Sherry's Wolf (After the Crash #3.5)

by Maddy Barone

  His blue eyes fixed on her face with a hunger that almost frightened her. No, it was her own response that frightened her. Her nipples tightened with embarrassing need beneath her blessedly baggy sweater. With a single word she could have this wolf in bed. And part of her wanted that. What would he be like as a lover? In the beginning of their marriage, LeRoi had been careful and tender with her. She’d sometimes wished he would move faster, thrust harder. He hadn’t received her hints well, turning rough and angry. She hadn’t liked rough and angry. It made her feel trapped, afraid of the violence that simmered in him. Her fear that he would hurt her had come horribly true. What she wanted was a man who could be wild and forceful without ever losing control or forgetting about her pleasure.

  Was Stag that man? He was an overbearing wolf. But he hadn’t ever hurt her. Yet. Was it wrong for her to want to sleep with him? He was part animal. The other women who had married wolves weren’t turned off by that. But if she went to bed with Stag, she would truly belong to him. Marissa had explained that Stag had claimed her, but until she made love with him, they weren’t mated. She could still refuse him.

  She had tried to refuse him several times already, but Stag just wouldn‘t accept it. Carla, Taye Wolfe’s mate, who had also been on the plane, told her about Taye’s parents, who had taken three years to be fully mated. His father had stolen his mother and resolutely courted her for three years before she accepted him. Poor woman.

  Sherry made a careful stitch and slid it to the other needle, shooting a quick glance at Stag. What did werewolf courtship consist of? Kisses? Heavy petting? Day-yam, he was tempting. His hair was thick and straight in a ponytail that went halfway down his back. It gleamed like raw silk in the light of the fire in the stove. She wanted to stroke it, but that would probably give him the wrong signal. She shot another quick glance at him. He was still watching her.

  Why wasn’t he talking? she wondered peevishly. He should be telling her about himself. He should be asking her questions. How could they get to know one another if they didn’t talk?

  The yarn she’d looped over her fingers bit into her skin when she clenched her hand. “Stag,” she began, then hesitated, groping for the tones she had used a lifetime ago. Her timid little girl self was a thing of the past, right? “Listen up, boy.” She winced at her aggressive tone and back-pedaled quickly. “Sorry. Look, I’m trying to get to know you, but it’s hard when you don’t speak more than three words at a time. I don’t know what to say. You’re not exactly chatty Cathy, are you?”

  ***

  Stag echoed his mate’s wince. Conversation wasn’t his strong point. Being so close to the woman his wolf had chosen to be his mate was a hellish heaven. Or a heavenly hell. He wasn’t sure which. Her scent was wonderful, warm and sweet with just a hint of arousal. He forced himself to keep his hands to himself. Talk. She wanted to talk. There were things he wanted to know about her, things he overheard this afternoon that he wanted to know more about. Most importantly, he wanted to know where he stood with her. “What do you feel for me?”

  Sherry’s mouth dropped open. “Wow. Way to get down to business, Stag,” she said.

  Stag could still hear nerves buried in the pitch of her voice, but she was bolder now. It made him glad to have her stand up to him. Her fears and tears tore him up. “Tell me what you feel,” he insisted. He waited with masked anxiety for her answer. Would she be utterly honest with him? “You said you hated me when I found you at the plane.”

  “The first time I saw you, I was barely conscious. The plane crashed and LeRoi was dead. I hurt so bad from my legs I wished I could die, too. Then I heard people saying that help had come. I thought it would be ambulances and EMTs. But you know what?” She looked up from her hands to stare into his eyes challengingly. “Instead, this really big dog came leaping up to me. I was on the ground, sitting propped up against one of the seats that had broken free of the plane with my broken legs out in front of me. I thought the dog –you!— would jump on me and that would hurt like hell. He didn’t, though. You turned into a human. You were naked, and the look on your face scared me spitless.”

  “You fainted,” he remembered. “I was confused. My wolf had never felt so wild. He wanted me to claim you, and he wanted me to heal you. He wanted to curl up next to you and protect you. And when you woke up, you screamed at me and called me a monster.”

