by Jianne Carlo
Mike’s whole body flinched. “I’m part wolf, woman. Wolves don’t faint.”
“Mike?” She traced a figure-eight pattern on his shoulder.
Her hesitant, uncertain tone alleviated the sting of his bruised ego. “Yes?”
“How long does the locking last?”
“Locking?” Shocked, he rose on his elbows and glance down their joined bodies. “Locking. I never guessed. Holy damn. I don’t know. I wonder why it didn’t happen before.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m in heat?”
Her pussy squeezed his dick, and he jetted into her.
An hour later, Mike couldn’t move a muscle. Delirium had him in a constant state of orgasm. Coming for hours wrung a wolf dry. Emptied every ounce of energy. Reduced him to reflexive reaction.
They mated for three days straight. Melanie was insatiable. Curious about every sexual position invented in the history of the planet. Bookmarked the Kama Sutra on his laptop. Made amazing chocolate confections and experimented with what body part better suited a fudgy texture as opposed to a thinner, orange-flavored sauce.
Spent hours studying his cock and testicles. Counted the hairs around his dick. With her teeth. On the last day, she said it was her turn to tie him up, and Mike agreed, positive he’d plumb tuckered her out.
“I’ve had this fantasy about marshmallows and chocolate and your cock forever.”
He loved it when she pinked all over. With all they’d done these last few days, Mike figured his mate would’ve left her blushes behind long ago. But though she’d shed inhibitions in a free-for-all, color rioted over her beautiful skin at the sweetest times. Like now.
“Marshmallows?” Sticky and creamy and warm—worked for him. “Don’t chicken out now.”
“It’ll get sticky.” She gave him her signature up-from-under peek, her brown eyes twinkling wicked, sexy fun.
“You forget, I love you sticky.”
“I had a feeling you’d be game.” Scooting off the bed, she halted before her feet touched the floor, tossed her mane of luscious curls over one shoulder, and slid a side glance at him. “Where did you put that blindfold? And the rest of the toys?”
“Lust stupid I may be, but I made my fortune as a gambler, babe. You didn’t really think I’d just hand over the odds to you when I agreed to be hog-tied to the bed?” Mike winked. No way would she find all the toys. Too short.
Man, she looked like a sexpot wearing his blue and red lumberjack checkered shirt. Earlier he’d prepped the cabin, removing every single garment save for a few of his shirts. He’d ripped off all the buttons. To his surprise, she hadn’t uttered a word of protest and, after the first few hours of being a tad self-conscious, pattered around happy and half-naked, for he’d tossed her underwear out the window the second she fell asleep on their first go-round.
“Hmmm.” She tapped a finger against red, swollen, luscious lips. “Now where would you hide something from me?”
Lips that he longed to feel on his dick but hadn’t given into that indulgence, too avaricious and needy to have her pussy fisting his cock these last seventy-two hours. Though he’d figured the primordial desire to be inside her would lessen, it had intensified with each session of lovemaking.
“Got it.” She snapped her fingers and disappeared into the bathroom.
No way. She’d never find his stash. He heard a crash. Alarm pummeled through him. He tugged at his bonds.
“I’m fine,” she yelled. “Don’t you dare get out of those bonds. It’s my turn.”
Three minutes later, she entered carrying the poker case he’d stashed on top the bathroom cabinet. What the fuck? They’d actually used it when he’d taught her strip poker the first day. So how did she guess he’d emptied it and tossed the contents into the cabinet under the sink?
The smirk she wore had his balls slamming up hard and fast. Melanie did this little hop-skip to the bed, and her breasts bounced in the most mouthwatering manner.
“How’d you know?” He studied her face. “And when did you learn to blank your expression?”
She rubbed her nails on the shirt and then blew them. “I’m a fast learner. Ask anyone. First the blindfold.”
“I want to see. It’s half the fun.” He couldn’t repress the whiny grumble in his tone.
“I seem to recall saying that on a number of occasions. There.” She smoothed the black silk around his eyes and checked the tightness of the elastic. “That should work. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Mike twisted on the bed. Damn. He’d outsmarted himself and ordered the best sex-play blindfold on the market. The fabric blocked out all light and wouldn’t slide an inch. Time to concentrate on his other senses.
