by Michele Hauf
“Dude, I am no man’s puck bunny. They’re the silly bits of fluff who hang on the players in hopes of getting lucky.”
“So you’re saying you don’t want to get lucky with me?”
She considered it. “Puck bunny it is.”
* * *
Daisy raced through the living room and dodged the ottoman, where a patchwork quilt lay strewn. She giggled and headed toward the kitchen. But her plan of evasion was thwarted when Beck slipped around the opposite side of the kitchen and met her near the dining table.
She shrieked playfully as he swept her into his arms and carried her over to the couch. He dropped her onto the plush couch piled with pillows, and she landed on the softness but didn’t expect the handsome wolf to follow so closely.
He crouched over her, hands near her shoulders and knees bracketing her legs. “I win.”
She supposed he did deserve some small win after she had just kicked his ass at pond hockey. “Deal. You win one silly puck bunny.” She scooched up to sit and brushed her hair aside from her face. “Well, not so vapid. Much smarter, I hope. But I suppose being a puck bunny is all about what’s on the outside, isn’t it?”
“No way. I don’t want anyone looking at you.”
“So you’ll take the tomboy over the bunny?”
“I’ll take Daisy Blu, the gorgeous wolf who is not afraid to be herself.” He pulled her onto his lap, and she snuggled against his insane heat. “Wanna snuggle?”
“You are a man who knows how to please a woman.”
Chapter 12
“The only place is town that sells custom-made shell cartridges is now closed,” Sunday said as she strode around the side of the F-150, tugging up her overall straps on each shoulder.
“So whoever made the glass shot probably got it in the Twin Cities.”
“Or could have ordered it online,” she suggested. “What you’re dealing with is custom-made. I’m guessing its origin is paranormal, not human-made. I mean, if the pellets were glass filled with silver?” Sunday shook her head.
Beck rubbed the grease smear on her cheek. “Thanks, Sunday. I appreciate you looking into that for me. You heading home?”
“Yep. It is the night before the full moon.” She winked, and strode into the back room that was more a storage for everything Beck couldn’t find a place for than a neat employee lounge.
Sunday, the familiar, and her husband, Dean Maverick, the werewolf. How those two ever got together was beyond Beck. But they’d been together a long time, so it proved that opposites really could attract.
And he certainly didn’t need reminding that it was the night before the full moon. His breed, for reasons beyond him, needed sexual fulfillment the night before and after the full moon. Well, they didn’t need it. If they did not respond to the carnal pull, their werewolf would come out. Nothing wrong with that. Only, living so close to humans, the werewolves tended to let their wild side out one day a month—on the full moon. Otherwise they risked too much if ever seen.
Perhaps mating with Daisy tonight would bring them closer. He hoped to have sex with her, but he seriously did not want to push. They both needed sex tonight, but just because they did didn’t mean they had to take it from one another. He didn’t want to do anything to screw up this new relationship.
Nor did he want to bring the wrath of Malakai Saint-Pierre knocking on his door.
Beck blew out a breath. “I’ll take things as they want to go tonight. Let her call the shots.” He grinned to think about the shots that woman had taken last night.
Playing hockey with Daisy had been a thrill and a surprise. The chick was competitive. And a great player. She was no puck bunny, but he wondered if she’d be okay with the term puck faery?
The idea of giving over some of his control to a woman was novel, but it didn’t feel entirely out of left field.
He headed into the garage office, where he kept a computer. He’d search for silver sales in Minneapolis and St. Paul. He had no idea how to track down this hunter, but he wasn’t about to stop until he’d found him and made him pay for tearing his family apart.
* * *
Daisy set aside the log she’d printed out from the paranormal forum. She’d had the idea to go in as someone looking to hunt werewolves, and who was looking for the best weapon. She’d gotten all sorts of replies, but no silver shot in glass capsules. Yet. Beck had thought it was advanced technology. Maybe Stryke could help. He knew enough about most things that he may have an idea regarding a lead.
