” She yanked at the denim, pulling the button and zipper free all at once. “But I’m not a nice girl, Colin. Those lines aren’t always going to be safe or easy.”

  His touch stilled, and he met her gaze, eyes narrowed. “Don’t need easy, but safe’s not negotiable.”

  “You won’t always be able to keep your pants on,” she clarified, allowing her gaze to drift down his body.

  His tension dissolved with his low, relieved laugh, and he leaned in to nuzzle her ear. “Just my pants? Gonna have to be a lot kinkier than that before I believe you’re not a nice girl.”

  Embarrassment threatened, and she exhaled in relief when it failed to supplant her arousal. “Maybe that means you’re not a nice boy.”

  He mastered the clasp on her bra with one hand before sliding the fabric free. “I think this is the nicest part about me,” he murmured, sliding his fingertips over newly bared skin. Always slow, always soft, but she could feel the steely edge of control and the trembling need behind it, taste it in the power brushing over her. Dominant. Hungry.