by Caine
“Wait.”
Her hand froze on the handle and her look froze on him. As he held her eyes with his own, a long, thick finger, one she hadn’t yet tasted, was pointing at her with an air of authority that suggested that she should do as he said due to some danger or other situation that he needed to take care of before she got out of the truck.
Chloe let her hand rest in her lap and watched him close his door. As she waited for some signal or word that it was all right for her to get out, she quickly surveyed the yard in hopes of spotting the wolf or rabid dog or killer possum from which he was protecting her. It was very quiet and extremely dark in the cab of the truck and Chloe felt goose flesh begin to pucker as the heat disappeared quickly once the engine was off. She leaned forward, not having seen where Caine had gone, but found nothing.
Her door opened so quickly that she gasped and jumped as he offered his hand to her. The smile of amusement that lit his eyes over his startling her with his simple act of manners made Chloe have to stare at him for a moment before she could get her feet and her own hands to work. When she finally did manage to get her hand to reach for him, the strength with which he urged her to the ground made her own coordination or facilities unnecessary. He hadn’t jerked or pulled at her, but instead had somewhat gathered her out of the truck and pulled her very close to his side before he closed her door. As if he had somehow known how sore and stiff she was.
“You can’t wander around alone out here, Chloe.”
The grip of his hand on her side had been reaffirmed as he spoke the words. His look told her not to argue with him.
For her own sake.
Chloe was confused. “Caine this is the woods, for God’s sake! And if there is one place in which I’m comfortable, it’s miles away from civilization and telephones and T.V. Really, I’d think that by your knowing my profession, you’d have some idea of my abilities and familiarity with animals,” she teased. She ignored the look he was giving her and stood her ground instead. “Caine, I am not stupid and I’m not some city girl who needs to be put on a leash.”
For some reason, perhaps the intensity with which his eyes bored into her, Chloe suspected that it wasn’t any run of the mill four-legged beast that Caine was worried about.
Something in her gut told her she was right in this assumption, but the researcher in her craved in-depth information and proof. And the woman in her knew exactly how to extract said information from a man such as Caine appeared to be. As they crossed the yard, she somehow managed to pull her hand out of his, causing him to stop and turn to face her.
“I can take care of myself, Caine.”
His newest look was annoyed but not angry as he reached for her hand again. When she quickly jerked her fingers out of his reach, the look changed colors.
“Chloe.”
That was all he said. Just her name. But the tone and the look that accompanied it made Chloe feel as if she was seven years old again and her daddy had just scolded her for trying his patience.
The Freudian in her had always loved that tone.
She crossed her arms on her chest and stared back at him. Questioning him silently as to who the hell he thought he was. His face didn’t tell her a thing except how angry he was with her having defied him.
He breathed out long and frustrated and moved closer to her, causing her to unconsciously step back. She immediately and silently cursed herself for letting the action seem to intimidate her. Her being a worthy opponent against him would most likely be a major turn on for a man like Caine. Chloe raised her head and squared her shoulders as she continued to meet his gaze.
She watched his eyes soften just a bit as he looked at her.
“Chloe, please.”
That tone. And that word again.
The man’s similarities to another beast she knew seemed endless.
His hand reached for hers again, but waited just inches from her fingers for her to take it. Chloe kept her arms crossed and looked down at the fingers that she wanted everywhere all at once on her body.
Just as soon as she taught him who really was the boss.
She began to let her mind play with the concepts in his novels as she made him wait for her decision. The fear that his human wolf hybrids held for the alpha’s wrath were they to disobey him was definitely exciting to her. As was the idea of the females’ helplessness against such strength. But standing next to the man who had created such fables and myths in his head made Chloe consider another possible message that she and many others may have missed in his works.
The true power in the struggle to mate and breed, it could be argued, was held not in the one pursuing, but in the pursued. Chloe felt exactly that kind of power the moment he lowered his voice and asked her to obey him. It occurred to her that even though the male of any animal can indeed use force on his mate, if it wasn’t for the object of his desire, he would feel no need to pursue.
Chloe grinned seductively and knowingly at the creature in front of her without reaching for his hand. The one she was somehow controlling simply because she was a member of the weaker sex.
“Did you fucking get lost?”
The voice was sexy and deep and the words had been growled in a resonance that made Chloe’s nipples hard.
Again.
And very much against her will.
Luke Caine stood looking down at them from the top step of the porch. Legs planted shoulder width apart and hands crossed even more defiantly than hers had been.
Caine turned to face his twin and Chloe stared silently at the two beautiful men in front of her.
God damn.
Chloe was scared and excited all at the same time and freezing to death and for some ungodly reason as she stood there, she felt very much like an expensive entree.
Between two equally ravenous men.
“She wasn’t sleeping fully dressed, Luke.”
Chloe felt the brush of rough, demanding fingers on her skin. They dragged themselves down her neck and grasped at her breasts on their way down to her sore, aching pussy. He didn’t care that she was hurting. She could see it very plainly on his face. Luke would hurt her even more if the urge arose in him and her cries would not be of delightful pain this time. And he didn’t care that she was hurt because he hadn’t felt what she did. Chloe’s heart had found all of this simply from the look he was using on her.
