by M. L. Briers
Nancy ran the fingernail of her witching finger down over the hard ridges of his chest muscles over the shirt and got a hearty, hungry growl back for her trouble. Minimal effort and what a payoff. “Did I not invite you to kiss me?”
“Well, sure, but…”
“Did I tell you to stop?”
“No, but…”
“Ever heard the term; to assume makes an ass out of you and me?” she said, mischief dancing in her eyes and a wicked smile pulled her lips back and made the sun come out right there in the hallway.
“I…”
“I thought it was us, we…?”
“Huh?” Jorge really wasn’t following where she was leading.
Nancy over exaggerated a sigh, and that snapped her mate to attention. “Plain English?”
“I wish,” he said, grumbling a little growl.
Nancy decided it was time to do what she’d been wanting to do for the last, however long, that she’d been wanting to do it, and placing her hands on his broad shoulders, she practically jumped into his arms.
Jorge grabbed a handful of her curvy backside and helped his mate get to where she was going. The feel of her legs as they wrapped around his hips sent his big brain into retreat and his little brain dancing a jig.
The press of her sex against his hard length as it sat crushed and twitching to be set free inside his jeans was heaven and hell, and the hard, deep, very hungry growl that rolled through him as his beast tried pushing forward once more was music to her ears.
“Drew you a picture instead,” she said, a slow, wickedly good smile bewitching him to the last.
“Damn, I like pictures,” he said, going in for the kill once more, but it was her lips that he was stalking, claiming, and his prey didn’t put up any kind of a fight to get away.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
~
Delta didn’t bother to ease herself down into the fireside chair; instead, she plopped down with a long, weary sigh. That was how she’d felt all day, tired, tired of dealing with the church and the vampire, and tired of running around trying to get some answers.
Perhaps it was time to just wait and see what happened next, but by the time something happened, it may already be too late to do much about it. Agnes handed her the hot toddy that she’d been looking forward to all day, and she nodded her thanks.
“I heard on the grapevine that you’ve been out sniffing around,” Agnes said as she sat in the chair opposite.
“Sniffing around?” Delta said, mulling that over, and Agnes knew what was coming; it was as old as they were. “Isn’t that your job?”
“Ah, the old ones are the best,” Agnes said, smiling to herself as her wolf groaned.
“Yes, we are,” Delta said, raising her drink to her friend before sipping at it.
“Find out anything?”
“Not much,” Delta bit out, slightly annoyed that it had been a wasted day. Still, she didn’t have much else to do anymore, retirement was a witch, and she’d rather be doing something than stewing on her age and how not like herself her body was feeling.
“Well, I hear that Mayor Plank isn’t happy,” Agnes said, piquing her friend’s interest.
“Oh?”
Agnes chuckled. “Not that the man has a reputation for being the life and soul of any party,” she said, thumbing her nose at the idea of a happy alpha.
“But what’s pulled his wolf’s tail this time?”
“Well, he didn’t like the idea of a new pack coming in…”
“He made that perfectly clear,” Delta said, recalling the meetings of the council where the man was like a dog with a bone.
“And it could just be sour grapes because he never found a mate, but … he doesn’t seem to like the mates very much either,” Agnes said, reaching forward for the tasty treats that the witch had placed on the coffee table, and she’d been eyeing with a mind to devour them.
“Don’t strain something,” Delta said, teasing her friend as she snatched up one of the cakes and sat back with contentment like she’d been on a successful hunt and had bagged her kill.
“Please, at our age, that’s all we can look forward to in life,” Agnes said, chuckling some more.
“Well, I’m still searching for the spell of eternal youth,” Delta said, chuckling at the thought.
“That really would be the Holy Grail of all things unholy,” Agnes tossed back.
“Speaking of holy, I get the feeling that Father Wolf is up to something,” Delta said. Their conversation earlier that day had been bugging her, but she couldn’t put her finger on what was going on.
“So, Wolf and Plank are both on manoeuvres,” Agnes said, thinking it over. “That’ll end well.”
“Men,” Delta snorted her contempt for the both of them.
“You said it, sister,” Agnes tossed back, chuckling.
“Not a nun,” Delta said, thinking about her run-in with the grumpy nun earlier. She’d been replaying little bits that she thought she could do better on the next time around in her mind since then, and sipping her drink, and cursing how hot it actually was, she found a little bit of contentment that had been missing all day.
Burning her tongue on the hot drink was the least of her worries, and a price worth paying to have that taste on her tongue. But things were still niggling at her.
“Vampire?” Agnes asked, pulling her from her thoughts.
“Don’t wanna be one of those either,” Delta said, playfully eyeing her friend.
“Who does?” Agnes chuckled. “But I suppose it’s the answer to eternal life…”
“Until some witch stakes you through the heart…”
“Everything has its downside,” Agnes retorted ending the back and forth and making her friend chuckle as she tried to swallow what was in her mouth. “No water fountains out the nose, if you please. It’s so unbecoming.”
Delta finally managed to swallow down hard. “Says the wolf that sniffs backsides,” she said, grinning.
“Not yours,” Agnes tossed back, raising just the one eyebrow. “Did Sebastian have anything interesting to say on the mating-church thing?”
