Shadow Lovers

by Jenny Penn

  Ryder wasn’t particularly worried about his pack right then. Neither was he concerned about Khal or comparing Cookie to the long-dead Mayla. His entire focus was centered on the sway of Cookie’s ass as she led him up three flights of stairs to a small apartment at the top. All the while she shushed him, explaining that she wasn’t allowed to have pets.

  He loved the way she talked to him, coaxing him and rewarding him with praise as if he were a child. It went to prove that whatever she looked like, Cookie shared Mayla’s sweet and nurturing nature. She was going to make a great mother, and Ryder couldn’t wait to make her one. Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to wait much longer because, after three hundred years, Ryder was out of patience.

  Trying to turn his thoughts from the ache in his balls, Ryder glanced around, checking out Cookie’s apartment as he followed her into it. Two things became obvious in an instant. First, Cookie didn’t have any money because her place was a dump. Second, what money she did have she clearly spent on computers.

  They lined the wall and created tight alleyways around the sofa and coffee table. She was like a hoarder, and Ryder had a sick feeling he was going to spend the rest of his life surrounded by electronic clutter. That thought had him heaving a depressed sigh as Cookie tossed her bag onto the floor next to the couch and ambled over to the small kitchenette tucked into the corner.

  He had a feeling that he was also going to live in a sea of cables and computer components. Cookie had to step carefully between the wires running all over the place to make it to the half-sized refrigerator that required her to bend all the way over to fish out a package of lunch meat.

  Ryder tilted his head and admired the sight of that big ass waving in the air, more than half-tempted to shift right then and take advantage of the situation. The only thing that held him back was the worry he’d give the woman a heart attack.

  “I’m sure you’re hungry.” Cookie straightened up, turning with the packaged meat in her hands. “I’m sorry I don’t have any dog food, but I’m sure you’ll like this. It’s ham.”

  Ham? Ryder preferred deer or wild hog or fish. Anything but the slimy, thin slices of meat Cookie pulled out to dangle over his nose. It smelled disgusting. Ryder couldn’t do it. He couldn’t eat that. So he stepped back, earning an adorable frown from Cookie as she chastised him.

  “Come on, now. Don’t be like that. It’s ham.”

  He knew that and was half-tempted to tell her but didn’t want to kill her with the shock. Instead, Ryder showed her, stepping around Cookie to rear up on his hind legs so that he could reach onto her tiny counter and grab her bag of chips.

  “What? No!” Cookie’s reacted instantly, snatching the bag right out of his jaws and wagging a finger in his face. “Bad dog! Dogs eat ham, not chips.”

  And wolves ate little women who tempted them by almost tapping him in his nose. Ryder made that point clear with a growl that should have had Cookie taking a step back. His captains would have, but then they didn’t think he was just a naughty dog.

  “Don’t you growl at me.” Cookie puckered up with an indignation that was just as cute as her scowl, proving she had the same spunk Mayla had had. “This is my house, and you will not be eating any junk. Understand me?”

  Ryder understood her perfectly. He had a counter argument for that, but unfortunately he couldn’t make it right then. All he could do was give her a sullen look and slink backward, which earned him a quick smile and even an apology.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Cookie bent down to give him a quick hug, burying his head in the plush cushion of her breasts. “I know. That was my mean voice, but nutrition is important.”

  Now she sounded like a mom. That’s just what Ryder planned on making her. That was after he explained the difference between a wolf and a dog to her. Normally, when he pulled this stunt, it didn’t bother him to be so easily misidentified as a husky or whatever the hell she thought he was, but it did kind of irk him that night.

  Cookie was special. She was his mate, and Ryder didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. It could, especially if she was willing to hug completely strange wolves. It dawned on Ryder that he wouldn’t actually have to teach her that lesson. He could leave it up to Khal. He was a natural heavy, and Ryder didn’t want to play that role.

  He’d rather just give her a big, sloppy kiss on the cheek and wag his damn tail like a dog as long as it made her laugh, which it did. Giggling as she wiped the slobber from her cheek, Cookie straightened back up and shook her head at him.

