Sexy Beast II

by Kate Douglas, Noelle Mack

  “We forgot your things.”

  The porch was littered with bags, her purchases dropped helter-skelter when they’d given in to passion. She stared at the disarray, taken aback by the proof of her atypical abandon. “I guess we were distracted.”

  He helped her bring the bags in, then finally took his leave, his long legs covering the short distance to his car in a ground-eating lope.

  Deanna stood by the door, fighting the selfish urge to call Graeme back. Was it merely sexual attraction or could it be insecurity that made her want to cling to him as the one rock of stability she had? Her heart tripped at the thought. Surely it was just the situation, a vulnerability left over from her close call, reinforced by her dependence on him to get around town? Once she had wheels again, she’d feel less fragile.

  She turned away gingerly, her knees still shaky from that last vigorous bout of lovemaking. Good God, was she turning into a spineless doormat just because of a scare?

  If you could call a nearly fatal accident a scare. That was like saying Godzilla was a hapless little gecko.

  The low growl of the Jeep’s engine started up, then faded into the distance, announcing Graeme’s departure. The hours until his return suddenly stretched before Deanna, empty of activity when she was accustomed to keeping herself busy.

  Needing to do something, she explored the cabin, curious now that he wasn’t around to absorb her attention.

  It was a spare structure, all rough wood bearing the obvious signs of hand-tool marks, but well kept for all that. There was only one room: the front door opened directly into the kitchen, which flowed into the main cabin furnished with a long wood bench smelling of lemon polish, a battered settee, and a modern recliner. The stone fireplace she’d noted earlier took up one wall with small windows on either side that matched the one in the kitchen. An economical toilet and shower were located under narrow stairs that gave access to a loft over the kitchen.

  The second level proved just as Spartan. A utilitarian bed sat beside a small window, with a single closet at its foot, built in under unpainted rafters. The loft had enough space for another bed or two, and overlooked the living area, but other than that, it had little to recommend it.

  Betty hadn’t been kidding when she’d said there wasn’t much to do around here.

  Overall, a cozy sort of place with—her heart dropped at the realization—no air-conditioning.

  All of a sudden, Deanna felt the urge to bake. Needed to bury her hands in soft yielding dough. Wanted to slap it down, pummel it, make something out of unpromising flour and yeast.

  Returning downstairs, she gave the kitchen a closer look. There was a modern microwave that was useless for her purposes and a wood stove that might have been part of the cabin’s original fixtures. She stared at it glumly, knowing that anything she tried to cook on that relic would be doomed.

  It didn’t help to remember that her precious mixer lay at the bottom of a ravine, along with her laptop and other worldly possessions.

  Frustrated, she paced to the hearth with its soot-darkened stones and neatly raked ashes—incongruous, given the summer heat—and avoided looking at the hooked rug in front of it that had been center stage for much of that afternoon’s lovemaking. Wood was already laid on the andirons, just awaiting a flame on kindling. More firewood was stacked under the bench, making a pleasing pattern she was in no mood to contemplate.

  She opened the windows to let fresh air in. But there was hardly any wind stirring the heat and little enough to cut the thick odor of exuberant sex that permeated the room.

  The reminder was too much. She fled the cabin’s confines, hoping to find relief in the outdoors. Perched as it was on the mountainside, the porch turned out to have a commanding view of the valley and the town nestled in it; she could make out the fire station and, in the distance, the roof of the clinic. Framed by the treetops and by blue ridges in the distance, it was probably breathtaking in morning light. But she was in no mood to appreciate the scenery.

  Giving her back to it, Deanna skirted her temporary home, needing to move to release the tension building up inside her.

  Behind the cabin, she found a small picnic area complete with table and benches. From the rear, the wooden structure presented a blank face, except for a hutch that probably opened to the space under the bench inside. Near its small double doors was a large, old stump, its flat top marked by straight scars—it apparently served as a chopping block for firewood. There wasn’t much else to see, besides trees and bushes. From the picnic table, though, she could hear the faint sounds of water tumbling—probably the creek Betty’d mentioned.