“How did you know I’d seen the vampire?”
“Oh please,” Agnes snorted a chuckle. “How long have we known each other?”
“How long does a fart linger in a closed space?”
“Comparing our friendship to a fart?” Agnes said, chuckling. “Should I be insulted?”
“Let’s face it, neither of us smells like roses,” Delta said, grinning.
“Speak for yourself,” Agnes said, lifting her chin in defiance. “I think I smell as fresh as a daisy…”
“There’s a difference in thinking it and the true facts, now isn’t there?”
“Moving on,” Agnes said, growling just a little.
“And so ends that conversation by decree of the old fart,” Delta said, chuckling.
“What did the vampire say?”
“Say as usual – b-blah-blah-blah…”
“I’d like to take a chunk out of that man’s behind,” Agnes said, snorting.
They both knew that was a lie. Sebastian might have been a vampire, but in vampire terms, he was a good one. “Kinky,” Delta said and got the stink eye in return. “Aren’t you a little old to go goo-goo-coo-coo over a vampire?”
“I’m as old as I feel,” Agnes shot back.
“And how old is that?”
“Blooming decrepit today,” Agnes admitted.
“Join the club,” Delta said, settling in her chair for the long haul. She didn’t much fancy the idea of going back out into the coldness of the night just yet.
“Maybe a few more Hot Toddy’s and these tasty treats will ease our burden,” Agnes said, noting the way her friend wasn’t in a hurry to be anywhere.
“Can’t hurt, right?” Delta said, grinning. Then she sighed. “Oh what a pooping web we weave when first we practice to deceive…”
“Don’t think it goes like that…”
“
Don’t care.”
“So, who’s deceiving whom?”
“From where I’m sitting,” Delta said, frowning. “Everybody.”
“Well, pick a place to start and unravel the web,” Agnes said.
“Easier said than done,” Delta said, sighing again. “But a little help…”
“Me? In the outside world?” Agnes snorted her contempt for that idea.
“Hermit…”
“Crone.”
“Ah, you know me so well,” Delta said, chuckling.
Agnes nodded. “We’re practically twins.”
“Apart from the whole witch-wolf thing.”
“Don’t forget the whole nosy as hell thing.”
“Perish the thought,” Delta said, grinning.
But Agnes was right. That darn web needed to be taken in hand and given a good tug – but for tonight, she was just happy to be in the warm, with good food, good drinks, and good company.
Tomorrow was another day, and everything else could wait. She hoped.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
~
Nancy was done second and third guessing herself. Being wrapped around her mate felt good, it felt right, and no amount of debating the issue wasn’t going to make it so.
She was kind of glad that he’d caught her trying to sneak out of the bathroom window. The view from the road couldn’t have been half as good as the view she got when he stripped off his shirt, and his barenaked man-chest screamed at her to touch, to prod, to squeeze those muscles. It was like a smorgasbord of which one she went for first.
“Stop!” Nancy said as he dropped forward onto his hands and knees over her body on the big double bed.
Jorge frowned, kicked himself in the backside, and cursed his inability to control his need for her. Now he’d rushed her, and she still wasn’t sure. And there was him; congratulating himself on wooing his mate only a few moments earlier.
Idiot.
“Too soon?” he asked, wincing as his wolf berated him with a growl, even though his wolf had been gung-ho too. Heaven forbid the beast actually admitted responsibility for anything it did – Pah!
Nancy snatched her attention from the huge bicep that had really flexed itself when he’d pressed forward, and her gaze met his. “Huh?” she asked, caught in the moment of not paying a blind bit of attention to what he’d been saying.
“This – us – is it too soon?”
Nancy’s lips worked, but her brain just couldn’t seem to send the words to her lips. Her gaze flicked back to that bicep as he flexed it once more, and she groaned inside. “I just wanted to…” she left the words hanging as she tried to wrap her hand around that bicep but didn’t even come close. “Dang, that’s a big sucker.”
“Huh?” Now he was confused, but as she tried to wrap both of her hands around his muscled arm, things became clearer.
“It’s like the size of my head,” she said. It wasn’t quite, but it might as well have been because she couldn’t seem to make her fingers meet, no matter how hard she squeezed, and she was squeezing that sucker with all her might.
“Did that muscle offend you?” Jorge asked, a big grin spreading across his face as he flexed it some more.
“It’s like a rock. Soooo hard…”
“Other things are hard too,” he said, getting her gaze to snap right back to his, and he looked down at the bulge in his jeans and knew that she had too when he heard her make a sexy sound in the back of her throat.
“Maybe we should explore – everything,” she said with glee. “I do like to be thorough.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t know how happy that makes me,” he said, chuckling.
“Not as happy as that promises to make me,” she said, snorting a wicked chuckle and meeting his gaze once more to the sound of a very hungry growl that rumbled out in the air around them. “I’d say down boy, but I really wouldn’t mean it,” she said, excitement and glee dancing in her eyes as she offered him a wicked smile to go with that wicked chuckle she had going on.
Jorge couldn’t keep the wolfish grin from his face if he’d tried. “Don’t tease me, sweetheart. An out of control mate is…”
“Such a tempting proposition,” she said, adding mischief to her arsenal. “How do I get one of those?”
