He leapt. She leapt faster. She sidestepped him so that he skidded in the dirt right into thorny underbrush. She whirled, stared at him in astonishment for a moment, then yelped and sprinted away.
Alain tried to disentangle himself to follow her but the thorns caught deep in his fur. He swore and bit, and became aware of a throaty chuckle not far from him.
Not the beautiful gray wolf, but a coyote. Long and lean with plenty of muscle, this coyote had deep brown eyes rather than the usual yellowish eyes of his kind.
“Aw, is poor wolf-kins stuck?” he asked.
“Do you have a death wish?” Alain snarled. “When I get out of here, you’re toast.”
“I know who she is.”
Alain stopped. He looked at the coyote’s sharp-pointed face, swearing that the animal was grinning. “Tell me.”
“How bad do you want me to help you?”
Alain trailed off into a series of growls. The coyote’s outline shimmered and changed until he was six feet and more of lean, tight, naked muscle. His long black hair swung free as he leaned down and disentangled Alain’s fur.
Alain backed well away from the bushes and morphed into his human self again. “All right, tell me, who is she?”
“I can show you. But not right now.”
Alain gave him a very wolf-like growl. “Listen, coyote, you come around my house claiming you know secrets, but you haven’t proven to me you know anything. You say you know what happened to my father—”
“You know that too. He was killed.”
“By who? Tell me.”
He lost his smile. “I’m not sure yet. I need proof before I accuse anyone.”
Alain took a step toward him, ready to close his hands around the man’s throat, but the coyote-man caught his hand and twined his fingers through Alain’s.
“Come on now, wolf, I won’t steer you wrong. You want that girl and I want you to have her. Your dad was a good friend to me.”
“A wolf friends with a coyote?”
“Everyone’s friends with me,” he said. “You can call me Jackson.”
Alain stood still while Jackson released his hand, circled behind him and slid strong arms around Alain’s waist. “I’m not just any coyote.” He leaned down and nibbled Alain’s shoulder, his teeth sharp. “I’m the Coyote. Look up tribal legends. Most white people don’t know them.”
“I’ve heard of Coyote. The trickster with much magic. You’re saying that’s you?”
“In the flesh.” He ran his tongue from Alain’s shoulder to his neck and Alain felt his already frustrated libido responding. Strange—if any other man had touched him like that, shifter or no, Alain would have thrown him to the ground. Instead he liked the warmth of Jackson’s arms around his waist and his mouth on his skin.
Alain closed his eyes, letting his cock enjoy elongating and stretching. “Who’s the woman? She implied this was her first turning.”
Coyote answered, his breath warm. “All right, I can’t stand the suspense. She’s a police officer. Cute woman who drives around in an SUV, has a gun and handcuffs.”
Alain’s eyes popped open. Patrice Spencer was a werewolf? He thought of her dark brown hair, her fine green eyes, the way her body filled out her uniform, giving a man fantasies about being arrested and frisked. He hadn’t sensed any hint of the wolf about her, but admittedly he’d only seen her from afar. Their only close encounter had been at the convenience store when they’d passed in the doorway.
She’d brushed past him with a polite smile on her way inside, probably not knowing his jeans had tightened at the way her eyes turned up in the corners. She’d smelled good, just out of the shower probably, grabbing coffee on her way to her morning shift.
Patrice Spencer. Things were looking up.
“I’ll introduce you,” Jackson offered, his lips on Alain’s neck. He felt a brief flick of pain on his earlobe as Jackson closed his teeth on it.
Alain found himself breathing hard, first in anticipation of meeting Patrice and second from how the other man touched him. “When? Where?”
“Leave it to me.”
Jackson withdrew his touch, stepping back. Alain whirled around, but the space behind him was empty. He thought he heard lingering laughter, the hint of a coyote’s yip and then nothing.
* * * * *
Patrice turned the SUV down the county road the next morning and made for the house at the end. Thomas Dupree had owned this house before he’d died, and now his son, Alain, did.
