The Wolf Moon (an erotic paranormal romance) (The Wolf Ring)

by Harris, Meg

  He sprawled there, gasping for breath, whimpering with a need that he couldn’t fulfill, and a memory of her face flickered through his mind, making his craving worse than ever.

  The forest, he thought. I need to go to the forest.

  Which was stupid. It wasn’t like he was going to be able to come any faster in the woods, and he didn’t go around jacking off outside anyway. He didn’t have exhibitionist tendencies. At least he was pretty sure he didn’t.

  And yet the woods called to him, in a way he couldn’t explain. The thought of the moonlight and shadows playing over his skin made him wild with a primitive, burning need.

  And the thought of her made him even wilder.

  Cursing under his breath, he stood up, tucked himself into his jeans, and awkwardly zipped them up. And then he strode out of his house, slamming the door behind him, and stalked into the trees.

  *****

  In the forest, Graeme heard the faraway howl of a wolf again, and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. If there were really wolves in these woods, or even wild dogs, then he really shouldn’t be walking through them alone at night.

  But he couldn’t seem to help it. His body still ached with unfulfilled need, and the moonlight seemed to fill him, pushing against his flesh from the inside out, making his skin itch unbearably. He needed…

  Well, he needed her mouth on him, assuaging his discomfort. Satisfying him.

  As if he’d conjured her up, she appeared, just as naked as before.

  Oh, thank God, he thought, and was instantly embarrassed at the thought. He didn’t want to admit he’d come out here in the hopes of finding her. But he wanted her touch, her mouth, the brush of her hands, so much he couldn’t stand it.

  “I knew you’d be back,” she said softly. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist the call of the moon.”

  He drew in a deep gulp of air, breathing the scent of her. So female. So sexual.

  “How did you find me?”

  She laughed softly. “You are no forest creature. Not yet, anyway. You move through the underbrush with all the subtlety of a bulldozer. At any rate, I could smell your arousal. Even from a great distance, I could smell it.”

  The idea that she could smell him, on the same primal level that he could smell him, sent a wave of lust through him. She stepped toward him, and at her approach, his still-hard cock jerked urgently in his jeans. He could barely hold back a moan.

  “It didn’t work.” She placed her hands lightly on his arms. Where she touched his bare skin, the terrible itch turned to warm pleasure. “Did it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said warily, though he suspected that he did.

  “I mean,” she said softly, tilting back her head and gazing into his eyes, “that you tried to satisfy yourself, and couldn’t. Isn’t that right?”

  He stared down at her, confused. She had the darkest eyes he’d ever seen. Strange, in someone so light-haired. “How did you know that?”

  “Men usually resist the transformation more than women,” she said, stroking her palms up and down his arms. Flame followed in the wake of her hands. “Stubborn male pride. My husband was much the same way.”

  “Your husband?!” He yanked back a bit, despite his darker impulses. “Are you married?”

  “I was. But Bryce died a year ago. He was murdered.”

  Sympathy gripped him. He remembered what she’d said last night: I lost my mate a year ago. Somehow he hadn’t quite realized she was talking about the death of a spouse. “I’m sorry.”

  “I loved him,” she said softly, “with every fiber of my being. I never thought I could find anyone to replace him in my heart. But when I smelled you… I knew.”

  The notion that she might want him in her heart, and not just her body, sent a wave of uneasiness through him. He wasn’t commitment-phobic, but he wasn’t sure a woman who wandered around naked in the forest was the best candidate for a long-term relationship. In any event, he didn’t even know her name.

  “My name is Graeme,” he said harshly. If he was going to engage in repeated sexual encounters with this woman, he figured the least they could do was exchange names. “Graeme Fenrir.”

  “I’m Rhea Silverthorn,” she murmured. “I need you… and so does the Ring. Let me help you with the transformation.”

  “You talked about that last night,” Graeme said, trying to focus despite her caresses. It was difficult. “You mentioned a transformation. What do you mean by that? And what Ring are you talking about?”

  “It’s too early yet.” She leaned against him, her bare body warm and pliant, and her lips brushed his throat. “The magic in your pendant isn’t enough. You won’t be able to transform for the first time until the full moon.”

  “Transform into what?”

  “Later,” she whispered. “Right now, let’s take care of your more pressing needs.”

  Her body rubbed against his, and he pressed against her mindlessly. The unbearable pleasure was upon him again, so good that he whimpered. He could come right now, could rub against her till he came right in his jeans—

  But that apparently wasn’t what she had in mind. She pulled back just a bit and unfastened his jeans, shoving down his boxers and exposing him to the warm night air. He was so hard that even the light brush of the breeze was almost enough to make him come.

  “You need release,” she murmured.

  He consciously pushed back the animal growling inside him, the animal that demanded satisfaction. “What about you?”

  “My turn will come later. Right now—” She wrapped a hand around him. Her touch soothed the ache, and at the same time made it worse. The wild animal inside him snarled for release, and he gritted his teeth against another cry.

  “Don’t try to be quiet, Graeme,” she said softly, stroking up and down, just as he’d done earlier. “No one will hear you. No one except me. And I very much want to hear you cry out.”