“Oh, I’m right here, darlin’, and trust me, it’s going to get wild,” he said, more like a promise than a tease.
Nancy’s tongue licked over her parted lips as she ran her fingertips up his arm, over his shoulder, and down the mountainous range of his muscled chest, and he didn’t know which of his mate’s reactions he liked better, because they were all sending him insane. “I like the sound of that, but tell me,” she said, curling her fingers against his skin and dragging her fingernails down towards the open button of his jeans. “Are you all mouth and no trousers?”
Jorge couldn’t quite focus on her words so much as the feel of her human claws scratching up his skin. His length was twitching inside his jeans, desperate to escape the confines and find a home inside of her, and his wolf was rising to a challenge that she’d obviously thrown out. “You want me to lose the trousers?” he said, somewhat lost.
“Sounds good to me,” she said with glee.
Jorge scrambled back away from her. The heck if he was going to ignore a request like that from his mate. Only minutes earlier he’d thought he’d pushed her too soon – now she was demanding him naked – boy was he a happy chappy!
“Maybe some music…” she said, teasing, but she never got far enough for a reply from him as he caught his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans and thrust the material to his knees. His hard length bounced up to freedom with eagerness. “Springy!” she giggled like a schoolgirl on prom night.
“It’s definitely pleased to see you,” he said with a big wolfish grin that made her heart slam into her ribcage.
“In the words of the great sage Scooby Doo – oh boy, oh boy, oh boy,” she said, giggling some more.
“Scooby Doo? You had to go with the dog joke?” he said, playfully berating her.
“When in Rome,” she said, shrugging and offering him a playfully wicked grin as she wiggled her eyebrows.
“I wholeheartedly stand behind that sentiment…”
“Sorry, with the best will in the world, I can’t change you into a witch,” she said, watching as he kicked off his jeans.
“No,” he said, dropping back down onto his knuckles and crawling ever so slowly up over her body once more, bewitching her from looking anywhere but at him. “But I can get you naked.”
Jorge saw the flash of excitement in her eyes and watched his wicked witch mate as she offered him the most teasing, dazzling, wickedly bad smile yet. “Sounds good,” she said like she was really enjoying the taste of those words on her tongue.
If he’d been a thermometer, he would have blown his top. His heart hit his ribs, his blood was hot with a fever of desire that ran through his veins, and his hard length did the twitchy dance of love.
Dang, she was going to kill him with kindness before he ever got to know her in the true sense of the word.
Jorge reached out, slowly, infuriatingly slow for Nancy’s liking, peeling her out of her clothes. “Geez-be-dang-it,” she said, making him hesitate. “Could you go any slower?”
“I can try,” he said, spluttering a chuckle. “I’m enjoying this.”
“Well, I’m in danger of dying of old age,” Nancy said, slapping his hands away so she could do it herself and get this party started!
“Hey, no slapping,” he said, nudging her hands out of the way so he could continue.
“I thought it was no zapping?” she said, fighting to get a grip on her jeans.
“It’s both,” Jorge said, getting his own grip on the material.
“But biting is okay, right?” she said and stopped fighting with his hands for control of her jeans when the hungriest growl yet filled the air. Her gaze snapped to his, and those dark eyes looked hungry. “Oooo, now I’ve gone and done it,”
she said with a wicked grin.
A heartbeat later and she squealed in surprise as he yanked the material down her legs, whipping it away, and yanking her down the bed in the process. “Graceful – not,” she said, chuckling and trying to shimmy back up the bed on her elbows, but gave up trying when he leant in over her, his nose practically touching hers. “Hello, I feel like something has changed.” She couldn’t contain the look of glee.
“You’ve heard of hungry like the wolf,” he said, and she certainly heard that hungry rumble of a growl that came out with his words.
“Oh yep,” she said trying to contain a wicked smile.
“Well, sweetheart, meet Mr Wolf,” he said, growling.
CHAPTER TWENTY
~
Nancy’s heart lodged in her throat as she stared back into her mate’s dark, hungry eyes. The man looked as if he could eat her whole, and she was certainly on board with that. “About time,” she said, with a big dollop of enthusiasm, wrapping her arms around his neck and bringing her lips to his.
Jorge sure knew hungry like a wolf, but he never dreamed that his witch mate could match him in that hunger. Boy, did she? She was practically ravenous. Her kisses were hungry, her hands were devouring his body, and his wolf was going ape within him for a sense of control.
But Jorge was already all out of control. Nancy was driving him towards the brink of insanity, and it was only his beast rising up within him that knocked some sense back into him, as he fought to get a handle of his wild side.
“Holy hellfire, woman,” Jorge growled as he broke away from her lips, wrapping his hands around her wrists and thrusting the backs of her hands against the mattress.
“Oh, there’s nothing holy in this room,” she said with glee.
She’d wanted to drive him nuts, and by the looks of him, all dark, all panting, and all fighting for control, she’d gotten her wish.
Job done. Bring on the bad boy.
“I noticed,” he said, nodding a little as he continued to fight his wild side for control.
