His eyes sparked with something she couldn’t quite read while he folded his arms across his broad chest. “I already have Connor.”
Her nostrils flared. Now he was really starting to piss her off. Again. Still. Continuously.
“Don’t give me that dagger-eyed look,” he went on. “I’m not tryin’ to make this a contest. I don’t have Connor the same way you do. But I do have a bond with him now, a complicated one. And it ain’t goin’ away.”
She fought the urge to hurl her balled-up laundry at him. “I don’t think it’s complicated at all. You’re both gay, but you might have had confused feelings about that until you got together last night. And it’s obvious the two of you share things I don’t have any clue about. Such as the way you get off on pain and hurting people.”
Now it was his turn for a sharp scowl. “What? I don’t get off on that.”
“No? Your dick sure was sure hard when you were getting choked and whipped last night. And when you were trying to force yourself on me.”
He shook his head vehemently. “I told you, I’m sorry for that. It slices me up to think of how that all happened. I ain’t gonna make excuses for it, but I will say I have never, not ever once in my life, treated a woman that way.”
“Save it.”
“No. I won’t save it, cuz it needs to be said even if it don’t change a thing. I’ve never forced anythin’ on a woman. Never had to, darlin’. I ain’t never even chased one. They come to me.”
She glared at him. “You know, your whole approach to apologizing has some major flaws. Am I supposed to be impressed by your ‘women all want me’ speech?”
“No, you’re supposed to understand I would never dream of takin’ what most women freely give me. I wasn’t myself.”
“I hate to break it to your ego, but I’m not most women. And I’m living proof that not all women want you.”
“Yes, you do.”
She averted her eyes from the glimmer in his. “Bullshit.”
“Can’t fool a wolf. We have senses you ain’t close to fathomin’.”
“But not the common sense to know this is the absolute worst direction you could have taken this conversation.”
His smile took her straight off guard. “We ain’t gay, by the way.”
She laughed. “Then we apparently have two vastly different definitions.”
“Now, I know damn good and well you ain’t challengin’ me to prove it. Are you?”
Her laughter faded. “Definitely not.”
“Then just trust me when I say both of us are still vastly attracted to the opposite sex.”
“Trust you? That’s funny.”
“It’s true. Me and Connor, well, our bond is just somethin’ that reaches beyond our natural and still dominant inclinations.”
She lifted her chin. “Bully for you. Congratulations on your magical man-bond.”
He sighed. “Don’t let that jealousy eat at you, Terra.”
“Who said I was jealous? I don’t even know him.”
“I know what he feels for you, even if we hadn’t stayed up talkin’ most of the night. We’re tied close enough now for me to sense him. I understand you’re feelin’ antsy cuz I got there with him first, but there ain’t no way in hell what Connor and I have will be anywhere near perfect until you are a full part of it.”
Her jaw fell open. “Just what are you trying to say? You started off this little wolf-to-heart chat by telling me to leave, remember?”
“And I still want you to leave. You just need to understand why.” He stepped closer, and she reflexively flinched. “He aches for you, Terra. Not just in a sexual way, but in his gut. His soul. You are his mate. And he is yours.”
The words echoed deep inside of her, but she shook her head. “He’s not mine. He’s just some guy I picked up by the side of the road.”
“It was fate. He knew it the minute he laid eyes on you. That’s the way of it for his—our—kind. Now that he’s found you, he won’t want to let go.”
“I already told him I’m leaving. He didn’t try to stop me.” Not in so many words.
“He will.” He set his hands on his hips. “He thinks I’m apologizin’ and then helpin’ convince you to stay. I offered to do it so he wouldn’t make it an order. I can’t consciously betray a direct order, you see.” She didn’t, not entirely.
He stopped and huffed out a sigh. “He’ll come out here soon, offerin’ up his own reasons for you to be with us. He knows that the closer you get to him, the stronger you’ll feel his pull.”
She snorted. “That’s funny, because he keeps holding back on me, whereas with you he seems to feel quite free to take things to a whole new kinky level.”
Nash sighed. “Last night was different. He had to claim me to control my new nature. And he couldn’t claim you while you were gripped by the fever, not without makin’ it worse and causin’ you pain.”
She raised her arms to the sides. “The fever broke, and yet here I am, still all unclaimed.”
The flash in his eyes made her regret the admission.
“Yeah,” he said, “because there’s one problem with Connor’s need to have you. Somethin’ he didn’t plan on when he first realized you were the one meant for him.”
“What’s that?”
“Me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “So, you are trying to take him from me.”
“I thought you said he ain’t yours.”
“You know what I mean.”
“This ain’t about his, hers, and mine. It’s about my whole existence gettin’ jerked upside down right on top of your relationship.”
“How is my relationship with Connor about you?”
His eyes flashed wild. “How is it not? One chance encounter with an injured werewolf, and now I’m the wild card screwin’ up your fateful meetin’. It was my fault, you know.” He glanced at her guiltily. “I stepped right in front of a wolf that was hurt and bein’ chased. What did I expect?”