She thought of Alain from their convenience store encounter, the one that made her fantasize about him last night. Making her rounds this morning, she’d seen the fence at the edge of his property half down and the tracks of the truck that presumably had caused the damage visible in the dirt of the road.
It was early, just after eight, and Patrice felt like hell. After she’d run from the black wolf, fully expecting him to chase her, she’d gotten lost in a meandering wash and followed it a long way before finding a good place to climb out. She’d gotten muddy, her fur matted and her paws sore.
Give in to the wolf, the black werewolf had told her. Sure.
She’d made it to her back porch an hour before sunrise and felt her body shift back into the familiar form of Patrice. She’d showered, wishing she could have a long soak in the tub instead, fell across her bed and crashed into sleep.
She’d only slept about twenty minutes before the alarm reminded her she had to be at work at six-thirty. Not even three cups of coffee straight down helped. She was groggy and nauseous, her eyes felt like she’d fallen into a sandbox and she refused to even look at her hair.
She parked the police SUV in front of the house and strolled toward it.
The house had been built on a strip of land between towering cliffs and the creek, reachable by the county road that turned off the main one. It had escaped encroachment by development by being hard to find and because the Duprees owned a lot of land around it and stubbornly refused to sell.
The house was long and rambling, with wide windows to take in the view that was the main attraction of Sedona. Patrice felt a pang of envy. Her doublewide allowed her to glimpse the bright red butte of Bell Rock, but only if she craned her neck the right way. Here a person could sit on the front veranda or even look out the living room window and be surrounded by beauty.
When she reached the front door, a rush of awareness flowed through her body, a tingling similar to what she experienced when she was about to grab a perp. Instinctively her hand went to the butt of her gun in its side holster, but she didn’t draw it.
She couldn’t make her hand knock on the door and she had no idea why. She hadn’t come here to arrest Alain Dupree—just to tell him about a broken fence so he could make an insurance claim. She’d investigate the site and report it, and they’d all be on the lookout for a truck with a smashed left front fender. So many tourists drove through Sedona it would be hard to track, but it was winter, tourism down to a trickle during the week, and they might have more luck. So why, if this was a courtesy call, was her heart in her throat and her palms sweating?
As she stood there, knuckles upraised and in position, the door was jerked open by Alain Dupree, wearing nothing but a bathrobe.
Oh fuck.
He was tall and beautiful, his body an art form, broad of shoulder, strong of chest. Black, wiry hair dusted his pecs, which she could see almost all of in the V formed by the bathrobe. He’d loosely belted the robe at the waist and she spied no waistband of any kind below the hard abs and the indentation of his navel.
While that would make any red-blooded woman sing, his eyes arrested her most of all. Alain Dupree had thick black hair that tumbled in unruly waves to his shoulders, a square face and eyes of silver-gray.
Those same eyes had regarded her calmly under the moonlight in the woods west of Sedona. He swept his gaze over her from head to foot, recognizing her, knowing her.
“No,” she said, taking one step back. “Oh, no way in hell.”
Alain’s strong grip closed over her wrist and he jerked her inside the house.
* * * * *
Lord, she was beautiful. Alain’s entire body sang with it. Her dark brown hair curled against her face, cut short, flattened now from the hat that had fallen to the floor.
She smelled all kinds of good, like the shampoo he remembered from when he’d brushed by her at the convenience store, plus adrenaline and fear and, over that, desire. She wanted him, whether it was the human in her reacting to a half-naked man or the wolf hitting the mating cycle of the full moon.
“You’re a new werewolf,” he said, pitching his voice low. “Why didn’t anyone initiate you?”
“I didn’t know for sure until last night.”
“You should have been initiated.” He caught her other wrist and pressed her gently against the door, unable to stop himself. “It must have been hard for you, going it alone.”
“My body seemed to know what to do.”
“Not entirely. Do you want me to teach you, Patrice?”
