He had Abby’s full attention now. The back of her neck prickled. Baby-fine hairs on her arms stood up, underscored by a roller coaster of chills.
“By circumstances, you mean living with a man who’d be willing to kill me if he found out,” she said.
Dylan’s eyes were on her.
No! she wanted to shout. I’m not ready for what you’re going to say. I may never be ready.
She eyed the door and the hallway, thinking she’d run, planning her escape, but unable to move her feet.
After watching her closely to see how she’d react to his previous statement, Dylan delivered the blow she’d been anticipating.
“The truth, Abby,” he said, “is that Sam Stark can’t be your father. He can’t be a blood relative at all, because Sam isn’t Lycan, and you are.”
Chapter 21
Sam isn’t my father.
I am Lycan.
Growls of protest erupted from Abby’s throat. Her ears throbbed with the blond Were’s explanation for her current state.
Sam can’t be a relative at all.
Not a relative. Not my father.
Her instantaneous relief over that became sidetracked by the question of how this wolf thing had happened. A quick shuffle of memories about Sam’s reluctance to speak of her mother sat on top of the list, as did the fact that he had been willing to shoot her. Sam’s finger had been on the trigger.
She had always wondered why he treated her like a servant most of the time, with little effort in the way of showing emotion or an aptitude for caring for his progeny. This was the answer. Sam had been merely tolerating her. They didn’t share blood or genetics. She and Sam Stark had no true bond whatsoever.
Her wish had come true.
Reeling with the information presented to her, Abby zeroed in on the other words haunting her. Sam had told her that he’d been watching her for signs. Signs of being...just like her.
“Like my mother,” she whispered.
According to Dylan’s explanation, it took two Lycans to produce another one. Undiluted blood had to be passed down from one generation to the next. And that’s what Dylan had suggested she was. Lycan.
This was earth-shattering news, and totally revealing if true. Here was an explanation for being drawn to Weres, and for all those years of feeling different.
Yet she had to be sure.
“There’s no way a Were can be half-Lycan?” she asked.
“No way,” Dylan replied. “Impossible.”
“Then my mother,” Abby said at length, “had to have married Sam after I was born. She had to have had a reason for being with Sam. What could possibly cause a werewolf hunter to take on a Were and her daughter, or vice versa? Why would my mother live with a killer with a vendetta against her race? If what you’re saying is the truth, my father has to be someone else.”
“It’s possible that Sam didn’t know about your mother. She might have kept it from him,” Dylan said.
Abby shook her head. “Maybe at first, though not for long. Sam told me tonight that he had watched me for signs of being like her. This had to be what he meant. He had waited to see if I’d be a werewolf.”
She felt foolish for not having seen that, for not putting things together sooner, and on her own. It all made a terrible kind of sense now, thanks to Dylan’s explanation.
However, was it actually true?
Was it believable that Sam had waited for her wolf to show itself, and that possibly her mother hadn’t actually died of pneumonia, as she had briefly been told?
“I suppose we’ll never know the answers to your questions,” Cameron said. “And after tonight, seeing Sam in person wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Abby refused to let her legs give out, or her stomach to turn over its contents. She was surrounded by Weres and infatuated with one of them for reasons just coming to light. Both she and Cameron Mitchell were werewolves. She had been a wolf since her birth. Hell, she’d been a wolf in her mother’s womb.
Fight, or flight? This was too much information to process at once. Shout? Argue? Run? Maybe a combination of all those options.
And maybe not.
Modulating her quivering voice, Abby looked up at Cameron with a confession on her lips. “This is too much. Please, can we be alone?”
“You don’t want to hear more?” Cameron asked. “Figure things out?”
“I need to hear everything, just not now. Not right this minute. I can’t breathe. I need to think.”
Cameron inclined his head to her, then to the others, without releasing her from the protective, possessive circle of his arms.
The cut on her arm had begun to sting again, as if she had just made it. Moonlight had entered her through the open gash, tugging at what lay inside. But if what Dylan said proved true, moonlight didn’t have to rule all Weres. Lycans were exempt. Why then did moonlight thrash around inside her, mercilessly trying to change everything it came into contact with?
“If you need us,” Dylan said to Cameron, “you know where we are. If you need anything, you’re welcome behind our walls.”
When the Weres filed out, taking their extraordinary heat with them, the room seemed empty and cold. Until Abby met Cameron’s gaze.
Then, wounded, sick, anxious and off balance in a world that had gone insane and swept her along with it, Abby, on tiptoe, pressed her lips greedily, hungrily, terrifyingly, to his, hoping to escape from reality for a little while.
Cameron, injured and unenlightened, returned her kiss with a groan of acceptance and a hunger of his own.
This will hurt you, her mind cried out to him. This is my fault and I’m sorry.
Did he hear her silent apology? Did his own wound grind him down?
He tore the leather coat from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor, his mouth never once leaving hers. She tasted the medicine he’d been treated with, as well as the fire of fever beneath it. As her hunger for him deepened, her wounded arm blazed with pain as if she had taken in some of Cameron’s hurt, temporarily allowing him freedom from the pain he had suffered on her behalf.
