Big Bad Wolf

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Foster opened one eye. “I take it you found her?”

  “Yes,” Wolf said casually. “All’s well, for the time being, at least.”

  Foster covered his face with two large and slightly trembling hands. Wolf thought, briefly, of those hands on Molly, and he clenched his fists. Not now. Not yet.

  “You weren’t at Phil’s last night. I was a little concerned.” Foster sat up and kicked his legs over the side of the bed, with great effort, groaning with every move. There had been many times when Wolf had matched Foster drink for drink, and had awakened in just this condition. At the moment he couldn’t understand why.

  “We stayed in last night.”

  Foster smiled crookedly. “Well, Molly passed your test with flying colors, didn’t she? Wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I suppose she told you all about it?”

  “Yes.” Wolf grinned. “Thank you for your assistance, Foster old pal.”

  Foster stepped into his trousers, and turned a fading smile to Wolf. “What are you doing here so early in the morning?”

  “There’s never time to stop at the end of the day, so I thought I’d drop in on my way to the office. I haven’t had a chance to get in the ring with anyone since I returned to New York, and I’m feeling a little edgy.”

  “Whom do you expect to spar with you at this time of day? The hired boys don’t come in until the afternoon, and I doubt there’s anyone in the gymnasium at all this early in the morning.”

  “How about it?” Wolf asked casually, and Foster raised his eyebrows in horror.

  “Me? Now?”

  “You’ve always been able to hold your own,” Wolf said with an air of disinterest, remembering the few times he and Foster had actually sparred.

  “Only because you always go easy on me.” Foster pulled on a white shirt. “I’ve seen you light into those poor boys with a vengeance, on occasion.”

  “So, I’ll go easy on you,” Wolf said with a smile. “I always do, you know. We get into the ring, dance around a little, throw a few punches.”

  “You’ve missed it, have you?”

  It didn’t take Wolf much longer to convince Foster to accompany him downstairs to the gymnasium that had been added to the rear of the club, past the library and the billiard room.

  Foster had been right, the gym was deserted this time of day.

  “I’m not so sure about this.” Foster’s voice echoed hollowly through the vast and vacant room.

  “It won’t take long,” Wolf promised.

  They stripped to their trousers and socks, and climbed into the ring. Foster lifted his fists defensively as Wolf immediately took the first swing and tapped his opponent on the shoulder.

  “How long have you been seeing Adele?”

  Foster moved as if he had lead in his socks, but he landed a light punch to Wolf’s midsection. “Couple of weeks. You mind?”

  “Not at all.” Wolf’s right fist struck Foster in the side, and the still groggy man backed up.

  Was this really going to make him feel any better?

  “Did Molly tell you what happened?” Foster asked as he bravely approached again.

  Yes, this would definitely make him feel much better. “Everything.”

  “Well then, you should be pleased. I swear, Wolf, I used every line I could think of, and I don’t think she even knew I was flirting with her.”

  The punch Wolf landed on Foster’s stomach was harder than the previous hits. “Just to be sure she did indeed tell me everything, why don’t you explain what happened?”

  “I tried flirting with her, as you suggested,” Foster’s breath was already coming hard, and sweat dotted his face. “All she did was look for you. So I told her I’d seen you heading for the back rooms, and she took off.”

  “Alone?”

  “No, I followed her, of course.”

  “Of course.” Wolf swung for Foster’s face, but the blow was blocked by a quick forearm. “And then?”

  “I got a bit bolder,” Foster admitted. “I knew you wanted to be sure . . . . ”

  “Yes, I did.” He landed a glancing blow on Foster’s shoulder. His own breath was coming harder now, almost as labored as Foster’s, as his discipline slipped away.

  Foster recognized the anger in Wolf’s eyes. Wolf saw that realization come over the doomed man’s face: shock and surprise, and a bit of fear, just before Foster tried to back away and shield his face.

  “You asked me to do you a favor, remember?” Foster protected his face with raised and crossed arms. “It was your idea.” He continue to move back and away from Wolf. “You told me to flirt with her.”

