The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance
Page 26
“I wish we could have met under different circumstances,” Sam said. He moved closer, until only a few inches separated them, and closed the door behind him. She heard him shoot the bolt and restore the chain, all done without looking away from her.
“You mean, when Cyril was alive?” Karen asked.
“That might have helped. He could have introduced us. I wonder why he didn’t.”
The words were clear, but the meaning eluded her. Karen struggled with the sense that she was missing something, but it was hard to think when she wanted with all of her being to simply feel. She wanted to feel the press of his lips against hers. The press of his naked flesh against hers. Inside hers.
“You wanted coffee,” she said, but made no effort to go make it.
“In a minute.” Sam took another half-step forwards, which brought his body into contact with hers. The buzz under her skin increased. Her hands itched to touch him.
“Kiss me.” She hadn’t meant to say the words, but as soon as they were out, she felt the yearning sweep through her. Oh, God, she needed him to kiss her. Now.
“It won’t stop with kissing,” Sam said. A warning note sounded in his voice.
“I don’t want it to.” She let her palms rest on his upper arms, her fingers digging into the soft fabric of his T-shirt and had to fight the urge to rip it. She wanted bare skin under her hands. Which really wasn’t right. She didn’t make a habit of fucking strangers. “What’s wrong with us?”
Even as she asked the question in a tremulous tone, she was trailing her lips along the curve of his neck. He tilted his head back, offering her the sensitive hollow of his throat. She shuddered as she pressed a kiss there, feeling the beat of his pulse against her lips.
“Nothing’s wrong. Although the timing sucks.” Sam’s arms closed around her, holding her close. One hand rested between her shoulders. The other moved down to cup the curve of her butt. “We need to mate.”
That was an odd way to word it, but it seemed fitting. She wanted to mate with this man, body to body, soul to soul. She wanted to get as close as it was possible to get within the limits defined by physical constraints. She didn’t just want sex with him, she wanted to merge with him.
“I need you.” Karen whispered the confession against his bare throat and felt his body react. His arms tightened around her and his hips rocked forwards, pressing the length of his erection against her.
“I’ll give you everything you need,” Sam promised in a throaty growl. “Where’s your bed?”
She made a wordless gesture towards the loft. He lifted her in his arms and cradled her against his chest to carry her the short distance. Then he set her on the ladder. She climbed up with heavy limbs, achingly aware of him close behind her. She made it to the top and sank on to the bed as a languorous heat spread through her. Sam followed her on to the mattress and stretched out beside her. He tangled a hand in her hair and looked into her eyes. “You’re beautiful.”
Karen shook her head. “I’m average.”
“Beautiful.” He lowered his head until his lips touched hers. “I want to see all of you.”
That worked for Karen. She was too hot; her clothes were too tight. They restricted her and she wanted them gone with a ferocity that took her by surprise. But she followed her body’s urging, stripping down to her underwear and then to skin. Sam matched her for speed and his clothes tangled with hers on the floor beside the bed. Then he was pulling her close and Karen shut her eyes as she tried to imprint him on her bare body.
“Want you,” she muttered. Her fingers dug into his back. She curled one leg over his, urging him even closer. Her sex clenched with need and anticipation.
“Want you, too.” He reached down to cup her between her parted legs. His palm pressed into her, relieving the ache of arousal. He moved his hand in a circle, massaging her clit indirectly.
Karen bit into his shoulder and moaned her approval, rocking her hips into his hand. “Sam. More. Hurry.” Her body thrummed with urgency.
He petted her sex then pushed a testing finger inside her. He made a low growling sound when he found her slick and ready, easily accepting the penetration. “So hot and wet.”
She felt hot all over. And wild, crazed for him. He rolled her on to her back and slid on top of her. Her thighs shifted wider apart as his legs pressed between them. He rested in the cradle of her hips for a minute while her heart thundered in her chest. “Karen. Mine.”