Apparently, his soft side wasn’t something that stuck around for very long.
“I know how she sleeps, Caine.”
If the mutual attraction between her and Caine had been a being, real and tangible, then the entity that circled around her now and seethed from and between these two men was screaming for her to take notice of its duality in rage and love. And the statement Luke Caine had just made sank its razor sharp teeth into her throat and started to bleed her with the regret it made her feel.
He was angry again. As he had been the first time she’d tried to make love to him. But this time, she considered that his anger was being provoked by the activities that he had instigated and allowed to take place. She also considered that he might be angry seeing her with Caine, but that wasn’t the vibration she was receiving from the man in front of her.
She wanted to see something in his eyes that told her that he had felt at least a mild affection for her or that he had felt at least a hint of the bond to her that she had to him. But Chloe found nothing of the sort in his gaze. In fact, judging from the look Luke used on her as she stepped closer to Caine, she would have thought that the man had never even made love to her.
She tried to shake off her confusion and hurt over Luke’s coldness. It didn’t seem to work. Caine ascended the first step of the porch and then stopped to turn and look for her. Chloe quickened her step and caught up with him, her eyes never leaving the scarred face of his brother.
“Hello, Luke.”
Caine stopped when she spoke to his brother. Chloe managed to stand her ground when Luke moved closer to her and leaned forward.
She could swear that the man drew in a breath of her scent.
Luke Caine didn’t care about her. This was obvious in his eyes. Besides, Chloe knew that had he cared, he would have stayed by her side for at least a little while earlier that night. And it would have been he who had come to get her in the middle of the night and not his brother whom she had never met. But he didn’t care about her. It didn’t even faze him when Chloe backed away from him to stand closer to his twin.
His lack of fondness for her hurt her more than anything he could have done to her body. Physical pain, Chloe could take. Even enjoy from the right man.
But the emotional pain that came from finding that a man who had been inside her body had felt and continued to feel nothing for her was the kind she had never wanted. Luke Caine had lied to her. His actions and his attitude while he’d made love to her had deceived her once again.
Or more accurately, she suspected, Luke had lied about how he felt when he’d fucked her. And her first impression of him, when Chloe had deemed him unfeeling and wrong for her, had been much closer to the truth.
To be honest, Chloe wasn’t sure if she should ever listen to another feeling or vibration she got from a Caine man. Even the one reaching so protectively for her now.
As if she did indeed have a choice in the matter.
The fingertips weren’t demanding, but neither were they compromising this time. Chloe wouldn’t or couldn’t take her eyes off of the beautiful, damaged man in front of her. The one who would never know how badly he had hurt her heart with a single encounter.
Her hand slid itself into Caine’s.
* * * * *
“He’s burning up.”
Caine gripped Chloe’s hand tightly as he listened to Luke’s words and led them into the living room where Lee was sleeping. He lay on top of the blankets on the couch, still very much in wolf form, his panting and quivering body obviously in worse shape than it had been before Caine had left to get Chloe. Had he known how ill Lee would be when they returned, he wouldn’t have taken the time to stop the truck and try to warm Chloe up to him and to the idea that it had been he who was responsible for her aches and pains.
Well, he suspected he wouldn’t have taken as much time to do it, at least.
“Was he on any kind of medication before he showed up at my house?” Chloe asked as she looked over his body. “Antibiotics? Worm medicine?”
Caine shook his head and watched Chloe kneel by the bed and pry his brother’s jaws open with her fingers. She inspected his gums and throat before glancing up quickly and then reaching for Lee’s jugular to find his pulse. Caine watched Chloe stroke his brother’s muzzle with one hand as she counted the beats of his heart with the other.
“He is hot,” she nodded. “And his pulse is high and irregular.”
Luke was pacing. Nervous. Caine could sense his twin’s frustration. Some of it stemmed from his worry over Lee’s feeling so unwell. But most of it came from his excitement over what he had promised Luke he could do to the next bitch Caine mounted.
It didn’t help matters that the arousal Caine had sparked in Chloe while he drove her to his den was as strong as the smell of her fertility. She had become only slightly aroused at his teasing comment about biting her. But as they had allowed their banter to continue, Caine had been well aware of the way in which her body grew more and more aroused and wet. Evidently aroused enough to make her need to please herself. As Caine had taken her hand to lead her into the house, Caine had found the delicious scent of her pussy transferred from her fingers to his.
He understood his twin’s frustration. Caine wanted to fuck her again as badly as Luke did. Especially since he’d failed to impregnate her the first time. The wolf in him needed it. And now his desire to mount her wasn’t because he simply wanted to breed or because he needed to sire an alpha.
The still potent, dripping smell of her unfertilized womb was most likely the largest thing that was driving his brother into such a frenzy.
