The Wolf in the Woods

by Marisa Chenery

The first thing Red noticed when she came awake was the very warm body spooned against her back and legs. The second was the heavy weight of Rutgar’s arm, which he had thrown over her waist. She tried to move out from under it, but her movement only caused him to tighten his hold. Feeling a tiny bit trapped, Red tried to wiggle her way free. She then sucked in a breath when her ass brushed up against his cock, which was hard and erect. She took her bottom lip between her teeth as her pussy clenched. The man was a sex machine. She didn’t know how he did it, but he somehow managed to keep his hard-on even after he had come twice.

  Thinking of their lovemaking made Red think of something else that had happened. Something she couldn’t easily explain. She could have sworn that just before they had reached their first orgasms a part of her had reached out to Rutgar and joined with him.

  Rutgar stirred behind her. His arm lifted from around her waist. He propped himself up on his elbow as he rolled her onto her back. He searched her face with his ice blue eyes. “How do you feel?”

  Red smiled. “Pretty good.” She looked down at his erection. “From the look of you, I would say you’re up and ready to go for round two.”

  He grinned. “I’m still up and ready from round one.”

  She shook her head. “How is that possible? Did you take some kind of pill that lets you keep a perpetual erection?”

  Rutgar’s expression grew serious. “No pill. All werewolf males are able to keep an erection for hours even after reaching multiple orgasms.”

  Red leaned up on her bent arms as her gaze locked with his. “Werewolf?”

  “Yes, werewolf. That’s what I am.”

  “You’re a werewolf, huh? I guess that would explain your being able to shape shift into a wolf. But I thought werewolves could only shift during the night of a full moon.”

  She then yelped as Rutgar shifted into his wolf form and shoved his cold nose into the crook of her neck. Red pushed his head away as she said, “Stop it. That tickles.” She looked into the wolf’s eyes, the same ice blue eyes Rutgar had in human form. Intelligence lurked behind those eyes. She ran her hand through his light brown fur along his neck. “You can still understand me, can’t you?” The wolf’s head bobbed up and down. “Good to know. Can you please shift back?” It wasn’t as if she feared Rutgar in his wolf form, it was just Red had a lot of questions she needed answered, and as a wolf, he couldn’t provide her with any of them.

  Rutgar gave her a small smile. “You aren’t afraid of me when I go wolf.”

  “No. I know I should be running from you. For some illogical reason I’m not. I know you’re still inside there somewhere. Just count yourself lucky that I’m not allergic to dogs.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “You’re taking the news of me being a werewolf very well I must say. Most mortals find it hard to accept.”

  Red scowled. “Mortals? As in I’m mortal and you are not?”

  Rutgar grabbed her and flopped onto his back as he pulled her on top of him. “This is the conversation I wanted to have before things got out of hand. But given how calm you seem to be about the whole werewolf thing maybe you’ll be just as accepting when I tell you about the other thing.”

  “What other thing?”

  Rutgar put a finger against her lips. “I’ll get to that. First things first. As you saw, I do not need a full moon to make the change. My ability to shape shift isn’t governed by the moon. I carry a spark of magic inside me. I draw on that when I make the shift. All werewolves are born with the magic inside them.”

  “So you weren’t turned by being bitten by another werewolf?”

  “No. I was born a werewolf, just like every other werewolf. You’re either born a werewolf or you’re not. No werewolf can turn a mortal by biting them.”

  “There you go using that word mortal again.”

  “We aren’t exactly immortal, nor are we fully mortal either. We just live for a very, very long time compared to mortals.”

  “Just exactly how long is a very, very long time?” Red asked.

  “Let’s just say my kind can live to be three thousand years old.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Rutgar shook his head. “No. Werewolves live for that long. We also have the ability to heal faster and easier than mortals do.”

  Now Red started to feel a bit weirded out again. She didn’t know if she really wanted to know, but she knew she had to ask. “So if you’ll live to be three thousand years old, how old are you now?”

  “I’m a thousand.”

