Wolf (The Henchmen MC #3)

by Jessica Gadziala

  "Noticed," he said with what sounded like humor in his voice.

  "You're not supposed to agree with me," I laughed, slapping his back, not bothering to wonder why I hadn't let go of him yet.

  "Ain't gonna lie," he defended.

  "No, but you could keep that trap shut," I smiled, pulling backward to look at his face. "You know how to do that."

  "Where's the fun in that?"

  "Oh so it's fun to insult me?" I said, lowering my eyes at him in mock anger.

  "Cute when you're pissed," he said, effectively wiping the smile off my face. Cute? He thought I was cute? I wasn't cute. I was a badass, gun-wielding, bomb-setting, Krav Maga-doing bitch from Hailstorm.

  "Bunnies are cute," I shot back.

  "Yep," he agreed. "So are you."

  "I'm a badass," I objected.

  "Yep," he agreed, nodding, lips twitching.

  "I can incapacitate a full grown man with two fingers."

  "Sure."

  My eyes lowered for real this time. "I can!" I insisted. "Two fingers, right on the carotid. Eight seconds. Out." He nodded, acknowledging the truth of that statement. But there was a light in his eyes that I didn't trust. "What?" I snapped.

  "Got a carotid," he said on a shrug.

  "Um... yeah you do. Everyone does."

  "You got two fingers. You got ten..." he informed me and I felt myself stiffening as I realized where he was going.

  "Don't," I heard myself almost beg.

  "Still conscious," he said, giving me a brow lift. "Wonder why."

  "Oh gee... I dunno," I said, attempting sarcasm to cover the fact that he was right. He was so right. I hadn't even tried. What the hell? "Maybe because you are seventy-thousand pounds of muscle and if you felt my fingers even try to press into your neck, you could snap me like a twig?"

  The humor drained from his face, his brows drawing together seriously. "Never," he said almost savagely.

  "Never what?" I asked, too fascinated by how quickly his moods could switch from one to another to understand what he was talking about.

  But then his arms released me and his hands went to frame my face. "I'd never hurt you."

  Oh, duh.

  I knew that. Like... I really knew that. He wasn't that type of guy. He was Michael, the archangel. He was a protector. And now I made him think he was some piece of shit that could put his hands on me. Great.

  My hands went to his wrists, closing around them. "I know that. I was... deflecting," I admitted with a shrug.

  "Why?"

  Augh. Why was he always so curious?

  "Because I don't know why I haven't tried to choke you or knock you over the head with something, catch you unaware in the shower or something. I'm losing my edge."

  "Nah."

  "Then what other explanation could you have for it? You dragged me here when I demanded you take me to my car. Then you stole my clothes and you trapped me in here with your hell beasts..."

  "And..." he prompted and I knew where he was going with that too.

  I sighed. "And got me off the side of the road where I was losing my shit and the cops were bound to find me. And you wrapped up my arm and bought me books and..."

  "You wanna be here."

  "What? No!" I objected a little too quickly.

  "Yeah you do," he said, giving me a small smile.

  "No. I need to get to my car and get my clothes and phone and cash and I need to get the hell out of here before Reign, Charles Mallick, Lo, Richard Lyon, and Lex Keith find out I was the one who set the bombs."

  "Need isn't want," he picked the part of my argument that went in his favor. He was right, annoyingly, obnoxiously right. I needed to get out of town; I didn't want to.

  "Well I need to stay alive or I won't be wanting anything anymore," I reasoned, sounding a bit more like I was trying to convince myself, not him.

  "Janie," he said, his thumb stroking across my cheek.

  "What?" I asked when he didn't go on.

  "Won't let em hurt you."

  His words and the sincerity with which he said them had my insides doing that gooey thing again. But still... "I know you want to believe that, Wolf, but you're one person. And you know as well as I do that your brotherhood to The Henchmen is supposed to trump all. Reign is going to be furious enough when he finds out you knew who set the bombs and didn't tell him. He would blow a fucking gasket if you tried to stand between me and him."

  "Doesn't hurt women," he objected, shaking his head.

