Sherry's Wolf (After the Crash #3.5)

by Maddy Barone

  “Stag,” she croaked, dragging her mouth away from his and trying to pull the sweater back down. “Stop. Too fast. Stop.”

  He let go of the hem of her bulky, oversized sweater but his hands glided under it, sliding up her ribs to cup her breasts through her bra. She breathed past a tiny shard of fear, waiting for him to hurt her, but his hands playing with her breasts felt really good, too good to make him stop. Not yet, anyway. His hands tugged impatiently at her bra cups to pull them out of the way so his hands, so warm in spite of the cold air in here, could massage her sensitive nipples. Sherry couldn’t decide what felt better, his tongue playing with hers, his hands on her breasts, or the way he rubbed his erection over her mound. All three of them, happening at the same time, set her on fire. She decided he hadn’t been going too fast after all. This still counted as baby steps.

  “Need to taste you,” he rasped against her throat. His fingers plucked at one of her tight nipples. “Here. I want to feel you in my mouth. Please.”

  He said please. How could a lonely girl being touched by a gorgeous guy refuse a plea that shook with his need? Sherry barely hesitated before raising her sweater front over her head and letting it rest at the back of her neck. Her arms were still in the sleeves, her bra twisted under her chin, but Stag didn’t seem to mind. He lifted her to sit on the counter behind them to bring her breasts closer to his mouth.

  “Taste,” she whispered. “Taste me, Stag.”

  The wet heat of his mouth drove all thought out of her head. The way his teeth scraped lightly over her and his tongue and lips sucked was heaven. She was rapidly turning into a mindless puddle of need that almost drowned out her tiny bit of trepidation. The pleasure was so intense she almost didn’t notice the way his hands groped at her waist, trying to find a way to slide inside her pants. But when one of his large hands pushed impatiently past the drawstring waist and into her panties to brush over the damp hair above her thighs she jolted suddenly and thoroughly out of her sexual haze of pleasure. The way he took control of the encounter overwhelmed the pleasure and left her feeling vulnerable.

  “No, Stag,” she whispered, pushing ineffectively against his shoulders. “I’m not ready for that. Stop.”

  But he didn’t, pushing his fingers through her pubic hair instead and probing at her entrance while nipping at her breast. His touch between her legs wasn’t hurting her, but fear squeezed her lungs shut. They had gone way too far already. He was a steamroller crushing her beneath him. When she tried to pull her thighs tightly together he growled and bit down on her nipple with more force. It almost hurt. Her heart thundered in her throat.

  “Stop it!” she said sharply. “Let me go!”

  He froze when she began pulling his hair. “Not yet, mate,” he growled. “I want a little more. I’ve waited so long for you. Please, a little more.”

  She shocked both of them by slapping the face he pressed close to her heart. “No! Let me go or I’ll scream!”

  Oh, God, Sherry thought, will he be like LeRoi and slap me back?

  Stag pulled his hands away from her to grip the counter on either side of her and leaned his forehead against the side of her neck, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to …” He sniffed, then his head jerked up to stare at her. “You’re scared? Did I hurt you?”

  Embarrassment almost drowned her trembling nerves. She jerked her sweater back over her head, dislodging him. Thank God he didn’t sound angry. It was a point in his favor. “No.” Her voice trembled. “It’s okay.”

  Stag’s hands gripped her shoulders gently. “It’s not okay. I’m sorry, Sherry.”

  The regret in his voice and the gentleness in his hands were so different from what she would have expected from LeRoi. “It’s not all on you. This is my fault, too. I’m the one who raised my sweater.”

  His handsome face was creased with confusion. “Your fault? You said just one kiss. I’m the one who took more. I’m sorry, Sherry.”

  That was three times he’d apologized! Sherry swallowed the memory of caressing his very fine body before the embers of her passion could flare back to life. She was not interested in Round Two. “Well.” She straightened her sweater and smoothed its ribbed neck though it didn’t need it. “I think it’s time for me to go to bed. Alone,” she quickly added, in case he thought she was issuing an invitation.

