Wild Temptations

by Renee Carr

  To say I was worried about him would be an understatement. I just didn’t understand why he was having so much pain. After picking up the plate, I put my hand on his shoulder, steering his wheelchair with the other. Every time I touched him, my body felt on fire. It wasn’t a fever, it wasn’t a virus or a disease. It was passion. It was lust. It was everything I thought I would never feel again.

  9

  Christian

  Normally, someone helping me to even get from a wheelchair to a bed would be embarrassing, but somehow with the way that Libby treated me, I wasn’t embarrassed by it at all. In fact, I was pretty enamored by how caring and understanding she was with me. She did everything with the tenderness and the sweetness that I hadn’t seen in anyone since my mother was alive.

  As I lowered myself down onto the bed, I watched as she pulled the covers up to my waist. I smiled at her. Reaching out and taking her hand, I kissed the back of it. As I released it, I immediately regretted it. I didn’t want her to leave. There was just something about her, something that made me want to almost beg her to stay. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was surging from everything in me. As she straightened out the sheets, I reached up and brushed my hand across her cheek. As if she were thinking the same thing, she immediately melted into it. Closing her eyes, she took in the warmth of my hand against her skin.

  “Will you stay for a little while?” I whispered to her. “Just lie with me for a bit.”

  Her eyes opened and she stared at me, her lips curled up in a small smile. She nodded her head and slipped off her shoes, climbing in under the covers. I put my arm out and she rested her head on it as I stayed on my side, watching her talk. “I could remember having sleepovers here, but it looks completely different. When my father disappeared, I renovated this place. My mother said it was a way for me to grieve, but in reality, it was the only way that I felt I could breathe. Everywhere I went reminded me of him.”

  I put my finger under her chin and turned her head toward mine. Scooting down, I faced her and turned her toward me. Suddenly nothing in my body hurt. Everything about her drew me in, and I found myself completely consumed. I breathed in her scent, felt the warmth of her skin on mine, felt the softness of her cheeks against my fingers. Leaning forward, I carefully pressed my lips against hers. I wasn’t sure if she would reject me or not, but as soon as we touched, there was no way that either of us was going to let go.

  Almost immediately, she leaned into my kiss. I pulled her closer and felt her hands smooth over my stomach. My other hand came down and caressed her leg, moving over to her thigh and rubbing circles around her skin. She breathed heavily into me. When our lips finally parted, she leaned back, staring into my eyes. Her fingers moved down her dress, taking one button at a time until all of them were undone. I opened up her dress and ran my lips over the heaving tops of her breasts, feeling her chest moving up and down with deeper and more needy breaths.

  As my fingers caressed her skin, reaching behind her back and unclasping her bra, she untied the string at the top of my pants and pulled them down my legs. She sat up, letting her dress fall off, and tossed her bra to the side. In the caring mode she was constantly in, she attempted to push me down, but I had never felt stronger.

  “You have done nothing but take care of me; let me return the favor,” I whispered, laying her down.

  Moving in front of her, I gripped her black, satin panties and tugged them off, pulling her legs open to each side of me. I dove down between her quivering thighs, running my tongue through her beautiful mound. She was sweet and luscious and I could hear the moans escaping her chest as I pleasured her softly and slowly.

  Reaching down between her knees, she pulled on my face, pulling me up to her lips. I kissed her deeply, running my tongue against hers. Her erect nipples grazed my skin as she pulled my shirt off and tugged at my boxer briefs. As I pulled them from my body, I kissed her deeply, letting my strong, solid manhood spill out, slapping against her stomach. With a gasp, she reached down and wrapped her fingers around it, slowly stroking it up and down. I groaned, rolling my eyes as I felt her amazing touch sink right to the core of me.

  After a few moments, she pulled me down, guiding me between her legs. I rubbed my shaft through her wetness before slowly pushing just slightly into her. When I opened my eyes, I stared down into hers and growled loudly. Just one look into those beautiful eyes made it impossible to hold back. She put one hand on my shoulder and lifted her top half up, staring deeply at me as I began to thrust.