  Curiosity stirred, but her feet remained planted on the dry grass. She couldn’t avoid the issue any longer.

  What had gotten into her—besides the obvious? Deanna blushed at the thought. She’d never been one for jumping into bed, yet here she was, less than twenty-four hours after meeting Graeme. Who would have thought her sexual drought would end so abruptly, and with such a man?

  Her womb throbbed at the reminder, the pleasant ache between her thighs a potent memento of his lovemaking. Giving in to weakness, she sat down on one of the rough benches, folded her arms on the table and rested her head on them.

  He was so different from the other men of her acquaintance.

  Deanna sighed, running her thumb over rough, pale wood meditatively. Maybe it had been the danger, but from the very first, Graeme had made a strong, unshakable impression.

  He’d been like an avenging angel seen through the hole in the shattered windshield, a halo of light around his head. In hindsight, it had probably been the sun glinting off his hair, but that logical explanation didn’t lessen his impact on her.

  Then, there was the way his arms had bulged when he pushed the warped frame of her car window open, his muscles thrown into stark relief by the massive effort. He’d rivaled the models and Classical sculpture she’d studied in college…and he’d been doing it to save her.

  Surely that explained part of his attraction? How many men did she know who’d risk so much for a total stranger?

  Wind blew over her, stirring her hair and rustling the leaves above her, as she pondered that.

  No one else came to mind.

  Only Graeme.

  What was it about him that drew her so strongly? His easy manner with the townsfolk? His casual thoughtfulness? His energetic lovemaking and the care he took to make sure she enjoyed it, too? All of the above?

  Deanna sighed, closing her eyes to the dancing sunlight that dappled the table. She wanted to know him—not just in the carnal sense of the word but in every other way.

  Don’t forget you’re leaving soon. Hillsboro was where she might discover something about her parents, maybe even family.

  Heritage. That’s why she’d left Boston, and what she’d hungered for, ever since she’d learned what “orphan” meant. And Hillsboro was where she might find it, not Woodrose. Just because she’d met a man who intrigued her didn’t mean she’d give that up.

  And she only had so many days to do it, if she didn’t want her business to suffer. It was one thing to take a week or two for herself to drive down; it was another thing altogether to let her projects hang fire for a month.

  The breeze died down, leaving sunlight streaming down on her arms and face. Without the whispering wind for competition, the ripple of the creek sounded louder, punctuated by the occasional splash of water.

  All at once, the sweat from the afternoon’s activities made her skin itch. Since the clinic hadn’t been set up for long-term patients, she hadn’t been able to take a proper bath. Reminded of that deficiency, she decided that a shower sounded like a wonderful idea.

  Deanna retreated to the cabin, then stripped off her limp clothes, which were the worse for wear from more than a day’s use plus a few hours on the porch.

  She stepped into the shower and turned the tap. Though the water was tepid, the pressure was strong enough to sting, a refreshing contrast to the humi
d heat. Soaping herself, she washed off the sweat and the lingering memory of the accident with a will. The foamy massage of the washcloth over her sensitized skin brought to mind Graeme’s caresses. Her hands slowed as she savored the memory, retracing his strokes. Across her breasts, her thighs and belly, her neck and shoulders, even her back and bum, touching her all over with a hunger that couldn’t be denied. She shivered with desire, her core almost convulsing in rapture.

  He’d been insatiable. A fucking madman.

  Deanna smiled at the description.

  He’d made her scream and beg for release, and she wanted more of it. Could barely wait until his shift was over and he returned to her. True, she was sore from his attentions, but that didn’t matter.

  She felt alive, free, and safe. More so than she’d felt in months. More like her old self, before the city had started closing in on her. Even though she’d only have these few days with him, she wasn’t going to pass them up. When Graeme returned, she’d welcome him with open arms.

  The issue settled in her mind, Deanna quickly finished showering. She dried herself with a thin towel from a stack on the shelf, the effort leaving a sheen of sweat across her shoulders. Her ease of motion surprised her. She’d forgotten to be careful of sudden movement, yet her body barely complained.

