by Anne Marsh
She meant everything to his famille.
So he’d bring her home.
Focus. Dag brushed past him, moving fast. He ran in his wolf form as always, a creature of primal beauty and raw power. But not human. They all needed mates, but Dag most of all. There was almost nothing left of the man inside that body, just the wolf running hot on the trail of Lark Andrews.
Rafer raced his brother neck and neck. The part of him that was still man was losing the battle to stay in control. His wolf side insisted he get there first. Be the first. The man didn’t like those possessive images and remembered the blue-moon bride always had a choice. She might have run, she might be playing this game with them, but she could end it all with one word. No.
Yet the erotic heat thrumming through his body demanded only one possible ending for tonight’s chase. He wanted to catch her. Pin her. Mount her and take her. He wanted.
Exploding out of the brush, he spotted his prey.
~~~~
The presence of a wolf pack on the Louisiana headlands was impossible. There hadn’t been wild wolves in Louisiana in decades but, undeniably, the bloodcurdling wolf howl filled the air behind her. That sound warned her all too clearly that the wolf pack had her scent and were beating feet to catch up with her. They would, too. If she cut off the narrow path, she faced an uphill run on a slope covered with a thick carpet of lupine. She’d be slower, and she couldn’t afford slower right now. Not if she wanted to draw this game out.
That left down, where the bayou ended, spilling towards the beach and the ocean.
A wolf growled, closer, and adrenaline shot through her. Running through the night was a dark thrill. A leap of faith. She ran, and fuck the consequences. She’d never felt so alive. Probably this run was stupid and she’d regret it tomorrow, but right now she had this moment.
The trail took a sudden nosedive, and she glanced behind her. No wolves yet, but they were definitely driving her somewhere. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears, while her breath tore from her in hoarse, ragged gasps. Stopping wasn’t an option. The path dropped abruptly and she slid, rocks and scrub tearing at her hands as she cartwheeled in a futile bid to stop herself.
She was briefly airborne and then her feet and butt hit sand. Hard.
Her eyes had adjusted to the dark at some point, enough to make out the pocket beach where she’d landed. The howl behind her warned her she hadn’t shaken her pursuers, either. Game on.
Pushing to her feet, she turned, trying to find an out. No luck. She might not be done running, but there was nothing here but sand and dunes and the steep rocky side of the headlands shutting in the strip of beach. Her lungs burned, and the stitch in her side had her doubling over as the cramp tore through her. No way to be quiet, so she gratefully sucked in deep, gulping breaths of air while she could.
A heavily muscled body shot in front of her, cutting her off and jolting her back to awareness of her surroundings. She screamed as fur brushed her, and went hard left.
Dead end.
God, let Mama Jolie be right. These had to be the Breaux brothers, or she was in trouble. Her fingers grasped the gris-gris, and heat surged through her body. She’d brought along her taser, because insurance was a good thing, but against this many wolves the taser would be almost useless. Still, she’d come out here to take a chance because she was done with sitting around, unable to stop the bad shit from coming. Helpless to change her life.
The Breaux brothers—if these wolves were them—would be one hell of a change.
“You boys had better not be toying with me,” she said and took a step forward.
~~~~
Lark Andrews knew.
Satisfaction roared through Rafer. Never mind that she promptly raised the taser she held like the device was a wineglass and she was toasting her guests. She knew or she’d guessed, or she’d connected the dots between his veiled hints yesterday at the farm. And she’d come out to play with them.
“You all come meet my insurance policy,” she invited.
He had every intention of doing something.
His wolf moved forward swiftly.
Hair fell over Lark’s face as she scrambled back instinctively to avoid him. Brown eyes flashed, and she tucked her chin, tightening her grip on the taser she hung on to like a damned lifeline. His wolf adored the fierceness of her face, even as her small, delicate hands aroused his protective instincts. She might be running, but she was stubborn. Defiant. Whatever she’d fled from on her farm, she’d decided to run towards the Breaux brothers. Towards him.
