“I’m not worried in the least.” Sabine met the woman’s curious, speculative gaze coolly.
A grin spread across Saffa’s face. “God, what a poker face.”
Meave nodded in agreement. “Well, I can see she’s no pushover. It’ll be interesting to see how she handles the wild Lunedares. But, back to the subject at hand, the doctor wanted to have a look at you. Your blood pressure is a little high.”
“Come on, Sabine, let’s go get a couple of intrusive medical exams. Nothing bonds women like sharing a pair of stirrups,” Saffa grumped and dragged her down the dirt path.
“We are going for a ride? Are you sure you should in your condition.” Sabine peered dubiously down at Saffa’s belly.
Saffa chuckled and grabbed her hand. “Sweetie, you’re about to be introduced to one of the horrors of modern medicine…a gynecological examination. They’re going to check the health of my baby. You’re going to be poked and prodded to see if you’re fertile.”
Sabine looked at Saffa with horror. Her words were enough to burn off the remnants of her arousal.
Drew Lunedare had a lot to answer for. One moment he had her so aroused, her vow to keep him at arm’s length fell like Jericho’s walls. Now, he’d left her at the mercy of these women who she hardly knew. Damn the man.
Chapter Fifteen
Sabine sniffed the contents of the bottle in her hand, shuddered, and flipped the cap shut. She stared balefully at the vitamin and mineral supplements the doctor had shoved into her hands with a curt order to make sure she took them. The large pellets looked and smelled like animal droppings. At the first opportunity, she’d toss them behind a convenient bush.
The news she had the capacity to give birth to as many cubs as she wished didn’t do much to lessen the embarrassing manner the doctor discerned this intimate fact.
Sabine plucked at the drab grey clothes hanging on her like an ill-fitting second skin. Heavy and claustrophobic after the freedom of running au naturel all her life, she fidgeted, feeling every thread woven into the fabric. The clunky shoes were even worse. These were not the shoes of her dreams; they were a dull muddy brown instead of a robin’s-egg blue or a cardinal red. A girl needed color. Even to her unsophisticated eye, they lacked style. A gusty aggrieved sigh slipped from her lips.
There was one bright light at the end of this fiasco. Her father’s condition was grave, but not hopeless, as they’d believed. Balthazar had fed for far too long as wolf. He’d deprived himself of the nutrients necessary to sustain his dual anatomy. The doctor wasn’t making any promises for a full recovery, but she was hopeful.
The door to the small cluttered room swung open. Drew stepped in dressed in human garb and her world tilted on its axis. A fiery blaze shot through her blood at the sight of him.
“Ready?”
Oh yes, her were was more than ready. Sabine dragged in a shaky breath, drawing in the potent masculine bouquet he emanated. A thin black shirt clung to his wide shoulders and the prominent ridges in his chest and arms. His legs seemed longer encased in a rough blue material and the scarred leather boots emphasized his large feet.
He’d turned into a stranger, an appealing stranger. She itched to strip away the barriers. A feverish heat spread up her thighs and she let out a soft throaty mewl, the call of a female to her mate.
Drew’s eyes heated, and the molten honey of his were’s eyes shifted across his brown pupils. His nostrils dilated when the rich ripe scent of her arousal filled the small room.
He flashed her a wickedly carnal smile, and everything in her melted.
“You okay?” He pulled her close. “Greta told me the good news about Balthazar.”
Flustered by her reaction to him, she eased back, but he held on tight. Sabine grasped for the familiar. “Where are my sisters?”
“They’ve settled in guest quarters until they choose accommodations that suit them better. They’ll have their privacy, and they’ll be close enough to your father, if needed.” He paused and stared down at her with a probing intensity. “Are you coming with me?”
Tension held his body rigid, and the blazing emotion in his eyes took her aback. Drew seemed to be holding his breath.
She grasped for words to respond coherently. A strained silence filled the room as he waited. All she heard was the thudding of her heart and Drew’s measured breathing.
Stomach fluttering, Sabine unconsciously reached for him. Drew took her hand, buried his face in her hand, and kissed her palm. At the gentle caress, Sabine curled her hand around his face. It was all the answer he needed.