  Wolf dropped his arms and took a step back. He hadn’t intended to chase Foster down and beat a man who wouldn’t even defend himself. “You’re right,” he admitted breathlessly, “I did.”

  With a relieved smile, Foster dropped his arms. “You had me worried there for a minute.” Sweat dripped down Foster’s face and torso, and his breathing was labored. “I did as you asked, that’s all.”

  Wolf returned his friend’s smile, drew back his fist without a second thought, and landed a blow against the side of Foster’s face. A blow that knocked the hungover and smiling man to the mat.

  Wolf stood over a groaning Foster. “I never said you could touch her.”

  “You’re not ready.”

  Molly lifted her eyes from the book she was reading, and into Wolf’s irritated face.

  “I’m not going,” she said softly.

  It wasn’t a difficult decision to make. She’d never been comfortable in Phil’s. She’d never been at ease in the daring gowns Wolf insisted she wear. For weeks, Molly had tried to become the wife Wolf seemed to want, but she was through with that.

  “I’ll go without you.” It was a threat, one Molly was prepared for.

  “I assumed that you would.”

  Molly returned her eyes to the book before her. It was another of Wolf’s shocking novels, but she rather liked it. She jumped when Wolf slammed the door behind him, but didn’t lift her gaze from the printed page.

  Wolf was going to be himself, no matter what she did, and Molly had decided that she’d best be herself as well. He would either come to love her or he wouldn’t. If by some miracle that happened, she wanted to be certain that Wolf loved her, and not the woman she pretended to be for his sake.

  He hadn’t been gone five minutes before he was back, again slamming the door to their suite forcefully behind him.

  “Get dressed,” he ordered. “You’re coming with me.”

  Molly closed her book and lifted her head. How could anyone refuse a dangerous and scowling face like that? If she was to make anything of this marriage, she would have to learn. “I am dressed, actually, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  Wolf was not accustomed to being denied, and the look on his face was a mixture of anger and incredulity.

  “Even if you decide to drag me from here by the hair, which is, from the look of you, a possibility, I’ll have to wear what I have on. The gowns you bought me are all gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Well, Mrs. Watkins will return them tomorrow or the next day, after the alterations are finished.” Molly gave her husband a no-nonsense stare, meeting his ferocious glare. “She’s finishing the bodices, adding sufficient material to transform them into suitable gowns. It seemed a waste to discard them altogether.”

  Wolf grabbed Molly’s wrist and pulled her to her feet. “I’ll do it, you know. I’ll toss you over my shoulder and take you wherever I please.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Molly said softly.

  She refused to be intimidated by the glare he turned down to her.

  “Are you trying to punish me?” he growled.

  “Of course not. To hear you tell it, you’ve done nothing to be punished for.” Molly took a deep breath, and tried to maintain her calm.

  “The torture I’ve already been through is suitable punishment for any imagined wrongdoing.”

 
“Because you had to look for me?”

  “Because I couldn’t find you,” he snapped, “and I was worried sick.”

  He had to care for her, just a little, if he’d truly been so distressed. That revelation gave her a little bit of hope to hold on to.

  “It still hurts.” Her voice was softer than she’d intended. “What I heard you say to Adele. If I mean so little to you . . . ”

  “I never said . . . . ”

  “ . . . Then it should be no problem for you to leave me here while you amuse yourself at Phil’s. I don’t belong there, Wolf.”

  “I never said you didn’t mean anything to me.” It was a grudging confession. “Dammit Molly, I don’t want —” He stopped speaking abruptly, snapped his mouth shut.

  She saw the moment of surrender in his eyes, a softening of the forest green there, a spark of resignation that made him appear so human. Almost vulnerable.

  “I can’t leave you here without wondering if you’re going to be taken by the notion to take a walk and get yourself lost again.” There was just a touch of anger in his voice. “Dammit, I don’t want to go anywhere without you. If I’m at Phil’s, I want to be able to turn around and see you there. Yawning and bored and out of place . . . . ” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “You’ve ruined me.”