Her body language said yes, please. Her mouth said, “Teach me what?”
“How to be the wolf. How to give in to the need to hunt, to run, to mate.”
“Mate with you, presumably.”
“Last night I claimed you. I need you, Patrice.” He let his lips just graze hers, feeling the pad of her lower lip move under his. “You need to mate too. You feel it.”
She said nothing, but her fingers stole to the first button of her uniform shirt. Touching it seemed to startle her and she looked down at herself, the button undone.
“I’m on duty. I can’t do this now.”
“When are you finished?”
“Four this afternoon.”
“Good.” He kissed her again, letting his mouth trail along the line of her jaw. Damn, she tasted nice. “We’ll have a few hours before the sun goes down. Come back here and I’ll show you everything about being the wolf.”
She slid her hands up his chest and inside the bathrobe. “I shouldn’t.” She let out her breath against his neck, warming it. “But God knows I want to.”
He licked the curve of her throat. “Come back to me, Patrice.”
She rubbed her body against his, letting out a faint sound of delight. “I need it so bad. Why do I need it so bad?”
“It’s the change. That’s why you need to be initiated and taught. I’ll make the pain go away.”
Patrice nodded into his chest. “Please.”
“Then be back here at four-thirty today. I’ll be waiting.”
He laced his fingers behind the nape of her neck and tilted her face upward. The kiss opened her mouth, his thumb on the corner of her lips coaxing them to let him in. She kissed back with tongue and lips and entire body.
When he finally released her, she leaned against the door, face flushed, like she couldn’t move. His broad hand rested against the wall by her head and she turned and kissed it.
Need roared through him. He couldn’t let her go, not now, not until he’d tasted every inch of her. Four-thirty was eight and some hours away. He’d die of agony before then.
She licked his wrist, her tongue swirling a pattern of heat. She put her mouth to it and suckled, instinctively knowing the pressure point that would lift his pounding cock higher.
She’d stay and he’d take her deep on the bed in the back of the house, the one whose window overlooked the creek. He’d lie in bed all day with her, watching the shadows play on her skin and listening to the rush of the Oak Creek in the background.
Outside, the radio in her truck crackled. Patrice jumped, jerking herself away from Alain.
“Damn it.” She scrubbed her face. “This is killing me. How am I going to do my job?”
“Meditation.”
“What?” She looked up at him, red lips parted, and oh, he wanted to slide his tongue back inside.
“Meditate. Think of wind chimes, count backward in your head, focus on a pattern, anything.” He opened the door, feeling regret and loss. “And then return to me. You need me, Patrice.”
“I do.” She rubbed her hand once between her legs and sighed. “See you after my shift.”
Alain watched her walk away from him, off his front porch to climb into the waiting SUV. Her uniform clung to her ass, making him want to run after her and bend her over the hood of the damn truck.
But this was also part of being the wolf. During the day, you had to be human. You had to do your job and all the little things that went with it. Surrendering to the wolf was necessary, but it was dangerous. Balance was what you needed, or you ended up dead.
Patrice started the SUV and rolled it down the driveway in a spurt of gravel. Alain watched until she’d turned the corner, the strong Arizona sun glinting off the hood, then he made himself go back inside and close the door.
He let the robe fall open and drop from his arms. His cock stood up thick and full, too damn needy to go down by itself. He grasped it, pressing his thumb against the base. He looked forward to satisfying himself a different way later, but for now this would have to do.
Alain heard a faint rustle of wind chimes and then Coyote Jackson was walking barefoot through his back door. The man was shirtless, in jeans only. He wondered briefly where Jackson lived during the day—a cabin, a house, some hole in the ground? Jackson looked shower-clean, his hair in a neat braid, so that ruled out the hole in the ground.
The man closed the back door and unzipped his jeans, showing he wore nothing beneath. “Want me to do that?” he offered.
I’m not gay, Alain wanted to say. But this seemed different—not two men who wanted to pick out curtains together but two men who understood each other’s needs.