  “You are a charmer, aren’t you? That’s still not going to get you chips, but I get it.” Cookie held her hands up in surrender. “No ham either…unless, of course, you want some later. Now go lay down. I have to work.”

  Ryder wasn’t interested in lying down, but he was interested in what she meant by work. He still hadn’t figured out what the hell she and her big friend had been doing in the old tunnels. What he did know was that they hadn’t been alone. Whoever had complained to them over their walkie-talkie hadn’t actually put in an appearance though.

  Still, it had been clear they’d been up to no good. That became more than obvious as Cookie settled down to spend the next two hours madly typing away at the three keyboards she had linked up to five different monitors. Numbers in long sequences of zeroes and ones screamed past on more than one monitor while some strange language appeared on another.

  Ryder didn’t recognize any of it, but he still managed to figure out part of what she was doing. Cookie was transferring money. Money in small amounts. Money that clearly wasn’t hers. Neither did it appear to be going to her from the condition of her apartment. After about an hour of sitting beside her, watching her tap away, he grew bored enough to start sniffing around her apartment.

  He couldn’t detect a single hint of a male scent, which went to prove his Cookie was a good girl…or she didn’t bring her men home. Either way he was happy not to have to be irritated by any hint of a rival, especially when he trotted into her bedroom.

  It was right off the living room and just about as small, though he wasn’t disappointed to find that she could really fit only a twin bed into the room along with all her other furniture. Apparently, she didn’t have a closet. Neither was she having sex. Not in that bed. It barely fit him when he jumped up onto the worn mattress.

  Pawing at the sheets, he ruffled them up until he’d made a nice nest of Cookie scent to snuggle down into. It was like curling up in heaven, only he couldn’t help but be slightly uncomfortable with the erection he was sporting. Ryder was glad to put up with that pain, though. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and passed out.

  “Hey! No, sir!”

  Ryder woke up to that sharp snap as Cookie began trying to shove him off the bed.

  “You get off that bed,” Cookie ordered as she shooed him back to the floor and pointed to the living room. “You can go sleep on the couch. The bed is mine. Go on, and don’t give me that sour-faced look. Go!”

  Clearly, she could be a tough Cookie when she wanted. Ryder slunk back out into the living room and hopped up on the couch, not finding it nearly as comfortable or as pleasant smelling. The view, on the other hand, was spectacular.

  Resting his head on the arm, Ryder watched in rapt fixation as Cookie started to undress. The woman’s taste in clothes might be bad, but her underwear was deplorable. It was white and cotton and covered way too much skin. Cookie had such pretty skin it was a shame that she even bothered with clothes.

  Ryder licked his lips and adjusted his position as he grew uncomfortably hard at the sight of the shadowed crease dividing the plump cheeks of her ass parted slightly as she bent over to pick the panties she shoved down to her feet off of the floor. He caught a bare glimpse of the slit of her pussy before she straightened back up and reached for her nightgown.

  It was hanging on a coat rack, and as she lifted it up, Cookie stepped closer to the rack and right in front of the mirror hanging on her wall, giving Ryder a full view of her luscious curv
es from the front. Her breasts were big and soft-looking, with wide nipples made to be nibbled on. Beginning to pant as his gaze dipped down to the flare of her hips, he got another quick glance at her smooth mound before her nightshirt left him with nothing else to ogle but the curve of her calves and the dainty arch of her feet.

  Cookie had cute feet and a smile that warmed him straight through.

  Stepping out of the bedroom, she paused before heading into the bathroom to give his head a quick rub.

  “You enjoying the show, pervert?”

  That he was. Ryder offered her a big grin that had his tongue falling out in a look that earned him a laugh and another pat on the head before she disappeared into the last remaining door in the apartment.

  Chapter 3

  Cookie brushed her teeth, washed her face, and put on all the different creams it seemed like she needed to assure herself that she remained youthful-looking for as long as she could. Not that she was certain the effort was worth it. Her intelligent mind told her she was buying into myths and a societal preconception about the negativity of aging. Her pride, on the other hand, wanted to look in the mirror and see pretty.

