by V M Black
“Yeah, except when it doesn’t.” Levi shook his head. “All right. We’ll try the reader. If that doesn’t work, we’ll be coming to you. Don’t shoot us when we get there.”
“Speaking of that we—”
“Yeah, not going to talk about it,” Levi said, realizing only as Beane pointed it out what pronoun he’d been using. “Hope I don’t see you soon.”
“Sure thing,” Beane said, and he hung up.
There was only one more thing to do right then. Levi steeled himself for it as he switched the burner in his hand for his pocket knife. Being a werewolf had many advantages, among them rapid healing. Unfortunately, that particular skill had developed—or been designed, depending on who you talked to—without regard to the realities of modern weapons.
His skin had healed almost immediately upon the bullet entering it. And as the muscles beneath had knit back together, it had pushed the bullet upward, until it lay uncomfortably just beneath the surface with no way out.
There was only one way to get rid of it now. He flicked the knife open with his thumb and looked over at Harper, who was leaning against the door of the car, watching him.
Yeah. This was another thing he wasn’t going to be explaining to her. He turned away just long enough to pull the neck of his gray t-shirt to the side, using two fingers on either side of the bullet to pin it in place and stretch the skin over it. Setting his jaw, he sliced along it in a single, quick motion. The bullet popped out, falling to the dirt floor of the barn. The skin knit back together almost instantly, and Levi rolled his shoulder. There was a lingering ghost of pain from nerves that still protested against being severed, but it already felt better.
He wiped the blood from the blade onto his motorcycle leathers, then shoved it back in his pocket as he turned back toward the car and the woman there.
Except she wasn’t there anymore.
Chapter Seven
Harper was coming back around the pile of furniture when Levi cornered it with such speed that she nearly collided with him.
“What the hell?” she squawked.
“Where were you?” he demanded.
“Taking a leak, if you must know.” She brushed a sweep of hair out of her face. “I grabbed some tissues from my purse to use.”
She didn’t tell him that she’d considered taking her phone, too, and calling the police. It probably would have been a good idea, whatever he claimed. After all, he had stolen her car, and he’d even admitted to stealing something else that, by his own admission, was worth way more.
But she had a weakness for bad boys, and Levi fit that description to a T, though she’d bet cold, hard cash that he wasn’t a bad guy—which was quite a different thing. That was her favorite combination, even when it wasn’t in a form as appealing as the long-bodied, amber-eyed one that Levi had. And anyhow, she had her car back now—more or less.
“Fine,” he said, still frowning.
“So what are we doing now?” she asked. He was close enough to touch.
“Waiting. We’ll leave after sunset,” he said.
“So we’re behind the search lines, you said.” Well, then, maybe she would get what she’d wanted of him from the moment he stepped into her line of sight. “That’s an awfully long time, you know. Just to sit here. And talk. I’ve never been much for talking, you know.”
She reached out and stroked his cheek with one finger, running it across the stubble that was just long enough to start to turn soft.
He caught her wrist, his gaze going sharp in a way that made her breath catch and her heart stumble over a beat. Oh, he was interested in what she was offering, all right.
“I stole your car, and then you shot me. How do I know you just don’t want a chance to put another hole in me?”
She lifted her chin challengingly. “You said you’d give my car back. If you meant it, that’s good enough for me. I’m willing to wait.”
He chuckled. “You’re crazy.”
“Well, did you mean it?” she pressed.
He shrugged. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
“So, then,” she said. “I wanted to come along with you. And that’s what happened. So I don’t see as to why I’d have any complaints.”
“You’re forgetting the car chase. That sort of happened in the middle.”
“It wasn’t much of a chase, on that bike of yours.” She shook her head, still having a hard time believing how easily he’d abandoned that beautiful machine. She loved her car, but even she was in touch with reality enough to realize that no one in their right mind would make the exchange Levi had unless he felt forced to do so. “Are they really that dangerous? The people who’re after you?”
“More dangerous than you can imagine,” he said.
“Well, I can imagine pretty dangerous.” He was still holding one wrist, so she used her other hand one to reach for his belt.
He caught that one, too. “More dangerous than that. More dangerous than me.”
“That is dangerous,” she said, her breath coming a little faster.
“You really want to fuck?” he asked bluntly. “Right now?”
“What a Prince Charming you are,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That’s right, just take all the romance out of it.”
“I stole your car. You shot me,” he reminded her. “There’s not much romance in that.”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, and stepped up so that her body pressed against their joined hands, raised onto her tiptoes, and caught his mouth with hers.
Instantly, he reached around her, his hand closing around a fistful of hair at the back of her head. He pulled her hard against his mouth, trapping her hands between them as his other arm encircled her waist and slid downward, across her rear, his bodyweight driving her backward toward the car.
His mouth explored hers, efficiently, expertly, devastatingly, his rhythm driving shockwaves of heat down into her belly and lower, to the juncture of her thighs.
She kissed him back, pushing past his lips and teeth into the hotness of his mouth, tasting him as he took her. She broke off only when the back of her legs met the car’s bumper and dropped her rear onto the hood.
