by Elsa Jade
Even though Maddie knew how hard it was to find what you were looking of in the middle of somewhere too.
By late afternoon, the sun had sizzled away the morning chill and turned the spring day into a prelude of coming summer heat. Maddie sat in the shade of the open garage bay, catching the sage breeze and cursing the radio that refused to bring in more than a scratchy pop-country station.
“He’s a bucking bronc, still running free.”
Maddie twiddled the antennae, and the twangy voice cleared.
“He’s a grouchy bear, but he don’t scare me.”
Rolling her eyes—no way had this singer ever even seen a bear—Maddie returned to the pickup’s clutch.
“He’s a stray dog, but I brought my rope.
He’s a wild man, but I still got hope.”
“Never understood why she’d want him.” The familiar low voice, a hundred times more musical than the singer’s, sent thrill chills shooting through Maddie’s bones. The socket wrench slipped and she cracked her knuckles.
Kane grabbed her hand, avoiding the blood welling up from the smashed skin. “You should be more careful.”
“You should quit sneaking around,” she replied. But she didn’t resist as he dragged her to the big sink at the back of the shop and stuck her hand under the faucet.
She hissed at the sting of cold water, but his big, powerful body was right behind her when she tried to pull away. She found herself pressed back to him, his arms reaching around her to hold her in place, the heat of him penetrating deeper than the desert sun. Inside, she started to melt, her core softening with the urge to flow around him.
Dammit, no. He couldn’t just manhandle her like she was the bucking, grouchy stray.
And yet she fitted the generous curve of her backside into the crook of his hips and wanted to purr. How could he trigger her lust with just a touch?
She averted her gaze from his long fingers manacled around her wrists and spied the black Mustang out at the pump. That was a welcome distraction. “Let me go. I have a customer.”
“That’s my ride.”
“Oh.” She sagged against him. Not rubbing, honestly. “Since when do you drive a muscle car?”
“Since the transmission fell out of my pickup.”
“Bad mechanic.”
“Well, you weren’t here.”
“Speaking of which, why are you?”
“Here?” His arms tightened on either side of her, plumping her breasts under her baby doll tee. Against the hot pink cotton, his tattoos looked ruthlessly tough, the same obsidian as the brooding car. “I just needed to fill up again.”
She kept her voice light. “Ready for your getaway, hmm?”
“Getaways are your thing, apparently,” he reminded her. “But that’s fine with me. I’ll always make sure you’re the first to get off.”
The riffle of his breath over her ear sent a shiver down her spine, and her stiffening nipples rubbed against the lace of her bra. Why she’d put on a lacy bra this morning when she’d just be pumping gas all day, she had no idea…
Well, maybe she’d secretly hoped to be pumping more than that.
She wriggled again, and a low sound rumbled through his chest.
“You want to go for a ride with me?” He leaned forward to nuzzle her ear, bending her further over the sink. “You like fast…cars, yeah?”
“I don’t need you for that.” She meant to sound snappy but the words were more breathless.
“I know”—his hands, chilly from the water, skimmed up inside her T-shirt and felt so, so good on her fevered skin—“but it’s more fun to peel out with someone else.”
He lifted her shirt and tugged down the lacy bra at the same time he set his teeth to the back of her neck. She arched in a sinuous wave, her head bowed to his mouth, her breasts thrusting into his wide palms.
He rubbed in tight circles, drawing her nipples to a peak while she moaned. “I’ll put my foot down”—his boot wedged between her sneakers, nudging her stance wider while the seam of her jeans teased at her swelling clit—“and drive you home.”
“Oh, gimme a break,” she said, but the words were less scoffing and more breathless squeak.
“That’s what I’m doing,” he replied. “I wouldn’t want you to work too—hard.”
The prod of his rigid erection against her backside made her pulse race. Her fingers fumbled at the button of her jeans. She shouldn’t, but she just needed to touch herself. Once would be entirely enough.
Okay, it had already been twice with him.
But the third time would definitely be enough.
She unzipped and slipped her hand over her mound, caressing the moist scrap of cotton between her legs.
Kane nipped at her again, harder. “Bad girl. Someone could come.”
“Yeah. Like me.”
“Not alone you won’t.” Another zip answered hers, and then the crinkle of a condom package.
She gave her hips a shimmy, shifting down her jeans and panties. The chill from the still-running faucet wafted over her exposed flesh, but then his amazingly hot cock was easing through her folds to her slit. The lubricated latex slid into her wet pussy like she’d been waiting for it—for him—this whole time.
A tiny, frantic, accidental sound squeezed from her throat as he angled up into her.
It sounded like a plea. Like his name. She choked it down, tightening every muscle in her body to keep it bottled inside.
He groaned at the clutch of her pussy around his cock. “You drive me crazy,” he said through gritted teeth. “And I can’t stop.”
Even though I know I should.