  It wasn’t very bright in here with only the distant lamplight from the kitchen shedding a dim golden glow, but she could see the intense look in his eyes and the swell in his breechcloth. He plainly wasn’t ready to stop, but he didn’t try to cajole her into continuing. She should have stopped them sooner. She wasn’t a tease. A small needle of guilt stabbed her. LeRoi was the only man she’d ever slept with. Even he, practiced lover though he was, had never gotten her so wet so quickly. Just a few kisses and light caresses from Stag and she was ready to give it up to him in this tiny room hardly bigger than a broom closet. He was dangerous.

  “I need to go,” she said with forced calm. “Please move, Stag.”

  “I’ll carry you.”

  It wasn’t an offer; it was an order. That was the way Stag usually spoke to her. Sherry almost protested out of habit. But it was a long walk without her cane, which had been left by her chair in front of the stove. She let him swing her up into his arms and immediately discovered another reason she shouldn’t be carried by him: he smelled too hot and sexy for her libido to calm.

  As Stag carried her through the big room to the stove they’d been sitting at, dozens of people watched them avidly. Probably everyone knew what they’d just been doing. Sherry pretended she wasn’t embarrassed by the attention. The shame she felt was harder to put away. She never should have gone so far with Stag. They definitely had chemistry. How far would they have gone if she hadn’t had a mini panic attack? Plenty far, she figured.

  She grabbed up her scarf and stuffed it in the canvas sack. After a quickly mumbled goodnight to Marissa, Red Wing, and Stag, she snatched her cane and went up the stairs to her room. She let herself cast one glance over the stair rail at Stag. He was smiling at the stove like he was the happiest man on earth. If all she thought about was the just the pleasure of his hands and mouth on her, she’d be smiling, too.

  But she’d learned one very important thing from tonight: she couldn’t be comfortable making love with Stag. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The near-panic she felt when he took control was a red flag. During the few seconds when he’d ignored her demands to stop, her fear had spiked into terror. What if he’d kept ignoring her? Would he have raped her? It was a scary thought. She’d had enough of being powerless with her grandfather, her father and LeRoi. And Stag, growling werewolf that he was, would demand complete control.

  Funny, his wolf side had always scared and repelled her, but tonight in the pantry she hadn’t thought of it once. Even when his fingers had been sliding between her thighs and he’d bit down on her breast, she hadn’t thought about his wolf. All she could think of then was the fear that nearly choked her.

  She would have to talk to Jodi and Dixie about this. They could help her learn to deal with it. She wondered how her second honeymoon with LeRoi would have gone. They had abstained from sex, waiting for their anniversary to make love for the first time since their reconciliation. LeRoi had promised her it would be perfect. Would she have felt that same fear with him? Probably. Weary tears welled as she acknowledged to herself that the reconciliation probably wouldn’t have lasted. Even while boarding the plane she had felt like she was making a mistake.

  She would have to talk to Stag tomorrow, tell him she needed time away from him to be counseled in order to learn how to trust. He wouldn’t like it, but too bad. He would just have to suck it up.

  Chapter Three

  Stag stared at his mate in horrified confusion. “What?”

  “I’m sorry,” Sherry said. Her eyes didn’t want to stay steady on his, continuously flicking aside and coming back again. “It’s just that I’m not ready yet. I need more
time to … adjust. I need to deal with … things before we –uh—kiss again. Or anything else.”

  He’d woken this morning eager to see Sherry. She’d kissed him last night! They had talked about important things. Finally, the months of patient wooing were paying off. She was beginning to accept him and he was eager to move further along with their relationship. His mouth remembered the taste of her round breasts and hard crinkled nipples. He’d hurried to bathe this morning so he could catch her at breakfast but she was working in the kitchen. He’d waited in the pantry for her to finish her chores, the same pantry he’d held her in last night, where she had kissed him and he had touched the most intimate place on her slender body. She had slapped him…

  He stared at her now, stomach churning as he touched a hand to the counter he had held her on only ten hours ago. “Is it because I went too far last night?”