She couldn’t think about work right now. It was date night. With the one man she couldn’t stop thinking about. Dreaming about. Wanting to kiss, touch and...
“Have sex with,” she said, and rubbed her palms together in expectation. “I am so ready for you, Beck. I hope you’re ready for me.”
She sorted through the clothing on the steel bar suspended from the high ceiling. Her grandmother had offered to let her go through her closet yesterday during dinner, but Daisy had been in Blu’s closet before. It looked like some kind of costume warehouse for every mood, color and emotion a woman could ever have. That chick had the clothes.
“Grandma is so spoiled.” She trailed her fingers down her few pieces of clothing. Guess that was possible when Blu’s husband was a nine-hundred-year-plus vampire who had acquired a vast fortune over his centuries.
Growing up in her family, Daisy had learned the value of taking care of one’s things and not needing something just because a person wanted it. She had a few things she adored, and the rest were functional for when she worked on a sculpture or was out reporting. Sure, she was set for life thanks to her father’s investments in her name, but...
“I have to show him I can take care of myself.”
Her fingers trailed over the soft red sweater that featured a narrow black marabou tuft around the V collar. It was angora, and she loved wearing it without a bra, feeling the übersoft fabric caress her skin. It was the sexiest thing she owned.
“Perfect.”
A pair of black leggings and some black riding boots with skull-studded metal buckles at the knees finished the look. Casual yet sensual.
Beck liked her this way? Not all dolled up like a puck bunny? She’d bought that mostly. But she still sensed he wouldn’t mind if she showed him her softer side.
“Do I have a soft side?”
Panic rushed heat into her chest, but she quelled the sudden anxiety by pressing a palm over her heart.
“We’ll find out tonight.”
Already her inner wolf squirmed in anticipation. Her faery half could care less. This night before the full moon, the werewolf wanted release. So part of her pranced about in an attempt to ramp up her adrenaline, get her to answer the feral call, while another part looked forward to quelling the werewolf the only way it could—with touch, taste and erotic connection.
She needed sex until she was sated. If she’d had a boyfriend who did not know she was werewolf, then he’d always marveled at her incredible horniness and was raring to please her. If no boyfriend, she was not beyond a one-night stand, but she generally drove into the city to find someone she would never again see. It was her nature. She needed to answer this call.
And tonight was going to be perfect. Or she hoped, very close to something wonderful.
* * *
Beck assumed Daisy would have eaten by the time she arrived. He set out some wine but wasn’t sure what else he should provide. He scanned his cupboards. Ripple chips or cheese crackers sounded wrong. And the tin of BBQ-coated almonds was so not romantic. He supposed cheese and fruit would have been appropriate to set the mood, but he wasn’t that talented of a grocery shopper.
Cheese crackers it was.
A clench in his gut suddenly bent him before the kitchen sink. He gripped the stainless steel and closed his eyes, fighting the odd wave of what didn’t feel painful, but what was beyond the usual let me out pangs he got from his werewolf.
He felt his bones shift slightly and shook
his head. “No. Not tonight.” While normally he felt the urge to shift the night preceding the full moon, he could always control it. This was insistent. “What the hell?”
If he shifted against his will, that would be a new one. And dangerous. He didn’t want to shift to the ghost wolf when Daisy was around.
The twinge of whatever it was subsided with a tug down his spine. Beck straightened and flexed his fingers in and out of fists. “Whew!” Exhaling, he prayed he could keep it under control.
The doorbell rang. He slapped a palm to his bare chest. He’d been in the middle of dressing when it had occurred to him he might need to entertain the woman and had gone in search of wine.
Halfway to the door, the werewolf again gripped his insides and demanded release. Beck slammed a palm to the front door and yowled. He must fight the twist inside his body. He dropped to his knees. His hand began to shift and he frantically shook it, forcing it back into human form.
Again the doorbell rang, followed by a knock. “Beck?”
