He teased her nipples, pulling and tweaking the hard points, rolling them between his fingers.
She met his thrusts desperately, the wet slap of skin on skin like primitive music in her roaring ears.
With a last powerful thrust, he came with a roar of triumph. As he took his release, his twitching cock swelled impossibly larger, stretching her nearly to the point of pain.
Torrid power flooded through Deanna, spilling to her curled toes and the very tips of her fingers. It surged up her spine in a wave of scalding pleasure, a relentless pressure demanding release.
It exploded in an incredible starburst of pure ecstasy.
Deanna threw her head back, howling her delight to the night. Nothing less could express the violent pleasure erupting through her body, searing her to the bone.
6
Dazed by the surfeit of sensation still echoing through her body, Deanna blinked. Pale fur dominated her vision. Tawny fur that covered large paws stretched out along both sides of her head. She tried to flex her fingers and saw the paws move. Saw dark claws scratch the bare floor. Felt the claws biting into wood. And didn’t quite feel the wood under her elbows—at least, it wasn’t rough, not the way it had been before. Turning her head to investigate this anomaly, she discovered more fur padding said elbows.
Oh.
Graeme was right. She was a werewolf.
She laid her head back down on the floor, stunned by the development. Intellectually, she’d accepted the possibility of being a werewolf. But, in her heart, she hadn’t expected to receive confirmation this quickly, though Graeme had implied it could happen.
Her father really had been a werewolf.
Feeling vulnerable lying flat on her belly, Deanna tried to scramble up. But Graeme was still inside her, still stretching her, still impossibly thick. She tried to move but couldn’t budge him. He felt like he was wedged in tight.
He groaned above her, his weight pressing down on her. Large gray-furred paws were planted on either side of her; he’d apparently Changed when she had.
She braced her arms—forelegs—to pull away, but teeth closed around her shoulder, holding her in place. She quivered at that intimate threat, her legs going weak with carnal excitement. Her core gave another convulsive shudder, the latest in the violent aftermath of pleasure.
The delicious aftershocks from their mutual release continued to wash through her for several minutes, gradually fading to a sweet ache, along with Graeme’s erection. Finally, he slipped out with a low grunt, taking his weight off her.
She rolled over to face him. He really was a handsome wolf, his premature gray translating to flecks of silver in his thick coat that gave him an air of distinction. The condom hanging off his cock was an incongruous note that made her grin.
Following her gaze, Graeme snorted in surprise. He clawed off the latex, then snuffled her belly fur, his warm breath tickling.
Startled by a shiver of joy that spread through her veins, Deanna snapped at him and scrambled to her feet. Claws clicked on the wood, reminding her of her condition.
Curiosity pricked, she scrambled for the bathroom. She dragged the door open and studied herself in the long mirror. The moonlight streaming down through the loft window was enough to raise golden highlights on pale fur.
Deanna stared at her reflection, once more taken aback. She twisted around, studying herself from other angles. She’d really transformed into a wolf—a rather sleek one, at that—complete with thick cream-tipped tail. She gave said tail an experimental wag. Yup, it’s mine, all right.
A soft huff drew her attention back to Graeme, who seemed to find her vanity amusing, if the laughter in his eyes and the tongue lolling from his grinning mouth were any indication.
Miffed, she walked out, holding her body stiffly, unable to mask her irritation. She was about to give him a cold shoulder when loud hollers rose from outside the door—catcalls and shouts of encouragement from several different throats.
Deanna spun around toward the source of the noise.
The sound of breaking glass punctuated the din. Then an acrid scent assaulted her nose, the stench overpowering all others. Gasoline!
Turning to Graeme, Deanna pawed her nose, trying to ask him if he smelled what she did. Telepathy would have been so useful at the moment. How in hell did werewolves communicate?
He tossed his head, apparently in agreement. He herded her away from the door, his fangs bared in a silent snarl as he kept his arctic gaze on the blank panel.