She heard the words he didn’t say because they echoed in her head already. Pissed her off that they both knew it…and kept going. Vindictively, she shoved back against him, impaling herself at the same time she reached between their tangled legs to cup his balls. She rolled the taut, delicate sacs like she’d once hefted the eggs she lobbed at those white picket the-way-things-should-be fences.
He sucked in a harsh breath and plunged deep. At this angle, his cock filled her to the edge of aching, leaving her unnervingly aware of his great strength and her vulnerability. He kept her hovering there, stretched and longing even though she was afraid of the hurt.
She caught her breath, almost a sob. Since when was she fearful of a little pain? Bruised knuckles or bruised heart, she wasn’t going to be stopped by a bit of blood. She knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t done with him yet.
Slowly, she impaled herself on him, pressing backward until the blades of his hip bones were grinding into her ass. A bright burst of sensation sang through her nerves. Sang like something out on the black mesa, craving completion. Hungry…or lonely.
Kane curved around her, like a wind-torn juniper bending around a rock. “You gotta come for me,” he said hoarsely. “I wanna hear you sing.”
The pitch of his voice, caught between command and entreaty, sank into her more deeply than his prodding cock. He slipped his hand past hers, knocking her away from his sac and centering his big palm over her mound. One blunt fingertip found her aching nub, shifting her from vengeful to on the verge as speedily as the Mustang would cross a dotted yellow line.
She let out a keening moan when he vee’d his fingers around her slit and squeezed. His hand forced every single nerve ending down there into contact with his cock working her inside. She bumped her clit into the callused ridge at the base of his fingers and cried out again at the delicious combination of pressure and friction. Rubber meeting her road.
Then he dropped it into highest gear.
He was pistoning her pussy, each stroke of him driving her more wild. She writhed against him and would’ve taken them both to the floor if not for his iron arm around her waist, his fingers flexing with her convulsing flesh.
“Kane,” she moaned.
“Do it, Mad girl. Take us there.”
Her throttle completely open, the silent combustion rippled outward from his hand.
Her passion expanded outward at a thousand miles a heartbeat…only to reach some cosmic limit and come crashing in again, centered around his touch at her core. She threw her head back into the crook of his neck, his breath a swirling hot dust devil in her ear as he came, his cock spasming and his body shuddering into hers.
She orgasmed again, inward this time, so hard she thought hazily she might break him in half with her ravenous pleasure.
Good thing he was too strong for that.
But was she strong enough to walk away again?
Chapter Six
‡
She broke him.
Kane would’ve sworn on the full moon that he’d never walk again. Every muscle shivered with exhaustion and exhilaration. He caught his breath in heaving gasps thick with the sweet musk of her skin as he bent over Maddie, his hands braced on the sink.
His eyeballs had rolled into the back of his skull when the power of a mad orgasm gripped him. And in that murky darkness, a silent silver explosion ripped apart his awareness, and he saw… He wasn’t sure what he saw, but he knew the starry aftermath would burn in afterimage across his mind until his dying day.
But when he finally managed to open his eyes, glancing down to satiate himself on her heaving breasts while he set his lips against the sweat-dampened skin of her neck, he found himself staring at the faint imprint of his fingers sunk into the stainless steel rim.
His ardor cooled a bit, not just from the icy water still running out the tap but the realization of how close his wolf had been to the surface. Maybe those sparks had been nothing more than iron ripping apart beneath his beast.
“Too tight.”
At the tension in her voice, he loosened his jaw where he’d clamped down with more insistence than a post-quickie nuzzle called for. Even after he lifted his head, she wriggled, not passionate this time, but peeved.
“Let me breathe, Kane.”
His elbows were still locked on either side of her, his legs still thrust between hers.
The dominant straddle pleased the wolf, and it growled—half amused, half aroused—when she pushed her ass into him, trying to force him back a step.
“Someone could come, remember?”
He didn’t think she’d appreciate being reminded how she’d tossed that warning back in his face.
He closed his eyes again at the feel of her grinding on his cock. She wasn’t making it any easier to bring his wolf under control.
“Just…hold on a sec, okay?” He let out a short gust of breath, not quite a curse.
The wolf didn’t need a second. It was ready to go again, now, forever.
It wasn’t that he was unable to walk. He’d never be able to let her walk away again.
And he couldn’t tell her that.
The violence of the wolf’s objection along with a second, more vigorous butt bump from Maddie finally made Kane pull away, for both their sakes, Maddie and the wolf.
They were both creatures of the moment, bold and ardent. And that was why both—wolf and woman—needed a man to rule their dangerous passions.
And he knew both would tear him apart if he tried.
Maddie reached for the stream of water and splashed it across her pussy. He yelped and jumped back to avoid the icy spray on his dick.
He would’ve sworn steam curled up.
She slanted a glance over her shoulder as she wiped herself. “I’ve never fucked in a garage before.” She said it in the same tone someone else might say, “Go away now.”
“I’m honored,” he said.
He meant it, but she snapped the shop towel at him as if she thought he was being snide. “Wrap that thing up tight so no one else finds it.”
He looked down at his still tumescent cock then realized she meant the condom.