  Reeling from the fact that she’d slept with a man who had seen the end of the Dark Ages, she said, “Okaaay. You are so way too old for me.”

  He chuckled. “The age difference doesn’t bother me. It isn’t as if I look my age.”

  She had to give him that. He didn’t look a day over thirty. “So is that the other thing you thought I’d be able to accept?” He shook his head. When Rutgar brought his arms up and wrapped them around her waist so she couldn’t move off him even if she had wanted to, Red had a feeling it might not be something she wanted to hear after all.

  “No, it isn’t my age that has me worried. We really should have discussed this before we ended up in my bed. But then you bit my neck when we were outside, and I lost my ability to think except for getting you under me.”

  Red’s gaze skidded across the bite mark she’d left on his skin where his shoulder and neck met. When Rutgar’s body had shaken when she’d dragged her teeth against that spot, she had known it would turn him on. She hadn’t known just how much until she found herself on her back on his bed. Feeling a little bit worried by what Rutgar would say, Red took a deep breath. “So out with it. You know what they say. It hurts less to rip off the bandage than it does to take it off slowly.”

  Rutgar locked gazes with her. “You are my mate, Red.”

  She felt herself relax. “Is that all? So you think we could have a serious relationship, though I don’t know how you could already think that way when we still hardly know each other.”

  “You don’t understand. You are my mate. We mated.”

  Red rolled her eyes. “I already know that. We did have sex.”

  Rutgar made an animalistic growl under his breath. “That is not what I meant. You are my mate, and I am yours. When werewolves take a mate their souls join with their mate’s. Ours joined while we made love. I knew that would happen when I joined my body to yours. I knew you were my mate from the first whiff of your scent.”

  Red stiffened. “You knew that would happen and still you made love to me anyway?” She tried to slide off him, but Rutgar easily held her in place. “Let go. I need a little space right now.” Once he released her, she moved to sit on the bed next to him. She took a couple of deep, calming breaths. She wasn’t going to start freaking out until she got all the info about this mate business. “So we’re mates now. It isn’t as if we’re married or anything.”

  Rutgar sat up next to her and took her hands in his. “Actually, the bond between a mated werewolf pair is far more permanent than a mortal marriage. We won’t be able to stand to be separated from each other for long periods of time without feeling extremely uncomfortable. We’ll miss each other, thinking the worst possible thoughts. If we are apart, when we are together once again the need to make love will be one we won’t be able to ignore. Actually sex will pretty much be on our minds most of the time even if we aren’t separated.”

  Red yanked her hands out of his. She didn’t want him touching her right now. She felt a panic attack coming on. For some stupid reason, she could handle his glowing eyes, his ability to shape shift into a wolf, and the fact he was a werewolf, but the thought of his being her mate, tied to her permanently, made her want to run screaming out of the room. How crazy was that?

  “Let me get this straight,” she said in a strained voice. “We’re basically married with there being no option for divorce. Even though I’m not a werewolf, I’m now tied to one who is a thousand years old, whic
h makes my twenty-four years seem laughable.” Rutgar tried to take her hands again, but she slapped them away.

  He sighed. “I’ve really messed this up. I shouldn’t have kissed you outside before I had a chance to explain all this. With the mating urge riding me, and then when you bit me, all my good intentions flew out of my head.”

  Red gave Rutgar a hard stare. “Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Hindsight is a beautiful thing, but that doesn’t make this any better.” She scooted of the bed and gathered up her clothes off the floor and started to get dressed.

  “What are you doing?” Rutgar asked as he came to stand beside her.

  “I’m leaving. I can’t be with you right now.” She pulled her tank top over her head.

  “Didn’t you listen when I told you we won’t be able to stand to be apart?”

  “Well, we’re just going to have to get used to it. If you have forgotten, I don’t live around here. I live in Toronto. I have a life there that doesn’t include you.”

  Rutgar’s face grew thunderous as he curled his upper lip in a snarl and growled loudly. “You have another man in Toronto?”