Rafer wanted to lick her from head to toe, taste her pretty skin. Learn where she was warm. Where she burned, because when he inhaled, his senses were flooded with another, more intimate scent. Feminine, sun-kissed heat. He threw his wolf at her, pushing her backwards, crowding her smaller body with his own.
She went, because he was bigger. Stronger and meaner.
She went, but she cursed like a trucker, and her taser was perilously close to singeing his fur. Hell. He didn’t mind playing the game by her rules, but she needed to tell him what those rules were. He was dominant here, and if she wanted to go head to head with him, he’d push right back. Her behavior was almost that of a wolf challenge. Maybe she was hunting his Pack on her own terms and maybe he’d enjoy coaxing her to submit to him.
Clearly, he had his work cut out for him because the Pack’s newest mate was no submissive. Shoving at his wolf, damned if she didn’t try to get past him and launch herself at the other wolves. As he placed himself between his Alpha and the human woman, Rafer couldn’t help but notice that curvy body. She was petite, her head no more than shoulder high on him when he was in his human form, and rounded in ways that made a man think about touching and then touching a bit more. Soft and sweet.
Unless, of course, she got herself killed challenging their Alpha. She should have backed up and dropped her gaze. Instead, she’d palmed a taser and thrown herself into the fight. Luc was the only wolf not in the running for the title of mate. He’d already found his—even if he’d lost her. She’d run, and run fast, and Luc hadn’t bothered going after her.
Yet.
So Luc wasn’t shopping for a mate, and Lark Andrews needed to back the hell off before she accidentally triggered the wolf’s aggressive instincts. Deliberately, Rafer bumped her, and she staggered back a step. Another curse word left her pretty pink lips, and he suddenly wanted to show her exactly what that word meant. God. He was a dirty bastard. But he could smell her excitement, and he knew Lark wasn’t afraid.
She was playing the game with them.
Still, she didn’t drop the taser, and there were some rules here. He didn’t want to spend the night with all that voltage amping through him. Nor was he letting her attack his Alpha. When she surged forward, time was up. He wished he could introduce her more gentle-like to his world, but she needed to understand a few basic facts soon. So he shifted, crowding her back with his larger body because if he slammed into her with the full weight of his wolf form, he’d hurt her.
“You need to stop,” he growled, working through the Change, his voice hoarse after hours spent as the wolf. “You don’ want to take on Luc there.” He fought for control, to overcome that fluid sensation of being suspended in-between. Stretching. Reforming. Tonight, finally, it felt so very right to sink back into his human body.
Because she was here, touching him. Those stolen moments in her greenhouse had only whetted his appetite. She’d given him a taste, and he wanted more. Lots more.
“Oh, my God.” She froze. He watched her visibly connect the dots and come to the conclusion that he’d been the wolf. She’d seen the shadows expand and contract and spit his ass out as a man. A six-foot plus, naked man. Maybe she wasn’t a screamer, but her whole face advertised shock. “You really are shifters.”
“Sure, chère,” he drawled, tension thickening his Cajun accent. “And I thought your nannan warned you about the Breaux brothers.”
“You look in the m
irror lately? I thought she meant you were sex on a stick. Bayou shifters are a whole different league of trouble.”
Her back hit the unforgiving hardness of the cliff, and there was nowhere to run. Her breasts rose and fell nervously, and when her gaze suddenly moved from his face to the space over his shoulder, he knew the Pack was shifting. Her pretty brown eyes widened.
“Good man,” Dag called from behind him.
She stared straight back at Rafer, though, and his wolf liked that intent look. Wondered what else would put it on her face. “Now what?” she asked.
“I warned you,” he said, taking a step forward. “I told you what would happen if you ran from us tonight.”
When she turned, eyeing the cliff’s too-far top and the pale sprinkling of faraway stars dotting the black sky, he made his move. Two seconds had him at her back, one hard arm wrapped around her chest, up against her throat. If he’d wanted, he could snap her neck in a handful of seconds. He didn’t want to hurt her, though. He’d never hurt her. She was his, his female. Possession was a drumbeat in his veins. Keep her safe.