Nash was drifting off topic again, and she frowned. He caught her expression and shut his eyes for a moment. “I’m so mixed up in the head right now I don’t know what’s up or down.” He grabbed her upper arms. “You’ve already seen it. One moment I’m bawlin’ like an infant, the next I’m thinkin’ how I’d love to shove you against the wall and show you exactly what my role is gonna be in this relationship.”
She pulled away while her stomach somersaulted. “I’ll scream.”
He ignored the threat and moved closer. “The minute after that, I’m wishin’ I could shift and sink my teeth into your shoulder.”
“Connor!” she tried to shout, but Nash was there in a flash to clamp a large hand over her mouth. Her heart pounded in her throat as she stared up at his wild eyes.
“You call him in here now and you will lose your chance to get away,” he said in a low growl that lacked the humanity she hoped to hear right about then.
He held her gaze for a long moment. The gold flecks quivered as though threatening to overtake his eyes the way his animal nature overtook the rest of him. The longer they maintained that contact, the more she felt she might transform into something inadvisably wild as well.
She nodded, and slowly, he pulled his hand away.
“I want to beat my head against the wall,” he went on, as though there had been no lapse in the conversation, “and have Connor chain me up for even thinkin’ these thoughts about the last woman on earth I should treat with less than respect. But the next thing I know, I forget everythin’ and feel a mad urge to jump out the window and chase down one of the mountain critters I can smell and hear skitterin’ around the woods all the way from here.”
He spun on his bare heel and strode to the door, sliding the chain lock off and pulling it open. “That’s why you need to get out of here, Terra. You deserve men who can make love to you as wildly and yet as tenderly as a woman can handle without the risk of one of ’em losin’ control. I’m not someone you should be around.”
&nb
sp; Her heart thudded dully in her chest as she moved toward the door he was holding in a tight grip. “Thank you for being honest about why you don’t want me.”
The gaze he turned on her made her regret the words instantly. “Ain’t you been listenin’? I ain’t tellin’ you to go because I don’t want you, woman. It’s because I want you too damn much. Almost as much as he does.”
When she ducked her head and pushed her way past him through the door, he grabbed her by the upper arm again. “Be careful out there.”
She blinked at the odd comment. “You, too.” She started to turn away, but a thought halted her. “Earlier you said you couldn’t offer me safety because of something that’s coming after you. What’s coming after you?”
“Not what. She.”
“She who?”
“The huntress.” The low rumble in his whisper sent more tingles down her spine than the answer itself.
He hesitated for a moment, and then to her shock, he pulled her to him. Her protest silenced when the back of his finger lightly grazed the outline of her face. She froze when he moved closer, her world narrowing with every inch of his advance until all she could see were his pulse-stirring, green-gold eyes. He pressed a light, barely grazing kiss to her lips. His full mouth lingered there, calm and feather soft, yet somehow hotter than any kiss she’d ever experienced aside from Connor’s. When his tender lips began to slide just perceptibly over hers, a trickle of need ran along her spine and stiffened the bare nipples beneath her sweater. His tongue flicked along her lower lip just as he pulled away, and there was no denying the tingle and wetness spreading between her thighs. Her body responded to Nash, even if she couldn’t.
His eyes were awash in a waxing kaleidoscope of golden flecks when he stepped back through the doorway, running his tongue over his dewy lips as if savoring her taste. “Oh, no,” he said, sarcasm heavy in his hoarse tenor. “You don’t want me at all.”
She stood there, gaping at him.
He gave a harsh chuckle. “Thought so. Best you get out of here now. Before I change my mind.”
Terra hadn’t even found the wit to answer when the door slammed shut in her face hard enough for her to feel the resulting whoosh of air. She startled at the jarring sound and stared at the door for several moments, trying to make sense out of her turbulent thoughts until a ray of sanity shone through. Nash was right about one thing. She had to leave, now.
That her hands were shaking wasn’t evident until she fished the car keys from her pocket and tried to stick them into the lock. After three tries, she slipped behind the wheel and tossed her laundry on the seat beside her. She glanced at her phone, then up at the door to Room 12. She couldn’t sit around and call her folks. Connor or Nash might come out.
She half expected just that when she fired the motor and threw the car in reverse, but nobody charged out after her. Her hands were still shaking, and she didn’t trust herself to call home while she was driving. Instead, Terra pulled just out of the motel driveway and stopped at the curb. From there, she had a clear view of the room, but she was far enough away that she could leave in a cloud of dust if any randy cowboys tried to come after her.
Urgency sped her fumbling fingers over the touchpad even as she realized she hadn’t come up with a viable excuse for her absence. The house phone barely rang once before a panicked voice came on the line.
“Mom?”
“Oh, Jesus, Terra! Where have you been? Are you all right? We’ve been up all night frantic!”
“I’m sorry. I’m fine, Mom. Everything’s fine.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m on my way home right now, after I hang up.”
“Yes, but where are you? Why haven’t you called? I’ve left so many messages. Don’t you know how worried sick we’ve been? You could have been lying somewhere, bleeding to death. The police wouldn’t even do a thing about it until you were missing twenty-four hours. Can you imagine? Twenty-four hours! You’d be dead by then, and nobody would have cared.”