  She blushed, looking down at the yarn in her hands. “Well, I was pretty out of it.” Her eyes flashed back up with a hint of defiance. “And what did you expect? My husband was dead and this naked crazy guy who was a wolf said I belonged to him.”

  The words she’d flung at him the first week while they were in the Clan’s camp still hurt him. “It was a bad beginning for us.” He leaned forward so his face was only inches from hers. “So it can only get better, isn’t that what they say? I want to get to know you, too. Everything. Will you tell me about your husband?”

  The tears she blinked back horrified him. He drew away, but she began to speak in a voice so low and fast that only his wolf hearing allowed him to understand her.

  “His name was LeRoi Rowe. I met him when I got an office job for a music producer in New York. He was a rap artist, and we probably never would have met if I hadn’t walked in the wrong office to deliver some mail. LeRoi was there. He looked at me and he was so handsome … I never go out with men I don’t know, but when he asked me to lunch I said yes right off. I was only twenty-one. He was a perfect gentleman. I refused to sleep with him until we were married. We were married three months later.”

  Stag hid the pain her words gave him when she shot a quick glance up at him. But her next words caused more pain, a different pain, mixed with righteous rage.

  “My mother was Korean. She was only eighteen when she met my dad. He was almost ten years older, a Marine stationed in Seoul. He seduced my mother. She thought they would get married, especially after she found out she was pregnant. But daddy dearest never told her he already had a wife and kids in America. He dumped her like trash. My mother was ashamed. In Korea girls do not have babies out of wedlock. My grandparents didn’t toss her out, but they might as well have. They put up with me, but they didn’t love me. When I was six, my mother died. I don’t know how they did it, but my grandparents contacted my dad and made him come get me.”

  Stag clenched his fist to keep from reaching to stroke her hair for comfort. He wasn’t sure which of them he wanted to comfort. The pain in her voice, frozen into jagged ice, sawed into him like a serrated knife. “I bet you were a beautiful child. Your dad must have loved you.”

  “No, he hated me almost as much as his wife did.” Sherry’s tone was coolly distant. “I was “The Mistake”. And my American brothers and sister made fun of me. I didn’t speak English and I was only half black so I looked different from them. I never fit in anywhere. I wasn’t part of my Korean family and I wasn’t part of my American family. Always the oddball.” Her voice, which had risen to almost normal tones, dropped back to a barely heard murmur. “I just wanted to be loved.”

  It was hard, but Stag said, “Your husband loved you.”

  Sherry let the yarn untwist from her fingers to tuck her hands under her thighs. “Yeah, in his way, he loved me. I thought it was sweet that he was willing to wait until our wedding night. I wasn’t going to be an unwed mother like my mom. But my sister …” Her voice trailed off, her face twisting with pain before smoothing back into cool, emotionless lines. “He made some mistakes, but he knew it and he was working on it.”

  Stag thought about what she’d said about her father. A man sleeping with a woman, getting her with young, and then abandoning her? Stag couldn’t comprehend it. In the world after the Terrible Times, women were few, and all children were precious. The birth of a girl child was a rare prize to be celebrated by an entire community. What had happened to her mother in the Times Before would never happen now. A woman who had proven fertile would have had her pick of husbands to take care of her and her da
ughter. He hoped her grandparents and father had suffered when the terrorists had bombed the cities.

  “If your husband made mistakes, why did you stay with him?” he asked. He wanted to know what those mistakes were, so he didn’t make them, too. “You’re beautiful. You could have found another man to love you.”

  She lifted her head up and narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not a quitter. And I loved him. But the second time he beat me up, I left him. I won’t take that from anyone.”

  That wasn’t a mistake. It was a crime. A low growl came from the other side of the semi-circle of chairs. Red Wing, with his wolf hearing, had heard everything and his face was murderous. Stag gave him a grim nod over Sherry’s head. Sherry either hadn’t heard him or ignored his growl, because she went on.