What he wanted was to bury his face in the soft skin beneath her jaw and drink in the scent of her. Wanted to lick her slowly, from top to bottom, because holding her like this felt so very right, and yet he knew things were all wrong. Her heart pounded against his arm, like a bird trying its damnedest to escape an unexpected cage. He understood the need to fight free too well.
“We need to lose the taser,” he whispered against her ear. She’d had them pierced with thin gold hoops that circled the tender lobes. Pretty.
Her answer was to kick him in the shins and buck hard. That was okay with him. He liked the feel of her ass driving against his cock and she must not have figured that out, because she didn’t stop the rodeo action, just fought harder.
The taser still had to go, and she needed to understand who was Alpha here, so he slid his free hand down her arm. The T-shirt she wore left most of her arm bare, and her skin was the smoothest thing he’d ever touched.
He could have touched her for hours, but instead he got his thumb on her wrist, his fingers on the back of her hand. He carefully pried the taser from her grasp, one finger at a time.
He didn’t let her go.
“Caught you,” he growled in her ear.
“Let you,” she growled right back.
When Luc stalked towards them, for one crazy moment Rafer wanted to peel the lips back from his teeth in primal warning. He didn’t want Luc anywhere near his woman. Which was pure crazy, because Lark wasn’t his. She hadn’t chosen anyone.
Yet.
So he turned her around to face his unmated Pack members and asked her the question they all wanted to know the answer to. “Who do you choose? Pick one.”
“Hell, pick us all,” Dag drawled.
Chapter Five
Pick one.
Lark leaned back, savoring the masculine heat pressed up against her. She hadn’t had a lover in years, so maybe this feverish need was her subconscious’s desperate S.O.S. Because, God, the Breaux brothers were hot. The reality was so much better than the rumors she’d heard. These men focused on her looked hungry.
And Rafer Breaux had his hands on her. Finally.
“You got fantasies, chère.” Rafer’s words were no question.
She let her head hit his shoulder, looking up at him. “Guess you weren’t kidding.”
“I warned you. We need you,” he said, his voice low and harsh as he bent his head to her ear again. Like a lover whispering compliments, except she couldn’t imagine him doing the pretty. He was too straightforward. Too blunt. She liked that. Rafer Breaux wouldn’t lie to her.
His thumb stroked over the pulse in her wrist, and she wrapped her free hand around his. When she tugged, he didn’t let go.
Around them, the other men moved closer. Watching. “This feels good.” Rafer sounded confident. Certain. Suddenly, putting herself in his hands seemed like an excellent idea. “You wan’ to try us all?” He made the suggestion like he was holding her plate at a buffet, waiting for her to point and choose. “You can. No worries.”
She shook her head. There were some places she wasn’t going tonight, no matter how strange the bayou bred them. “I don’t know your brothers,” she protested.
Amusement colored his words. “You want introductions? You and I, we know each other.” He made that brief acquaintance of theirs sound intimate. He gestured one of the other men forward. “This here is Dag. The twins, Dre and Landry. And over there are Luc and Jackson. These are my famille.”
Dag wasn’t as tough and mean-looking as the man currently pinning her wrists to her side—and she hadn’t overlooked how he held her in place and showed no signs of letting go—but he was still plenty rough around the edges. His short, dark hair was cropped close to his head, drawing her attention to his bronzed skin and the hard lines of his face. He was no playful, laughing lover—and yet the hungry look in his eyes tugged at her.
“Don’ you want to play with us?” Dag pulled her hand away from Rafer, pressing his mouth against her palm. His tongue tasted her, and she felt an answering spasm deep in her womb. His eyes flared as if he knew about that secret arousal. “Lark Andrews.” He crooned her name like it was a secret code he’d just unraveled. Part of her knew she should have been concerned. She hadn’t given him her name, and yet he knew her.
“I don’t do this kind of thing.”
“But you could.” Rafer eyed her steadily. “If you wanted to. There’s nothin’ wrong with a little touchin’. A little pleasure. And we could give you a lot of pleasure, chère. Bring those fantasies of yours to life.”
