by Skye Jones
Louis still held on to my hand, and I became hyperaware of this big man next to me.
“Do you feel rested?” he asked.
“I do, thank you.”
“I’m glad. When I found you, so wounded, so afraid…” He trailed off, jaw clenching tight.
No man in my life, other than my brother, had shown as much interest in my well-being as Louis. My father loved me, but since Mum’s death, he’d been incapable of caring properly for a daughter he didn’t understand. I’d only been in love once. I’d fallen head over heels with a boy from school when I was sixteen. Then my mum got cancer for the second time, and he’d cheated on me with my best friend. Nice guy! Since then, I’d only partaken in casual encounters, or the friends with benefits type deal I’d shared with Jason. Except, he’d cheated too, and despite not having any claim on him, it hurt. Let down by one more man.
“You are silent. Do you think of the attack?” Louis turned to look at me.
“No.” I kicked at the leaves as we walked. “I’m thinking about the life I’ve got waiting for me back home.”
His fingers tightened around mine for a moment before he relaxed them again. “Is it a good life you have waiting for you?”
Hmm. Should I answer honestly? About to lie, I made the mistake of looking into those amazing green eyes of his, and the lie fell away, the truth revealed instead. “Not really. It’s okay. Don’t get me wrong. I have a job and great friends. It’s not my dream job, though, but hey, it’s work, right? In this economy, I’m lucky I’m not on welfare.” I sighed. “But, it’s not what I’d call a great life. I miss my mum. She died of cancer when I was eighteen. My dad hasn’t been the same since. He drinks. A lot. Takes drugs too, prescription codeine and other things, but way too many.”
Louis didn’t say anything. He continued to hold my hand in his and walk alongside me with his comforting presence, but he didn’t give out easy words of sympathy or trite statements meant to pep me up. I appreciated it.
“Then my boyfriend, well…he wasn’t my boyfriend as such, but we were supposedly good friends and a bit more.” I flushed, not wanting to explain the arrangement. “He cheated on me. Gregg…the guy who…the man who…fuck.” I took a deep breath and carried on. “Gregg was my ex-boyfriend’s best friend. I hung around with him a lot. Still can’t believe he’d do such a thing.”
“Sociopaths rarely show their disguise to us until they are ready.” Louis squeezed my hand. “Gregg hid his true nature until he got you where he wanted you. He’s a predator.”
Something told me Louis was a predator, too. Not one who harmed innocent women, however. Rather, Louis was the kind of man to take on scum like Gregg repeatedly if it meant keeping me safe.
We walked by a few of the cute round houses, until we hit a clearing with a large paddock area, a huge garden off to one side, and a dwelling situated to the left of the land.
“This is my abode.” Louis shuffled from foot to foot. “Do you wish to see inside my home?”
His nerves touched me. This big, hulking wolfman carried himself with such strength and yet seemed so unsure in many ways. I found it endearing.
“I’d love to see inside your home.” I squeezed his hand.
Louis led me through a gate and down a path. I swear to God, the place seemed straight out of a fairy tale. A real life Hansel and Gretel or Red Riding Hood fantasy home, right here in front of me. I laughed.
“What?” Louis turned to me, his lips twitching.
“Your home is like something out of a fairy tale. It’s so beautiful and different to anything I’ve seen before, and then I started thinking how I’m walking to this fairy-tale home on the arm of a wolfman.”
He snorted. “Wolfman?” He faced me, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah. You’re a wolfman.” I’d nearly said my wolfman, and I thanked God I hadn’t slipped up. “Are the land and the gardens yours too?”
“Yes,” he said. “I grow a lot of vegetables and keep chickens for their eggs. Brooke, Drew’s mate, helps me in the garden. She enjoys it as much as I do. The land I like for the dogs. They can run to their heart’s content in the field.”
“You own dogs?” I don’t know why the idea surprised me so much.
“Yep.” We reached the door and he opened it, revealing two stunning German Shepherds.
“Wow, they are gorgeous.” I laughed as they ran out around us, sniffing at our hands.