That wilted him enough to slip the rubber off his dick. He cleaned up—the wolf’s energy still danced under his skin so that his cock stiffened again at his own touch, thinking of her—and wadded the limp latex in the coarse, heavy paper.
When he glanced up for a trash bin, he saw her watching, her gaze on his swollen flesh, shining tautly and flushed with blood.
She saw him watching her watch him, and though she lifted her chin rebelliously at being caught looking, her cheeks blushed as bright as his cock. “I should get back to work.”
The wolf dug its claws into the concrete floor at her dismissal. “When do you get off?”
He hadn’t realized he’d been hoping for another of her naughty double entendres until she said nothing, only averted her gaze. She’d pulled her bra and T-shirt into place, but he could almost feel the weight of her breasts as she let out a soundless sigh. “We can’t keep doing this, Kane.”
She was right, he knew. “Why not?” He couldn’t even blame the wolf—wordless as it was—for that whine.
“You did something God-awful to me, Kane. You made me run away, and I kept running until I forgot what I was running from. Until I forgot myself.” She stared him down. “I won’t let you do that again. I won’t let me do that again.”
No accusation soured her tone, just a resolve as unmoving as a boulder sheered off from a cliff and come to rest after much crashing and chipping.
In the dimmer light of the garage, her changeable hazel eyes were darkened to brown, like the graveside earth drying in the wind at his father’s funeral. Werewolves had come from all points of the Four Corners, mixing among the oblivious humans, to see their alpha on his last run. But he’d also felt their gazes on him, heavier than six feet of dirt on his head. The prodigal son, the heir apparent, the hero who would lead them into an ever shrinking, ever more perilous world.
He’d wanted to run. He’d rather have been anywhere else—he had been everywhere else—than at that wrought iron plot on the cemetery hillside. Maddie said they had to stop doing this, but he had to keep doing this because this was the way it was done. From alpha to alpha, down through the centuries, their existence marked by lunar cycles, their claim staked anew at the mating season.
So if he knew in his gut that she was right, and his head told him nothing could ever change, why did his heart—his wolf—refuse to let her go?
“You were the first stranger I ever met,” he said at last. “Nothing ever changed in Angels Rest. Until you. You seemed so…” He thought of the first time he’d seen her, walking down the street, an outsider in a small, isolated town, someone to be automatically distrusted even if her father hadn’t been a threat to their community. Her hair and skirt had been too short, garnet nose stud glinting like a challenge, and she had registered for freshman shop class, according to rumor. He’d been instantly intrigued. “So free.”
She stiffened. “Free? I couldn’t sneeze without someone telling me that wasn’t how it was done here.”
He shook his head. “I know. And you just kept wrinkling your nose.”
As if she couldn’t stop herself, she did just that, the garnet in the groove winking at him. “I’m so glad I amused you.”
“You didn’t—well, you did, but you also inspired me.”
She huffed out a breath. “You were awesome at everything and everybody loved you. Why would you need inspiration?”
He wished he could tell her all of it, but even if she did have seer’s eyes as his father warned, she wasn’t ready to see all of him. “Because you proved to me that things could change.”
She shook her head slowly. “I saw the welcome home sign at Gypsy’s. You’re still the same Kane Villalobos.”
“You wanted that once,” he reminded her. “You wanted me.”
The sun was drifting low enough to shine through the garage door, and this time, the blood-red droplet of the garnet flashed like an angry bull’s eye. “Well, that part of me has definitely changed.” When he lifted one eyebrow, she added, “As of right now. We weren’t meant to be back then, and it’s not going to work this time either. Some things in Angels Rest really do never change.”
She rounded him to stalk away. When she passed, his sm
ell on her skin, which had only been spread by the water she’d haphazardly splashed around, pierced him, arrowing straight to the primeval beast inside. He clamped down on the wolf as it leaped up at the ready. It didn’t want to let her out of their sight, even though she carried their scent, marking her as theirs. She was too tempting, with her silky umber hair rumpled and even softer skin still radiating the heat of their joining.
The wolf strained against his control. She thought he was still the same good ol’ boy he’d always been, but the wolf wanted to show her exactly how much he could change.
Because when she’d challenged it, saying she had changed and left him behind, it wanted her to know she still had so far to go.
Werewolf legends told of man and wolf at odds, but Kane had never appreciated what that meant. Even in Angels Rest, where farmers and ranchers and werewolves lived close to unadorned nature at its most raw, he’d always seen how the human side had ultimately subjugated the wild. The earth was turned inside out for its riches. Waterways were bent out of course. Even the wind was yoked for its power. And the non-human—and inhuman—creatures that shared the planet could only yield and hide. Or die. His father had taught him to keep the secret that kept the pack alive. So he had bent and yoked his wolf, and he had turned himself inside out.
And the wolf was done with him.
He swallowed down its snarl though the effort tore like acid daggers in his throat. His jaws ached with erupting fangs, and he knew even if he kept his mouth shut, his eyes would reveal the beast inside.