“Yours,” Karen agreed mindlessly. She was on fire, her skin burning for him, her body taut and trembling.
Sam positioned his cock at her slick entry and drove into her, filling her with one long stroke. Karen arched up to meet his thrust with a wild cry. Her short nails raked his back as she bucked under him, fighting to take him deeper, to get more of him.
He took her hard and fast, driving her straight to the edge. She crashed over it as waves of pleasure racked her. Sam let out a low groan and came in a liquid jet she felt deep inside.
Afterwards she lay panting under him, still trembling with aftershocks from the intensity of the peak she’d reached with him. “Talk about zero to sixty,” she muttered, trying for a light tone.
Sam rubbed his forehead against hers. “I think we can make it last a little longer the next time.”
“Next time?” She could feel him, still hard inside her.
“Starting now.” Sam kissed her, gently, deepening it by degrees. The sweetness of it stole her breath and made emotion well in her throat and sting her eyes. He kissed her as if there was nothing else in the world he wanted to do more, as if he could spend hours immersed in the exploration of joined mouths and tongues. When he ended the kiss and raised his head, she stared into his eyes, feeling shaken to the core.
“Who are you?” The real question she left unvoiced: why did she react to him this way?
“I’m yours.” He rubbed the tip of his nose against hers. The caress disarmed her. Then he rolled with her, coming to rest on his back with her sprawled on top. His hands cupped her bare butt to hold her so their bodies stayed joined.
“That makes no sense.” But it pleased something inside her anyway. She hadn’t belonged anywhere or with anyone since Cyril died. Karen levered her torso up and arched her back so that he sank deeper into her.
Sam made a sound of approval and ran his hands up her sides, then covered the slight curves of her breasts with his palms. “I didn’t take time to touch these before.”
Karen made a wry face. “You didn’t miss much.”
“You’re very elegantly shaped. But if it makes you feel better, I’m a leg and ass man.”
She laughed, the humour bubbling up from deep within, making her blood effervesce. “Lucky me.”
“I’m the lucky one.” He pulled her back down so that their torsos met while he thrust harder into her. “Kiss me again.”
She did, her lips clinging to his open-mouthed and greedy, while their bodies rocked together. They drew the pleasure out this time, savouring the joining of flesh and the slide of skin against skin, until the need for completion became a demand they couldn’t prolong. She ground herself against him, coming in pulsing waves while he spent himself in her. Then she collapsed on top of him and rested there, trying to catch her breath.
Sam stroked her back, long, lazy caresses that soothed her and fed the skin-hunger he’d awoken in her. She wanted nothing more than to stay right there with Sam touching her. She felt the oddest sense of homecoming, as if she’d always belonged in his arms.
“Sam.” Karen stirred herself enough to raise her head so she could kiss his chest. “What are we doing?”
“Mating.” He kissed her forehead, a butterfly caress that made her heart ache. “I recognized you as soon as I caught your scent. By joining our bodies, we completed the bond.”
he went still. “That doesn’t make any sense.” Having a sudden attack of hormones and going sex-crazed for a stranger, that she could believe. The chemistry of attraction put the bra
in in an altered state. There was a scientific explanation for it. Recognizing people by scent, that wasn’t believable. And what did he mean, “bond”?
“It makes perfect sense.” Sam rolled her on to her back again and pinned her under him with his body. “I’m a werewolf. You are, too, or you would be if the antigen in your bloodstream had ever been triggered by exposure.”
Karen rejected the bizarre explanation forcefully. “Bullshit.”
Sam went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Cyril had to have known it. He was a lone wolf, but he knew I was the alpha here. He sent you to my territory and asked me to watch out for you. I don’t know if he guessed what you were to me and played matchmaker from beyond the grave, or if he just wanted you to find the pack and home after he was gone.”
Cyril had promised her a wolf guardian. He’d also written about werewolves and left her a silver dagger that he claimed had killed one.