“Yes, they are. They’d been chained at a scrapyard, underfed and cold to the bone. Drew found them while getting spare parts one day. He paid the owner a grand for the two of them and told him if he got any more dogs, he’d kill him. Brought them back here, and I fell in love with them.”
So…a soft heart lurked underneath his gruff exterior, and not only when it came to me.
Brooke told me Louis didn’t have many friends. As a pack enforcer, the others viewed him as remote, tough, and even scary. I understood their impression of him. After all, when I’d first seen him, I’d been scared, but not for long. I understood it, but they were wrong.
Barking joyfully, the dogs ran past us and out into the field.
“Come in.” Louis held the door open and gestured me in with a sweep of his arm.
I walked into his home and gasped. The place looked beautiful, but what made me breathless was the clear as day vision I experienced of myself sitting in Louis’s homely kitchen, drinking my morning coffee as he placed a kiss on the top of my head.
Holy crap.
Chapter Seven
I stopped and held on to the back of a chair for a moment, trying to get my breath.
“What is wrong, Isobel?” My name slid from his lips like a caress.
“Nothing.” I hitched my chin and tried to brazen it out. No way did I want to share my freaky little vision.
He sighed, and when I lifted my gaze to his face, my breath stuttered all over again.
“You look…right here in my home, empathine,” Louis rasped.
His words made me blush, too close to my strange vision for comfort.
“You aren’t someone I can have, though.” He turned from me. “You will belong with Jake or Adam. Not one such as me.”
“Oh, for the love of God,” I shouted, and Louis swung his gaze back around my way. “Will you he-men idiots stop talking about me as if I have no say in this matter? I will not be staying with Jake, and certainly not Adam. I don’t know them, and I don’t like them.”
“All the females like Jake.” He frowned. “He’s the alpha’s son. He is handsome and can laugh and joke in a way I find…difficult.”
“Don’t the females like you?” My heart rate picked up at the turn of the conversation.
Louis represented everything virile and male, all wrapped up in one sinful package. Even his scar only added to his allure once I’d stopped being afraid of him. I viewed him as my protector now. Somehow, I’d let his saving me from Gregg seep into my heart, and whenever I saw Louis, I experienced a sense of utter safety.
“No.” He shook his head. “The females of our pack do not like me much. I am different. My scar is ugly, and as enforcer, they often fear me. I do not care. None of them entice me.”
My mind whirred. “You’ve gone out with some girls from the pack, right?”
He shook his head again, and his gaze flitted from mine to look around the room.
“None?” I didn’t believe it.
“I have lain with only one female in my life,” he said. “When I lived among my old pack in Sweden.”
“How long did you spend with her?”
“Only one night. We left the next day for our new home.”
So, he’d only had sex once in his life. Wow. My mouth engaged before my brain. “I can’t believe you’ve only experienced sex once in, like…what? Thirty years?”
His shoulders tensed, and he raked his gaze up and down my body in one slow, lazy movement. “Once in over one hundred and forty years.”
“What? You…Y…You’re one hu
ndred and forty years old? You can’t be.” My jaw dropped.
“You understand I’m not human. Why so surprised about my age?”
One woman in a century and a half!
My brain started to form a somewhat dangerous plan. It went something like this. Have sex with the stupidly hot wolfman and give him the gift of having some fun, and then take the medicine woman’s cure for the burning and return home, memory wiped. Hopefully, I would leave one satisfied and happy Louis behind. A tad bigheaded, maybe. It also handily left out the part where I hopefully got my rocks off, too.
A bigger reason for wanting Louis niggled at me. Since Gregg’s attack, I felt somehow unclean. No matter, he’d not managed to have his way with me sexually. No matter, I’d scrubbed and scrubbed at my skin, the sense of contamination by his touch lingered. I wanted Louis to burn it all away. Needed him to do so.
“I feel badly.” Louis glanced at me and lowered his face to study the floor.
“Why?”