  "Maybe that's only because a woman has never fucked with his empire before," I reasoned. "And it's not just about Reign. He's the least of my worries."

  "If it's..."

  "Don't," I interrupted, squeezing his wrists. "Just don't." I couldn't take it, hearing Lex's name on his lips after he knew what happened to me. It would feel wrong. They were different parts of my world and I didn't want them crossing paths.

  "Okay," he said, dropping his hands from my face. "Come on," he said, getting back onto his feet and moving across the room.

  "Come where?" I asked, watching him as I straightened. He waved a hand toward the door and I snorted, waving a hand at my body. "Um... it's freezing out there and I don't even have panties on," I said flippantly and regretted it the second his eyes got heated, got hungry. Okay, well, I didn't regret it exactly, but I realized my mistake. But to my relief (or utter disappointment, I couldn't decide), he took a deep breath, gave me a stiff nod and made his way toward the closet. A second later, he came out with my clothes from a couple days before, cleaned and folded.

  Um, yeah, so I needed to get a good look around that closet sometime. Apparently he kept literally everything of worth in there. You know... like my underwear.

  He crossed to me, pushing the clothes at me. I took them, my head cocking. "What are we going to do?"

  "Get dressed," he said, moving toward the door and going outside.

  Right then. I shimmied into my panties then pulled my pants up my legs, feeling strange and constricting after several days not wearing any pants at all. I left on Wolf's tee, but tucked it in and grabbed his flannel off the hanger by the door as I slipped into my boots. It wasn't high fashion, but it would do.

  I was almost a little giddy as I reached for the door handle to see what he had in store for me.

  Wolf, shockingly, seemed rather full of surprises.

  NINE

  Janie

  "Target practice?" I asked after we trudged silently through the woods for a good ten minutes before we came to a clearing where he had half a dozen targets set up at various distances. I watched as he pulled a gun out of the waistband of his jeans and checked the clip.

  "Seen you shoot," he said casually.

  "I'm a good shot!" I immediately bristled. I was. I never missed a target. Ever. So maybe I didn't always (okay, maybe I hardly ever) hit the bullseye, but still. I knew how to handle and point a gun.

  "Good ain't great," he said on a shrug, holding the gun out toward me.

  "You really think you should be handing me a gun after insulting me?" I asked in a grumpy tone. Inside, though, I was doing an obnoxious little happy dance. After eight years of training seven days a week at Hailstorm where having two broken arms could barely be considered an excuse for missing target practice, I was unused to inaction. I was beyond excited to get back to some sort of training, especially if he thought he could improve my aim.

  He shoved the gun into my hand and held out his arms wide. "Wanna shoot, shoot," he taunted, knowing there was no way I was going to shoot him.

  On a smile, I turned toward the closest target, aimed, and shot. It was barely a seven. Christ. To my side, I could see Wolf nod then move toward me, stepping behind me.

  "Stop closing your eye," he commanded, lifting my hand again and kicking my legs a little wider. "Shoot." I shot and hit almost the same spot. Wolf made some kind of grunting noise. "Jerky," he said, and I heard jingling like change in a
pocket. About a second later, I realized I was right because he reached around my body and placed a coin on the sight. "Shoot."

  "What's the coin for?" I asked instead.

  "Falls, you're jerking."

  My brows drew together, but I squeezed the trigger. And, like he expected, the coin went flying. "Damn it," I growled as he bent to pick it up.

  He placed it again, but this time his hand curled around mine, his finger pressing into mine on the trigger. "Slow," he said, his finger pressing into mine gently. Then, incredibly, the shot fired and the coin stayed in place... and the bullet lodged just outside the bullseye.

  "No way!" I yelped, swinging around to face him. "No way is it that easy! I've been working on this every day for years." Wolf shrugged a shoulder, tucking his hands into his pockets, giving me the slightest hint of a smile.

  "You try," he said, jerking his head to the target.

