Running Free (Northern Shifters)

by Jorrie Spencer

  “Trey has a niece,” she offered, glad to have been Jancis’s roommate and to have listened to Jancis’s stories, which included Veronica’s history.

  “Who the hell is Trey?”

  “Uh, he’s like werewolf consultant and Fixer of All Bad Problems.”

  “What? Is that a joke?”

  “No. Sorry. People tend to look up to him, but he can be very helpful.”

  Zach visibly got hold of himself. “You’re not making any sense, plus you need to leave.”

  She’d never outstayed her welcome before, had always been sensitive to being unwanted, but her wolf dug in, made her stay and speak again. “What I’m trying to tell you is this. Veronica, Trey’s niece, lost her memory and was a wolf for two years. Her brother kept searching for her, and eventually she was found.”

  She was jerking his chain, trying to get a reaction. Except no, it didn’t feel like that at all. She just sat there, curled up on the floor, talking in her mesmerizing voice while so many violent emotions coursed through him. Why the fuck was she talking about brothers and lost memories?

  He pulled in a long breath through his nose and could only sense goodwill from this woman.

  “Veronica never did remember her past,” Sally continued, and Zach was riveted despite himself, “but she recognized her brother. This is not uncommon among shifters, especially if there’s been some kind of…violence. Our brain chemistry heals differently than one might expect. Different than humans. What is remembered and what is forgotten is unpredictable.”

  Zach’s heart was beating too loud, blood pounding through him. Sally could surely hear everything about his body’s reaction. He was trying to remember why he couldn’t confide in her. One moment, he distrusted her and the next he wanted to tell her everything. Everything.

  He needed to go for a run, clear his head.

  The word violence echoed through his brain, a painful beat.

  “It’s time for you to go.” Instead of sounding determined, there was a kind of plea in his voice which embarrassed him.

  She sat there, far below him, her face raised, her eyes wide open. “No one will judge you for having lost your memory, Zach. Is that what you’re concerned about?”

  His entire body flushed hot. It wasn’t embarrassment exactly, but alarm and something stronger, something he couldn’t identify.

  Her clear gaze saw right through him. She said, “Come back,” and patted the floor beside her. Where she’d leaned against him and he’d soaked in her presence.

  When he’d first started caring for Storm, his body would flinch at times, at the sudden contact from the boy, for he’d been unused to any touch whatsoever. Storm hadn’t understood the reaction, and Zach had worked hard to bring his body under control, to not react, until it had become natural to him, the roughhousing and parental affection between a guardian and his child.

  This was different. He should remain standing, master himself and his reactions. She undid his plans by rising and accepting the tremor that ran through his body when her slim hand wrapped around his palm, then led him to the couch.

  When they were seated, Sally once again curled up beside him, and murmured, “You know, I want to say trust me, but I know how hollow those two words can be.”

  “I can read, you know. I’m not completely uneducated.” He wasn’t hopeless, and he had to make that clear if he had any chance of presenting himself as a competent guardian. His memory loss, which she’d so accurately assessed, had not incapacitated him.

  “I didn’t think you were. You read over the Suzuki material, remember?”

  “I could have been faking it.”

  “You asked me a couple of specific questions gleaned from those pages.”

  “Oh.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t want anyone else to learn about this.”

  “Learn what?”

  He’d rather not spell it out and make it more real, but it was necessary at this point. “That I have amnesia. That I was feral, and for a hell of a lot longer than two years.” His voice dipped lower so she wouldn’t hear the tremor threatening his words. “I don’t even know how old I am.” I don’t know what I did or didn’t do.

  “Oh, Zach, no one cares about your past that way. Still, it won’t be me who says anything.”

  “They’ll care,” he said grimly.

  “Why? Why do you say that? I don’t care. You can tell, can’t you?”

  He could. She was snuggling up to him, even taking comfort from the contact, and while he didn’t know what to make of it, she wasn’t holding his memory loss against him.

  “Connie doesn’t understand what I am, what feral means. She might take Storm from me if she did, especially if there are now wolves who can pick up the slack when it comes to looking after him.” Yes, Storm needed wolves in his life, Zach was coming to accept that, but Storm also needed Zach.

  Sally turned towards him, her breast pressing against his arm, and his entire body hardened. Again the heat flushed through him, though this time with a different set of emotions.

  She didn’t seem to notice his reaction. Her face was set. “No one is taking that boy away from you, over my dead body.”

  He forgot his arousal and turned on her, giving her shoulders a brief shake. “Don’t say that. Ever.” He wanted nothing to do with dead bodies again if he could help it.

  She looked at him with big eyes. “I’m sorry. Bad choice of words. I just mean it won’t happen if I have any say. Though I don’t believe anyone else would want it to happen.”

  She was warm under his hands. Her shoulders fit just right beneath his palms. Her eyes darkened, bringing home the fact he was completely out of his depth here. He rose and half-turned from her. God knows what she made of his odd behavior.

  “Do you speak for Wolf Town?” he asked, wrenching the subject back to what was important and away from his treacherous body.

  “No,” she acknowledged.

  “So, you can’t know their reaction.”