She spit out the last like a steel bar right through Terra’s chest. She understood all too well what haunting memory drove such thoughts through her mother’s hysterical brain.
“I’m really sorry, Mom. I decided to drive up to Shay Falls.”
“What? Way up the mountain? It’s dangerous on those roads.”
A prickling sensation spread along the back of Terra’s neck, along with the feeling she was being watched. Her head whipped around to the motel. No sign of the men. The door and curtains were still closed.
“It was fine until the weather turned bad.” She heard her mother’s gasp, so she quickly added, “I decided right away that the safe thing to do would be to get off the road.”
“The safe thing would have been to not jump in that car and take off yesterday in the middle of your party.”
“I told you, I just needed to get some air. And to think.”
“So you’ve been in your car all this time? Why didn’t you phone us? We’d have come up to get you.”
Terra glanced at the flickering motel sign. “I pulled in at this little place at the turnoff called Inn at the Falls.” She paused. “I would have called, but the phones cut out because of the storm. My cell phone wasn’t getting any signal, either. So I stayed here.”
There was a pause. “You didn’t have money for a motel.”
“I had the emergency credit card, actually.” Then she realized her parents could check for a charge that would never show up. “But the owner took pity on me because I was out alone in the storm, and he let me stay for free. Once I left, I drove to the nearest spot where my cell could get a signal out, and I pulled over to call you. I’m really sorry.”
There. The lie was complete and omitted any mention of hot cowboys, hitchhikers, or sex-crazed wolves. Or the erotic fever that had gripped her hard, then disappeared just as suddenly. No doubt her mother would parade her in front of a long line of doctors for that.
She heard a sigh. “Well, thank God you’re all right. I’m glad you had the sense to come out of the rain, at least. You’re coming home right now?”
That odd instinct came again, the feel of scrutinizing eyes penetrating the back of her head. Yet the motel room that was in view was still quiet. She craned her neck around, and that’s when she spotted the source. A woman stood at the edge of the woods that ran behind the motel, very near the spot where Connor had revealed his impossible secret. Despite an obvious attempt to blend with the scenery in olive drab pants and jacket, her fiery red hair stood out among the woodsy backdrop. So did the dark, calculating stare.
She who?
The huntress.
Terra’s heart began to pound. Could she be the obscure danger Nash claimed was coming? More likely, she was just a hiker on a trip through the woods. Shay Falls was a popular hiking spot, after all. Yes. That was probably it. So why was she standing there like one of the rigid pine trees, staring at Terra?
“Are you listening? Terra?”
Her mother’s words barely registered as her eyes flicked to the motel. Should she go back, warn the men? Hell, what was she thinking? If she went back, Connor might not want her to leave again. But she couldn’t just drive off when she wasn’t certain that woman was a hiker.
“Terra!”
“I’m here, Mom. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I have to go now. I’m driving.”
She hung up and shot another look behind her. The woman was gone. “Just a hiker, like I thought,” she said aloud.
Or had she ducked out of sight to wait for Terra to leave?
She took hold of the gearshift, ready to pull it out of park and get moving. The odd crawling sensation at the back of her neck wouldn’t go away. Nor would the nagging sense that she couldn’t simply drive off and leave the men to an ill fate.
“I’m such an idiot.”
She sighed and punched some buttons on her phone to search up the number for the motel. “Yes, can you connect me to Room 12, please?”
The phone rang and rang in the room, no answer. “Damn it. Where are they?”
They couldn’t have left. She’d have seen them going out the front door, and the bathroom window in the rear was much too small, even in their canine form. She clicked off the call and frowned at the front door. No movement. Another glance at the woods still showed no sign of the woman or anything else unusual.
She was just being paranoid. Or maybe some part of her was looking for an excuse not to leave. Maybe she wasn’t quite ready to return to mundane reality.
She swore and redialed the motel number. “Room 12 again, please. I got disconnected.”
The phone rang five times before she heard a click and a muttered male voice.
“Hi, Nash?”
There was a brief pause. “No. This is Connor, Terra.”
Oh, shit. Connor. She hadn’t really thought about having to deal with him if he answered.
“Hello?” he said again when she didn’t reply.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Where’s ‘here’?”
The sound of his voice tightened around her like a thick band. Or a pair of capable, strong arms.
“Terra? Say somethin’.”
She slapped herself mentally. Maybe Nash was right about Connor’s pull on her. Even just hearing his voice over the phone made it difficult to think. “The woman who’s after you. What does she look like?”
Now it was his turn for a pause. “How do you know about that?”
“Just answer the question. Does she have bright red hair?”
“Where are you?” His tone flared into insistence. “Do you see her? You need to get somewhere safe, now.”
She would take that as a yes. His sharp emphasis on the last word shot her head around to scan the street and motel parking lot. No more sign of the red-haired stranger.
“I just saw her here in the woods behind the motel.”
“You’re still here?”
“I’m out on the street, sitting in my car.”
“Listen to me. Start drivin’. Get the hell out of here. Away from us.”
“But what about you?”
“I’m sorry, Terra. I know Nash told you I was plannin’ to seduce you into stayin’.”
Allister, J. Rose - Displaced Cowboys [Lone Wolves of Shay Falls 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 9