  More than that, she wanted to feel beautiful.

  While that might have eluded her in terms of her looks, Cookie knew inside she was. She was smart, giving, and not afraid to take a risk or two. She also happened to be charitable, even if it wasn’t with her own money. That was simply because she had no money.

  The government did. They tended to waste their billions as far as she was concerned. How many times had she heard somebody start a statement with if there was any justice in the world? Well, tonight Cookie and her friends had claimed some.

  In increments of less than a dollar a piece, they’d syphoned money away from almost every existing government agency. They’d bounced the transactions all around the world until they’d piled an extra bit of money into so many different charities that even if anybody ever realized what had happened, it’d take them a long time to sort it back out.

  Robin Hood had struck again.

  That thought brought a smile to Cookie’s face as her thoughts drifted back to the tattooed stranger who’d been wandering the tunnels under the city. He probably thought he was a badass, but he didn’t even know how bad she was with her thick glasses and her grandmom bun. That was just all part of the disguise.

  With the disguise, she also had a plan.

  Cookie was leaving tomorrow. She would pack a few bags of clothes and pull all the hard drives from her computers. The rest would get dumped in a vat of soda and ketchup that Marvin had whipped up and had waiting in his garage. Then they’d all take off, separate for several months, wander and wait until it was time to meet up again and pull off another feat of heroics.

  Of course, she’d have to do something about the dog before she left. Heading back out the door of the bathroom, Cookie found the oversized husky watching her with a strange intelligence reflecting in his eyes. There was no doubt it was a he, either. It wasn’t as if she’d wanted to notice, but it had been impossible to miss the set of balls on him. They were uncomfortably large, just like the rest of the dog.

  Actually, he kind of looked like a wolf, but that was ridiculous. Wolves might be found around the outskirts of the city, but not in it. Besides he had a collar and an owner…an owner with a really sexy voice. It had been deep and rough, just like the tattooed man who had stumbled into her life and fantasies that night.

  It had been a shame that she had to run him off. Cookie considered what she really would have liked to do as she clicked the bathroom light off and turned back into her bedroom, but she didn’t think her partners in crime would have approved of her throwing the tattooed man against the wall and ravishing him right there in the sewer.

  Marvin might have gotten a kick out of the show, though.

  That thought had Cookie smiling as she slipped out of her nightgown and beneath the sheets. Sighing as she settled into her bed, Cookie closed her eyes, going back to that moment in time when the big man had looked down at her with his glowing gray eyes and called her beautiful. There had been a slight accent to his deep tone. A sexy accent, one she imagined whispering all sorts of naughty things to her as her hands slid down over her body.

  * * * *

  Not twelve feet away in the living room, Ryder’s nose started to twitch as the delicious scent of a woman in heat began to thicken in the air. His head lifted off the couch’s arm as his gaze narrowed on the dark entry to Cookie’s bedroom. With his ears perked and breath caught, Ryder strained to catch the slightest hint of what his woman was up to. As if he didn’t already know.

  In the silence of the night, he could easily hear the soft, fast pant of her breath as the heady scent of her desire wrapped around him, mesmerizing him. He broke into a smile, all too eager and willing to be a slave to his mate, especially when she was in need. Cookie clearly was right then. His little mate was masturbating, and that was Ryder’s call to duty. It was a duty he was more than ready and capable of taking care of.

  Shifting off of the couch, he became one with the shadows and slipped through the darkness until he could make out Cookie, lying there in her bed with one hand tucked between her splayed thighs and the other wrapped around one plump tit. Just as he didn’t need a hearing aid to catch the faint sound of her heart pounding loudly in her chest, neither did Ryder need even a hint of light to spy on her straining and twisting beneath her sheet.

  His poor little mate, she couldn’t seem to get the job done.