“Daisy.” He gripped the doorknob. The wolf that wanted release suddenly fought against the were that he was, the man who needed sensual touch—hell, sex—to tame that wolf. Drawing in a breath through his nose, he smelled the sweet pink faery wolf on the other side of the door. He got a hard-on like that. “Ah, shit.”
The door opened against his back. He sat on the floor, legs bent and toes digging into the rug. His senses were dialed to ultraalert, and Daisy’s sweetness spilled across his skin like a summer breeze warming his flesh and stirring him to a moan. A wanting, needy moan.
What the hell? He couldn’t act like this in front of her. He did not want to scare her, or allow her to think he was some kind of freak. She had to leave.
He slapped his hand against the door, closing it. But she was already inside. Standing there in some thigh-hugging black pants. Metal skulls stared at him from the tops of her leather boots. And up over her winter coat, he eyed the pretty pink waves spilling to her elbows like a treat. Kitty ears capped her head. Those silly pom-poms at the ends of the strings looked like a toy he needed to bat at.
Yeah, to play with the kitty. Mmm...
“Beck, what’s wrong?”
“Daisy, I’m sorry.” He yelped as an insistent punch to his libido goaded him to jump up, grab her and push her against the wall. “I— This is not right. Something is happening. I’m not sure I can control it.”
“Is it the ghost wolf?”
He shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to be in this position before a woman. Unsure, unstable and out of control.
“Do you feel the need to shift?”
He shook his head adamantly.
“Yes?”
“Yes. And no. It wants...you.”
She pulled the kitty cap from her head and knelt before him. “It does?”
He closed his eyes, biting his lip. Not this way. He didn’t want the first time with Daisy to be like this. It couldn’t be. He’d never forgive himself.
She pressed a palm to his cheek. The sensation of her slightly cool skin to his heated face shocked an erotic zing from there directly to his cock. The main shaft tightened against his jeans.
“Sex?” she whispered.
Ah hell.
Chapter 13
He was suffering. Daisy had seen the same signs with her brothers at times on the night before the full moon when they’d been younger and had been trying to discern the whole should I shift or should I seek a sex partner thing.
Beck’s skin was so hot. His chest glimmered with perspiration. He pushed her hand away and snarled at her. Was he fighting the shift, or fighting the urge to take her in a loveless quick means of satisfying his driving needs?
While the idea of sex without emotion did not appeal at all, Daisy had come here knowing it wasn’t going to be a gushy love-filled event. Love wasn’t even in the equation yet.
Okay, so it was. Like was the ultimate goal. And she was on a straight path to liking Beckett Severo.
But desire was the issue right now. And her wolf responded to his panting need to repress his desires with her own delicious tangle of desires. Ah, the tangle she had wanted. She wanted Beck. She wanted sex, plain and simple. She simply...wanted.
She pulled off her coat and pushed it aside.
“You can’t stay,” he said through a tight jaw. “It can’t be this way, Daisy. It’s not right.”
“Beck, your wolf needs to be sated.”
His mouth stretched taut. She smoothed a hand down his chest, glancing over his tight pectorals and to his ridged abdomen. Inside, her wolf stirred, hungry yet patient, if only she would serve it the sensual treats it craved.
“Daisy, please.”
She wanted to lean forward and lick his fevered skin, trace her tongue over the ridges of muscles that hardened his frame as if a suit of armor. She wanted to go on the wild ride this uncertain moment promised.
“I want you, Beck. I need this. Don’t you desire me?”
“Ah, fuck.”
She leaned in closer to his face. Musk and male aroused every nerve ending on her body. Her nipples hardened. Aware her soft sweater brushed against his skin, she leaned in closer and her breasts snugged his chest.
He gripped her hair, holding her back, yet with his other hand he pulled her forward by the hip.
“This excites me. You excite me,” she whispered near his ear, then dashed her tongue along his lobe and sucked it into her mouth. “I’m a big girl. I can handle a horny werewolf. You want to try me?”
“Daisy—but it won’t be right.”
“Who’s to say what is right or wrong? We both want something from the other. We do love each other. Do you love me?”
