Big Bad Wolf

by Christine Warren

  Graham scowled, both at Logan’s taunting words and at the reminder that he’d gotten all tied up in knots over a woman from another species, no matter how good she smelled. What the hell was wrong with him?

  He wasted about half a millisecond wondering about it before his instincts kicked him in the ass. He didn’t care if this woman was from another planet. He still wanted inside her. Badly.

  Shooting Logan a sharp glare, Graham caught the door before it could swing closed behind Miss No-Time-to-Chat.

  “That was only the first pitch,” he said. “Next one goes over the fence.”

  Ignoring his friend’s snort, Graham disappeared through the doors and into the night, intent on pursuit and capture.

  Hello, Twilight Zone, it looks like I’ve come to visit, Missy thought even as she jerked herself out of the arms of the man of her dreams and darted outside. She wondered if she had conjured the encounter just by fantasizing about him earlier. That was the sort of story line the Zoners really went for, right? And since she’d just finished reminding herself how entirely uninterested Graham had been in her before fifteen seconds ago, an alternate reality made the most sense of any explanation she could think of. Either that or she’d dreamed up the whole thing. Now, that explanation had logic and all sorts of other sensible possibilities going for it.

  Jogging across the living room with lights blazing and civilized, carpet-covered hardwood had been tough enough in her strappy three-inch heels, but Missy quickly found jogging across the pitch-black patio to be impossible. Reggie and Dmitri must have assumed no one would want to go outside on this unseasonably cold spring night, because they hadn’t left a single outside light burning. That might be fine for the other guests, but for Missy it threatened to break her ankles.

  She stumbled to a halt on the uneven brick and debated kicking off her shoes and running barefoot. Then she noticed the cold of the masonry seeping up through the thin soles of her sandals and discarded the idea. All her friends wore heels as well, so the going wouldn’t be any faster for them. If luck stayed with her, she might still be able to out-hobble them.

  She peered into the darkness around her and blinked, trying to force her eyes to adjust to the dim light. The high garden walls blocked most of the streetlights, and since the moon was still not full, she couldn’t rely on its pale light to illuminate her path. The day anyone could see stars in the night sky over New York City would be the day after it sank into the mouth of the Hudson.

  Wishing for the enormous purse she usually carried, complete with a flashlight for just this sort of emergency, Missy cursed the tiny clutch that had been provided to go with the slinky black dress and began to pick her way slowly toward the courtyard gate and the street beyond. If she could just get a cab before her friends caught up with her, she could be back in her apartment and swathed in flannel PJs inside twenty minutes. Add a cup of cocoa laced with Baileys and she might once again resemble a happy camper.

  The hand that clamped around her upper arm and dragged her to a halt dashed her hopes of happiness and startled her so badly, she squealed. Not screamed, not shrieked. Squealed, like one of her girlish students confronted with an inquisitive gerbil. Embarrassed, she spun around to face her pursuer and found herself looking up into Graham Winter’s too-handsome face.

  Oh, Lordy, she thought, swallowing hard past the knot in her throat. I have just entered the Twilight Zone. Why else would he keep looking at me like that? Unless I died of embarrassment from wearing that dress and this is my eternal reward . . . .

  Now that would be a heaven worth dying for, she decided, even while her logical mind told her to get a grip and find out what he really wanted, because as much time as she had spent noticing the mouthwatering Lupine over the past six weeks, she felt positive he’d never even realized she existed. When he paid any attention to Reggie’s friends at all, it usually consisted of circumspectly ogling Ava or casually bantering with Danice. He’d never bothered to give Missy a first—let alone a second—glance, so why was he now looking at her as if she were a particularly juicy soup bone?

  “Um, hi,” she ventured when he failed to say a word. “Did you want something?”

  She saw a flash in his sexy green-gold eyes and realized she shouldn’t have been able to see much of anything in the dark. Were his eyes glowing?

  She tried to back up a step, but he held her firmly. She cleared her throat. “It’s very nice to see you again, Graham, but I was just leaving. Maybe I’ll see you around some other time. Buh-bye.”