  “You could stay here with me,” she suggested, slipping the hand he didn’t grip behind his back. “We have a bottle of brandy, a deck of cards, and a box full of those awful cigars.” With her body pressed against his, Molly raised herself slowly, until she stood on her toes and pressed her mouth against Wolf’s. It began as a soft kiss, and grew into something more.

  She loved his lips, so strong and gentle, so demanding and giving. When they could agree on nothing else, when it seemed they had nothing to keep them together, they had this. It was magic, it was impossible, it was real.

  The hardness of Wolf’s arousal pressed against her belly, and Molly arched against him. He deepened the kiss, lifted her from her feet and walked slowly toward the bedroom, Molly’s feet dangling inches from the floor.

  She was ready for him, aching for the fullness of Wolf inside her. All he had to do was kiss her like this, as if he offered his very soul with a silent kiss.

  Wolf set her on her feet, dragging her body against his so she could feel again how he wanted her.

  In this way, at least, he had come to need her.

  “Seduced by my own wife,” he grumbled as he unfastened the buttons of her muslin dress.

  Molly laughed softly. “Is that so terrible?”

  Wolf didn’t answer as he slipped the gown from her body and kissed a sensitive nipple through the linen of her chemise. Her body reacted immediately, tightened and became heated.

  “Yes,” Wolf whispered as he pulled away from her just long enough to strip the chemise over her head.

  He returned his mouth to her bared nipple, suckled and nibbled until Molly melted beneath his assault. Until her knees went weak and her thighs trembled.

  They stood beside the bed, and Molly slid her hands from his hair to his shoulders, where she slipped his coat to the floor. She fumbled with his tie and the buttons of his coat shirt, until they joined the jacket at their feet.

  His lips never left her as she worked the buttons of his trousers. Her shoulder, her neck, her lips, it seemed he was determined to devour her.

  When he was naked at last, they fell across the bed, and in one swift thrust Wolf filled her.

  How quickly she had come to need this, to feel as if she were incomplete without Wolf. He called their union a vice, a pleasure like all his other pleasures, but Molly knew it was so much more than that. It had been from their wedding night.

  He knew her body so well. Every breath, every shudder. Every tremor spoke to him. He stroked and kissed, possessed her body and soul and heart, and when her bones quivered and her insides quaked he went with her, over the edge of a pleasure so intense it was near madness.

  For a while they didn’t move. Wolf lay atop her, crushing her against the soft mattress, his heavy breath in her ear, his heart thudding against hers. When he lifted his head and looked down at her, there was a trace of suspicion in his eyes, mingled with his satisfaction.

  “Is this your way of getting me to stay at home?”

  Molly threaded her fingers through Wolf’s black hair, caressing his scalp and bringing his lips to hers for a soft kiss. “I never really thought of it that way, but if it works I’ll plead guilty.”

  An inch at a time, Wolf pushed her to the center of the bed. “I never asked you to change my life,” he whispered. Was that a touch of wonder in his voice? Perhaps he was beginning to understand that what they had was magic.

  “I never asked you to change mine, but you did.”

  It wasn’t, apparently, a satisfactory response, because Wolf scowled down at her before he kissed her again.

  Molly ran her hands down Wolf’s back and up again, enjoying, as she always did, the feel of him in her hands. “Guess what I did today?”

  “I have to guess?”

  “No.”

  Wolf rolled to his side, bringing Molly with him. They lay in the center of the bed, face to face, chest to chest, and Molly draped one leg over his.

  “I went to the bank today, your bank, and talked to Mr. Abbott.”

  Wolf’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What could you possibly have to say to Abbott?”

  “I took the money I won, the money you made me keep, and I —”

  “You opened your own account?” She could tell that Wolf disapproved.

  “Well, not exactly.” Her hesitant response alerted him. She had seen that cold gleam in his eyes before. “It’s more of a fund than an account.”