  She moved her hand slowly, and he shuddered.

  “Last time,” she said, stroking methodically, “you came in my mouth. That bound us together. This time, you’re going to come all over the forest floor. That will bind you and the forest. This will all help ease the transformation, when it finally comes.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about, but he did grasp that she wanted him to spill his come on the leaves and the soil. For some reason, the thought of his come shooting out of him in long white ribbons, all over the leaves, all over her, made him hotter than before.

  “Faster,” he said in a whisper, aware that he was begging and not caring much. “Please.”

  “You aren’t ready. Not yet. You aren’t howling for me, the way you did last night.”

  He hadn’t howled. Not exactly. The noises he’d made had been more along the lines of crying out, or possibly screaming. Human noises, not animal ones. But he didn’t argue the terminology.

  “I’m ready,” he ground out instead. “Ready… so ready… oh… yes…”

  As she stroked him, the heat in his cock built to an incredible level. He was so hot… so hot…

  But just as he thought his orgasm was imminent, she slowed down again. Deprived of the release he needed so desperately, he whimpered.

  She released him, and began to caress up and down his cock with a single finger, so lightly that it almost tickled. He squirmed and groaned. “Fuck.”

  “Not yet,” she said, and he heard the humor in her voice. She kept tickling him, all the way from the swollen balls to the tender head, and he writhed and sobbed and barely managed to keep on his feet.

  “Oh, fuck, let me come, let me come…”

  In some dark corner of his mind, it occurred to him that she was terribly trusting, considering they didn’t know each other at all. Another man, pushed to this level of arousal, driven almost to madness by her caressing fingers, might just grab her and force himself on her. He was, after all, a complete stranger to her, and for all she knew, he might be a psychopath. But she seem
ed to have faith in his self-restraint.

  She didn’t know him, and yet she trusted him.

  “Soon,” she said softly. He dragged his eyes open, and saw that her dark gaze was focused on his erection, watching every pulse, every drip of precome. The look in her eyes was almost enough to make him come. Her expression was sensual, avid… and possessive. The look in her eyes said, This is mine.

  And he was hers. He was. He didn’t know her, and yet he was willingly giving himself to her.

  She found his most sensitive spots, the thick ridge along the underside and the area beneath his balls and the little slit that was weeping precome, and stimulated them each in turn, stroking gently with a single fingertip until he was ready to scream with frustration. It felt so good, and yet it wasn’t quite enough…

  At last, at long last, she stepped behind him, wrapping an arm around him and pressing up against him, her breasts against his back, her warm breath against his shoulder. And then she took his cock in her hand, and began to pump him hard.

  He came in an instant, in violent, soul-searing spasms that all but ripped him apart. This time he knew he was screaming, but he didn’t give a damn. All he cared about was the pleasure, the wondrous sensation of her hand stroking him through a long, incredible climax. His come spurted onto the leaves in gush after gush, each spasm more intense than the one before, and he screamed with the rapture and the fulfillment of it.

  This time, when it was over, he collapsed into blackness.

  Chapter Three

  Graeme managed to resist the lure of the forest for the next two days. As the moon waxed in the sky, his itching grew worse, till it was almost maddening. He checked again with his friend John, who suggested a cortisone cream. It helped a little, but nothing could soothe the wild urges inside him. The need to run, to roam through the forest, to have wild, soul-searing sex…

  But he wasn’t doing that again, damn it. He just wasn’t. He wasn’t the kind of guy who hung out in bars in the hopes of picking up strange women. He never had been. He’d never needed to be. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to go into the forest looking for a very strange woman.

  The need for sex clawed at him, and he thought about calling up one of the many women he knew, and who’d had sex with him over the years. He knew plenty of women who wouldn’t mind helping him out.

  And yet he couldn’t bring himself to call. Because he didn’t want just any woman. He wanted one particular woman—a woman with moonlight hair and midnight eyes, a woman who smelled like flowers and darkness and sex.

  Rhea, he remembered. Her name is Rhea Silverthorn. A lovely and poetical name, a name that perfectly suited a very lovely woman. Rhea.

  He wanted Rhea.

  He needed Rhea.

  By the third evening, he was so jittery that he couldn’t sit still. Annoyed, he headed for the garage and climbed into his Jeep. He’d cook himself a nice gourmet dinner on the grill, he decided. A nice thick steak, rare, still dripping with blood. His mouth watered just thinking about it.

  In the store, he went to the meat counter and picked out a big juicy London broil. He stood there staring at it, salivating, strangely tempted to just rip the wrapper off and eat it raw.

  Ugh. He pushed the thought away, and dropped it into the cart. He was full of weird desires lately.

  He forced himself to look away from the steak, and meandered around the grocery store, buying marinade and other things he needed, but really just putting off going back to the house. He knew that the forest would be calling for him—that she would be calling for him—and he wasn’t sure he had the strength to resist another night.

  As he approached the checkout line, he saw a headful of silver-blonde hair, and froze in shocked disbelief.

  It was her.