This is what she needed, wanted.
Cameron’s lips covered hers with a ferocious passion. His hands cupped her face, then slid to her bare neck, caressing, exploring, needing to touch every inch of her, reflecting her own desires to have all of him.
Wolf to wolf.
Their surroundings faded away, leaving only one noticeable thing: the smell of the place where they stood. She was in his house. Cameron lived here, slept here. His scent was everywhere, and she couldn’t take in enough of it, feel enough of it or give enough back to him to make up for what had happened to them.
Going back was not an option, she reiterated, though the future looked bleak, because she had lost her hold on humanity tonight.
I am like my mother.
And if that were true, she’d meet Cameron body to body and cell to cell without having to worry about a bite or a scratch changing her. She’d allow herself one more transgression before any more news came that might break her.
As Abby reached up to slip her fingers into Cameron’s hair, she thought she heard her mother’s voice echo in her own sultry moan of satisfaction. In reality, the sigh of pleasure came from her lips.
* * *
Cameron set aside his pain and reveled in having Abby in his arms. Her fingers wound through his hair before they flitted lightly across the back of his neck on the way to his bare shoulders. When she slid her hands under his arms, her fingers splayed. She clung to the muscles near the line of his spine, generating spasms of pure unadulterated greed in every corner of his body.
He had time for only one thought:
There were too many clothes in the way.
With his eyes shut and his mouth locked to hers, he clasped the fringe of what was left of her jeans, tugged and felt the waistband release. His palms skated over the delicate line of her lower back before dipping to the seductive curves of her buttocks beneath. His exploration
made her lift her mouth from his. She didn’t speak. Her breath was feverish.
He wanted this more than anything. More than life itself.
“No waiting for this?” he said, watching for a signal that she wanted it, too.
Abby shook her head, said, “No more waiting.”
She was perfect, naked and willing. And she was a wolf.
Cameron growled with delight and the extremes of his pleasure. More words or questions would have been useless, meaningless, when their mouths, lips, hands and bodies said it all.
Impatiently, he took her to the hardwood floor. Sitting upright, he pulled Abby on top of him. She knew instinctively what to do.
She began to move her hips as though he was already inside her, rubbing him senseless with her silky, savory skin, luring him to her.
He stretched out on his back, keeping her in his lap, where she sat with both hands on his chest. She was lean, beautiful and mesmerizing. Her slender back arched. Her breasts gleamed. The furred-up spot between her thighs that was the gateway to possessing her completely taunted him with a promise of what was to come.
Cameron followed the soft touch of her fingers across skin made sensitive by the invasion of the silver bullet. Her hands moved lightly, deftly, over the contours of his chest, ribs and stomach. Randomly, she leaned over to kiss his skin, and to deliver a moist lick of her tongue.
His body accepted whatever she wanted to do. Fate had brought them together, and they were safe. Other than fate, how else could being with her like this be explained?
He uttered a curse when her silky hair tickled his shoulder. He let loose another oath when she bit down hard on a spot near his collarbone with her small human teeth. As if that bite possessed some magical property Landau’s medicine lacked, the pain of the wound that had sidelined him melted away, replaced by the sheer passion and excitement of the moment. He had never been so hard and so ready. He had never loved anything or anyone so much.
Abby knew this, of course. She had to.
The sound of his zipper opening broke the silence. She slithered down his body, dragging his pants along before returning to position her damp, inflamed sex over his pulsing erection.
With his hands on her hips, Cameron lifted her slightly, far enough to ease her over him. He sighed as her scorching heat took him in.
She was not to be held back. Expertly, intuitively, she took over, moving quickly to take all of his hardness inside. Each inch she traveled left waves of incredible pleasure. As if sharing his pleasure, she threw her head back, exposing her long, bare neck. Raising himself, Cameron took that smooth, pale flesh between his teeth.
She liked this. Her lush lips parted, though she made no sound. Cameron held back a howl as each movement of her sleek body threatened to do him in. The pleasure was too intense, his reaction too quick, and too soon.
“Slow down, Abby. Please.”
Sweeping her into his arms, Cameron got to his feet. She allowed this, but barely. His bedroom was down a short hallway that seemed to stretch for a mile. Cameron carried her there, insane over the way her bareness met with his, and the way her legs curled over his forearms.
In his room, he tossed her onto the mattress and glanced down at her with his wolf vision to see the expression she offered him in the darkened room. That expression was the epitome of a need so great it registered as violent.
Abby wanted this for reasons only she understood. He guessed one of those reasons to be the necessity for an outlet to release the surprising, life-altering events of two nights in a row in that damn park. She had to be jumbled up inside.
He’d give her that release and more, gladly. He would make her see how much he cared.
Kneeling beside her, perched above her plushness, he waited out the seconds ticking by. She didn’t reach for him this time, but lay there, looking up at him with her arms spread wide and her legs slowly opening.
It was the invitation he needed.
He tore the silver knife and its sheath from her ankle and threw it away, then ran both hands up her legs, following with his eyes, drinking her in.