  Our bodies moved in perfect sync, thrusting forward and back as we made deep and strong love right there, in between the sheets. Her head fell back as she moaned loudly, only arousing me even more.

  “Yes!” she screamed. “Faster.”

  With a deep, animalistic growl, I pushed my hips toward her, rolling over her clit as I plunged deep inside. Her breath grew heavier and heavier until she exploded, orgasming with passion. As her body clamped down on my raging hard cock, I groaned, gripping her ass tightly and shoving myself even deeper inside of her. We came at the same time, riding the waves of ecstasy. It was the most intense orgasm I had ever had, and I found myself groaning right along with her chorus of screams.

  As the muscles in our bodies began to release, I laid her gently down on the bed and turned over on my back, breathing heavily. I felt strong and manly, even as my arousal faded. In fact, I felt stronger and more feral than I had ever felt before. I wanted to say it was the testosterone, but she did something to me. Between the wolf in my dreams and the woman in my bed, I felt like I could go again, and again. But the need to hold her in my arms kept me from attacking.

  Turning over on my side, I pulled her into me and covered us up. She wrapped her hands around my arms and sunk down as close to me as she could get. “I don’t know why, but I feel like that was always destined to happen.”

  I glanced down at her shiny hair. “I have to say I would agree with that. I don’t know why, but even after just the first time meeting you, you’ve been in my dreams. It’s been strange. It’s like you’re the common factor in my dream. You just stand there, with your hand out, and all the anxiety and fear that’s inside of me goes away. But you’re not the only one in my dreams.”

  She tilted her head back and lifted an eyebrow. “If this is your way of already asking for a threesome, I’m going to have to stop you right there.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “No, that’s not what I meant. When I dream about you, there’s also a wolf in my dreams. He talks to me. He tells me that everything is going to be okay. He tells me not to be afraid. He tells me that changes are coming but that he will be there for me. I can’t see him talking—he’s a wolf. But it’s like he has a human voice that I can only hear in my head. And when I start to get really anxious and nervous, I look up and you’re standing there, and immediately I feel better.”

  “I…” She was trying to say something and was struggling to get the words out, which I thought was strange. “There’s just so many things that could be part of that. It’s… well, I guess it could be posttraumatic stress disorder. You were attacked by a wolf, and now you’re finding that wolf is coming off to you as a human entity. It seems like it’s almost sorry for biting you. Maybe that’s the way you’re dealing with that fear. I don’t know, though, I’m not a psychiatrist. I think maybe it’s something you should bring up with the doctor when you see him.”

  I kissed her on the cheek and smiled. “I will do that. I’m going to go get some water, while I feel the energy to do so. You stay right here.”

  She nodded and smiled, this time not even questioning it. I got out of the bed, feeling stronger than ever. I wondered if it had anything to do with the adrenaline, or maybe it was just her. Maybe she was healing everything, from my insides out.

  10

  Libby

  I lay there, very still, nervous about what Christian had just said. Normally, in his condition, I would’ve made him stay where he was and gotten him his w
ater for him, but the words that he had just spoken froze me right there in the bed. I could hear him walking around, sounding jubilant and cheerful, and I wanted to feel the same way. I wanted so badly to think of this as something beautiful and amazing that had happened to me, but there were so many questions. There were so many things that I just didn’t understand. The dreams that he explained to me, they sounded exactly like mine. How could two people, from two different places, have the exact same dreams?

  Life had been fickle for me. The disappearance of my father, the injury of my mother, and just life in general. Until Christian had suddenly come into my life, I hadn’t really thought about a relationship with anyone. I had far too many things on my plate, taking care of my mother, and still dealing with the day-to-day questions when it came to what happened to my father. In all honesty, there hadn’t been a lot of room for anyone else, and the things that I experienced on a daily basis weren’t really things that I could share with someone else without looking completely insane. But with Christian, with the things that he was experiencing, and the way that he handled me, I almost felt at ease. That just brought on a whole new realm of questions. What did it all mean? Was he meant to be in my life? Was this a connection to my missing father? Or did all of these things, the eyes in the dark, the wolves, were they just mere coincidences that stacked up over the years?