Silver. The reminder cleared the fog from her brain. Would it save her from Sam and his insane claim that they could both turn furry? What might he do to her if he truly believed he was freeing the wolf inside her? Forget werewolves, her logic shrieked. It’s a weapon. If you stab somebody with it, they’ll bleed.
Three
Sam’s eyes narrowed as he looked down at her. His nostrils flared, then he captured her wrists in a lightning-fast move, stretching her arms up and apart, pinning them to the sides. But when he spoke again, his tone was filled with gentle assurance. “You don’t need to be afraid. I won’t hurt you. You’re human and you’ll stay that way unless you choose to make the change; I won’t force it on you.”
“I’m not afraid.” But her heart was beating too fast, and she was sure he could feel it. Under the alarm, though, a part of her understood that he could never pose a threat to her. His scent and his closeness relaxed her, soothed her. She was safe with him. He would protect her with his life.
“Yes, you are.” He looked almost pained for a minute, and then his expression blanked. “You didn’t know. I’m sorry for that, sorry you’re not better prepared. But you need to listen to me, because I’m not the only werewolf in the area with an interest in you.”
“Right,” Karen said, her mouth dry. “Your pack. Are they coming?”
“They are. I sent in a call from my cell phone when I found you. But they’re not the ones you should be worried about. Those men waiting for you to come back from your hike, they’re not human and they’re not mine.”
The memory of strange men surrounding her car, scattered by the impossible wolf made her shiver. “How do you know about that?”
Sam blew out a soft breath. “I was there. I walked you to your car, and I drove them off so you could get away.”
“On four legs,” Karen said, disbelief plain in her voice.
“Yes.” He studied her, his expression intent. “Cyril never mentioned anything about werewolves to you? You don’t have any idea what they want with you?”
“Cyril said I’d have a wolf guardian,” Karen said, choosing her words with care. “He left me a story about werewolves, but I assumed it was just that – a story.”
“Did Cyril have a habit of telling stories?”
“No,” Karen admitted. “No, if anything he had a talent for understatement.” That, combined with his meticulous note-taking and vigorous corroboration of research, would have convinced her the dagger’s history was fact, not fiction, if it hadn’t included the bit about it holding the soul of the werewolf version of Vlad the Impaler. She was certain he was right about its age and origin, though.
“Do you really think I’m lying to you?” Sam brushed his mouth across hers, a tiny gesture that pulled at her heart along with her body. “You’re my mate. You can feel the bond between us. No matter how far apart we are, you’ll feel me. I’ll always be with you, as long as we live.”
“I feel a lot of things I don’t understand.” Karen whispered the words against his lips.
“If you’d known what you were, you would have known that you had the instinctual ability to recognize your mate.”
She let out a shaky laugh. “Must save a lot of wasted time dating. You know right off if the other person’s the one.” But somehow she believed he was the one.
“It also prevents divorce and heartbreak.” Sam kissed the corner of her mouth. “The bond is physical, not just emotional. It joins us together for life.”
“This is crazy.” But it was all real. She knew it with unshakeable inner certainty. And that meant Cyril had told the truth about everything. “Sam, you said Cyril asked you to keep an eye on this place. Did he tell you what he wanted you to watch?”
Sam shook his head. “I assume he meant you.”
She drew in a deep, steadying breath. “He asked me to watch something, too. I think he intended for you to be my backup, or bodyguard. To make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
Sam went still over her. “What?”
Karen tugged against his hold. “Let me up and I’ll show you.”
He let her go, and she crawled down to the foot of the bed. She lifted the lid of the deacon’s bench and uncovered the dagger for the second time that evening. She took it out, careful to hold it by the bone handle, and turned towards Sam, displaying it.
He drew in a sharp breath. “Do you know what that is?”