  She twisted halfway toward freedom before his hand on her arm stopped her. Looking back at him, she saw his mouth turn down in a scowl.

  “When have I seen you before?” he demanded, his tone of voice less than happy.

  Now that was proof positive about how little attention Graham had ever paid to her. She’d been Reggie’s maid of honor, and he’d been Dmitri’s best man. They’d walked down the stinking aisle together, and he couldn’t even remember where he’d seen her before?

  Miffed, and more than a little hurt, she tugged at her arm and scowled back at him. “Around. I’m a friend of Reggie’s.”

  “Where are you going?”

  She gave up trying to yank her arm away and began trying to pry his fingers off of her one by one. They stayed stubbornly motionless. “I was going home,” she grumped, “until you decided to go all Conan the Barbarian on me.”

  “Why were you in such a hurry? You ran right past me.”

  “Actually, I ran right into you, but that’s neither here nor there,” she said, looking around as if she could wish a crowbar into appearing close by. Nothing else seemed capable of breaking his grip. “Like I said, I need to get home. There are some people here I’d rather not see, if you must know.”

  Impossible as it seemed, his scowl deepened. “A man people?”

  She started to shake her head, then caught herself. No need to appear quite as pathetic as she really was. “What business is it of yours?”

  He responded to her defiance by tugging her body closer and breathing in as if he were trying to inhale her, ridiculous heels and all. He planted his other hand on her behind, pressing her hips against him until she could feel the thick, shocking length of his erection prodding her through layers of cloth.

  “I’d like to make it my business,” he growled, and oh my God, was his hand kneading her ass? “I’d like to make everything about you my business. That means I want to know if I have to get rid of some moron before I can start convincing you to . . . spend some time with me.”

  Missy reeled at his answer. Of all the things he might have said to her, she couldn’t imagine one that would shock her more. The man who had been so unimpressed with her for six weeks that he couldn’t remember who she was, was now telling her he was willing to go through a potential rival in order to have her all to himself? Okay, where was Rod Serling?

  She stiffened, because for a split second it occurred to her that maybe Graham was supposed to be her fix. She’d certainly fantasized about him enough lately, but the fantasy her friends had drawn for her third round had been about an intellectual type and playing doctor. Missy could no more picture Graham playing a detached medical professional than she could picture herself playing a whip-wielding dominatrix. Some things just exceeded the limits of her imagination.

  There was no way Graham could be her fix, so why had he suddenly decided he wanted the woman he’d never bothered to notice? Maybe this wasn’t The Twilight Zone; maybe she was on Candid Camera. She was about to look for a live TV audience when she heard the door from the living room open and the sound of a woman’s high-heeled shoes tapping against the brick. Suddenly it didn’t matter why Graham wanted to take her away from the party, just as long as he did. Now.

  She stopped struggling to get away and instead let him press her up against his groin until she swore she could vouch for the fact that he’d been circumcised.

  “No moron,” she reassured him, struggling valiantly not to mel
t and run all over him like warm hollandaise sauce. If she could just get him to smuggle her away from the house before Ava found her, she could explain later about where they’d met before and why he couldn’t really be interested in her. “No man at all. You know, it is too bad that we’ve never gotten a chance to get to know each other, isn’t it? Since you brought it up, why don’t we get out of here and really take the opportunity to get acquainted?”

  Knowing she only had one chance to get him to rescue her before her friends reached them, she bit the bullet, took a deep breath, and slid her hand down his chest, over his taut abs, and down over the bulge beneath his fly until he went absolutely still and tense before her. “What do you say?”

  He didn’t say anything. He scooped her up in his brawny arms, tossed her over his shoulder, and sprinted for the patio gate. Two minutes later they were three blocks away and still flying, and Missy was trying to figure out how to explain to the werewolf she’d just teased that she really didn’t intend to sleep with him.

  Miracle, anyone?