  Everything in me wanted answers to the questions, but I couldn’t just ask them outright. Most likely, Christian didn’t understand any more than I did. Still, I needed to at least find out what he was seeing and what he was experiencing. Only then could I start to draw conclusions from the two things that were happening to us.

  Apprehensively, I sat up in the bed and pulled the sheets up around my chest. “Can I ask you a question, or a couple of questions?”

  “Sure,” he replied excitedly from the other room.

  Looking down at my hands, I filtered through the ideas floating through my mind. I didn’t want to bombard him with a ton of questions, so I wanted to make sure that the ones that I asked were poignant and important. “The wolf in your dream, what did it look like?”

  There was a small silence before he answered. “It was the same wolf that I saw the day I was bitten, only it was no longer scared and injured. It was vibrant and healthy with long, shimmering hair, with specks of gray throughout it. It had kind, human eyes, golden ones. There was no threat, or at least that’s what it made me feel like, or makes me feel like in my dreams. Even when I saw the real wolf, and it bit me, I didn’t feel like it wanted to bite me, if that makes any sense. I just felt like it was scared.”

  “But in your dreams, it talks to you, right?” I asked, leaning forward.

  I waited for the answer, and it felt like he was taking centuries. Maybe asking him questions was not the right thing to do. Maybe I was making him nervous. “If you don’t want to answer them, I understand. I just…”

  From the other room I heard a crash, glass breaking, and then a thud on the floor. I gasped and leaned forward, seeing Christian’s hand hit the ground. Quickly, I jumped out of the bed and grabbed a T-shirt, pulling it over my head. As I rounded the corner, I gripped my chest and came to a stop. My eyes were wide and my mouth fell open.

  On the floor in front of me, Christian was on all fours, breathing heavily, his shoulder blades sticking oddly out, and his body seeming to contort and twist. “Christian?”

  Christian’s head looked up, but in place of his kind and sweet eyes were the deep yellow ones that I had seen in the hospital a few days before. His mouth was open as he breathed heavily, and I could see fangs forming where his perfectly aligned teeth once were. I gasped and jumped back, terrified of what was happening. As I watched him, his body moving in ungodly ways, fur began to pop up all over him and his body expanded, ripping through the clothes he had put on to walk out to get water.

  I didn’t understand what was happening to him. One minute, he was fine, and now this. It was like something from a nightmare, only it was just me and him, and I had no idea whether I was supposed to run or help him. While his body looked terrifying and his teeth were snarling and angry, his eyes were kind. Even through the golden glow that came from them, I could see Christian’s soul. I didn’t want to run. Something inside of me was telling me to stay right there and help him if I possibly could. But what could I do? I didn’t even know what was happening to him.

  Suddenly his body jerked and he let out a mangled whine that forced my hands up over my ears. His body collapsed to the ground, and as he stood back up, he was no longer the human that had just left my bed—he was now a wolf. The fur ruffled down his back, and his eyes shifted back and forth throughout the apartment. As his feet moved nervously in place, his sharp, taloned toenails tapped against the tiled floor. He took a few steps right, stumbling on his legs as if he were moving them for the first time. He stopped and moved left, the joints in his legs buckling slightly. He looked like a foal just born from its mother, beginning to grasp the idea of gravity and movement.

  My breath began to increase, and as if he could sense it, his head snapped up and his lip curled. I moved back, grasping onto the front of my T-shirt, my bare feet touching the floor, feeling the water that had pooled where he had dropped his glass. I was terrified—terrified of this beast that I had never seen before, terrified of what it would do to me, and terrified of the fact that I had no idea where I would go or what I was supposed to do. If I ran to the house, I was putting my mother in danger. If I stayed put, there was a chance that it could attack me, and while it was new and curious, I was far too weak to fight it off. Wolves were enormous creatures to begin with, and this one, the one that took over Christian’s manly body, was larger than anything I had seen before.