“I wasn’t there soon enough to prevent Gregg from harming you. After he hit me with the rocks, I staggered to a small cabin in the woods nearby, where my clothes were, and changed form. I needed to. The blow to my head disoriented me. I knew it might kill me if I didn’t help myself. When we change form, we release powerful healing within our bodies. As soon as I was able, I came back for you. I didn’t have any idea he’d attack you so violently. I’d smelt his desire, and yours. Truth be told, I feared I’d find you in an embrace with him. Worried you perhaps returned his feelings.” He hung his head. “I left your side, and you were hurt.”
“Louis.” I moved to him and put my hand on his thick forearm. He zeroed in on my fingers on his tanned skin. “You saved me. Without you, I’d be dead. Don’t you dare think anything else.”
I didn’t move my hand, and my fingers stroked over the sprinkling of hair covering his skin. I yearned for this strong, gruff man. What would it hurt for the two of us to find pleasure in one another? So long as I stopped any unwanted physical effects afterward, and Brooke seemed positive I ought to be able to. If there were any problems after, which wasn’t a foregone conclusion. No one knew how this empathine thing worked, and certainly not between one and a wolf who wasn’t of alpha blood.
People did incredibly stupid things for sex all the time. They threw aside marriages, careers, and their good name. All for a five-minute fumble in the sack. I’d never understood it. Always viewed them as stupid and weak. Until now. In this moment, I stood on a precipice, willing to take a huge risk, and I got it. Got why people turned their lives upside down for this. I wanted. More than any other occasion in my life, I wanted.
Deliberate and slow, I trailed my fingers up his forearm and to his shoulder. I pressed myself toward him, wanting to feel his body against mine. My breasts pushed against his rock-hard chest, and my other hand came up to rest lightly on his stomach, warm through his T-shirt.
He looked at me with hooded eyes and clenched his jaw. “You must stop this, Isobel. We cannot mate, and I hold on to my control by a fine thread.”
“I want to. I need you to touch me back.” Who said anything about mating? Touching, kissing, and being together, though. Bring it on.
I stepped back and lifted the T-shirt I’d put on after my shower over my head, leaving me bared to him. I hadn’t worn a bra as my ribs and back hurt too much from where Gregg had pressed me down into the ground. Louis’s nostrils flared and he gave a soft groan.
Not able to stop myself, I moved to him once more and took hold of his hand. “Please, Louis, touch me.”
His wrist bunched under my fingers, and he resisted my attempt to pull him to me. “If I start…if I begin to touch you, I don’t think I can stop.”
Those words ought to have scared me. The guttural voice he uttered them in should have made me afraid. Certainly, the look on his face, a man about to lose all control, should have terrified me. Instead, it all only served to make me want him more.
“Take the horrible memories away,” I whispered.
“Oh, fuck. Isobel.” He groaned my name as his hands reached for me, pulling me into his hard, broad chest.
His scent enveloped me, masculine and fresh, with a hint of something citrusy. When his mouth found my neck, nuzzling in against me, I gasped and my legs went liquid, almost not holding me up. A memory from my dream hit and I put my hand on his chest. “What does älskad mean?”
He stilled. “How do you know this word?”
I shrugged. “I dreamed about it…you said it to me.”
He took a deep breath in and said sotto voce, “It means loved. Beloved, perhaps you would say. I like that you dreamed of me. I am honored.”
For some reason, those words stoked the fire in me. My arms snaked around his neck and I squirmed in his hold, needing a release for the deep ache building between my legs. He mumbled a curse and pulled his shirt off so we stood skin to skin. At around six four, Louis towered above me. His solid chest and stomach felt wonderful against my over sensitized skin. My nipples hardened as he moved against me, taking my mouth in a searing kiss, and wrapping me in his arms.
He made me feel small and protected. A new experience. I wasn’t petite, and Jason had been lean and cut, so my curves always felt large in comparison. Not with Louis. His bulk dwarfed me, and I liked it.
The moment his tongue licked along the seam of my lips, I let him in. The taste of him hit. A hot liquid shot of vodka to my system, making me gasp. Louis claimed my mouth and my soul in one perfect, demanding kiss. His hands gripped my nape and tilted my head back for better access as he gave a groan deep in his chest.