Drew’s face split into a happy relieved grin, he placed his hand in the middle of her back and all but marched her out the door.
“What’s your hurry?” she stuttered.
Drew laughed and urged her determinedly down a hallway. “You said yes. I’m not giving you a chance to change your mind.”
She almost tripped over her feet trying to match his long stride. “I’m willing.”
Drew dragged her with him through the door and out into the night. “I know, honey, but with you, nothing is ever easy. You’ll talk yourself out of being with me, but I’m giving you fair warning. I won’t let you.” He opened the door to a rugged vehicle and motioned for her to hop in.
She dug her heels into the ground. “Won’t let me! It’s not for you to say,” Sabine sputtered contrarily.
Drew sighed wearily. “Sabine, we’re going.”
Sabine let out a yelp when Drew snatched her off her feet, tossed her into the dark cab of the vehicle, and climbed in behind her. He started the ignition, and they soon left the village behind.
“Where are we going?”
“To the house I built further up the mountain.” He maneuvered the vehicle expertly, which to her was nothing more than a box with wheels.
“As the alpha of our pack, shouldn’t you remain at the central den?” Sabine clung to her seat to anchor herself in place.
He spared her a searching glance. “My pack is a little more independent than most. They don’t come running to me about every thorn lodged in their paw. They know when it really counts, I’m there. Is that what you really want to talk about?” Drew swerved left, drove over a bridge at a bone-rattling speed, and careened up a hill.
What was she supposed to ask him for Heaven’s sake? Male-female interaction was a mystery to her.
Sabine sought refuge in the mundane. “I wouldn’t have asked it if I wasn’t interested. Isn’t it dangerous to be so isolated? Someone could creep up on you.”
“If you want to play the avoidance game, I’ll play along. I didn’t say my house was built on a random spot, now did I? We have safeguards in places which we will discuss when I familiarize you with the lay of the land.” He pulled to a screeching halt before a sprawling building. “We’re home.”
Yes, he was home.
Sabine stared at Drew’s house. Constructed for strength and permanence, as individual as the man, it had none of the traditional carvings that weres etched onto their exterior walls to proclaim their pack affiliation. It blended into the landscape, standing like a sentinel at watch. Now she understood what Drew meant that the placement of his house wasn’t by chance. It was a watchtower.
Drew climbed out, walked around the truck, and opened the door.
“Come on.” Drew lifted her out and stalked down on the cut stone path marking the way to the front door with a silent Sabine in his arms.
“You’d think you faced the gallows by the look on your face.”
He set her on her feet, used both his hands to push open the gleaming wooden doors, and stepped inside. A click caused light to flood the empty room. She paused hesitantly on the doorstep. Sabine had the feeling the moment she stepped over the threshold, she’d never be the same.
The huge interior was luxuriously alien. Enormous brown high backed benches and chairs covered in hides were set in several groupings around the room. A fireplace, faced in natural stone, tall enough for a man to sta
nd in, took up most of one wall. What she assumed was the kitchen, had reddish copper pots hanging from a metal bar fixed to the ceiling, and gleamed with metal implements.
It was too much to take in, so much to learn.
“Come on in, Sabine. I’ll show you where you can clean up.” With each passing moment, the differences in their lifestyles became more obvious. The clothes he wore, the house he lived in, the conveniences he took for granted, all added to the barriers between them.
This was his world. She didn’t belong here.
Sabine trailed after Drew with a few tentative steps.
Drew looked over his shoulder, took her hand, and tugged her down the hallway.
Would her lack of experience leave him dissatisfied, or worse, would he make comparisons to his former lovers?
She hung back, unsure how she should act for the first time in her life. “I think I’d like a bedroom of my own.”
“Nope, you’ll sleep in my bed because that’s where you belong. You know that, don’t you?”
Ever honest, Sabine confessed, “In theory, I imagined I could have sex, but now the reasons why I would seem so cold and calculating.” Sabine looked everywhere but at him. She was dithering, and she was not a ditherer. She was changing already and she didn’t like it.