Her bare feet pattered on the floor. She hummed. A pot dinged. The fridge opened.
“Did I tell you that I used your credit card? I found this site on the Net that sold edible body paint. Very interesting flavors.”
Body paint? The words hammered his dick turgid. “Chocolate flavors?”
Mike didn’t recognize his own voice; passion hunger wrote the words into a feral growl. He pictured her little clit covered in a puff of almond-laced chocolate, and his tongue thickened.
The room began to smell scrumptious.
Music, classical music, swarmed around the cabin. Melanie turned up the radio’s volume, and the familiar rhythm from Boléro surged to such proportions that the clarinet, drums, and the violins drowned all other noises. Little witch. She’d changed the odds with that tactical move. Inordinate pride had him grinning like a fool.
“What the—” He arched off the mattress as high as the silken scarves tying his feet and arms to the bedposts allowed. Her small hands gripped his balls lightly, her palms slick and hot and…sticky. She firmed her hold, and he held his breath.
“Down, boy.” She tugged once, twice.
“Melanie?”
“I only give a command once, Michael David Dorland. And I always mean exactly what I say.” Another tug.
Groaning, he lowered his hips to the mattress. “Why do I have the feeling I’m going to be eating a ton of what I’ve said over the last few days?”
“Smart man.” She loosened her grasp, and he bit his lip to stop from begging for the return of her touch.
“You have the most magnificent cock in the world. No, the universe.” She sighed. “Maybe even the galaxy.”
Touch it; touch it. He gritted his teeth so hard the enamel squeaked. His canines throbbed.
“The body paint didn’t come in.” He sagged, disappointment threading needles across his aching dick and stones.
“So I looked up the ingredients.” Hopeful lust swelled his genitals to bursting through the flesh girding them.
The first drizzle of hot, creamy liquid made him howl. The concoction dribbled in a slow, snail-paced tease from the crown, sizzling every inch of flesh. He fisted his hands. He inhaled. Fuck a duck. The scent had super aphrodisiac power—her musk, chocolate, coconut, and his precum.
“Suck me. Suck me.” He tried to make the plea sound like a command.
“Pretty please, and I’ll put as many cherries as will fit right here.” She fingered his slit. “They’re maraschino cherries and they have nice long stems. Have I ever told you that there’s nothing I love more than sucking on maraschino cherries?”
“Gonna come, Mel. Please, please.” He dug his heels into the mattress. Chewed the insides of his cheeks and, when she didn’t respond, twisted his head to bite through the silk.
Her mouth covered the head of his cock loosely. “I said pretty please.”
A whisper of scorching air singed his dick.
“Pretty please. Damn it. Can’t—” He couldn’t focus, couldn’t control it as his balls rammed into his perineum.
She clamped down on him, lips tight, tongue stroking, and hot, moist mouth sucking like a wind tunnel of epic proportions. He howled and threw his head back on the pillow. She tongued his slit, and any semblance of control evaporated like spit
under a tropical heat-wave blast. The orgasm blew through him like a firestorm, blazing a flaming trail from his soles to his scalp. His dick spurted sperm in a machine-gun rapidfire. His hips jerked and twitched to the rhythm, and her mouth fastened around his shaft, vacuuming him in short, furious bursts.
Turned out that was just a preview of the next five hours.
He howled through her torturing and actually semi-passed out for a while. Woke up to find her searching for his beeping phone.
“Whisper had her foal.” He glanced down his totally relaxed body. She was lying on the bed, naked as a newborn fawn, his phone in her hands, knees bent, plump, delicious toes curling and flexing as she waved her feet in the air.
“A colt. Doc G.’s ecstatic.”
“Untie me.” He tugged at his bonds.
“I’m worried about your penis.” She flashed him the sweetest smile. Her two little dimples peeked in and out the way they did when her tongue worked his slit.
“Why? It’s hard all the time.”
“I called Mama. The locking shouldn’t still be lasting an hour. Not after three days.”