Levi stepped back then, retreating two paces. She was about to protest when he reached into his waistband and pulled out her revolver. Flashing it at her with raised eyebrows, he set it carefully at his feet, followed by the jeweled dagger—seriously, what was with the Indiana Jones crap?—then a nine mil in a black clip-on holster and a pocket knife. He stripped off his jacket and dropped it over the lot.
“Quite the armory you’ve got there,” Harper said, bracing against her hands on the hood as he approached again.
“Keeping it out of your reach,” he said.
“Don’t you trust me?” She looked up at him through her eyelashes.
He was close now, standing between her knees. “Not a chance.”
“I’m disappointed.” She thrust out her lower lip in a pretend pout.
He caught the back of her neck with one hand and ducked his head so that his stubble-roughened cheek was against hers. “I don’t believe that for an instant,” he said, the words a low growl in her ear.
Her laugh was cut off abruptly in a gasp as his lips found the sensitive place just below her ear, kissing, sucking, nipping as he moved down to follow the edge of her deep V-neck tee. Oh, God, but he was good with that mouth….
She arched against his hand, hooking her legs behind his and pulling him against her hips and the ache there. She could feel the hard bulge against the juncture of her thighs, even through their pants, and she shivered at the sudden jolt it sent straight through her body.
Her hands went to his belt again, and this time, disarmed, he did nothing to stop them. She jerked the buckle loose, then loosened his fly, tugging it down and sliding her hands against the flat plane of his belly and under his waistband to catch his cock in her hand. It was hot, velvety, and hard, pulsing in her grip.
Levi made a noise low in his throat as she slid lo
wer to encircle the shaft, breaking away from kissing her to catch her with his amber gaze. His tousled hair was even wilder than before, a deep flush staining his cheeks and shadowing his eyes with a deep and nameless hunger.
“You’re not shy, are you?” He said the words as if he meant them to be light, but there was a strangled kind of tension in his voice despite their flippancy.
Harper gave a breathless laugh, skimming her thumb around the bottom ring of his cock’s head as she hooked her other arm up under his arm, her hand closing around the fabric of his shirt. “You have no idea.”
He stopped her mouth with another kiss, and she moved to the rhythm of his body, stroking him with every beat until his breath came as hard and fast as hers did. His free hand slid up, under her shirt, cupping, kneading her breast over her bra—then shoving the top edge down so that she spilled out over it. He took her nipple between his fingers, sending another just of need so pure down between her thighs that she groaned with it.
A shudder went through him, and he went still then, completely and utterly. She was left dazed and panting, need sawing on her nerves like the sharp edge of a blade.
She tightened her grip on his cock. “Don’t you stop. Don’t you dare stop now.”
“Is that the way of it, then?” he said, and his caress turned into a punishing pinch that made her whimper with pain-tinged desire as he kissed her again. It hurt, oh, it hurt, but in just the right way—
He let go, and she went limp in his arms for an instant, blinking against the hot haze that seemed to infest her mind. He caught her hand and pulled out of her grip as he bent down, pulling her t-shirt up and over her head. He kissed a line down her throat to where her breasts met, spilling over the cups of her bra. He dragged down the other cup, baring that nipple to the cool air of the barn.
“I’m going to screw you so hard against the hood of your car that you’ll never be able to look at it again without thinking of me,” he promised.
She laughed unsteadily, believing him. “That’s a tall order. You don’t even know that you’re the first.”
“I’ll be the only one that matters, after this.” And then he lowered his mouth to her breast, enveloping her nipple in its heat.
Harper grabbed his head with her free hand, fingers curling in his hair, making strangled noises as she arched into him. He stroked her with his tongue, softly at first, then harder, rasping across the sensitive tip as she rocked with him. He broke away abruptly, surprising a tiny cry from her as he left the damp skin suddenly exposed to the cool air of the barn, then turned his attention to the other, his free hand working at the fly of her jeans. Then he slid his hand down, into her jeans, under the elastic of her panties, sliding across the smooth skin down to her slick opening. She rocked her hips toward him, invitingly, but he refused to be hurried, pincering her clit between his fingers and rolling it to the rhythm of his mouth on her breast.
She gave a strangled sound as she pushed just over the edge into a small orgasm—and as if the sound were a signal, he suddenly slid a finger inside her and caught against the sensitive place there as he stroked her with his thumb, knocking her hard into a deeper climax that caught her utterly off guard as it slammed into her brain.
A wordless noise tore from her throat. She cursed him roundly, thoroughly, as he pushed her ever further into it until she had no breath left to do anything but gasp and arch in his arms.
She was still shaking with the aftershocks as he stepped away, leaving her leaning dazed on her arms against the hood, trying to shake the lingering haze from her brain. Levi caught her legs where they crossed over his and loosened them, tugging her ankle books off and dragging at the cuffs of her jeans.
She had enough foresight left to shove a hand into her pocket, retrieving the foil packet she’d shoved there the last time she’d gone into her purse. Then she raised her butt from the hood of the car, letting him drag her pants off. He peeled her socks off with them, and as he stepped back toward her, she shimmied out of her boy shorts so that all that she wore was her bra, the cups shoved low to expose her breasts.