Drew chuckled roughly and gripped her upper arms. “There was nothing cold in the kisses we shared earlier.” As if to prove his point, he leaned in and nipped her lower lip. His tongue flicked across the fleshy pad before he let it go.
Sabine mustered up a sneer for form’s sake and mumbled, “A moment of madness. It has passed, thankfully. It was all because of the adrenaline pumping through me.” Sabine tried to shrug off his hands but he held on. Her eyes flew up to meet his.
His face was bland, but she caught the gleam of laughter in his eyes. “We’ll have to goad you back to the brink of adrenaline-pumping insensibility, won’t we? I wasn’t the only one lost in that kiss. Was I?”
Sabine’s toes curled into the hated footwear on her feet. She shook her head. “No you weren’t, but you’re no gentleman to remind me.”
“No I’m not. I’m a were who’s got his mate all to himself for the first time, and she’s wasting precious time avoiding what we both want.”
Sabine’s body ran hot and cold, blazing for him, and icy because their first mating was about to take place. The were in her didn’t care, but her woman’s pride balked at the swiftness of the deed merely to solidify her position. The dratted man had her moods swinging from feverish neediness to indecisiveness.
Drew pulled her up a short flight of stairs. “It’s almost dawn and we need to get some sleep if that’s what you prefer. The elders will start to convene when the sun sets tomorrow. You’re going to be a seven-day wonder amongst my pack.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Great, I’m going to be paraded around like a prized kill. Just show me where I’ll be sleeping.”
“Here is our bedroom.” He pushed open a pair of frosted glass double doors and stepped into a vast room. A bed covered in a rich masculine royal blue dominated the space they’d entered. Six elongated pillows stood at attention at the head of the bed, encased in crisp white bordered in the same blue. Sabine would give anything to rest her tired body on its plump inviting mattress.
“Let’s get washed up.” He urged her gently through a door and she went with him like flotsam carried along by a speedy current into a second room.
The walls sparkled in glassy blues and greens, similar to the bottles she collected. A deep tub with elaborate silver spigots stood against one wall. Her eyes widened at the sight of the orchids scattered at random around the room. Sabine had never seen an actual tropical plant before. They seemed otherworldly in comparison to the wild flowers which blanketed the hills with the coming of spring each year. She’d admired them in photographs culled from the magazines they’d stolen and drawn rough replicas of them. She rubbed a waxy leaf between her fingers. The spongy texture took her by surprise. Taking a sniff at the pale green flower with its magenta heart, she was surprised it had hardly any scent.
Drew used her distraction to pull her top up and over her head.
“I can undress myself.” Sabine slapped his hands away, turned her back to him, and stepped out of the pants. Though she was most comfortable nude, she was awash with a sudden bout of modesty foreign to her nature, as she stood naked before him.
Cloistered in this glossily sumptuous room, with the man who had the right to take her whenever and wherever he wished brought on a headiness that weakened her limbs. She was his mate, bound to him by her words. She wasn’t so confident she could hold up her end of the bargain. Sabine pursed her lips to stifle any cowardly protest that might slip out.
“Don’t sulk.” Drew nudged her into a wide cubicle and fiddled with some knobs.
Water spurted out from several metal panels riddled with holes from the ceiling and walls. Blissfully hot, the streams massaged and soothed the aches from her muscles. Sabine held her face up to the falling sheet of heated water and let it wash over her. She took delight in each droplet hitting her skin and let out a moan. She could get accustomed to this.
“I’ve finally done something you approve of.” The amusement in Drew’s voice didn’t even irritate her. She was in a happy place.
“Don’t talk to me. I’m experiencing a moment of personal nirvana.” Her lips spread into a fatuous grin. She couldn’t help it. It was as if a million tiny fingers were probing her flesh, working the kinks out of her muscles.
Sabine twisted and turned to position particularly weary muscles under the beating water. It was sinfully good.
Her eyes flew open when Drew’s hands settled on her head. Sabine pivoted on her heel as suds dripped down her forehead, stinging her eyes. She blinked when she realized he’d shed his clothes. There was no barrier between them.