  “But I’m Catholic. I don’t believe in divorce. After we had a year apart, LeRoi went into treatment. Then we went to marriage counseling together. We were back on track. We were getting things worked out. And then… The plane crashed and he died.”

  “Don’t cry,” he begged. “Please, don’t cry.”

  “Why not?” she demanded, with a snarl worthy of a wolf. “I have a right to mourn, don’t I?”

  “Yeah.” It broke his heart that she loved a man who would bruise her when all he, her mate, wanted was to cherish her. The husband she mourned didn’t deserve it. Disgusted hatred welled in Stag. But he was glad she had been honest with him. This was the first meaningful conversation they’d ever had. They could build on this.

  “And you wanted to get to know me,” she flung at him. “Now you know everything about me.”

  He picked up her clenched fist. “Not everything, but enough for now. Sherry, I’m sorry …” No, he couldn’t say he was sorry LeRoi was dead. That would be a lie. “I’m sorry you’re hurting.” That was truth. “I hope someday you’ll be free of grief.”

  “Why don’t you just order me to stop hurting?” She scowled, snatching her hand away from him. “You just love to give me orders.”

  He felt helpless in the face of her new boldness. Sherry had been frightened, sullen, shy and surly in his presence but until she had stood up to him at Taye’s den about seeing the priest alone she’d never directly challenged him. He liked it, but he wasn’t sure how to respond. He’d never felt helpless in his life until he’d found her. The only thing he’d ever done that made her happy was allowing her to see the priest to make her confession. “If you like, I could bring that priest back here.”

  Her doe eyes widened. He was fascinated by her thick curling lashes. “Really? Father John, who did the weddings at the den last month? I thought you hated him, Stag.”

  Stag shrugged. He still didn’t like Father John, but after escorting him back to his church in Grand Island he had found some grudging respect for the man. They had argued religion for forty miles, never agreeing on a single point, but in the end Stag admitted that the priest was well versed in his theology. He was a pompous ass, but a devout and steadfast pompous ass. “If it would make you happy, I’ll bring him.”

  His wolf preened at Sherry’s hesitant smile. But her smile died into a scowl. “I suppose you’ll bring him so he can marry us?” she snapped.

  “Sure,” he said, and only then did he realize his mistake. “If that’s what you want. But I was thinking you’d like to make confession again like you did at Christmas at Taye’s den.”

  “Huh, you think I got something I need to confess?”

  Stag wasn’t stupid. Her tone was angry. He kept his mouth shut. What could she possibly need to confess? She was practically an angel. He wanted to pet her hair, caress her slender shoulder, taste her lips. The look in her eyes was strange. “What?” he asked.

  “Maybe I do need to confess, “she muttered. She shifted her weight in her chair, as if trying to find a comfortable position. The hint of arousal in her scent thickened. He was inhaling with deep pleasure when her shoulders stiffened with resolve.

  “Stag,” she said. “I want to try something.” She blew out a determined breath. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, though, ’kay?”

  “Okay,” he said, mystified.

  “I don’t want you to make a big deal about this. I just want to try it.”

  “Okay,” he said again, inhaling as her delicious scent sweetened with the warmth of embarrassment. His wolf wanted to roll around in that scent. She was silent for a full minute, looking at his face intently. No, she was looking at his mouth, tracing its outline with her eyes. The delectable scent of desire wafted from her. Heat shot to his groin. She was going to kill him.

  “Could you…” She huffed out a groan. “No, never mind. It’s a bad idea.”

  She grabbed the needles and wool in her lap and looped the yarn around her fingers to begin stitching. Stag reached out one hand to still her knitting.

  “Tell me what you want,” he whispered.

  She hesitated. “Wouldyoukissme?” she blurted.

  Stag blinked, his brain half a beat behind as he deciphered her words. Excitement jerked his cock straight. Her scent cooled from arousal to pure embarrassment.

  “What the hell am I thinking?” she muttered, as if to herself.