“You talked to your mother about my cock?” Jesus, he needed to fuck so bad he almost didn’t care.
“She thinks I haven’t caught.”
“You have. That first time on the gazebo. Untie me, woman.”
“I like it when you call me woman. And babe. I definitely like babe.”
Mike changed tactics. “Sit on my cock, babe.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” She tossed the phone to the side. Did that hair flip thing that arched her breasts in the most delectable way. And then tilted her head to one side and licked her lips.
He knew the minute she sank her sweet pussy over his dick it was all over. And it was. After three days of almost straight fucking, he should be able to hold back the orgasm, but the more they screwed, the less control he seemed to have.
The lock didn’t hold this time.
She protested when he made her undo his bonds. “I’m sleepy.”
Not more than three seconds after they settled into a cozy snuggle, all her muscles relaxed and she went into a deep sleep.
They were back to normal screwing.
Mike almost groaned in disappointment, but then it occurred to him—now he could get back to slow, exquisite, lingering sex. Now it’d be his turn to call the shots. He toed up the covers, tucked the sheets over her shoulders, and hugged her close.
* * * *
He stared at the ceiling. Never had he felt so content. So sure that life was going to be grand. His cub would be born in late summer. He was going to be a father.
Early this morning while Melanie slept, he’d relented from his vow not to let the outside world in and checked his e-mail.
Sheriff Pincer had unexpectedly resigned but named his deputy as an interim replacement and announced his intention of running for mayor. The media interest in Whisper seemed to be dying down. Mike edged his mate to the side and slid out of bed.
Grabbing his laptop, he then headed to the swing on the porch, leaving the door a tad ajar. The thick pines blocked the sun’s rays and shadowed the wide veranda.
Drake had e-mailed a picture of the colt. Long-legged, a chestnut with a dark, full mane and three perfect white-socked hooves. Melanie would ooh and aah for hours and probably be teary for the next few days. She’d told him nothing in the world beat the smell of a newborn, not even the scent of cock. He hadn’t minded. She was going to be a perfect mom.
The colt’s soulful dark eyes seemed to be studying him, and Mike realized the horse had the same slight upward tilt to his almond-shaped orbs that Melanie’s did. Their daughter would be lucky to have such great eyes. Daughter? Mike blanked the thought away. A cramp hit low and hard in his belly. Bile flooded his throat.
Melanie mumbled.
He glanced at her through the open doorway. That was the first signal she’d awaken ravenous. Mike grinned. Sex made her sleep like a log and wake up hungry for some specific, outrageous dish. Like the chocolate éclairs this morning. Made from scratch and, considering the age of the gas stove, amazing.
Time to go into action. He was fully dressed when she lifted one eyelid and peered at him. “Why’re you dressed?”
“Virgil called. He’s in a bind. His sister can’t fill in for you anymore, and Brinda’s morning sickness seems to have turned into an all-day event.”
“Oh no.” She shot right up. “I have to call her. And get dressed. We have to go back into town.”
Holding up both hands, he said, “I’m not arguing. I knew you’d want to go in. Do you have extra uniforms at the Caboose, or will we have to go back to your house?”
She scrambled out of bed. “Always keep an extra one in my locker. Where’re my clothes?”
“I started laundry while you were sleeping.”
“Laundry? You’re nuts. How long do we have to wait?”
“There is another option.” He loved the way she managed to look both puzzled and pissed at the same time. “I’ve been buying clothes for you. I hate that blasted shapeless uniform.”
Melanie narrowed her eyes. “Slut clothes?”
He slapped a hand over his heart. “That you should think that of me. You wound me to the hilt.”
Rolling her eyes, she growled. “Okay. Show me these clothes.”
Thirty minutes later, Melanie twirled around in the bathroom. She shook her head and met his gaze in the mirror’s reflection. “I don’t know what to say. Not only my size, but perfect. Way too dressy for a drive to work, of course. How’d you do this? And shoes?”
“Five months of jacking off, following you around, watching you window-shop on Sagwash Street, hearing you sigh when you saw this dress.” He wasn’t exactly lying, more of a stretch of the truth. Brinda had known exactly what to buy.