“Now, this hardly seems fair,” she said as he stepped between her knees again. “You get all of me, and all I get of you is your pretty face and that.” She motioned toward his erection, concealed now behind the elastic and cotton of his underwear. “Take the shirt off.”
He hesitated for a second, as if he was considering her order. Then he grabbed the bottom hem of the t-shirt and dragged it off, exposing an impressive sheet of muscle—and something more, angry marks, faint but unmistakable, the tracery of old scars. He skimmed off his motorcycle pants and underwear, too, revealing even more marks across his thighs.
For a moment, Harper was shocked out of the mood. “What happened to you?”
“I told you, babycakes,” he said. “There are some very, very bad men in the world. And some of them want things out of people like me, while others hate us for what we are.”
Harper leaned forward, tracing the lines down one side of his ribs. “I’m sorry, Levi.”
“And that’s why I didn’t take off the shirt before,” he said. “I don’t need pity sex.”
She looked up into those hard eyes. “Whoever said that’s what you’re getting?” She held up the foil packet between them. “But first—this. I may be wild, but I’m not stupid.”
She ripped it open and slid out the condom. Then, catching his cock again, she rolled it down in a single smooth motion even as she felt his thighs tighten at her touch.
“You’re awfully practical for a crazy woman,” he remarked.
She was glad to see a ghost of his grin return.
“Or awfully crazy for a practical one,” she agreed. “Now stop talking and make good on your promise. Because if you stop right now, what I’ll think when I look at the car is how very, very disappointed I was.”
“What, the first time you came didn’t count?” he said, raking his gaze across her. “From where I was, it sure looked like you were enjoying yourself.”
“For an appetizer, it was good enough,” she granted him. “But I want the main course—and dessert, too.”
He caught her mouth in another kiss, and anticipation shot up to her lips from deep in her belly, making her nipples and clit ache with it. She held him against her with her legs, one hand around the girth of his cock, the other in his hair. The length of him was against the juncture of her legs now, pressing against it, so close to where she wanted it, riding against her clit with the rhythm of his kiss. She tried to move it, but his hand came down over her wrist, pinning it in place as she moaned against his lips.
Then he broke away, kissed her shoulder as he loosened his grip, allowing her to angle his cock down to her entrance as she wiggled her hips toward him.
The head slipped just inside her, and she clenched hard around him, panting. His forehead was against her shoulder, his entire body rigid.
She was so wet he just slid into her body, so deep and hard that she almost came apart right then. He drove in again and again, pulling back almost to her entrance each time. One of her hands tightened his hair, the other sliding between them, stroking herself in time to his thrusts. He moved faster, his hand reaching down, pushing hers away, driving her on with merciless skill and insistence. She felt herself slipping—away from herself, into the heat and the need and the sharp edge of an orgasm, approaching quickly.
It took her suddenly, jangling all her nerves and muddling her brain until she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but get lost in the intensity of it, hammering straight into her nervous system. She closed her eyes and let it take her, rocking against him, squeezing him with each wave after hot wave.
She came back to herself again just as Levi shuddered his own release. She slumped forward against his chest when he finished and just took one shaking, gasping breath after another as he held her to his body, hard.
And just then, the barn doors exploded.
Chapter Eight
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Shrapnel flew across the barn, thick pieces of wood slicing through the air. Levi opened his eyes just in time to duck, throwing Harper to the ground under him. He felt his body changing, and he did nothing to stop it. Her reaction to his nature was far less important that surviving the next few minutes, and with his gun out of arm’s reach, his best chance of doing that was as a wolf.
The girl made a squeal and rolled for the cover of the car as he bound away, the shift finishing midair. As the remains of the doors fell to the ground, it revealed Mortensen’s men—four of them only, and human from the smell of them.
Fools. They’d thought that with their weapons, they’d be able to take him alone. They were wrong.
He covered the distance between them in seconds, even as the idiot with the M79—A grenade launcher? Seriously?—let off a shotgun round that whizzed by his head. Levi barreled into the man, his jaws closing around the thug’s throat with a satisfying crunch and ripping it open as Levi continued past and the man’s body did not. The tang of hot blood filled his mouth, and the wolf tried to take over.
The other three whirled, letting loose with a hail of bullets. Levi kept going into the open air. The sudden afternoon light blinded him for an instant until his pupils constricted. He was already falling into the thought-patterns of his wolf form, the men becoming no longer human in his mind but merely targets, enemies, things that had to be eliminated because they wanted him dead.
He whirled and bounded back, yelping as one wild shot slammed into his shoulder, the same one that Harper had shot. But he kept charging, taking another of his opponents down under his weight. The wolf in him wanted to stand over the body to make sure that he was disabled, but the man knew that to do that would be to invite death from the two still standing. So he streaked past, back into the darkness to dive into the vast tangle of furniture that filled a third of the barn.
Cursing, one of the survivors scrabbled for the dropped single-shot grenade launcher. Levi’s muscles twitched. The man was too close to the barn to shoot another grenade—the M79 needed thirty meters in the air to arm, a precaution that kept morons from blowing themselves up with their own weapons. At a closer range, the grenade was no more than deadly than a rock.