  “Please,” I whimpered, putting out my hand. “It’s me. It’s me, Libby. Please, bring Christian back.”

  I didn’t know if it understood me or not, but I was terrified to look at it. I backed up again and heard a low, grumbling growl from its chest. That stopped me in my place and tears began to well up in my eyes. My knees buckled and I fell to the floor, my voice no longer stout and strong. I was full of fear, full of the unknown.

  Closing my eyes for just a moment, I could see the same eyes looking back at me from the forest. I could hear the voice that I’d heard in my dreams so many times. Everything will be okay. Everything will be okay. The voice suddenly felt familiar to me, as if I had heard it before, but how could that be? Feeling the bravery that the voice gave me, I slowly looked up, finding that the wolf had moved closer to me.

  I thought that my first reaction would be to cower, but instead I locked eyes with it. I had never seen anything like the wolf before, but its eyes were different. Its golden eyes shimmering underneath the dimmed lights immediately calmed my fears. I didn’t understand why, or how, but suddenly I realized that the wolf was not going to hurt me. I realized that it was far more frightened than I could ever be.

  More than that, I realized that behind those golden eyes, beneath the furry, twisted body, was the man that I had already started to fall in love with. Christian was there, and I could see the look on his face, hear it in the whimpers that came from its large hollow chest. Christian was there with me, and there was no way that this wolf was going to hurt me. I wasn’t sure whether to trust my instinct or not, but I really didn’t have a choice at that point. I was down and I wouldn’t be able to run.

  I pulled myself up on my knees and stared at the wolf for several moments as it stared back at me. Very slowly, it took a seat, watching every movement that I made, every heave of my chest, and every twitch of my fingers. Its legs shook beneath it as if its muscles weren’t strong enough to hold it. Suddenly a feeling of love came over me, of pity or empathy toward the creature. There was a familiarity between the two of us, and the only thing I could think was that it was Christian deep down inside. And though I didn’t know how much of Christian was left in there, or if he would ever come back, I couldn’t give up hope that he was
the one communicating with me through the beautiful wolf.

  Very slowly, and with care, I began to reach my hand out toward the wolf. At first, it flinched, its face twitching as if it were going to snarl and growl again. I stopped, holding my hand midway, not moving. When its muscles relaxed once more, I continued until my hand was completely outstretched, just inches from its snout.

  “It’s all right,” I said with a voice much calmer than I thought it would sound. “I won’t hurt you. I know that you are in there, Christian, and I won’t hurt you. I think I’ve known for a long time, but I didn’t want to believe that it was true. Whoever you are, however this happened, we are connected somehow. If you can hear me, remember your dreams. Remember the calming that I have over you. Remember that I am your friend.”

  I could see the wolf’s nose vibrate, sniffing me and taking in my scent. Very cautiously, it leaned its head forward and allowed my hand to rest on its snout. I could feel the softness of its fur beneath my fingers and I stroked him, up the nose and over the top of the head. I moved very slowly, not wanting to frighten him in any way.

  After a few moments, when my shoulders had loosened and his resolve had been established, he very carefully stumbled over to me and laid his head down on the floor right in front of me. I looked at him lovingly as I ran my fingers through his fur, feeling the sadness within him, feeling the fear that he was feeling. It was almost as if we were connected.

  11

  Christian

  Everything hurt. Everything was fuzzy. Everything was so confusing.

  There I was, heaving on the floor, feeling every inch of my body twisting and turning. I didn’t know where to turn or what to do, and the only thing I could do was stand there and let it happen. I could see the way my hands mangled and moved, could hear the way that I growled and snarled. The sounds that came from me, I couldn’t control. Every muscle in me, every bone, every vein, twisted and turned inside my body. With every movement of my legs and every shift of my back, it felt like my bones were breaking inside of me.