by Lexie Davis
Chloe screamed and pushed away from him. Her legs wobbled as she stumbled. Max changed back to a man and stared at her in confusion. Chloe trembled as she reached for the shower door and pushed it open. She grabbed a towel and wrapped her wet body in it before retreating from the bathroom.
“Chloe,” he called following her. “What’s wrong? Why did you scream? What happen? Did I hurt you?”
He placed his hand against her arm, and she flinched like she’d been struck. “Get away from me. Stay the hell away from me.”
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him, forcing her to face him. “Tell me what happened.”
Chloe shook as tears prickled her eyes. “You changed. One minute you were a man and the next you looked like a wolf.”
“Oh fuck.” He let her arm go and sat on the side of the bed. “I’m sorry.”
Chloe stood there, gripping the towel to her chest. “You’re sorry?”
“Yeah. Long story short, when I have pleasure, I completely let go of everything—even my self- control—and that’s how I shift. I don’t do it all the time, but when I don’t hold back, I change. I should have kept my cool with you. I’m sorry.” He turned to face her.
“I’m going insane. That’s what is happening. This illness has made me weak with fever and exhaustion, and I’m going completely fucking insane.”
“You’re not insane. You’re one of us, and you’ll find that out soon enough.” He stood to dress. “You need to try to shift, Chloe. It’s for your safety.”
She replayed everything he told her in her mind. “The whole protection thing, right?”
He nodded, not looking at her as he pulled on clean clothes.
“Why do I have to shift, supposing I can? We just had sex. Didn’t that do the job?”
He chuckled. “No. I need to pop your wolf cherry.”
Chloe’s mouth dropped. “You think this is funny?”
He sighed and continued dressing. “No. It’s not funny. I promise I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but we’re running out of time. If I don’t mask your odour with my scent, then others will come and it’s just us against them.”
Chloe plopped down on the bed. Tears fell to her cheeks as a small cry came from her lips. Max knelt in front of her on the floor. Her mind was torn, but he had a sincerity about him that she’d never seen in a man. Most, when they lied to her, made up ridiculous tales and laughed behind her back when she believed them. Max didn’t laugh. He’d been straight-forward, to the best of her knowledge, from the beginning, making her believe anything he said. It scared her to death that she started to believe this man, trusted him even.
“Did you shift earlier today? When I was standing on the deck calling your name?”
He laid his hands on her knees. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you shift back in front of me? When I looked into your eyes and whispered your name, why didn’t you shift?”
“And scare you worse than just now? I don’t think so.” Max’s hands moved slightly, caressing her thighs. “Look, if I’d had come here and told you that you were a werewolf, shifted in that moment then announced I needed to fuck you for your safety, you would have called the cops, and that would be the end. When I’m a wolf, I’m more beast than man. It’s dangerous for you, in human form, to be around me. I’m sorry if I scared you. That was never my intention. I thought I could get you to believe what you were by making you shift yourself. Perhaps that wasn’t my best plan.”
The sobs came harder. What is wrong with me? Max waited patiently while Chloe had her meltdown. She couldn’t control the tears. She couldn’t control the desire. She burned inside for him, ached for him to fill her, to give her pleasure like no one else had.
He kissed her knees and looked into her eyes. “Don’t worry about your safety with me, Chloe. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you and I mean it.”
She was a hormonal mess and he promised not to let anything happen to her. They didn’t even use a condom. Great. Now she’d end up with the possibility of carrying some strange man’s child. Or god forbid something far worse. She wiped her eyes and scooted away from him. The last thing she needed was him touching her. No matter how much her body wanted it, her mind couldn’t handle him near.
“What’s wrong with me?” she whispered. “I’m never like this.”