“Okay it kind of creeps me out and at the same time makes me want to cry.”
He kissed the top of her head. “It’s getting late. We’ll have to hurry if you want to make it to the Caboose in time for the dinner rush.”
Mike took the back way into town, avoiding the main streets, and used the garbage truck alley to wind his way into the Caboose’s back lot. His phone dinged as he opened the door on Melanie’s side. He pulled the cell out of his pocket. “Dorland here.”
“Everything going according to plan?” Drake asked.
“Yep. Sure. I’ll be there.” Mike ended the call. “That was Drake, he needs to talk to me pronto.”
“Go.” She hopped out of the truck. “Come tell me everything when you’re done.”
“I promise.” He brushed his lips over hers.
Mike grinned when she hurried to the employee door and never even glanced back. He took off the minute the door closed behind her.
Drake was waiting for him in the copse of birch trees. “Here you go.”
Accepting the black tux from Drake, Mike asked, “How’re we doing for time?”
“Hurry and get into that monkey suit. I’ve a ton of updates. INS contacted Pincer. Jim Balden departed from New York before the warning went out. Destination Paris. In Paris he chartered a jet to Yemen. It flew over Syrian airspace. The air traffic controllers got a Mayday from the pilot. It was hit by mortar fire and was going down. Nothing since that last communication.”
“A fitting end. Too bad about the pilots and crew. And Charles Smith?”
“His body was found yesterday, but Dodge is keeping it hush-hush until the DNA comes in. He was mauled by bears.”
“You’re trying to pull one over on me, aren’t you?” Mike bit his tongue to prevent the automatic pup from spilling out.
“According to Dodge, the scent was unmistakable and there were clumps of fur left behind. From the tracks, they figure at least five bears.”
“Melanie’s going to love that one. The irony of it all.”
“Yeah, the sad thing is they didn’t shred every inch of skin. They left his face untouched.”
An icy bree
ze swirled Mike’s shoulders as he shed his sweater. “Eerie. It’s good that we have Melanie on our side. Shit, if that doesn’t give you the creepy-crawlies, I don’t know what would.”
“Makes you kind of wonder if all those legends didn’t have some basis in truth.” Drake handed Mike a still-wrapped formal shirt. “A few other things. The cottages we rented at the resort were all trashed early this morning. Susie and Kitchi went to view the scene with Pincer. All the valuables were taken, electronics, jewelry, and that journal with the wolf legends.”
Mike halted in the middle of shrugging on his shirt. “Damn it. Who’d want to take that? Fuck, I never finished reading it. Anything else?”
“They’ve got four suspects in custody—looks like a couple of young tribal males out to make a quick buck. By the way, I figured out how I missed Pincer and Brinda’s hookups.”
Mike crossed his eyes. “And this is important how?”
“Because I never miss stuff like that. Brinda’s been working part-time converting the town’s manual records to the new computer system.”
“Definitely not the time and place for your dramatic flair, Drake. Spit it out.”
“The conversion center is located in the basement of the county coroner’s office. Pincer’s been pouring over those records of Millar, Boyd, and Melanie’s father and grandfather for a very long time.” Drake wiggled his eyebrows. “Wonder what came first, his interest in the mill fire or Brinda?”
He couldn’t chase back a chortle. “Nice to know the vaunted sheriff has a definite weakness. Where’re my shoes?”
“Here.” Drake handed him a box. “Socks in there too. Couple of other things. Freddy’s been going through the tribal files, both manual and computerized. Dr. Longshorn, the tribe’s doctor from eight years ago, definitely falsified Melanie’s grandfather and father’s causes of death.”
“I figured that one. He’d do it on Shuman’s order, of course. Is the good doctor still alive?”
“Passed on a while back. Also, there’s no record of us asking for sanctuary. I mentioned that to Gray. Apparently a few years back, he tried to ingratiate himself with some of the younger male members of the tribe, guys his age. Got drunk as a skunk. Long story short, they broke into a few houses on the reservation, stole food and booze, and crashed in some hidey-hole lodge used for duck hunting.”