  “A fund.”

  “For women like Bridget,” Molly explained.

  “Red, you can’t —”

  “It was my money, you said,” she said quickly. “And I don’t need it. Mr. Abbott set it up, and said he knew of some others who might be interested in contributing. Just think what a fresh start will mean for these women. Don’t be angry.” Wolf silenced her with a finger to her lips.

  “You can’t save the world,” he said softly.

  Molly kissed his finger before she drew his hand away from her mouth. “I’m not trying to save the world. I’m just trying to help a few unfortunate women who really need it. That’s all.”

  Wolf frowned down at her, and his eyes were guarded. Cool. But his hands were in her hair and resting possessively against her bare hip. He looked as if he had something to say, but he was hesitant.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “You’ve never asked me what happened to Jeanne.”

  A chill climbed her spine. “I know all I need to know. I know that you don’t have it in you to harm anyone, no matter what you’d have others think.”

  “I’ve never told anyone about that night. Not a soul, Red.”

  “Do you want to tell me?” Molly wasn’t certain she wanted to hear, but she would listen if Wolf needed to explain.

  “Yes.” His answer was hesitant, and he waited so long before continuing that Molly thought he’d changed his mind. He drew her head against his shoulder — so she couldn’t see his face? — and told his story in a soft and restrained voice.

  “It was an arranged marriage. My father and Jeanne’s father were lifelong friends. It was no secret that I was not ready to get married, but my father was ill, and anxious to see me settled, and after a summer in Boston with her cousins, Jeanne was anxious as well.”

  Molly slipped her arms around Wolf’s waist, and held on. “Did you love her?”

  “No,” he answered quickly. “Maybe if I had that night would have ended differently. Jeanne didn’t love me, either. No surprise there. I was just as stubborn and ugly then as I am now.”

  Molly lifted her head and looked him square in the eye. “Stubbornness can be an admirable trait, and I happen to think you’re quite handsome.”

  He forced
her head back to his shoulder. “Maybe if I’d gone to her in a different frame of mind that night, if I hadn’t been so angry . . . . ” He sighed, and Molly pressed a brief kiss to his shoulder. “She was waiting for me,” he continued, “with her hair braided down her back and wearing that plain white nightdress. God, she was so young.”

  Molly didn’t want to hear any more. Not a word. But she closed her eyes and melted against Wolf’s shoulder.

  “Her first words to me, as I burst into the bedroom, were, ‘I can’t do it. I thought I could, but I can’t.’ ”

  He was holding her tight, as if she could protect him from the memory, and Molly held him back, doing her best to insulate him from the pain.

  “You see,” he whispered, “Jeanne was in much the same situation as your friend Bridget. She’d met a man in Boston. I never knew who. Jeanne fell in love with him, but when she told him she was going to have his child, he informed her that he already had a wife and more children than he really wanted.”

  Instinctively, Molly placed her lips against Wolf’s warm skin. She could hear the pain in his voice, but she couldn’t take it away.

  “She had planned to marry me and pass her lover’s child off as mine, but she couldn’t do it. She confessed everything and ran from the room in tears.”

  “Why did you never tell?”

  “To what purpose? In a way it was my fault. If I had known what was in her mind . . . . ”

  “That’s impossible,” Molly whispered.

  “If I had followed her . . . . ”

  “You didn’t know.”

  “We didn’t even know she’d left the house until morning. There are several guest rooms, and I just assumed she’d locked herself in one. But when we couldn’t find her, someone suggested we search the grounds.” Wolf threaded his fingers through her hair. “I was the one who found her, and the rumors started that very day.”

  “You could have told the truth.”

  “It was too late. Jeanne was dead, and in part the rumors are true. She did prefer death to a life with me.”

  Molly lifted her head and looked down at Wolf. His expression was so cold, so distant. “You don’t know that. She might have fallen in the dark. It might have been the misadventure it was ruled. We’ll never know.”