“You’re entering into the needing phase. Your body is fertile, and your hormones are going haywire. Just calm down and let me take care of you.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m not having sex with you again. We didn’t even use a condom. I could get pregnant. You could have given me—”
“Stop.” Max stood as Chloe snapped her mouth closed. He went to the chest of drawers and grabbed a fresh pair of pyjamas for her. Without another word, he came to her and tugged the towel from her body and started to dress her. “I told you before, Chloe, that we don’t get STDs. You can’t get pregnant by me unless you’re in wolf form which you clearly weren’t. Your little obsession with condoms is going to end right here because I’m telling you there is no need for them.”
“And I’m supposed to just take you for your word?”
“You’ve got to trust someone sometime, Chloe. Might as well start now with me.” When she was dressed, he lifted her and laid her on the bed. He pulled the comforter around her and tucked her in. “Take a nap. You’ll feel better.”
Max left the room, closing the door with a soft click behind him. Chloe’s mind ached as she tried to sort everything out. Of the mess before her, she determined one of two answers explained the truth. She was insane, or werewolves were real. If she opted for the latter of the two, then all the other stuff Max said was probably true as well.
That only meant her life as she knew it was going up in flames.
Way to fuck it up, Max. Max pulled out his cell phone and dialled Quinn. His twin answered on the third ring. “I need your help.”
“With what?”
“The youngling thinks she’s human and refuses to shift. She’s going through the pre-change sickness and is now in the emotional phase, and I still can’t convince her of the realities of what we are dealing with. Have you heard anything about the other packs?”
“Thunder went prowling last night and came up with two packs, one of which we’ve never met. Our main problem, however, is still the Black Wolves.”
Max rubbed his forehead. “The pheromones she’s putting off are getting stronger. If she doesn’t shift, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“If she doesn’t shift, we’ll have one hell of a problem, Maxim. It’s not the kind that we want either. Thunder said the Black Wolves had at least seven unmated males. It’s a fairly large group, and we don’t need them around her.”
Max cursed and disconnected. Getting Chloe to shift would be like pulling teeth in the dentist office. And it was all his fault. He’d scared her outside and again in the shower. He’d damn near had a heart attack when she screamed. And then she’d trembled in fear of him. He could only imagine what that must have been like for a woman who pretended to be human all her life.
He climbed the stairs to her room. She was wearing herself down trying to figure this out. It would be so much easier if she just trusted him like he needed her to.
“Chloe?” He entered the room and glanced around at the empty space. Where was she?
He left the room and went on a search to find her, calling her name. She didn’t respond. Downstairs, he looked in all the rooms, saving the only place he’d never been for last. At the end of the main hallway, he stopped at a closed wooden door and twisted the doorknob. “Chloe?”
Inside was a vast collection of art supplies. Everything from blank canvases and paint of all colours to tapestry hanging on the wall, she had one hell of a painting studio. The smell of paint thinner lingered in the air along with the scent of paint itself. An easel hid Chloe from his view, her knee and elbow giving him the only inclination that she was in the room.
/> He sat in the only other chair—one he assumed she used for models—and contemplated what he should say. “We’ve got a situation,” he started. “The pack of wolves I mentioned earlier, the Black Wolves, are starting to hang around our territory, and Quinn said they were something we needed to worry about. They smell you, honey, and they won’t play nice about it.”
Chloe met his eyes, hers red-rimmed and shiny from her tears. “So what does that mean?”
“It means you need to shift today. Right now.”
She went back to her painting. “Shift so you can fuck me, right?”
What was he supposed to say? “Yes.”
There wasn’t a damn good way to explain the laws of their land, especially to the ones who thought they were human. He watched her paint, assuming that’s what gave her comfort and escape from all of this mess. She really was talented and had a knack for painting wolves with precise realism.
After a moment, Chloe sat the paintbrush to the side. “Fine. Show me.”
* * * *
Chloe stood in the middle of the living room buck-naked. With her modesty pushed aside, she waited for Max to teach her how to shift. She wished he was bullshitting her, though the feral look in his eyes crashed that little bit of hope. He stripped down too, his cock rock hard and ready to fuck. Just the sight of him made her pussy clench.