  She blushed so brightly he could almost smell the blood in her cheeks. “No, Stag, I told you that wasn’t your fault. At least, not all your fault.”

  She tried to hide the lie, but Stag could see it. “Then why are you telling me to leave you alone for a whole year?” he demanded.

  Now her gaze left him to look at her hands twisting on the head of the cane he’d made her. She was wearing that huge diamond ring on her left hand again. He hated the sight of LeRoi’s claim on her. She took a deep breath and met his eyes. “When we were kissing last night, I liked it. I liked it a lot. But it takes time to get to know a man. I was overwhelmed by you. Dixie told me it would take some time to learn to trust after … It takes time.”

  There was something she wasn’t telling him. “I’ve given you time!”

  “I need more. Just until Christmas. It’s only eleven more months. Taye’s parents waited three years. Eleven months isn’t so long, really.”

  Stag’s blood ran cold. “I’m not waiting three years!”

  Sherry’s narrow back straightened with a snap. “I said eleven months, not three years. I talked to Dixie this morning, and she suggested a set amount of time. That way you aren’t left wondering when you should come back. Okay? This is fair. It’s less than a year. Time enough for me to get myself straightened out. Go back to the Clan, Stag.”

  He’d already waited months for her. Last night had given him only a tiny, tantalizing taste of what it would be like to make love to her. He didn’t want to put that off for a year. How had Uncle Del survived three years? “Don’t I get a say in this?”

  “No,” she said baldly, glaring at him now. “I’ve had my rights trampled enough, thank you very much. Suck it up.”

  “Suck?” That word drove fire right to his cock. “I liked sucking on you.”

  “Stag!” Her cheeks glowed with even more blood. She smelled of rage, though, as much as embarrassment. “You want to go for two years instead of one? Or maybe you want me to refuse you completely right now?”

  She looked ready to do it. Stag forced himself to sound reasonable. “How can you get to know me if I’m not even here?”

  “You can visit, okay?”

  “No, not okay!” he roared.

  She glared. “Okay, fine. Go away until at least June. That’s four months. Better?”

  His furious growl made her glare harder. “Sherry, what do you need more time to think about?”

  “My husband,” she flung at him.

  “He’s dead,” he retorted. “He didn’t even treat you right, and you need more time to ‘deal with it’?”

  “You son of a bitch,” she breathed through clenched teeth. “He wasn’t perfect, but I loved him and he loved me.”

  Her fury aroused him; her sorrow broke him. “I’m sorry, Sherry.” He dropped his hand when she jerked her head aside to dodge it. “But it’s true, he’s gone. If he loved you, he’d be glad you found someone to take care of you.”

  She stabbed her cane into the floor. “Why does everybody think I need a man to take care of me? Am I a five-year-old? I don’t know you! For all I know, you’ll beat the crap out of me any time you have a bad day. Last night you scared me. I didn’t know if you would stop.”

  Blood rushed to his feet. Shock almost robbed him of his voice. “I would never, never hurt you!”

  “I’ve heard that before.” The cynicism in her voice bruised like a sharp stone under his heel. “Give me the time I need or say good-bye.”

  He’d already given her a month. In June, would she demand more? At Christmas, how much more time would she ask for? How long would he have to wait to claim his mate? He wanted to hit something so badly he spun around to stalk from the pantry before he lost his temper in front of her. Another minute of hearing his mate refuse him would see dishes smashed and food stores destroyed.

  But he wasn’t giving up, only retreating to consider his options.

  * * *

  Three hours later he was at Taye’s den. Some of his cousins were in the yard in wolf form, wrestling and chasing each other through the melting snow. Others were human and fully dressed, working with young Rose, who held a knife like she knew how to use it. Jelly, his fourteen-year-old cousin who had traveled with him last month, shifted to human with the awkwardness that young wolves often displayed until they asserted full control over their wolves.

  “Where’s Taye?” Stag asked.

  Jelly shrugged wide bare shoulders starting to fill in with muscle. “The Chief’s inside. That skinny blond lady has come to visit the Lupa.” Jelly made a face. “Her husband should feed her more.”