He found her sweet spot, the apex between her thighs, and pressed his warm palm there. She groaned softly, and gritted her teeth. When he inserted a finger, she arched off the bed. When he added another, she grabbed at the sheet, writhing beneath the intimacy of his touch.
He dropped to his knees and held her legs steady. One long lap of his tongue over her sex was all he could manage before his body threatened to burst.
“Not so slowly, then,” he said, moving up beside her. He ached to get on with this. He wanted to hear her shout.
He entered her only far enough to bury the tip of his desire, and took a deep breath to settle himself. His heart raced, beating against the hole in his chest. Abby’s blistering heat beat at him, inside and out. She was sultry, her every move naturally sensual. Her eyes were wide open and shining with a wildness she could hardly contain. She whispered his name softly, in the purr of a low growl...
And he sank into her with a plunge so deep it filled her to her core. Their hips ground together so tightly it seemed to him as though they were one in body and in spirit. He felt spasms rock her, and the rush of molten heat that met him as she wrapped herself around his length.
All of that sent him hurtling past the edge of control.
And then she wrapped her long legs around him, as she had before, in the dark, in that blasted park, encircling him with her fire, holding him captive. Trapped in her embrace, his only option was forward.
He eased back and entered her again, exerting himself in the desire to reach what lay beyond that molten core, wanting to find Abby’s wolf, needing to access her soul.
He drove himself inside her wet, waiting depths again and again, building a rhythm, each thrust coaxing her orgasm to unfurl. Over and over, deeper and deeper he went, wearing down her veneer of handling this until their bodies slammed together so hard the bed shook. Glass in the window beside them rattled, and still, Abby’s eyes dared him to give her more.
“Someday, wolf to wolf, Abby, we’ll go there.”
Perhaps sensing his slight hesitation, Abby’s long, lithe legs became a sleek, fleshy vise.
Okay.
All right.
Cameron drove into Abby one last time with an effort fueled by every need he’d ever had, all bundled into one motion. He didn’t do this for himself. Not completely. This was a sharing. An example of how much he cared. He meant it as a promise for a future, offered to her on a rumpled bed, in his room, in his home, on his terms. He offered her this with his own soul tied up in a big red bow.
“For you, Abby.”
Her hips stilled. Her legs loosened. Suddenly motionless, Abby gasped aloud. Inside, her climax rose, its progress tickling his erection. It hurled upward to meet him, and his body responded with a pause that gave her room to imagine what lay ahead.
She began to tremble. Strangely enough, so did he. Abby’s shudders spurred him on.
He drove inside her with a final furious thrust that might have split a normal woman in two...and then he joined her in an orgasm that drowned out the world and everything in it.
As their bodies locked together, and they were unable to breathe or twitch, their pitched voices mingled in a howl of ecstasy that shook the rafters.
There were few hints of anything human in the sound.
Chapter 22
The world revolved in moving patterns of light and dark, taking all breathable air with it, leaving Abby with a sense of unreality. She blinked slowly, trying to catch hold of something permanent and unmoving with which to center herself, but only Cameron’s body, lying across her naked one, kept her from spinning out of control.
He wasn’t asleep. He might have been daydreaming of an inevitable physical rematch, just as she was, because his pulse hadn’t slowed much. His resilient skin was slick with a fine film of sweat, as was hers. The sex had been strenuous. Possibly they should have paid more attention to Ca
meron’s wounds.
Maybe he was silent now out of the need to recoup his strength. Or maybe this was Cameron being chivalrous in giving her time to recover, not realizing that their erotic antics hadn’t taken anything from her, and had, in fact, been invigorating, even challenging, in ways she didn’t fully understand.
One thing was certain. Cameron Mitchell was not only compelling but addictive. Better than food. Far beyond anything reasonable. He was the perfect rogue in bed, the seducer, the lover, the man, despite an injury that should have slowed him down. And all that beautifully sculpted muscle, so close and scented with their sexual drives, drove her crazy, still.
Cameron seemed too good to be true, and she had fallen for him, hard. She had to fight to keep her hands and her mouth off him, and purposefully deflect the desire to scan his formidable outline. And if she craved him so much, why did she imagine she’d learn more on her own, without him by her side?
Why was she going to leave him? Family secrets, that’s why. She would be no good to anyone without knowing her background. What she really was, and who her mother was. First on that to-do list would be facing Sam, no matter how difficult and dangerous that might be.
Sam was out there, and only he had the answers to everyone’s questions, especially hers. Sam, who had proved himself a complete bastard several times over, held the key to both her past and her future. She’d never be whole or at peace until she learned about those secrets.
If Sam had been willing to pull the trigger tonight, setting his sights on his adopted daughter, how had he lived with a Were for any period of time whatsoever as his wife?
Cameron rolled over onto his side, allowing her a full view of the length of his truly magnificent body. All perfect. All there in plain view, right up to the bandage taped to his chest. Behind that bandage lay some of Sam’s brutal handiwork. But though Cameron had been shot with silver just hours ago, the injury hadn’t prevented the culmination of their raging carnal desires, which showed just how strong Cameron really was.
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