Luke wasn’t going to be easily satisfied tonight. Caine could tell by the way his brother’s body was moving. Stalking. He was watching Chloe’s body. Studying her shape and form and weight and size to determine the best way in which to mount her.
And Luke wouldn’t try and seduce her. He wouldn’t try to convince the woman that there was any kind of chemistry between them or any kind of human lust or attraction. To do such a thing was a waste of time in Luke’s opinion. And it would be doubly true tonight with his body so full of need and brutality and with the promise Caine had made encouraging his excitement.
“I need a thermometer,” she motioned to either of the men. She snapped her fingers when neither of them moved.
Caine looked at Luke and then watched his brother leave the room and come back before Chloe could snap those fingers again. And he wondered which of them Luke had just taken his order from.
Caine and Luke shared a look and a moment of masculine and brotherly compassion that neither of them knew they still had as Chloe lifted Lee’s tail and inserted the thermometer. Nothing had ever pulled the two men together like their youngest sibling. The two silently cringed for their third party but made their faces stoic when Chloe sat still and looked back at them.
“He’s definitely too hot,” she nodded as she waited for Lee’s temperature to register. “Are you sure he didn’t have anything else in his system? Heartworm medication? Anything for fleas?”
“Tylenol.”
“You gave him Tylenol!?”
Caine punched Luke with the look he gave him. “No, Luke, it was aspirin.” Caine raised his eyebrows and nodded to his brother. “Dogs can’t take Tylenol.”
Luke looked away and nodded. Caine watched his twin begin to pace again. And study Chloe even more closely as he did.
Chloe was looking back and forth between the two of them. Puzzled. Distrusting. And still holding that damned thermometer in Lee’s poor ass.
“Isn’t that thing about done?” Caine asked and then winced when she pulled it out and wiped it off with a tissue.
Chloe eyed the reading and then reached for Lee’s face again. “What did you give him aspirin for?”
“He had a headache.”
Caine wished Luke would have hit him for that one. But Luke’s look of satisfaction over Caine’s slip of the tongue was just as painful.
Chloe was completely at a loss now, judging from her expression. “Well, how did you know…”
Caine motioned to his mouth. “He acted like a tooth hurt. Or his ear,” he made a sweeping motion with his fingers trying to indicate something in the headache-worthy area. When Chloe’s look screamed her confusion, Caine shut his mouth and almost decided to let his brother have the bitch out and out. Caine sure as hell couldn’t seem to keep up with the lies and illusions necessary to seduce her into willingly breeding with him.
“Let’s get him to the tub,” Chloe stated as she stood up and looked back down at Lee. “He’s too hot and I don’t have what I need to bring his fever down.” Caine stared at the worried look on her face as he and Luke both went to pick up their baby brother. Luke got to him first.
Chloe followed them to the bathroom and then studied the tub while she spoke. “Normally, he’d get an injection of Novin, but that’s not something I keep on hand. Guys, I need as much ice as you can get. I don’t want him to have a seizure.” She turned to Caine and raised her eyebrows at him to urge him to move more quickly when she requested something be done. By the time he and his brother got into the kitchen, Caine was beginning to wonder who he had just taken an order from.
“I’m not backing down this time, Caine.”
Luke’s words were very clear and had delved even more deeply into the hateful grumble that he usually let control his tongue. Only around Lee, and Meagan when she had been alive, did Luke let his softer, human side show. As Caine reached for the door to the garage where the deep freezer was kept, he stopped with his hand on the knob and turned to his brother. But Luk
e’s anger and need dominated the air between them.
“You’ve had your fun, Caine.” Luke grinned and patted Caine on the back. “And from the way the bitch is walking, I’d say you gave it your best shot, little brother.”
Caine felt his canines begin to descend in his mouth. Luke’s tone and words were challenging him and the alpha blood in Caine didn’t take such threats lightly. Nor did he take trespassing on his territory without serious offense.
And Chloe Evans had been marked as Caine’s property now.
“I make the calls in this family, Luke. Not you.”
Luke growled in response, even as Caine’s voice had warned his subordinate brother about such defiance. Luke’s own growl was low and unthreatening, but it was his own warning, nonetheless. The wolf in Luke was controlling his body as well as his desire, but the man in him was running his temper and his bullheadedness. He knew better than to buck Caine so openly. At least the animal in him did. Which could only mean one thing to Caine.
His brother’s defiance was personal.
It made Caine wonder if it had been personal the first time Luke had defied his rules. And for a brief moment, it made Caine very afraid for the woman he had brought into his den.
“She’s still ovulating.” Luke’s temper was now under perfect control, but his eyes were glassy and his pupils dilated. Luke’s cock was hard, straining the denim that covered it. Almost as hard as Caine’s own cock.
“I know you can still smell it.” Luke nodded and leaned closer to his brother. Caine could see the calm of his twin when they agreed on something. It was a rare occasion since Caine had married, but it did happen. Luke was telling him with his body language and his obvious arousal and his desire for his twin to share in his arousal that they should agree on something tonight. Because they had agreed on something.