  “I’ll give you anything you want,” Stag breathed. Her request was an abrupt turnaround, but he wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. “Name it, and it’s yours.”

  She squirmed in her chair, the scent of her desire blooming in the air again. “All I want is one kiss, just to see how I feel about it. Just a kiss, you got that?”

  His wolf delighted in her firm voice. He liked their mate to be strong. The man quivered in anticipation of kissing Sherry. “Okay, got it. Just a kiss.”

  He leaned close, but she jerked back, looking around the room now filling with visiting men. “Not here!” she hissed. “It’s too public. Everyone will see us.”

  “Where, then? Your room?”

  “No!” She blushed fiercely, the color brightening the most perfect skin he’d ever seen. “That’s too private. Maybe the pantry? No one will be there now that supper clean up is done.”

  He couldn’t wait for her to hobble to the kitchen door. Scooping her up in his arms, he strode quickly to the walk-in pantry off the kitchen, ignoring Red Wing’s delighted grin. There was a little light in the narrow pantry, falling across the red brick of the wall and the white painted shelves, but he didn‘t need it to be able to see her. Her slender body was rigid; the scent of her arousal almost gone. Fear replaced it.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered as he set her on her feet.

  His wolf liked the way she gripped his arms to keep her balance without her cane. His wolf liked everything about her. There was the slightest tremble in the fingers he raised to cup her delicate chin. She grabbed his wrist with both hands. At first he was afraid she’d try to pull his hand away, but she just held it. The skin of her small hands was a little darker than the skin of his wrist.

  “Sherry, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he breathed.

  Her thickly lashed eyes widened as he slowly bent to her, then they dropped to half-mast as her lips parted slightly. He had never kissed a woman, except his mother, and that wasn’t the kind of kiss he wanted to give Sherry. He brushed his lips over hers with the lightest touch he could manage. He did it again, and again. The feel of Sherry tightening her grip on his wrist made him want to growl his denial. She was pulling at his wrist. Trying to break his gentle hold? Wanting to pull him away?

  He was shocked when she used her hold on his wrist to lift herself higher, pressing her lips against his with a hot firmness that made his cock jerk. When her mouth opened for her tongue to glide over his lips he shook the shock off and snaked his free arm around her narrow waist to jerk her against his erection. A moan escaped him at the luscious feel of his mate pressed so close, and her tongue took that as an invitation to slide inside his mouth. Had he died and gone to Father John’s Heaven? He wanted more. He wanted everything.

  ***

/>   Sherry reveled in the press of Stag’s body against her, the feel of his hard length grinding against her groin. He kissed like a man who had never kissed before, but he held her like a man who knew what he wanted. She’d decided to kiss him to see if he would be rough with her. Stag had sparked her body to simmering arousal for months. She’d been so upset by it she’d found the backbone to demand to have Father John hear her confession. A good bit of her counseling sessions with Dixie had revolved around her attraction to Stag and her fear of him. That was really LeRoi’s fault. Her husband liked inflicting pain in bed. Dixie had said that she should take baby steps in getting to know Stag in a safe environment. Learning trust was hard, but it could be done.

  Sherry also wanted to know whether or not the chemistry she thought they could have was really there. Hoo-boy! It was there, all right. Honestly, while they’d been sitting by the stove all she could see was his perfect body, all she could smell was his wonderful scent. He turned her on without even touching her. Inviting him to kiss her was an impulsive decision that could bite her on the ass, but right now she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was crush her pelvis into his, to rock against him while she stroked her hands over his hard pecs and shoulders. She slid her hand under the narrow strip of leather that held his little buckskin sack around his neck so she could caress his nape. He smelled good, and the feel of his bare muscular body under her smoothing palms made her crazy for more. Not to mention what his hot mouth was doing to her. How had they gone from a sweet gentle kiss to this inferno of carnal delight so quickly?

  The bite of cold air on her stomach shocked her back to reality. Stag was trying to yank her sweater off. That wasn’t a baby step! His rough demand spiked apprehension through her. Passion cooled so suddenly she felt dizzy from it.