  Red felt her quick temper soar to life. She wasn’t called Red only because of the color of her hair. Her temper burned red hot once she became riled, which Rutgar had just done. She poked a finger in the middle of his chest. “How dare you think I would hop into the sack with you while I have a boyfriend back home waiting for me. I’m not some kind of slut who sleeps around with anything that has a dick between his legs.” She poked him again. “That you would even suggest that I would fool around if I were already in a relationship just makes me want to ... to ... I don’t know.”

  Now dressed, Red stomped out of the room and practically ran down the stairs. She’d just reached for the doorknob on the front door when Rutgar suddenly came up behind her and spun her around. She’d had no idea he could move so fast. His eyes glowed as he stared down at her. His upper lip curled slightly as he growled deep inside his chest. Starting to feel some real fear of what he was, Red reacted on gut instinct. Before Rutgar knew what she intended to do, Red lifted her leg so her knee connected with the soft flesh between his legs. As Rutgar went down groaning with his hands cupped over his balls, she yanked opened the door and took off running.

  ———

  Once he could breathe pain free, Rutgar got to his feet. Red was long gone. Damn she had been quick. He hadn’t expected her to pull a dirty trick like that. If he had, he probably wouldn’t have come downstairs naked. Not that his jeans would have offered his poor manhood any better protection.

  He ran his hands through his hair. He’d definitely fucked things up in a massive way. Rutgar had seen the look of real fear in Red’s eyes just before she had nailed him one. The wolf hadn’t liked that she’d run from him. Their mating was too new. The wolf didn’t want Red far from him, nor did the man. Rutgar debated whether or not he should go after Red, but in the end, he figured maybe the long walk back to her campsite, as well as some time away from him, would help Red understand exactly what it meant to be mates.

  Rutgar forced himself to go back upstairs to get dressed. Already he missed Red. He would give her until that evening then he would go to her. Hopefully, they would be able to keep their hands off each other long enough that they wouldn’t give her grandmother an eyeful.

  Chapter Five

  Red set a fast pace as she walked down the road toward the park. Every once in a while, she looked over her shoulder to make sure Rutgar wasn’t roaring up behind her on his motorcycle to take her back to his place. But each time she looked, he was nowhere in sight.

  The farther she walked the more she started to miss Rutgar. It felt as if she hadn’t seen him for days. She shook her head. She had to snap out of it. No way would she go back after what she had done to him. He was probably pissed as hell at her. Not that she could blame him. It had been a pretty low blow on her part. If he hadn’t snarled at her the way he had, she wouldn’t have done it. She would have just turned her back on him and walked out.

  By the time she reached the campsite, Red felt sweaty and out of sorts. Her mind continued to play tricks on her. She couldn’t help but feel something had happened to Rutgar. As she walked up to her grandmother who sat out on a lounge chair reading, she dug her fingernails into her palms to stop herself from turning around and going back the way she had come.

  Her grandmother looked up from her book when Red came to stand next to her. “What are you doing back so early? I thought you were spending the day with Rutgar. You two didn’t have a fight, did you?”

  Red went and sat down at the picnic table across from her grandmother. She ran her hands through her sweaty hair and pulled on it. “Grandma, do you believe that there is that special someone you were destined to be with? And that when you meet you’ll know right from the start that you two were meant to be?”

  Her grandmother’s gaze searched her face. “Of course I do. That’s how I felt when I first met your grandfather. Once I met him, I knew there wouldn’t be another man for me. Is that how you feel about Rutgar?”

  Red yanked on her hair. “Yes. No. I don’t know.” She felt as if she were losing her mind with missing him. It had barely been an hour since she left his place, and she desperately wanted to see him again.

  “Is that why you aren’t with Rutgar? Because you think he may be the one?”

  She let go of her hair and put her hands in her lap. “Maybe. I hardly know the man. I just don’t want to rush into things and end up getting hurt in the end.” In her last relationship, Red had ended up getting burned badly. She’d thought she had loved Oliver, had even agreed to marry him, but that soon ended when she came home early from work one day and found him in bed with another woman.