The whoops and hollers got even wilder, if that was possible. There was an unintelligible shout and Graeme’s pricked ears went flat, his hackles bristling around his head…as though he recognized the muffled voice.
Was there more to it than a bunch of hooligans whooping it up? But why the gasoline?
Light flickered under the front door, an unsteady, reddish yellow glow that wasn’t produced by a flashlight. Fire!
They had to get out of here!
But how? They couldn’t Change to escape. Naked as they were, they’d be no match for the rabble outside.
Deanna stared at Graeme in horror. She didn’t know how to Change back! If she died tonight, would her body return to human or remain a wolf? She shook herself, throwing off the macabre thought. That wasn’t important.
She forced her mind back to the problem. The lone door opened to the porch—that was out of the question. The windows were too high; in her wolf form, she didn’t think she could manage even the lowest one without breaking a leg.
Graeme scrambled for the bench. He clawed at the firewood under it, scattering the logs with a hollow clatter.
The hutch! Yes! Deanna joined him at clearing a way to the access doors. Being smaller, she was able to squeeze under the bench while Graeme continued digging.
There. Only a simple latch held the doors closed. A swipe of her paw was all she needed to release it. Cool air rushed in as the doors swung wide, bringing with it the smell of rain and forest—and nothing else.
Hopefully, that meant whoever had set fire to the cabin wasn’t waiting for them on this side.
She scrambled through and dropped the short distance to the ground, the clicking of her claws loud to her straining ears.
No one. The rear clearing was empty, save for herself. No one lurked in the shadows; nothing moved except the rustling trees. But before she could sigh in relief a low growl sounded behind her, gruff with a note of frustration.
Graeme was stuck in the hutch, his dark forelegs stretched out, his head and shoulders lodged in the narrow aperture. The low bench probably meant his hindquarters were just as flat behind him. Unable to move his legs, he couldn’t get through. Reverting to human form probably wouldn’t help since his shoulders would be even wider.
Oh, no. Deanna pawed his forelegs, hoping to work him loose. Suddenly, the smell of smoke strengthened, mixed in with the gasoline stench. Spurred on by the reminder of their danger, she worried the hutch and his thick fur.
Nothing she did helped. Her wolf form had no grip to speak of and she didn’t know how to Change back to human form to correct the situation.
Graeme barked at her, a low, soft whuff that tried to communicate something. When she scratched at the wood trapping him, thinking to widen the space, he pushed her away, his muzzle jerking up in a sharp imperative.
His meaning was unmistakable: Leave. Escape while she could.
She bared her fangs at him, her refusal emerging as a growl. The hell she was abandoning him!
He pushed at her again and she instinctively snapped at him, catching his leg between her jaws. She blinked at the unusual sensation of fur in her mouth, then realized the possibilities. Biting down, she braced her legs and pulled.
Damn, he was heavy. He tried to help her, but his free foreleg couldn’t reach the ground. It was all up to her.
Pulling for all she was worth, Deanna inched away from the wall. The strain was enormous. Digging her claws into the ground, she threw all her energy into sa
ving Graeme, her focus narrowing down until he was the only thing she saw.
The fire didn’t matter. Their attackers didn’t matter. Only Graeme.
Inch by slow, painful inch.
Then Graeme managed to get his other leg under him and push off.
Her legs slid out from under her.
Yipping, Deanna found herself rolling on her side and down an incline. Oof. The short drop barely registered. Shaking her fur into order, she stuck her head up to check on Graeme, who was clawing his way forward and out. She sprang back to the hutch and, ignoring his grumbling growls, took his leg between her jaws once more to speed his progress. This time, knowing what to expect, she was able to keep her grip on him and stay on her feet.
A few more tugs and he was free!
Panting at the exertion, Deanna lowered her head and got a noseful of smoke. She snorted. With the hutch unblocked, the smell seemed to pour out of the hole. Through the opening, she could just make out the edge of the front door, now limned by flames.