“Okay,” he said. “It’s easier to shift when you’re totally relaxed. Think about the creature you want to become, the wolf or human, and then simply let your body go.”
Chloe listened with scepticism. Yeah, right. She closed her eyes and pictured a wolf as she would when painting one. The different colours in its fur. Blues, greys, whites, blacks. She pictured Max’s pretty blue eyes. The muzzle and sharp canine teeth. The pointed ears. The husky body.
“Nothing’s happening.” Chloe opened her eyes to find Max staring back at her. “I did what you said and nothing happened.”
“I don’t think you’re relaxed.” He came to her, put a hand on each shoulder and started to rub. “You need to relax, Chloe, for this to work.”
“How can I relax when you’re breathing down my neck about everything? I don’t get it. I’ve been human all my twenty-five years. I never had the inclination that I was something else until you showed up and all this freaky shit started happening.”
“It started happening long before I arrived.” Max’s mouth found the slope of her shoulder and he pressed a kiss against her skin, nibbling lightly down her neck. “You drive me crazy, you know that?”
Chloe’s body started to relax against him. “It’s the pheromones. You would have never noticed me if it weren’t for the needing crap coming up.”
Max stopped his sweet seduction. He turned her around and lifted her chin with one finger. “Why do you say that? You’re beautiful. Any male can see that with his own two eyes. Why do you think I’m trying so hard to get you to shift to mask your scent? Baby, I’m not kidding when I say you’re desirable. And that has nothing to do with the needing phase. The needing phase just makes the desire spike up three hundred percent.”
“Yeah.”
Max stared into her eyes, trying to forget his own needs and focus on the job. It was simply impossible. Chloe wasn’t just the job. She was a sweet female who was mixed up in a bunch of shit he wouldn’t wish on his enemy.
“Let’s try again.” Max rubbed her arms to fight of the slight chill from the room.
“Does it hurt?”
“Shifting? Maybe the first couple of times. Your bones ache a bit, but once you’re in one form or the other, those aches go away. That’s why most of us like to run right after we change. To get the cricks out, you know?” He brushed her cheeks with his thumbs as he cradled her head. “Don’t worry about anything. I promised I’d take care of you, and I’m not going to break that promise.”
For the next two hours, Max did everything he could to help her relax. Still nothing. She took a bubble bath and gave him the opportunity to run his hands over her curves as he washed her. Nothing. He gave her a sensual massage on the bed. Nothing. She had three orgasms between the two events, and still, she wasn’t able to change form.
Sitting up in bed, she brought her knees to her chest. “If the threat is out there, what are we going to do? We only have until dusk tomorrow, and then we’re shit out of luck.”
Max dropped his face in his palms as he sat on the edge of the bed. “We’re trying too hard. You’re thinking too much. What do you normally do to relax and take your mind off everything?”
“Paint.”
He frowned. “But you tried before, and it didn’t help.”
“It’s my life.” She shrugged. “Maybe we could try again?”
Max stood and reached out for her. “We can give it a shot. Who knows? It might work.”
Chapter Four
Chloe brought the art utensils she needed along with the canvas and easel into the living room with the intention of painting Max naked. It’d been a while since she had drawn an actual human, and the opportunity to draw Max thrilled her.
She instructed him to lie on the couch and posed him the way she wanted. With his head propped up, his eyes pierced right through her. It didn’t take long to sketch his figure onto the canvas, but the actual painting became complicated. She was a perfectionist and her people-drawing skills were a bit rusty.
She started with his body first, painting the fine slopes and dips of his sides and abdominal muscles. Each line of his six-pack was painted with careful precision along with his navel. She went lower, working on the hard lines of his thighs. Hair sprinkled his body. Each little strand was added in proficient detail. She ignored the huge cock between his legs and opted to work on the details of his feet. Right down to his toenails, she painted every inch of him with a keen eye.