  She was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and the clothing made her seem almost ordinary despite the unusual hair coloring. She didn’t look like a wood nymph, but like a typical human woman doing her shopping. But he stared hungrily anyway, drinking in the curves of her body. Even in clothing, her figure was spectacularly gorgeous.

  As if she felt the heat of his gaze, she turned her head, very slightly, and offered him a smile.

  There was something predatory in that smile. Dangerous.

  All at once, his native caution tried to reassert itself, despite the inexplicable lust pounding through his veins. Lupine Rapids wasn’t a big town, but it wasn’t tiny, either, and it was highly unlikely that he’d just run into her here by coincidence.

  She was stalking him. She had to be.

  He ought to be creeped out. He was creeped out.

  And yet the need in his body burned more fiercely than ever.

  He was at the back of the line, and three people stood between them. But he could smell her clearly, could smell her feminine scent, her sexual musk. The fragrance of her skin called to him. He stood there with a fierce hard-on, staring at her, and she only looked back, and smiled.

  He assumed—or perhaps hoped— that she’d wait for him outside the store. But when he paid for his groceries and strode eagerly into the parking lot, he didn’t see her anywhere.

  He growled, opened his Jeep, and threw the bags in. Then he stood there in the darkness, feeling the moon beating down on him with an almost physical power, feeling his skin sizzle and his blood boil.

  God help him. He needed relief from this terrible heat.

  He needed her.

  He drew in a long breath, and turned slowly in a circle, his nostrils quivering as he scented the air. And just like that, he knew where she was. He could smell her as clearly as he could smell the summer honeysuckle on the breeze. There was a little stand of trees at the edge of the parking lot. She’d gone there.

  He paced toward her, deliberately, aware that he was the stalker now. He was the predator, and she was his prey. After two nights of deprivation, he needed her—needed her more than food, more than water, more than air. He needed her more than he’d ever needed anything.

  She stood just inside the trees, gazing at him. Her eyes were dark and fathomless pools of night. She still wore all her clothing, and he was swept by the urge to rip it off her. She didn’t need clothing. Her beauty should never, ever be covered. She was meant to be naked—what was the word Wiccans used? Skyclad, that was it.

  Rhea Silverthorn was meant to be starclad. Moonclad.

  “You’ve been resisting the transformation,” she said softly. Her voice rippled and flowed like music, stroking over him like a physical caress. “Hiding from the moon. You may as well give into it. Otherwise, you won’t be able to transform even when the moon is full, and that will mean another month of suffering.”

  His mind was entirely focused on her, the scent of her skin and the curves of her body and the way her hair cascaded down her back, but he tried to make some sense of her words. “You keep talking about a transformation,” he said. His voice sounded low and gravelly even to his own ears. “What do you mean?”

  “You will know when it occurs.”

  “That isn’t enough.” He took a step toward her. “Something is happening to me, damn it. Am I ill? Am I having an allergic reaction? Tell me what you know.”

  “You are not ill.” She put a reassuring hand on his arm. Where her skin touched his, the itching was replaced by the sheerest pleasure. He had to struggle not to moan. “You are simply… changing.”

  Changing. He recalled the movie he’d been watching a few nights ago, X-Men, and wondered briefly what it would be like to be a mutant. But of course he wasn’t a mutant. People didn’t change that way outside of comic books and movies.

  “What if I don’t want to change?” He forced the words out despite the light caress of her fingers on his arm. “I’m pretty happy with the guy I am now. I might not be the most exciting person in the world, but I’m a freelance writer, with a nice house, and good friends. I’m okay with who I am.”

  “The change will occur whether you want it to or not,” she said. “But you will not obje
ct when it happens.”

  He sighed, annoyed by the note of mystery in her voice, and shifted the course of the conversation. “You’ve been following me.”

  “Not consciously,” she answered. “We are simply drawn together. More likely, you were following me, though you didn’t realize it.”

  He remembered the way he’d caught her scent across the parking lot, and wondered if that could be true. He couldn’t possibly have scented her from his house, could he?

  Could there be something else that drew them together? Something less tangible than scent?

  He decided that was a ridiculous notion. Sure, he liked watching science fiction movies and TV shows, but he didn’t believe telepathic or psychic abilities existed in real life, and so he refused to believe the two of them had some sort of mysterious mental or emotional connection.

  It was, he decided, far more likely that the obvious answer was the correct one. She’d been stalking him.

  The problem was that he wanted her so badly that he didn’t much care.

  And that was bad. Very bad. He shouldn’t want a complete stranger like this, aching for her, craving her touch with every fiber of his being. He shouldn’t burn for the touch of her hands and the caress of her mouth and the sound of her voice this way. It was wrong.

  But even knowing that, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching for her.

  “No,” she said, taking a step back. “This time, I want to see you naked.”

  He blinked at her. “The parking lot…”

  “No one can see us, not in the trees and the darkness. Take off your clothes.”

  He wanted to object, but his hands were already obeying, stripping off his own t-shirt and jeans. He toed off his shoes, pulled off his socks, and kicked his jeans aside. In a moment he stood before her, clad only in boxers.

  “All of it,” she said, her voice a gentle but irresistible command.