  The mirror mounted on the back of the bathroom door provided another surprise: her bruise looked better. It had faded somewhat and was no longer so luridly purple. Of course, the splotches of green and yellow that remained weren’t that much of an improvement, but stretching almost didn’t hurt, which was a blessing.

  She stared, dumbfounded by the rapidity of her recovery. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t been in any pain while making love with Graeme earlier. Not that that could have had anything to do with her healing.

  Graeme spent most of his shift fighting his gut, which was bawling him out for leaving Deanna free to be claimed by some other male. He ignored it as the territoriality of his inner wolf, knowing better than to give instinct free rein when it had already run wild most of the afternoon.

  The highlight of the evening was seeing Henckel behind bars, awaiting his bail hearing on Monday. By the time they’d brought him in on Friday, court had been out and the judge off for some weekend fishing—much to Graeme’s satisfaction. He was of the opinion it would do the idiot good to have a foretaste of jail to see if he had a liking for the institution.

  Seeing Henckel also reminded Graeme to drop by the Hogg Wylde during his patrol to make sure the weekend revelry hadn’t gotten out of hand. He made a point of checking on the idiot’s teammates; with classes out for the summer and months to go before they dispersed to whatever colleges would take them, they’d taken to treating the bar like a second home. September couldn’t come soon enough to break up that pack of yahoos.

  The bar was a low building on the edge of town that catered to a rough crowd of drinkers. The owner spent the minimum on upkeep, leaving the weathered sidings bare and only a battered and faded sign depicting carousing porkers to advertise its business. A graveled clearing served for parking, while picnic tables clustered closer to the bar.

  By the time Graeme drove by, the heat of the night had forced the drinkers outside. Beer was flowing freely, as evidenced by the number of empties surrounding the group that worried him. With summer break, time lay heavy on the young idiots normally led by Henckel. And from the sound of it, all that drink wasn’t improving their belligerent dispositions.

  “It’s all her fault. If she hadn’t been there, Fred wouldn’t be in jail right now.” The night air carried the complaint to Graeme’s straining ears as he brought his patrol car to a halt on the road. The chorus of grumbled agreement that followed said this was a popular refrain.

  Others picked up on the theme, elaborating on it and blaming Deanna for other imagined offenses.

  Then someone broached the idea of getting even.

  The group erupted with raucous, predatory laughter, the discussion devolving into vainglorious boasts of how they would “punish” Deanna.

  Over my dead body, Graeme snarled inwardly, wishing he could throw the whole lot into jail for the duration of Deanna’s stay in Woodrose. Unfortunately, he couldn’t hang around to ensure Henckel’s bunch didn’t cause trouble; he still had the rest of his patrol to finish.

  He assessed their condition with a critical eye. For once, he hoped they’d drink themselves to oblivion—they were halfway there already. If they did, he wouldn’t have to worry about them for the rest of the evening.

  It galled Graeme that the sheriff’s orders forced him and his fellow deputies to ignore the idiots’ very public consumption of alcohol. He couldn’t even penalize the Hogg Wylde for serving minors.

  And almost everyone in town excused the drinking as typical high spirits—boys will be boys, never mind that it flouted state law. After all, they’d done the same when they were teenagers and hadn’t come to any harm.

  His subsequent rechecks later that night found them embroidering on their notion of punishment. What was particularly worrisome was their restraint. At any other time, a few fistfights would have broken out by now. That they continued to huddle around the table drinking made for a change in pattern that didn’t do much for his peace of mind.

  Back at the station at the end of his shift, Graeme still couldn’t put the boasts at the Hogg Wylde out of his head. What if there was more to it than a bunch of hotheads letting off steam? He knew from past experience Henckel’s bunch didn’t see anything wrong with roughing up people they didn’t like.

  “Heard there’s a cold front coming.” Mitchell heaved his bulk out from behind his desk with a grunt of understandable weariness. The heat and the full moon had brought out the mischief-makers in force, resulting in more than one house papered and several complaints of rowdiness and public indecency. They’d been run off their feet in the latter half of their shift.