Needing more, my fingers trailed down his stomach to find the fly of his jeans. I started to unbutton them, the material worn and soft. The fly came undone easily and I pushed at the denim, wanting it off his hips. With a soft thud, his jeans fell to the floor and he huffed out a laugh. Not quite the reaction I’d been expecting.
He pulled back. “I need to take my shoes off.”
I looked down at his jeans pooled around his ankles and began to smile, but as my gaze moved higher, the smile died on my lips. His underwear did little to hide his excitement, or his size.
He toed his boots off and stepped out of his jeans, and as he did so, I kicked my running shoes off. My mouth ran dry as he stood straight, and I took in the vision in front of me. Firm slabs of muscle dominated his body. Strong traps and broad shoulders led to an impressive chest. A light smattering of dark hair dusted his defined pecs, just like in my dreams, narrowing into a long trail that disappeared into his waistband.
Beautiful. So male and strong.
Harsh features softened as Louis took in my reaction. He nodded at my own trousers, and I immediately complied, taking them off until I too stood only in my white cotton panties. Vulnerable and exposed before him, I crossed my arms.
The air in the room thickened as we took one another in. As if in slow motion, Louis reached out and trailed his index finger down my upper arm, leaving a trail of raised flesh in his wake. I shivered when he took my hand, clasped tight to my upper arm, and wrapped his fingers around mine, once more pulling me in to his body.
Limbs wrapped around limbs, lips found lips, and our breath mingled. I sighed into his mouth and rubbed myself against him, and he groaned in response. His cock pressed against my stomach, reminding me of what I wanted.
He tasted of hazelnut coffee. Divine. The kiss went on and on. His soft lips moving against mine, his tongue claiming my mouth. It was warm, wet, and heavenly.
Still unsure of what the heck I was doing, but wanting more, I hesitantly moved my hand between our bodies, down my belly, and brushed the back of my knuckles against his thick erection. Louis sighed and his lips left mine as his head dropped back.
Deft fingers slipped into the back of my panties and pushed the sensible cotton material down until it slid over my butt and thighs. When they skimmed my knees, I wiggled until they fell to the floor and then kicked them to one side. I didn’t l
et up on my slow, torturous massage of Louis’s cock.
He slipped from my reach and dropped to the floor to kneel in one fluid motion. He kissed my belly, and warm hands held my lower back. Sensual, safe, secure. A million miles from what I’d nearly experienced in those woods. The moment I opened that particular Pandora’s Box, a flash of memory hit. An image of Gregg poised over me struck like a blow to the head. I winced and shook myself.
“You okay?” Louis stopped his ministrations and looked up at me through thick lashes.
“I’m fine. Just a momentary ‘what if’ thought.”
“Do you need to stop?”
“God, no. I don’t want to stop.”
Braver than I usually found myself with men, I reached out a hand and ran it through his hair, then pulled his head back in toward my stomach. He smiled against my skin and once more rained kisses on me. With one last small peck, his dark head moved lower. Hot breath blew over my most sensitive flesh and I quivered in anticipation.
Clever fingers caressed my outer labia. His featherlight touch became a beautiful form of torture. He continued to stroke my skin and kissed me on my inner thigh before parting my folds. His tongue found me, and I bucked into his touch. Louis licked gently at first, but then harder and more insistent. I began to moan as the pleasure built, and my legs shook slightly. When he sucked my clit into his mouth, my heels lifted off the floor and I gave a squeak of surprise at the intensity of the sensation. He ran his tongue over me, then sucked on me again.
I’d never enjoyed oral much. I knew many women raved about it, but it always left me slightly cold. The way guys worked away at it as if they were trying to pass some sort of anatomy test. It always made me more than a little self-conscious and left me wondering if they were enjoying it. There were no such worries with Louis. He ate at me as if I were a ripe fruit, the most delicious thing he’d tasted. Every now and again, he groaned his appreciation. His unbridled enjoyment in me freed something deep within, and I let myself go.