  He didn’t set her down until he reached his second-floor bedroom. His house sat adjacent to Vircolac, the club he owned and operated for the Other population of New York, and on a Friday night like tonight the club was loud and boisterous, but his bedroom was quiet, private, and secluded. So secluded that Missy knew for certain no one would hear her if she screamed. She didn’t particularly want to think about why she might decide to scream.

  The minute her feet touched the floor, she scrambled backward, trying to put some distance between them. The difference between fantasizing about something and actually doing it had just hit home for her. With a sledgehammer.

  Graham stalked after her, his chin lowered and canted forward in a predatory posture, his powerful body moving lithely and inexorably toward her. He looked tight and coiled, like a cat ready to pounce, or a wolf ready to leap to the kill. The expression in his glowing, greenish eyes made Missy feel a lot like lunch.

  Or maybe a midnight snack.

  “Um, Graham, I think we need to talk about this.” She kept her eyes on him, afraid to blink when he had that look of intent etched across his angular features.

  “No talking,” he growled. His voice had lowered, becoming even rougher and deeper than she remembered, like honey-coated gravel. “Too late for talking. Time to mate.”

  She almost tripped over her own feet when she stepped off the edge of the carpet and met the bare wood floor where it disappeared beneath the door. She backed steadily toward the hall. If she could just make it that far . . .

  She did, thumping back against the door with an awkward, “Oomf!” She’d been closer than she realized, but she hoped it had been close enough. Her trembling fingers closed over the cool metal doorknob and began to turn. Before her nerves finished processing the signal from her brain, Graham surged forward and pinned her against the unyielding wooden surface.

  Missy yelped. Her purse flew into a dark corner. She tried to pull back, but caught between Graham’s stony muscles and the closed hardwood door, she discovered a new appreciation for an old cliché.

  Graham leaned forward and buried his face in her neck, his late-night stubble rasping against her skin. His hot breath scalded her, and the feel of his mouth against her flesh made her shiver. When his lips parted and his teeth closed delicately over the tendon that ran from neck to shoulder, her shiver turned into a shudder, and her panting turned into a whimper. His rough tongue rasped her skin, and he groaned.

  “The way you taste,” he growled, his hands gripping her and pulling her tight against an erection as surprising as it was intimidating. Restless fingers kneaded her hips. “So sweet. So hot. Want more.”

  Oh, God! Missy’s head dipped back without her permission, baring her throat to Graham’s hungry mouth. Her brain was telling her to scream, to run, to turn the damned doorknob and get the hell out of there. But her hormones were telling her to stay, to beg, to wrap her legs around his waist and hold on for the ride she might never be invited on again. Instead of doing either, she stood frozen against the door, trembling and panting, and felt an embarrassing dampness soaking through the thin cotton of her panties.

  “Smell so good,” Graham grunted, nuzzling around her neck to lap at the hollow at the base of her throat. He ran his tongue up the soft white curve, and her muscles spasmed in a convulsive swallow. “Wet, thick, creamy. Want it.”

  With every word, his voice became more guttural until she could barely understand what he was saying. Was he speaking English, or some Lupine language made up of rumbles and snarls? But in spite of herself, she understood the feel of his hands and his hardness and his hot, hungry mouth.

  His weight pinned her lower body to the door, freeing his hands to explore her. She felt one glide over her ribs and close around her breast, roughly squeezing the soft mound. The other reached up to tangle in her hair, angling her head for his convenience before he swooped down and claimed her mouth in a kiss.

  He ate at her, nibbling and tugging and sucking on her lips until they parted, then licking and teasing and taunting until they opened wider. His tongue plunged deep and took her. Missy moaned, and he stole the sound and swallowed it, taking it into himself as he forced himself inside. Truthfully, she didn’t require much force. All Graham had to do was flick his tongue against the roof of her mouth and she opened wide and begged his tongue to enter her. He thrust it deep, over and over, in and out, in the primal rhythms of sex.