  Her grandmother gave her a level stare. “I don’t think Rutgar is anything like Oliver.”

  That was an understatement. Oliver had been no taller than her, was brainy and lifted books rather than weights, which had made his cheating on her something she totally wouldn’t have expected of him. Rutgar, on the other hand, was all male. She practically could smell the testosterone wafting off him when around him. He also had a face that would allow him to have any woman he wanted wherever he wanted. But he had willingly tied himself to her. Red knew she was no beauty queen. She still found it hard to believe a man with Rutgar’s looks could possibly want her as his mate.

  She sighed. Even though she couldn’t tell her grandmother everything that had happened between Rutgar and her, Red asked, “I’m really confused, Grandma. What should I do? I think you’re right about Rutgar, but I’m now kind of gun-shy when it comes to men.”

  Her grandmother got up and came to sit next to Red. “What is your heart telling you? Do you love him?”

  Red rolled her eyes. “I just met him, Grandma. I can’t possibly know that yet.”

  “Your heart knows, dear, even if your head doesn’t. And your heart will never lie about something like that. If Rutgar is the one, you’ll know.” Her grandmother got up and moved to sit back on her lounge chair. “I suggest you think about it, preferably while you take another shower.”

  Red gaped at her grandmother. “Are you saying I stink?”

  “Well, you are on the sweaty side. Let’s just say you can use some freshening up.”

  She smiled and shook her head. Feeling a little bit better for having talked to her grandmother, Red went into the tent camper and collected the things she would need to take her second shower of the day. As she walked toward the showers, Red’s thoughts strayed to Rutgar once more. God, how she wanted to be with him. Still not totally sure what she wanted to do about this whole being mated business, she took a cool shower hoping it would help clear her head. By the time she returned to the campsite, Red missed Rutgar so much she felt ready to climb walls. But her pride wouldn’t let her go back to him. He’d been the one to pull this on her without her consent, so he would have to be the one to come to her, preferably on his knees.

  ——�
�

  As the day wore on, Red felt more and more out of sorts. Rutgar hadn’t been kidding when he had told her the separation would be uncomfortable. She’d barely managed to stop herself from snapping at her grandmother for no reason on several occasions. To be honest, she felt as if she were losing her mind, and not in a good way.

  Now early evening, Red sat outside in front of the small bonfire she’d built. Her uneaten supper sat on the picnic table. She’d lost her appetite, well, her appetite for food that is. She hungered for Rutgar’s body. Thoughts of sweaty, naked sex with Rutgar taking her in every position imaginable had stoked a fire inside her body that only seemed to grow hotter as time went by. She was so horny she doubted she would be able to sleep tonight, for the second night in a row.

  At the sound of a motorcycle headed toward their campsite, Red jumped to her feet. Rutgar. It had to be him. A part of her wanted to throw herself in his arms, but another part of her wanted to run from him.

  When her grandmother stuck her head out of the tent camper, Red quickly shouted, “Tell him I’m not here.” She took off at a run and headed into the trees before her grandmother could say anything to stop her.

  Unable to see very well in the dark, Red kept walking until she could no longer see the campsite. The rumble of the motorcycle’s engine cut off, then a second later, the sound of Rutgar bellowing her name echoed through the trees. Red sped up. Maybe if she got deep enough into the bush Rutgar wouldn’t be able to find her.

  One minute she was crashing through the forest and the next strong arms picked her up and crushed her to a very hard male body. Red bit back a whimper of need when she felt the hard length of Rutgar’s cock pressed against her backside.

  He turned her in his arms and slowly let her slide down his hard body before he backed her up against the nearest tree. His eyes glowed eerily as he stared down at her. Rutgar crowded her with his big body as he caged her in against the tree, his hands on either side of her head.

  “Why did you run from me again, Red? All day I’ve felt as if I was slowly losing my mind because I couldn’t be with you. I let you see how bad it can be when mates aren’t together, but I won’t let you do this to me again. You’re mine. I keep what is mine.”