  I fished the coin off the ground, got back into position, took his advice, and shot. And damn if it didn't land in almost the exact same spot. "Who taught you that?" I demanded, facing him again. Wolf considered me for a long minute, taking in my excitement and surprise, before letting out a long breath.

  "Dad."

  Well, that made sense. His dad was a Henchmen. I heard Reign's father ran a tight ship. Of course he would teach his men how to shoot. "Are you the best shot in The Henchmen?" I asked into the silence that was starting to feel heavy.

  At that, I got a smirk. A actual, real smirk! "No," he said, shaking his head.

  "Top five?" I pressed. I got a nod to that. "Who is first?"

  "Repo," he answered instantly.

  Repo was a relatively new recruit. He was patched in just a year before, right after he helped save Summer and gained Reign's favor. "No way. He's like... twenty-one."

  "Four," Wolf corrected. "Your age," he added, surprising me. How did he know how old I was?

  "Still..."

  "Didn't teach him," he shrugged. So he was just a natural shot? That was interesting. He un-tucked a hand from his pocket and waved to the targets. "Impress me," he suggested and, well, I was always up for a challenge.

  "Take that!" I declared, throwing my arms up in the air when, an hour later, I had finally landed a bullseye on the furthest target. I turned a huge smile in Wolf's direction, full of the pride of accomplishment that I owed at least in part to him. His eyes searched my face, landing on my mouth for a moment and I watched as his face seemed to slowly start to shut down again. "Don't," I commanded immediately.

  "Don't what?"

  "Don't shut down," I demanded. I saw his immediate head shake and did something I never did: begged, "Please."

  His head tilted to the side for a long minute before he slowly lowered himself onto the ground, looking off into the distance, his feet still on the ground, his knees cocked up. "Come here," he said without looking at me.

  I let out a breath, unsure where this was going to lead, but sure I wanted to know. I walked toward his body, stopping to stand beside him. His arm reached out and snagged my wrist, pulling me to stand in front of him, facing him. Then his hand moved up to tag the front waistband of my jeans and used it to pull me downward onto my knees before him. "Here," he clarified when he released my jeans.

  "Okay. I'm here," I said when we just sat there looking at each other.

  He gave me an odd smile, shaking his head for a second. "Not like most men."

  "I noticed."

  "Got walls..."

  "No shit," I found myself laughing. "I have those too. So?"

  "Can't get under," he said and there was steel in the words, "or over," he added with a smirk, like he knew I was thinking there was always a way around a wall.

  "Maybe not," I agreed, understanding the need to believe the walls you build around yourself were impenetrable. "But guess what?"

  His head cocked to the side and I could tell by the way his light eyes were dancing that he was amused. "What?"

  "Doesn't matter what the wall is made of; a good enough bomb can blast through anything."

  Then the strangest thing happened.

  He threw his head back and he laughed, loud, and rumbling, full of genuine appreciation. I'd never seen anything like it before. While true, I lived at a compound where I was surrounded by men and they often found reason to laugh and enjoy life, I had never seen a man like Wolf, someone serious and haunted, have his rugged, manly features lit up in amusement. There was a strange swelling sensation in my chest, something I wasn't familiar enough with to recognize that made me reach out without thinking and place a hand on his cheek.

  His head snapped back to me; the smile slowly faded. His eyes grew heavy as his arm raised, his hand snaking around the back of my neck, moving me forward. He did it slowly, as if waiting for resistance. But I felt none. All I felt was drunk on the sound of his laughter and the warmth spreading across my chest.

  My lips landed on his, sending a shot of desire through my system. My other hand raised so I was cradling his face in my hands as I pressed my lips harder against his, wanting things, needing things I couldn't describe. Wolf's lips parted under mine and my tongue moved into his mouth, claiming his almost violently. His arms went around me tight, pulling me forward until I was plastered against him, his legs closed around me as well, completely trapping me in. Normally, even during training sessions when I was being held down to see how fast I got away, I freaked at being held down. It was my greatest weakness because the hysteria and panic made me clumsy and predictable, easy for my opponent to anticipate and thwart my escape. But I could never overcome it, the strangling feeling across my throat, the cold sweat breaking out over my whole body, the uncomfortable crawling sensation of my skin. I never left one of those training sessions feeling successful. I walked away and threw up violently, slamming my head against the tile walls in the bathroom to keep from crying.