  It drove her crazy, the way he seemed determined to taste every inch of her mouth without allowing her to do the same. She’d dreamed of this so many times, and in all of those dreams her favorite part had been when she’d gotten to touch and taste him for herself. Whimpering her displeasure, she waited until he thrust deep, then tangled her tongue with his and sucked.

  His flavor amazed her, as rich and dark as Turkish coffee, as addictive as caffeine and twice as stimulating. Abandoning her grip on the doorknob, she wrapped both arms around his shoulders and pulled herself up against him.

  Growling, either a threat or a promise, he wedged his foot between hers and forced her legs apart. His knee came up high between them until it shoved the hem of her clinging skirt up, high along the pale satin of her thighs. Already stressed beyond its design, the dress abandoned all pretense and rolled up like a window shade to settle in a narrow band around her waist.

  Missy gasped in shock, but Graham just purred his satisfaction into her mouth and slid his hands down over her hips to cup the backs of her thighs. One after the other, he forced her legs to hitch up and wrap around his waist until he held her up with her arms around his shoulders and his hands beneath her ass and his groin pressed intimately against her.

  Behind her closed lids, Missy felt her eyes roll back in her head. She’d never been so aroused in her life. If she’d had a weak heart, she felt sure this would have killed her. As it was, that overstressed organ raced and stammered with every new sensation he forced on her. His kiss consumed her, and as amazing as he tasted, she felt pretty sure she’d black out from lack of oxygen if he didn’t let her catch her breath soon.

  She pushed against his shoulders and turned her head to the side, succeeding only in making his mouth shift from her lips to her throat. He kissed her, lapped her, nibbled at her, drawing the flesh hard against his teeth in a rough love bite. Her head knocked hard against the door, but she barely felt it. Instead, she felt his hands slide from her bottom down the backs of her thighs to just above her ankles. He urged her legs higher against him and showed her how he wanted her to hook her ankles together behind his back to ride his hips more securely.

  Immediately his hand shot back up her leg, this time traveling along the sensitive inner surface until he cupped her through the soaking crotch of her panties.

  Missy hadn’t worn hose, since Ava had forbidden anything so “common.” Instead, she’d reluctantly donned a pair of sheer, silk thigh-highs that clung to her legs like perfume. Ava had also dictated that Missy
should wear a lace bra so see-through it barely qualified as lingerie and a pair of matching thong panties. When she dressed for the party, Missy had strapped on the bra but drawn the line at the butt floss. She refused to spend an entire evening fighting the urge to tug the cloth out of there, so she pulled on a pair of her own white cotton bikinis instead. Now, she wished she’d worn a stainless-steel chastity belt, because the feel of Graham’s hand cupping her through the thin layer of cotton almost killed her. She whimpered and pressed down onto his fingers.

  “Graham, please!” she whimpered. She wasn’t sure what she was begging for, but it didn’t matter, not as long as he kept touching her. As long as he didn’t think she was begging him to stop, everything would be okay. She got the impression a nuclear assault wouldn’t stop him, though, so she figured it was safe to be non-specific.

  He growled again, the sound even more animalistic than before. Instead of being frightened, Missy gloried in it. This was beyond her realm of experience but not beyond the realm of her fantasies. The idea of being wanted so badly by a man that his control threatened to fracture around them was at least as arousing as what his hands and mouth were doing to her. She felt drenched in her own fantasy world, felt like an entirely new, brazen creature, one she’d never known before. She gave in to this new side of herself, reveling in the freedom and adventure of it nearly as much as in Graham’s hard body pressing against hers.

  She buried her hands in his thick, dark hair and pressed his face closer against her. He lifted her higher against the door and lowered his head until he could catch the neckline of her stretchy dress in his teeth. One sharp tug and the thing disintegrated in his mouth. He turned his head, spat out the pieces, and when he looked back at her breasts, covered only by the sheer silken bra, his eyes glowed an even brighter green.

  “Taste,” he rumbled, and that was all the warning Missy got before he ripped open her bra and his hot, avid mouth closed over her left nipple.