Water cascaded over his long lean frame. The fine hairs dusting his chest shifted in the rivulets streaming down his body.
The intimacy of the situation hit her. She tensed under his hands. His eyes narrowed, but that didn’t stop him from doing as he pleased. He continued to scrub the skin of her scalp.
Sabine sniffed suspiciously. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Washing your hair.” He worked up a rich lather in her hair. The suds stung her eyes, and she blinked up at him. “This promises to give you silky tresses, but I just like the smell.”
Sabine sniffed. “It smells like green apples.”
“Yeah, it does.” She watched him take up a bar of soap and a piece of cloth. He began to wash her. He hadn’t touched anywhere which made her female, but it was just a matter of time. The soft rag slid over her skin in slow teasing strokes, sensitizing her to his touch, until she leaned into his hands.
She didn’t know what to think or feel. She tingled all over. Sabine rested her palms on his chest.
“This is not necessary. I’m perfectly capable of bathing myself,” she murmured in a hoarse whisper.
“It’s permissible for a wolf to groom his mate, even expected.” Drew informed her gently. “I’d like to do this for you.”
His callused fingers lingered over her breasts. Her nipples hardened into aching pebbles. Sabine moaned and pushed against his hands and fingers but, to her consternation, Drew dropped to his knees and started to wash her legs and feet.
“Consider it a part of our courtship.”
He soaped the length of her legs. The frothy lather slicked his hands and sent them sliding over her skin in one long caress. Her limbs trembled like a frightened doe’s under his sensual assault.
“Drew.” His name on her lips was a hoarse whisper.
“Shhh. Let me learn about you. I’d know your scent anywhere, but let me memorize every curve and indentation you have by touch. I want to know your body so well, that if I touch any part of you with my eyes closed I’ll know exactly where I’m stroking you. I’ll carry every lush delicious detail of you in my mind.”
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br /> Her crotch was right there before his eyes, and his breath ruffled the hair on her mons. The hot air puffed through her labia and wafted across her bud in tempo with his breathing. Sabine clamped her thighs together to conceal the juices seeping from her nether lips. She spun around and presented him with her back in a vain attempt to hide her reaction to that breath-driven caress.
She heard his breath hitch, a second before his lips brushed over her buttocks. Sabine let out a hiss through her clenched teeth when Drew licked the water off the cheeks of her ass. Drew sank his teeth into one rear cheek before he swiped his tongue over where he’d bitten her to soothe the slight ache. He licked and nibbled his way over each cheek. At the nip, her knees threatened to buckle. Wherever his long tongue swiped, her skin ignited. His long tactile fingers slipped between her thighs, eased gently through her folds and danced over her flesh. She widened her stance and he slipped deeper into her cleft, creating havoc and bliss with each caress.
“What are you doing to me?” Her question came out in a sandpapery croak.
Drew chuckled darkly. “If you’re asking, I’m not doing it right.” He slid his hands up her legs. Her body’s tangy perfume mixed with the steamy water filled the small enclosure.
Sabine pivoted on her heel and took his head between her hands. Panting, her voice trembled. “You’re only doing this to torture me, aren’t you?”
“Oh, that hasn’t started yet,” he replied hoarsely. He stuck out his stiffened tongue and flicked it deliberately over the nubbin at the apex of her slit. Sabine’s knees buckled, and Drew stood up and caught her against him. “And just so you know, your back is just as pretty as your front.”
Her lips twitched and she pushed him away to wash the soap from her hair and body.
Drew took in every move she made as he combed his fingers through the hair that cupped his skull in a sleek mane. The strong bones in his face stood out. The firm masculine lines of his mouth were a temptation, and the emotional depth in his expression unnerved her more than she cared to admit.
The steamy room, his nearness, and the fact that he seemed more naked in this unfamiliar environment heightened her awareness of him as a man. It was hard not to appreciate the width of his shoulders, or the hard ridges of the muscles in his torso. Her eyes dropped to his groin and heat flooded her face.
Her Wanted Wolf Page 15