  But right then with Wolf, I was trapped as I had ever been, by someone who was at least five times stronger than anyone who had ever held me down before, and I didn't panic. Maybe it was because a large part of me was aware that he would let me go if I so much as stiffened, that he'd rather tear off his own arm than make me fear him. Maybe it was because my body felt high off of desire. It was so overwhelming, so unexpected that I couldn't even think to fight it. All I could do was experience it: the heavy pressure at my lower stomach, the fluttering heartbeat, the hyper sensitivity of my skin, the way my sex felt like it was clenching every time his fingers sunk in slightly.

  Wolf let out a growl, his hands slipping down my back to grab my ass roughly. He used it to prod my legs to wrap around his hips as his own pulled in and crossed underneath me. As soon as my pelvis dropped down, I could feel his erection pressing hard into the juncture of my thighs. I let out a surprised groan, my lips pulling from his violently, my eyes snapping open.

  Wolf's eyes opened more slowly, watching my face for a second, trying to gauge my reaction. I, myself, had no idea how to feel right that minute. As if maybe sensing that, Wolf's hips rose up into mine, making his cock press into me, drawing another moan and bringing with it a rush of wetness. My mouth parted on a rough exhale. "You good?" he asked, his voice sounding even more gravely than usual. I felt my head jerk out an awkward nod as my hands fisted into his shoulders. His hands moved from my ass and slid to my hips, using them to stroke me down his hard length again. My forehead fell to his. "Ride me, Janie," he urged, his hands gentling on my hips, making it clear I was in control.

  I sucked in a deep breath and lowered myself down on him again. I did three strokes before I paused. "You alright?"

  "This won't do anything for you," I objected, seeing the unfairness in the situation. I could come from a little friction; he wasn't very likely to do so. "It's kind of a one-sid..."

  "Shut up," he said, shaking his head.

  "Seriously, it's not..."

  "Said shut up," he growled, his hand closing around the back of my neck and draggi
ng my lips back to his, kissing me hard and deep. So I guess I missed the threat in 'shut up'. As in 'shut up or I will shut you up'.

  But that didn't matter. What mattered was his tongue sliding over mine, his teeth nipping into my lip, his hips thrusting up into mine, offering things I had never allowed myself to want before. But I wanted. I wanted like I didn't know was possible. I dropped my hips down and I rode him, slow and uncertain at first, gaining in confidence and desperation as I felt something building deep inside, making the pressure in my core hit the point of pain, having the gasps and groans bursting from my throat radiate out through the quiet woods.

  I felt it then, a suspended sensation that promised oblivion if you pushed past it. But in that moment, I wasn't sure I could. I knew there'd be no going back. Things would be different. "Wolf, I..." I said, pulling back to look at him, shaking my head, not sure how to explain my uncertainty.

  Wolf gave me a small smile and thrust upward one last time, making my body erupt into an orgasm that had me crying out his name, my entire body shuddering hard as the waves crashed almost viciously through my system. A part of me was aware that his arms had gone around me, anchoring me to him, but I didn't fully appreciate it until I collapsed against his chest, my face buried in his neck, and felt them tighten around me. His fingers went up and sifted through my hair as the aftershocks worked their way through me as I clung to him tightly.

  There had been times... before when, a young teen and hormonal as all hell, I had experienced the pleasure that was a self-induced orgasm. But my body hadn't felt that in the better part of nine years and every nerve ending felt frazzled as I tried to steady my breathing, tried to slow my heartbeat, tried to not analyze what happened.

  "Don't think," Wolf's voice said quietly and I felt a shiver course through me. "It's good," he said when I didn't respond. "Let it be good."

  Let it be good.

  Could it really be that simple?

  I wanted so badly to believe it could. And, nestled deep in the woods far away from anything and anyone, the arms of a fiercely protective man around me, it almost felt possible.