  Ryder understood how that went. Sometimes it was just better when somebody else did all the hard work for him. He was more than willing to be that person for Cookie. After all, it just seemed mean to stand back and watch her suffer.

  Certain of his reasoning, Ryder decided to ignore the fact that Khal probably wouldn’t agree with him. Grumpy as that man tended to be, he’d probably be pissed when he found out Ryder had already had his fun, but the beating would be worth it. It wasn’t as though he really even had a choice.

  How could he possibly resist Cookie?

  She was his mate.

  His mate. Ryder sighed, liking the sound of that as he gave himself over to the hypnotic pull of the tantalizing scent of Cookie’s wet pussy and allowed his form to once again take shape. Ryder materialized beneath the sheet that had slid down to Cookie’s hips. The soft cotton fell completely away as his shoulders filled out, brushing up against the soft, silken flesh of Cookie’s inner thighs.

  She gasped at the contact, going still and tense for a second, but Ryder didn’t give her fear a chance to catch hold. Covering her hand with his mouth, he licked his tongue out over her knuckles before wiggling them past her fingers to lap up the delicious cream covering the shuddering walls of her sheath. With another gasp Cookie arched up into his kiss, her knees bending as her feet flattened against the mattress on either side of his hips. Her own hips began to pump up and down as she fucked herself against his tongue and her fingers.

  Ryder joined the race, stretching her even wider as he added a couple of his own thick fingers. Quickly things began to spin out of control as the spicy taste of his mate’s passion drove Ryder insane. Ripping her hand out of his way, he devoured her cunt with a desperate hunger that had Cookie crying out as she clutched at the bed sheets and wrapped her legs around him. A second later she was choking him as Ryder came to the obvious realization that his mate might be tiny, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t tough.

  That turned Ryder on all the more.

  He liked it when his lovers got a little rough. He liked getting a little rough himself. That was just what he treated Cookie to as he reared up, breaking free of her legs, even as he pinned her wrists to the bed. Like a homing missile, the flared head of his cock lodged right up against the weeping opening to Cookie’s cunt. Her eyes flew open, blinking blindly in the dark as her breathless whimpers finally managed to form words.

  “Oh God! You’re not a dream!”

  Ryder
smirked at that and shook his head. “No, beautiful, this is no dream. It’s a full-on fantasy.”

  He proved that point with a hard thrust of his hips, slamming the full, throbbing length of his dick into her tight channel and fucking a squeal right out of her. Ryder didn’t pause to give her a moment to adjust. He didn’t have that kind of control left. Cookie’s cunt was tight and hot, her muscles rippling with pulses that milked the sanity out of him. All he wanted was more.

  Ryder was pretty damn sure that was all Cookie wanted, too.

  The woman matched thrust for thrust, going crazy and wild beneath him as she barked out demands. She wanted it faster, harder, rougher. Ryder tried to comply, pistoning into her with the speed and strength he possessed. Dipping his head, he captured one of the tender, pink tits pointing right up at him as Cookie arched into the pounding flex of his hips.

  Puckered into tight, little buds, her nipples were clearly sensitive, and Ryder quickly learned just how she liked to be teased. He took full advantage of that knowledge, ravaging her soft mounds and their stiff peaks with a hunger that had his hands abandoning her wrists to come and assist with his feasting. Immediately her fingers buried themselves in his hair to hold him tight against her breasts, and she began to become more and more demanding.

  “Say something in that sexy voice,” she begged him, and Ryder couldn’t help but smile.

  “Like what, beautiful?” Ryder growled against the flushed curve of her soft breast, knowing just how much she liked being called that thanks to the way her sheath tightened reflexively around him.

  His dick pulsed with a warning that matched the heat boiling out of his balls. They were swollen and tight, ready to explode. They damn near did at the naughty pleas falling from his mate’s lips.

  “Like how much you’re enjoying fucking my pussy?”

  That was the kind of question Ryder would have expected from one of the party girls from the frat house, not from the uptight librarian who had chased him out of her domain that night. Not that he was complaining. Neither was he going to deny her.