A nudge in her ribs recalled her to their danger.
Graeme turned away from the cabin to face the forest. After a last look, Deanna allowed him to lead her through the trees and along a stream to his Jeep.
Once there, he Changed back, making it look as easy as rolling over in bed. Again, there was none of the pain or elaborate special effects of Hollywood movies. One moment, a huge gray wolf stood by the car, and the next, a brawny, naked man.
Ignoring the eye candy and his dangling bits, she barked at him in frustration.
“Relax.” He rubbed her ears, setting off an unexpected shiver of preposterously decadent delight through her unfamiliar body. “Think of your human form and let it happen. That’s all there is to it.”
The surge of pleasure reminded her of her response to his lovemaking. Then she discovered he was right. Just like that, she was on her knees in front of him, her cheek pressed to his warm, callused palm…without fur to protect her from pebbles and the hard stems of dry leaves. She stood up, her lover rising with her.
Fishing his car keys from inside his shoes, Graeme unlocked the Jeep for Deanna. “Stay here. I have to make sure they don’t get away with this.” He mentally counted up the number of rowdies who had been at the Hogg Wylde earlier and tried to estimate how long it would take the volunteer fire crew to respond. With the cabin’s perch high on the mountainside, the fire would be like a beacon in the darkness, visible everywhere in town.
About to get in, she paused with her hand on the door, a frown knitting her brows. “They’re drunk. You can’t handle that many all by yourself. Shouldn’t you call for backup?”
“The fire brigade’s coming. There’s no way they could miss the fire. But I can’t wait for them. I’ve got to stop those yahoos here, catch them red-handed. If they drive away…” Graeme shook his head in frustration, silently cursing them for this latest idiocy and himself for forgetting the danger they posed. After this, there was no way Deanna would want to stick around once her car was recovered. “The sheriff will let them off just as he has before.” It was a shitty thing to do, in his opinion, but Henckel’s bunch was a winning team and the local golden boys. Unless incontrovertible evidence was shoved in their faces, most of the townsfolk would look the other way and make excuses for them.
A stubborn expression settled on Deanna’s face. “I’ll help you.” She planted her feet squarely on the ground, her shoulders straight, determination written in every line of her body. Her posture brought her breasts to distracting prominence, moonlight glowing on the high slopes.
His mouth dried. It was probably unintentional on her part, but it still made stringing together a coherent sentence something of an effort.
“All right. We’ll have to do it as wolves. If they see you like this”—his eyes flicked over her nudity automatically, unable to resist a glance—“who knows what they might do.”
She nodded assent.
“Try not to hurt them. We don’t want to trigger a wolf hunt.”
Deanna frowned, probably wishing she could do damage—Graeme couldn’t fault her since he wanted the same himself—but she nodded again.
He Changed back into a wolf and for the second time watched Deanna’s body shimmer and vanish into a similar form. It still took his breath away to know that he’d been right and she really was a werewolf.
On the way back to the cabin, Graeme kept a worried eye and ear on Deanna as he cut through a feathery stand of maidenhair ferns. He’d never really thought about it before, but movement in wolf form was probably instinctive. Certainly, despite her lack of experience, Deanna displayed very little awkwardness, her pale shape pure grace in motion as she loped at his side. But that didn’t mean she knew how to use all the weapons at her disposal or had full control over her wolf.
The past couple of days had shown him just how powerful instinct was. If he, with more than a decade of lupine experience, had difficulty reining in that side of himself, when instinct spurred his wolf brain to action, what more of Deanna, who was the target of the attack?
A strengthening in the scents of the forest warned him they were near the creek even before the sound of tumbling waters reached his pricked ears. They’d run only a short distance when another scent drifted across their path.
Raising his muzzle, Graeme tested the air, snarling involuntarily at the sour odor. He’d smelled it earlier, while leading Deanna to his Jeep, but had been more concerned with getting her to safety. Now, he followed the trail across the stream and into the woods.