“I know what Cyril said it was.” Karen looked down at it. “A Damascus dagger. The metal blade is repeatedly folded and welded to make it unbreakable. This one was dipped in silver to coat the blade after it was made and charmed by a witch to capture the spirit of one historic bad guy named Peter Stubbe who terrorized the German towns of Cologne and Bedburg in the 1500s. Cologne was Calvinist then, so they couldn’t find a priest to bless it. The witch did the necessary work to make it a weapon capable of stopping a werewolf serial killer. Once it was driven through his heart, it captured his soul and returned him to human form so he could be killed.”
For a thing with such a violent and bizarre history, it was beautiful. It gleamed in the light, but she had no desire to touch it. Holding it by the handle was more than she was comfortable with. The thing gave her the creeps and had from the first time she’d seen it.
“That’s what they’re after,” Sam said. “They want the dagger. There’s always been a lawless rogue faction who want to be humanity’s nightmare. They want to bring Peter Stubbe back to lead them.” His eyes met hers, burning with intensity. “Don’t let them have it. No matter what.”
His words were punctuated by the abrupt sound of glass breaking from the room below.
“Get behind me.” Sam lunged in front of her, forming a protective wall. He didn’t seem to notice that he was naked. Karen scrambled into her discarded hiking shorts and yanked his T-shirt over her head. It was backwards and inside out, but if a bunch of insane werewolves was breaking into her cabin, she didn’t want to meet them nude.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” Arange man’s voice crooned in an eerie tone. Karen heard laughter and more masculine voices joined in, chanting, “Hide and seek.”
She watched as Sam’s back rippled. He seemed to blur in front of her eyes until she saw two shapes, man superimposed over wolf. And then the wolf took over, leaving a huge grey timber wolf she recognized standing four-footed on the end of her bed.
Knowing it with her head was one thing. Seeing it with her eyes was another. But if any doubt had remained, the sight ended it. It was all real. Her fated mate. The cursed dagger. And the pack of men below were wolves on two legs.
A chorus of howls sounded from below. No, not two legs – at least some of them had shifted shape. But the creaking ladder told her one was climbing up in human form. His head came up over the edge. He didn’t seem surprised to meet Sam. His eyes narrowed and his mouth formed a snarl. He swung himself all the way up and leaped at Sam. He seemed to hang suspended in the air and Karen saw him with the same doubled vision. He completed his descent as a brown and white wolf in an arc that intersected
with Sam’s position. Karen stepped back, the dagger held by its bone handle behind to her side.
The two wolves fought viciously, moving too fast for her to gauge which one was winning. She could hear the others below, howling and knocking against the ladder. She sucked in a sharp breath. Even if Sam managed to subdue his opponent, they were badly outnumbered. Then she felt a tearing sensation in her rear with a loss of power in her legs and saw the brown and white wolf hamstringing the grey.
“Sam! No!” Karen moved forwards without thinking, hand raised. The silver dagger flashed down, found its target, bit deep. The wolf let out a cry that turned to a human shout. The transformation process reversed before her eyes, wolf fading into man, leaving a stranger collapsed on the floor of her loft, trying to grasp the bone handle of the dagger, which was buried in his torso.
The grey wolf ended the threat the man posed with merciless teeth. Below, she heard crashing sounds and realized another group of wolves had arrived to deal with the first. She hoped they were the good guys, but just in case, she was going to stay hidden in her loft.
Sam shifted back to human while she watched. He started to come towards her then gave a warning shout. Karen turned her head and, seemingly in slow motion, saw a wolf’s body hurtling towards her, saw the jaws open, and then there was searing pain and darkness.
She woke up in her own bed. Alone. Karen scanned the loft, but didn’t see any signs of either Sam or a fight. The thought of the fight reminded her of the dagger. She struggled upright and then managed to reach the deacon’s bench at the foot of the bed. The dagger was once again safely hidden beneath the spare bedding. The silver looked darker, but that might have been her imagination. Downstairs she felt a stirring, a rise of emotion and energy. Sam’s. She recognized it instantly, even though she couldn’t see or hear him. She could sense him and his relief when his vigil over her ended with her return to consciousness.