She stared down at the male forearm holding her so close, impossibly tempted.
Dag smiled slowly. “We’ll make it good. We’ll be just the littlest bit naughty.”
There was no misunderstanding the sensual hunger on his face, filling his eyes—or the answering chord that hunger plucked deep inside her. She’d been so very, very lonely. Yes, she decided, relaxing her body against the man who held her. Rafer. He smelled delicious, so for one long moment she stretched against him.
He was hard and erect, but when she moved, he froze. As if he was afraid he’d frighten her, when all she wanted to do was reach around and wrap her fingers around him. Explore every delicious inch of him.
Rafer was a fantasy man, and damned if she didn’t deserve a taste of something sweet. It was night, she was lonely and out here in the dark of the Louisiana headlands, the bayou’s black magic surged and pulled at her. There had to be a reason—other than the blue moon—why she wanted a wolf pack and one hell of a sexual game, but right now all she wanted was sex with Rafer Breaux. Her desire was a secret, pounding heartbeat between her legs.
“Yes,” she said. The erection tucked against her ass surged, grew longer. She wriggled, testing to see what he would do. What he would let her do.
Anything, apparently, because the hands on her hips tilted her, positioned her for the hard, sure stroke parting her ass through the worn denim of her jeans.
“Bien,” Luc rasped. “We take her home with us.”
She didn’t protest as Rafer swung her up into his arms and carried her to the waiting boat. He was taking her somewhere she wanted to go. The Breaux brothers ran their boat up the bayou, gunning the motor over the night-black waterways in an exhilarating ride. Rafer cradled her on his lap, wrapped her tight in his arms, but that was all. He didn’t touch her further. Damn him, he made her wait, and that deliciously unfamiliar erotic tension built again, part anticipation and part fantasy.
An alligator hit the water with a gunshot-sharp splash off the starboard side, and she squirmed on his lap.
His cock pressed back at her behind the sun-faded cargo pants.
She wanted.
Wanted the man holding her to lower her to his bed, take her hard and fast. Or slow. She’d never been so aware of her own arousal. Of the heated fantasies in her head. Rafer was solid and large, the
feel of him feeding the need building inside her.
Lark leaned back against Rafer’s hard chest, fighting the urge to close her eyes. Because that would be stupid. She’d stepped into the boat with him and the other Breaux brothers, and that probably used up her quotient of stupid for the night anyhow. Besides, when she closed her eyes, all she saw was their faces. Luc and Dag. Dre and Landry. Jackson. And Rafer. The heated glitter of desire as they moved in. Men who changed into wolves like she changed shirts. Was she really doing this?
These men were the bayou’s bad boys. Wickedly sensual and decidedly rough around the edges, they lived by their own rules. And she’d agreed to put herself in their hands?
Rafer’s arms tightened around her.
“You think too much, chère.”
“Thinking’s not a bad thing,” she objected.
That watchful look was back on his face. Rafer Breaux wanted something from her, something more than sex. He rubbed his cheek against her hair, and she didn’t know what to make of the simple gesture. Enjoyment? Affection? She did overthink things. She knew that.
“You got to let go,” he countered roughly.
She wasn’t touching that, either.
Instead, she asked the question that had her nerves dancing a tango with her stomach. “Just how deep in the bayou do you live?” The boat ride was taking too long, and she couldn’t begin to imagine how she would leave on her own. Maybe if Rafer kissed her, touched her, she’d forget her nerves. The heated, smoky look in her wolf’s eyes said he’d give her those touches and more right now, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask for that when his brothers were right there. Some things took working up to.
Luc glanced over his shoulder. He and Dag were riding point, crouched in the prow of the boat as they scanned the darkened stands of cypresses lining the waterway. She was certain both men were armed—and definitely dangerous.
“Deeper we go, the safer it gets,” Luc rumbled, before turning his gaze back to the passing landscape.
She didn’t want to know what men like these worried about.