He nodded fervently. “The easy part, right?”
“Right. No like yet.”
His hips bucked up against her as she squatted upon his thighs. He clutched her sweater. “So soft,” he muttered. “And red. Oh, Daisy...”
“Let’s do this,” she said. “Fast, furious, and don’t stop until we’re both satisfied. Yes?”
“You’re not going to go away, are you?” He pushed his hands up under her sweater and palmed her breasts. With a moan, he squeezed her nipples.
“Oh, hell no,” she said. “And you don’t want me to leave, either. Do you?”
He shook his head frantically.
“Let’s make this right. There’s no other man I’d rather be with right now than you.”
“Same. I...I want you, Daisy. Beyond my werewolf’s needs. I swear.”
“I know that. So let’s get it on.”
Daisy thrust her breasts forward, giving him what he wanted, and greedily taking the exquisite pleasure of his touch. She tugged off her shirt, and Beck hissed at the sight of her bare skin. He braced an arm across her back as he pushed her down onto the rug before the door and bent his head to her breasts. Laving at her nipples, one and then the other, he slicked them with his hot tongue. Suckling them hard and then kissing and licking all over her breasts. She squirmed under his ministrations, and pulled him closer with fingers through his hair.
“Not on the floor,” he suddenly said, and lifted her with one arm.
Daisy wrapped herself about Beck’s torso and kissed him aside the neck as he marched down the hallway. He panted heavily. Still fighting the shift, surely. She wanted to tame him, yet at the same time, keep him wild.
The bedroom was dark, save a beam of moonlight that sifted through the sliding glass doors on the opposite end. A patchwork quilt and mounds of pillows lured them toward the king-size bed. It looked so inviting that Daisy jumped from his arms and sat on the edge of the bed, then fell backward against the pillows.
“Come here, wild one,” she said, crooking a finger at him.
“You are...” He shook his head as he approached, unzipping his jeans. “Much wilder than me. Beneath your bookish exterior...”
“You did want me to flirt with you.”
“That I did.”
He
dove for her, landing on all fours above her, which made her giggle. He cupped one of her breasts and gave it a quick lick before moving up to kiss her neck, and up under her chin until finally his mouth landed on hers, and he groaned into her as he ground his hips against hers.
His erection rubbed against her mons, and with a wiggle of her hips, Daisy positioned herself to feel the hard rod against her sensitive apex.
“Oh, yeah.” Threading her fingers into his hair, she took his rough and wanting kiss. Everything about his urgency excited her, made her want to rush to the finish line right along with him. As if they tracked the forest on four paws, she would run with this wolf through the night. “Condom?” she suddenly thought to ask.
He nodded and from a drawer beside the bed pulled out a crinkly package and set it on the pillow.
“Now that’s sexy.” She slid a hand down his hard abs and farther, over his jeans to cup his erection. It was wide and so hard. “Another stick for this puck bunny to handle.”
“Woman, you touch it, you can’t put it back on the shelf and walk away.”
“Oh, I won’t.”
Daisy toed off her boots, and they dropped to the hardwood floor with a double clunk. Beck reached for his fly, but she stopped him. “Let me.”
He hovered above her, in a plank position, allowing her to shove the jeans down his hips. His penis sprang out and landed on her thigh, the hot, wide head of it flaming her skin. She gripped it firmly, and his moan played a wanting melody above her thundering heartbeats.
Hips rocking, he slid his cock up and down in her grasp.
“You’re so hard, Beck,” she said with admiration. “I can’t wait to feel you inside me.”
“Not until you’re ready.” He tugged down her leggings, and she shimmied to wiggle them off. Now they were both naked, and their skin put off intangible steam.
Beck bent to kiss her breasts, gently, pulling at the nipple and then letting it spring from his mouth to cool in the air that tightened the ruched tip to a diamond.
His explorations journeyed south, his kisses marking her belly and navel, and moving lower, licking and tasting and kissing until his nose tickled along her mons.