  She leaned towards him. “When I was first told about Storm, I asked why we didn’t bring him to Wolf Town. It was a thoughtless question on my part, because I was a little alarmed at the idea of coming here. Angus was quite sharp with me, saying Wolf Town doesn’t go in and kidnap children, and children should be left with those who care for them. As you do.”

  Okay, that sounded plausible, even optimistic. He felt like he was running a marathon, and maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to complete the course.

  Then she asked, “Did your brother cause you harm?”

  The question come at Zach out of the blue, and he almost shouted his response. “No.”

  She watched.

  “I don’t remember,” he amended, still loud and harsh. “I don’t remember a fucking thing. Maybe I harmed him.” He shouldn’t say it out loud, should just shut the fuck up, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to repress his voice, his words, his need to speak to someone. “Maybe that’s why I don’t remember anything. I don’t know what I was before and maybe I needed to forget.”

  She pushed off the couch, walking towards him with purpose, and he froze. He was useless, then helpless as she wrapped arms around his torso and buried her face in his collarbone. Of their own accord, his arms rose and pulled her tight against him, practically crushing her in the process, he thought dimly, even as he breathed in the scent of her hair and tried to loosen his grip.

  Everything surged within him, and she had to know his reaction to her embrace. Yet it didn’t make her retreat from him.

  “Listen to me,” she insisted, speaking into his skin. “Your brother wants to find you, he’s worried about you, and he misses you. That’s not someone you harmed, is it?”

  Chapter Ten

  She was in over her head. At least he wasn’t vibrating as he held her, though he clasped her tight, almost enough to bruise. He was aroused too, and when she extricated herself from their embrace, she could see he was embarrassed by this.

  If she was to gue
ss, he’d been away from human society long enough to not have had much sexual experience of late. His hot gaze held hers before he seemed to bring himself under control and look down and away.

  “Zach,” she said softly.

  He scrubbed a hand through his hair that was sticking out every which way, and made the man who was already as sexy as hell even sexier. God, his body, tense and lean and ripped. All muscle and the grace that came with athleticism and shifter genes. She’d never been so attracted to someone in her life, and that was thirty-seven long years.

  He grimace-smiled at the floor. “I’m a broken record, but maybe you’d better go.”

  “I don’t usually outstay my welcome, honest. But I don’t think, well, I hope you don’t really want me to leave.”

  His gaze came back up, direct. “You don’t want what I want.”

  “I might.”

  His face turned wary, a little puzzled, as if he couldn’t comprehend her meaning.

  “Oh, Zach.”

  “I have no past,” he bit out. “None.”

  “What about since you’ve been here, looking after Storm?”

  It seemed to take a force of will as he moved away from her and threw himself back into a chair. “Do me a favor. Speak as clearly as you can. What are you asking me?”

  She cycled through a number of different responses and couldn’t settle on one. “I’m worried about saying the wrong thing,” she admitted.

  “I appear fragile to you?”

  “No. Fragile is not a word I associate with you.”

  “What words do you associate with me? Completely fucked?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t want you telling other people about me.”

  “I’ll respect that. I promise.”

  He closed his eyes. “You’re messing with my head, Sally.”

  “I don’t mean to.”

  “Well, it might not be entirely your fault. I’ve started to trust you. Unfortunately for you, there have been so few people to trust in what life I remember…” His voice trailed off, and she knew she needed to speak, be forthright, take some of this upon herself.

  She swallowed, not used to putting herself out there, even if it had become part of the Zach pattern. “The problem here is I’m attracted to you.”

  “That’s a problem?” he asked. His body tightened again. “Because you’re a wolf and I’m a horse?”

  She shook her head. “Because I’m supposed to be, and I want to be, your friend.”

  “Supposed to be?”

  “One reason I’m staying here is to try to get to know you better.”

  He flicked his eyes up at her. “Okay.”

  She was making a mess of this, losing track of what she thought and why. She wanted to walk over and crawl on top of him, though a part of her—a very human part as her wolf protested—thought she should go slow.

  He rubbed his hands against the armrests of the chair. “Stay or go, it’s up to you. Everything is up to you.”

  She smiled. “That’s better than you telling me to leave.”

  “I’m not sure it is.” His hands clenched. “I want you.”

  She crossed the room then. As he watched her, she placed her knees outside both of his in the wide chair, set her hands on his fists. “It’s a little new for me too.”

  “I’m not stupid,” he ground out. “I know experience counts for something. I know I’ve missed out.”

  She opened one of his fists and kissed the palm, watched the tremor run up his arm. “I would never think you’re stupid, Zach. I understand what it’s like to turn away from sex, even if our reasons are different.”

  Something shifted in his eyes and concern rose to the forefront. “Someone hurt you.”

  “No.” She added, “Someone wanted to hurt me, and it wasn’t the first time I was targeted. It’s made me skittish.”

  His mouth twisted up, a kind of smile. “I got told I was skittish by Mrs. Whitmore.”

  The possessive side of her took hold and developed an instant dislike of this woman. “Who the hell is Mrs. Whitmore?”

  His smile widened at her response. “One of Storm’s classmates’ mothers. She, uh, seemed to like me, and I didn’t respond very well.”