  ‘That skinny blond lady’ must be the younger Mrs. Madison. Stag had met her on a few occasions when she visited the Plane Women’s House and agreed that Eddie Madison should feed her up. She was as skinny as Sherry. He raised a hand in thanks and went into the den.

  He found Taye in the rec room by the window, sitting in one of the chairs that were grouped around a small table, frowning down at a book in his hand. The Alpha scented him before he came close, and got up with a smile.

  “Hey, Taye.”

  Taye gave him a one armed hug. “What brings you here?”

  Stag settled into one of the hard wooden chairs beneath the window. Taye joined him, still holding his book. “My mate,” Stag answered gloomily. “She wants me to wait until summer to kiss her again.”

  Taye’s brows rose. “You kissed her?”

  “Last night.” Heat poured through his body when he remembered the feel of her tongue playing with his. “I went too far and now she’s running scared.”

  Taye ran a thumb over the spine of his battered paperback. “Did she like your kiss?” he asked carefully.

  “Yeah.”

  Stag was sure of that. She held onto his wrist in a grip so strong she’d used it to lift her mouth closer to him. And she hadn’t stopped him sooner even though she said she should have. Most telling of all had been her scent. It had been heavy with desire. Yeah, she liked kissing him. It was only the memory of a dead husband who had hurt her that made her stop.

  “She liked it. I think she liked it too much. She told me to go back to the Clan until Christmas. She’s scared, Taye. She said I scared her.”

  Taye was kind enough to not remark on the shame that flooded Stag. The scent of it was sharp in the air. He held up his book. “Same thing happened to Dante when he was courting Lady Amber.”

  “Who?”

  Taye waved the book. “Dante the pirate fell in love with the Governor’s daughter but he couldn’t have her, see, because she was a lady and he was scum. So he kidnapped her and took her on his ship and set sail. He teased her with kisses every day until she fell so deeply in love that she agreed to marry him. And they lived happily ever after.”

  Stag eyed the faded cover of the book. The title scrolled over the top of the page in fancy letters: The Black Dragon’s Woman. A kneeling woman, whose strange dress was falling off her shoulders, clung to the leg of a bare-chested man. The woman had her head tilted back, staring up at the man in doe-eyed adoration. The man had one fist clenched on the rail of a ship,
staring out to sea like he didn’t even notice he had a woman kneeling in front of him. They were apparently caught in a strong wind, since their hair and clothes streamed behind them.

  “No offense, Taye, but that picture is disgusting. I don’t ever want to see Sherry kneeling in front of me.”

  Taye’s smile was dreamy. “There’s things a woman can do on her knees in front of a man …” He cleared his throat. “The thing is, Dante took his woman away from everyone else. In his cabin they were alone and no one interrupted them. They didn’t have any distractions while they fell in love.”

  “Taye, that’s just a book. It’s not real. And, um, what does a woman do on her knees…? No, don’t answer that!”

  Taye’s smile turned wolfish. “You sure you don’t wanna know?”

  Actually, Stag thought he had a pretty good idea. On her knees, Sherry’s face would be close to his cock. The thought of her mouth on him as his mouth had been on her breast last night had him shifting in his chair. His breechcloth didn’t hide anything, so Taye had to know why he barked, “Not now!”

  Taye had the decency to tone his grin down. “Okay. Back to The Black Dragon’s Woman. Women have been reading these stories for years. They like it. I know it’s not real, but if you treat Sherry right she’ll be like Amber. She’ll fall in love with you.”

  “I’m not a pirate! I can’t kidnap her and take her out to sea.”

  “No, but you could take her out to the cabin over east of Sheep Head Hill, the one Lobo and his beagle hide out in. Keep her there for a week while you court her. If you have her alone, she’ll have to pay attention to you.”

  Alone with Sherry… “No, it would be too dangerous. What if someone came on us? A beautiful woman with only one man to protect her? We’d be attacked and Sherry would be stolen.”