“Do you work with models?”
She tapped her paintbrush in the paint mixture she created that matched his skin. “I used to in art school. I wasn’t very good at drawing people, because I’m a perfectionist and every detail had to be perfect. I like matching my drawings to what I see—kind of like taking a photo. I’ve always been good at drawing animals, though getting the fur to cooperate with me was a challenge in the beginning.”
She worked her way up to his chest, dabbing her brush in a slightly darker colour for his nipples.
“Do you have any of your art around? I’d love to see the animals you paint.”
Chloe frowned, remembering her deal with Dana. “No. I have a partnership with the local gallery, and they have all my original pieces. I don’t have anything around here right now.”
She worked for an hour on his upper body, making sure his face looked exactly as it did in real life. She made sure his hands mimicked the position he held them in. And once she was through, she glanced to the one section of his body she completely bypassed.
Lying thick and long against his thigh, his cock was beautiful. The need for her to create the perfect painting grew more intense. She assessed every detail, the very image making her panties grow moist. The man himself was a work of perfection and not even the best artist could convey how beautiful he was. The tip of his cock peaked out from the foreskin. Even from her position, she could see the tiny slit at the top, a pearly white drop ready to fall to his thigh.
“You’re staring at me like you want to eat me up.”
Oh, I do, Max. I want to lick my way from your lips to your cock, tasting every inch of flesh in between. Chloe swallowed. Where the hell did that come from?
Feigning indifference, she said, “I’m almost done. Are you cold?”
He grinned. “Baby, that look in your eyes is making me anything but cold.”
Chloe hid behind the canvas like a coward with the intention of finishing his cock from memory instead. Her body heated at the first stroke of paint against the canvas. The needing. The hormones. That’s all it is. Chloe took a deep breath. Why on earth did I ever think this kind of painting would relax me?
“Embarrassed?”
Chloe tilted her head just enough to see around the canvas. Max sat there, grinning like a Cheshire cat. Chloe felt the heat rise in her cheeks and returned to finish the painting. With each stroke, her desire only rose. Her body temperature increased.
“I can’t do this.” Chloe sat the brush on the tray at the bottom of the easel. “This is not relaxing. It’s freaking arousing. I can’t relax. It’s impossible. The more I think about it, the more I get worked up, and it’s a never-ending cycle.”
She stood and brushed the fine sheet of sweat from her brow. Nothing would work, and they’d tried everything. It sucked.
“Come here, Chloe.” He stood. “It’s close to dusk. You’re entering the needing phase.”
He pulled Chloe in front of him and spread her legs. She didn’t have time to think before his cock nudged her entrance. She braced her hands on the back of the couch and sucked in a breath as his cock slowly entered her from behind. Her pussy stretched around his solid length, every nerve ending electrified with each inch of invasion. She hugged him tight, the muscles inside her already contracting as he seated himself inside to the hilt. Chloe dropped her face to her arms panting for breath.
Max withdrew and slammed home again with a force that gave her shivers. Her body burned for this man to take her any way he could, every way he could. Max gripped her hips and teased her with alternating slow and soft thrusts with fast and hard. Each time, he slid deeper, leaving no place inside her untouched.
Her climax built and erupted, leaving her frazzled with insatiable need. Her pussy rippled around him, sucking his cock inside her, even when he tried to pull out. She still wanted him. Still needed him to fuck her.
“Do it again,” Max said with his lips against her earlobe. “Your pussy is so hot and wet, baby, my dick is aching to shoot. But I want to feel you come around me again. Squeeze me, baby.”
He reached around her to rub her clit, and Chloe gasped. She laid her head back against his shoulder while he kissed her neck, paying special attention to the sensitive part behind her ear. His hips pumped in a staccato rhythm, leaving her breathless. Within seconds, she felt the contractions start and closed her eyes as pleasure overcame her.