  “’Bout time we had some. It might cool things off a mite.” Graeme typed up the last of his reports, carefully punching keys that were too small for his fingers. Damned sexist typewriter makers never seemed to consider that men did their own typing these days.

  He returned Mitchell’s wave absently just before the other deputy disappeared out the door, his mind playing back the beer-fueled discussion he’d overheard. The more he thought about it, the more he didn’t like it. Henckel’s bunch was liquored up enough to make trouble for Deanna. And everyone in Woodrose knew where to find her.

  Staring blindly at the report he was typing, Graeme imagined the damage those muscle-bound yahoos could do to Deanna without even raising a sweat. He gritted his teeth. Not if he had anything to say about it. She had enough bad experiences to turn her off Woodrose without those idiots giving her more reason not to stay.

  Pounding on the typewriter, he finished the report. Once he’d signed them and turned them in, he’d be off duty. Then he could see what he could do about safeguarding Deanna.

  Deanna lay on top of the bed, her limp sleep shirt clinging to her body, the crispness of her new purchase having quickly succumbed to sweat. The loft was like an oven, roasting her to a crisp. Even keeping the small window completely open didn’t bring relief from the sweltering heat. She wouldn’t have minded so much if Graeme had been the cause of it. But he wasn’t.

  She turned over, trying to find a cooler position, but the mattress had soaked up the heat of the day. The only cool spots were damp from perspiration.

  Unable to stand it a moment longer, she escaped downstairs, but it was little better. The air was stagnant, a heavy blanket that clutched at her body. A second shower bought only a brief respite from the heat. Sweat beaded her back even before she’d finished toweling herself dry.

  Deanna paced the Spartan room restlessly, a familiar tension like a clamp around her ribs. The same disquiet that had sent her fleeing Boston. She gritted her teeth against the sensation, dismayed to feel it again.

  But it wouldn’t go away.

&
nbsp; The cabin closed in on her. Constraining. Like a cage when she wanted to roam free.

  Deanna spun on her heel, the hair slapping her cheeks a poor imitation of the stinging bite of a strong gust. She needed to see nature surrounding her, to have grass under her feet, to breathe fresh air.

  Outside, the trees rustled, as though calling to her, whispering of the wind blowing through their branches.

  Finally, it was more than she could bear. She took up her beddings and picked her way through the cabin with the help of moonlight streaming through a window. In the clearing behind, she laid the sheets out to make a pallet on the grass.

  Graeme turned off the track, dry leaves crunching as he drove past some bushes to park the Jeep under a sycamore. He stared up at the tall tree with its patchy bark reflecting moonlight, breathing in the hot, heavy air.

  Nothing stirred in the night, almost as though the animals knew a predator was in their midst.

  Switching off the interior light, he left the Jeep, closing its door gently, knowing better than to tempt Fate with loud noises. While traffic was unlikely at this time of night, Murphy played fast and loose with the odds. He stripped out of his uniform and left it folded on top of his shoes to await his return.

  The heat of the night left a thin layer of sweat on his shoulders. Thankfully, he didn’t have to stand it for long.

  Reaching for his other self, he Changed. Heat shimmered through his body, bathing him in waves of power. In less than a heartbeat, an eye-blink too quick to register, he was on all fours with gray-speckled black fur covering his wolf body.

  Graeme shook himself, settling his fur into place as he waited for the tingling afterglow of his transformation to fade. His mouth gaped in a lupine grin. No matter how many times he’d Changed since puberty, it was still a heady rush to take on his other form.

  Then he stretched, feeling loose muscles answer his command, his claws digging into the soft ground. The scent of flaking moss and dead leaves teased his nose, then danced away, the heat leaching most odors from the wind. He’d have welcomed a little rain to help him track but doubted the gods who watched over good werewolves would let some fall right when he needed it. It was still a few hours before the predicted cold front would hit, supposing the meteorologists got it right.