Deanna sneezed, then sneezed again, soft huffs that barely broke the silence of the night. She pawed her nose, snorted, then shook her lithe body as though ridding herself of an unpleasant sensation.
Letting his tongue hang between his jaws, Graeme grinned at her, unable to hide his amusement at the picture she made with her elegant muzzle all screwed up in disgust. He’d learned long ago to take the bad with the good when it came to the sharper olfactory senses of his wolf form, not that it made the stench borne on the rising wind in any way more agreeable.
They found the idiots’ pickups parked in a nearby clearing strewn with empty beer cans and stinking of piss, alcohol, and other things that raised Graeme’s hackles. The bone-headed bunch must have stopped there to work up their nerve before going on foot to the cabin.
Closer in, the smell of gun oil stood out—pure and clear compared to the other odors—which gave him something else to worry about. The racks in the pickups all had their full complement of rifles, which was somewhat reassuring. Those yahoos just intended to burn Deanna out, not shoot her…unless they had pistols.
But that was for later. First, he had to make sure Henckel’s bunch wouldn’t get away.
He Changed back to human form to disable the trucks, while Deanna kept a listening posture, clearly serious about watching his back. The kind of partner any wolf worth his pelt would want at his side.
To prevent escape, Graeme disconnected the high-tension wires from the ignition coils. It would have been simpler to slash the tires, especially with his claws, but it might not have been as effective. As drunk and woolly as those idiots seemed to be, they might have driven for miles before noticing a flat. Now, all that was left was to keep them occupied until Woodrose’s volunteer fire brigade arrived.
Cold apprehension raising the fur along her back, Deanna followed Graeme through banks of spicy-smelling bushes, toward the ruckus. Sticking close, she kept her eyes on him since his large form seemed to vanish into the shadows. If she wasn’t careful, he might decide to lose her in the forest—for her own good, of course—while he dealt with the arsonists.
No matter how much she wanted to return to his Jeep and just avoid the hooligans, she had to support him. She’d never forgive herself if something happened to him and she hadn’t been there to help.
When they broke through the trees surrounding her cabin, she realized he’d taken her at her word about backing him up. If he’d been tempted to go it alone,
he hadn’t acted on it.
Embarrassed by her suspicions, she directed her attention at the crowd whooping it up around the burning structure. To her surprise, the arsonists turned out to be around a dozen clean-cut young men who didn’t seem old enough to buy the beer in their hands.
But when they egged one of their number to toss a makeshift torch at the cabin, she knew their age didn’t matter. And when Graeme bared his fangs and stalked out of the tree line to face them down, she knew she couldn’t let him face them alone, despite the giant butterflies in her stomach.
He struck from the shadows, bowling over a hooligan to snap at someone else, then retreated to the shadows. He did so again and again, sowing confusion among the bunch.
Staying among the trees, she watched closely, studying his technique and noting the care he took not to scratch them. It seemed simple enough. By keeping to the shadows, Graeme made it look like there were more wolves than just the two of them.
Then one of the arsonists grabbed a broken bottle by its neck and advanced on Graeme.
Growling, Deanna scrambled into the clearing to lunge at the staggering man. A swipe of her paw disarmed him. Yelling, he kicked out wildly. She dodged the blow, ducking under the arc of his foot, then used her body to knock him off balance.
Anger and outrage flowed through her, cleansing her of her earlier fear. These worthless thugs dared attack her? She bared her fangs, snapping at a nearby rump. Only luck and a sudden panicked jerk on her target’s part kept her from doing damage. The jarring clash of her teeth shocked her back to herself—and the risk of a wolf hunt to Graeme.
Whoops! Dashing to the shadows, Deanna checked her lover and found him busy with a pair of hooligans. She hoped he hadn’t noticed her lapse.
Working side by side with him, she herded the arsonists against the burning cabin.
A wailing fire truck sped down the dirt track, trailed by patrol cars. At last!
Sexy Beast II Page 23