“Not necessary.” Alain’s voice came out a cracked whisper.
Jackson dropped the pants all the way as he crossed the room to him. The man was lean muscle, not an ounce of fat on him. Jackson slid his arm around Alain’s shoulders as Alain continued to stroke his own cock.
It didn’t take long for Alain to come and once he did, he turned his head and took Jackson’s mouth in a deep, penetrating kiss.
Chapter Three
Patrice drove her SUV along the back roads of Sedona, then down the 89A toward Cottonwood. It was her usual circuit, patrolling back roads to check up on bikers on their way to a rally in Jerome, the old mining town that hung on the side of the mountain above Clarkdale. The bikers were camping along the way and a few gave her innocent waves as she drove by.
She checked the creek bottoms to make sure no one harassed the snowbirds, the over-sixties who drove their RVs down from the northern US and Canada in search of Arizona’s winter sun. The snowbirds liked to find inexpensive lots in which to park, and some enjoyed roughing it along the beauty of the creek. But despite the high-price restaurants and spas in nearby Sedona, this was still wild country, a desert mixed with protected wetlands. There was danger among the beauty—it wasn’t just a pretty backdrop.
Patrice drove restlessly, her mind only half on the job. Stupid—there was danger out here for her too. But the more she tried to banish the intense scent and warmth of Alain Dupree, the less successful she was. She wanted the man, every inch of him. She wanted to rub herself against him, to lick him, to taste and kiss him, to strip his robe from him and run her nails and tongue all the way down his body.
Thank God there weren’t a lot of problems today—a couple of lost hikers calling for assistance twenty yards from the road and a rancher worried about a wild animal one of his hired help thought he’d spotted last night.
“A wolf, he says,” the man told her. He had the yellow-brown, leathery skin of an Arizona native, a man who’d spent his entire life under the desert sun. “I told him it must have been a coyote. Ain’t no wolves up here.”
Patrice flushed as she pretended to agree with the man. No, no wolves around the Sedona-Oak Creek area. People had tried to reintroduce them to southern Arizona without much success.
No wolves but herse
lf and Alain Dupree. The man took her flush to be from driving around in the truck in the sun, but Patrice’s body heated up as she pulled away. It was four. She needed to check in at the station and sign out, and then she’d go see Alain.
Her temperature kept inching upward, her face breaking out into a heavy sweat. She mopped her skin as she filled out her reports back at the station and checked herself out, getting even hotter as she climbed into her own car and drove away.
This was more than a simple reaction to Alain, more than the warming trend on a winter day. Her body was raging, her skin itching and tingling, and her quim driving her crazy. As she drove back along the highway toward Sedona, she jammed her hand hard between her legs, letting out a little moan as she massaged herself.
The traffic was backed up in the tourist area of Sedona, the buses loading up day-trippers to transport them back down to Phoenix or up to Williams for the Grand Canyon trip. People wandered across the highway singly or in clumps, unaware of impatient locals trying to get past them to their homes.
Patrice breathed a sigh as she shot out the other side of uptown, heading up the 89A along the creek. Once she crossed, miles ahead, she took the dirt county road back to Alain’s ranch. The fence was still down—she’d forgotten to tell him.
She was nearly tearing off her shirt as she dashed up onto the porch. He opened the door without a word and his lips were all over hers, his hands pulling her shirt off her body, unclipping her bra.
“What’s wrong with me?” she gasped.
Alain hauled her up into his arms and carried her through the large living room to an airy bedroom in the back that overlooked the Oak Creek. The water rushing through the wide creek bed did little to soothe her. He was wearing a bathrobe again, though he’d obviously showered, and she fumbled with the tie that held it closed.
“It’s the first change,” he said, voice breaking like dry gravel. “You shouldn’t have to face it alone.”
“I changed for the first time last night. Why am I still feeling it?”
“That was the first physical change. You felt the urges, didn’t you? To hunt, to run. To mate.”
Howlin' Page 2