  She couldn’t tell if the woman had alarmed him by being aggressive or if he’d hurt her feelings. Or both. Sally leaned forward. “You’re not skittish with me.”

  He gave the slightest roll of his eyes. “I’m aware of what I am.” He cleared his throat. “There must be easier guys.”

  “There are easier girls. I can promise you.”

  He laughed. “Maybe not for me.”

  She liked that, but he took it the wrong way, as if she was doing him a favor. He was always worrying, her horse.

  Her horse? Where had that thought come from? Good God. Her wolf was moving quickly.

  “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he told her.

  “I know,” she said simply, then pressed her lips to his, felt his give back before she pulled away. “Let me ask you something.”

  His expression became somewhat resigned. “Do you have to?”

  She tilted her head and decided the question could wait. “No.”

  With that he rose abruptly, and she would have fallen backwards but he’d already caught her up, pulled her against him. With her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck, he carried her to the stairs and started marching upwards.

  He was going to come just like this. His body had been lit up, and touching Sally was the greatest turn-on he’d ever known. In the living room, the chair had been an impossibility—being stuck in it, unmoving, with her above him when he needed to surround her. Yet as he strode up the stairs and she clung to him, her body soft and supple, he could barely think beyond fucking. Yes, he’d been taking extra care of himself lately, but that didn’t seem to matter right now.

  He stood beside the bed, suddenly frozen at the thought of the next step. It had always been so vague in his mind, and while he was pretty sure she knew he hadn’t fucked anyone before—in memory—he didn’t want to say it.

  Her graceful hands unlocked from behind his head and slid across his neck. She placed soft kisses on his chin, then his cheek, and he started to shake. He forced himself to look at her, but she wasn’t put off by his reaction, his overreaction.

  “You are such a shifter. As adolescents we go a little crazy, you know. You either missed that or have forgotten it.”

  She kissed his mouth again, and he wondered if he’d kissed before, found he didn’t care this time, just wanted to taste her, and he parted his lips, pulled her bottom lip between his gently.

  “I am too ready,” he warned her.

  She smiled again, pleasure there. “You know, I was hoping this wouldn’t be a one-shot deal.”

  She climbed down him, placed a hand under his T-shirt so her palm lay against his skin, and he inhaled hard.

  “I like that,” she said.

  He hadn’t a fucking idea why she would like him, jumpy and too-ready and his head about to explode, but he sank his fingers into her silky hair and took her back for another kiss.

  This time she opened her mouth and their tongues met. He groaned, he couldn’t remember making such a deep sound, as he tasted her, the dance of tongues and the meeting of lips distracting him until he realized she’d undone his jeans. She reached inside to palm him, and he jumped a mile.

  She was kneeling on the bed now, hand still holding his dick as he stood there at the brink, and she said, “Shhhh,” and pressed her mouth to his. He kissed her again, unable to resist her offering, and her hand ran up and down him twice.

  His head split open, whiteness descending, or was lightning rising up his spine? His body lit up with intense, hot pleasure, and he gasped while he came. He was aware of wrapping her closer and saying her name as he rode out the orgasm, and she welcomed his embrace, clung back. After his release, he feared collapsing and had the presence of mind to fall, rolling to land on his bac
k and keeping her on top while his chest heaved.

  It took a long moment for thought to return, to realize she was doing that soft kissing again, against his neck now. As he eased his death grip on her, she pushed upwards to look down.

  She wasn’t smiling, but she appeared pleased. “Okay?” she asked.

  He nodded, unable to find words.

  A sly expression took over. “I think you needed to take the edge off.”

  “Is that what it’s called?” he croaked.

  She pressed palms against his chest and sat up fully, so he could see his jism on both their clothes, and his face heated. Classy.

  When she took one finger and placed it in her mouth, licking him off her skin, his eyes widened and his body responded. He didn’t know why he liked that—or he forgot to care.

  She grinned. “I want to tell you something.”

  “Okay.” He felt cautious.

  “I haven’t been in bed with anyone for more than five years. I thought this might be over for me.”

  He couldn’t imagine how men weren’t falling at her feet all the time. “But…you’re so beautiful.”

  “You are such a sweetheart.”

  It wasn’t exactly how he felt about himself here and now, but he’d take it.

  “And I am very happy to be here with you. I want you to know that.”

  “I’m happy you’re here too.” He was echoing her words back at her, but they were true and they pleased her. Her face was alight.

  She moved her hands off him to pull her shirt up and over her head. No bra, just lovely breasts, pink-tipped and proud. “Is this what you wanted to see?”

  “Yes,” he said hoarsely.

  She shimmied, removing the sweats she’d been wearing, and he could observe the perfect curve of her ass. His hand rose of its own volition to rest on her buttock. Like him, she was warm. Willing.

  “I don’t remember,” he said. “I have no idea of my past.”

  Her mischievous expression became more serious. “This isn’t quid pro quo. Just because I tell you about my past, you don’t have to offer me something of yours automatically. I want to know about you, because I care about you and”—here her face lit up again—“and we’re in bed together. But I want you to hand it over, if you will, at your own speed.”