Spirit of the Wolf

by Vonna Harper

  Bottom line, while trying to determine where the wolf pack had gone, Matt had come across the prints of a monster-sized predator. This couldn’t be. There was no way in hell the prints should exist or make any kind of sense.

  And yet . . .

  She was having trouble breathing. In contrast, Matt, who had turned toward her, was locked away emotionally. At the same time, something in his eyes made her take a backward step.

  “Where are you going?” he asked in that dead voice.

  “Nowhere. Just . . .” She started to pull up her jeans. “I was startled, that’s all.”

  “Hmm.”

  She hated trying to put a label on what was in his eyes, but lying to herself might be more dangerous than facing the truth. Okay, so maybe she was delusional; she wanted to be. But if that wasn’t a predatory glare, she didn’t know what one was.

  Having her waistband back up where it was designed to be restored her self-confidence. A little. But what about the glare, the sense that he wanted to attack her?

  “Matt?” Hoping to pull him back to reality, if he’d indeed distanced himself from it, she’d deliberately spoken his name. Hopefully patting his cheek would speed the journey. “Why haven’t the sheriff and government officials seen those? Did you think they won’t believe you?”

  He gave no indication he heard, prompting her to slide back a few more inches. “They won’t conclude you’re trying to pull a joke on them. This is much too serious for . . . You didn’t, did you?” Please let the too-big prints be a hoax.

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  He was getting to his feet. Behind him, a paw print filled her monitor. Her office was small with barely enough room for two people to be in it at the same time. Yes, that’s what she’d do, walk out of the cramped space and into the larger living room where they’d discuss . . . Hell, what could they possibly talk about?

  “Don’t.”

  She hadn’t started for the other room, but maybe he’d sensed what she had in mind because his hands shot out, clamped on to her still-unzipped jeans, and hauled her to him. Her fingers fisted, she aimed them at his chest, only to stop. She wouldn’t hit him, not yet, not until—

  “What the hell is this about?” She glared at his hold on her. “Damn it, Matt. You came to show me those pictures, not . . . What’s going on?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the paw print. When he faced her, the lack of expression had been replaced by an intensity that made her think of a hunter stalking prey.

  Was the hunter human or animal?

  “Putting your hand next to the prints shook you, didn’t it?”

  Instead of answering, he yanked on her jeans and forced her against his hard and ready cock. She barely had time to start to lift her arms, which meant her forearms were now trapped against his chest. His right arm clamped around her waist. They were too close for her to aim a knee at his groin, something she’d never imagined ever doing.

  “I want you to let me go.” She aimed for the tone she used to get a horse’s attention. “I have students coming in a few minutes. They—”

  “The hell you do.”

  Despite his grip, she managed to free her right arm, only to wonder what good it was now over her head. She tried to grab his hair but failed.

  “I’m not lying. I do have students coming.”

  “But not for a while.”

  Had she told him about today’s schedule? How could she expect clarity as long as his powerful arms all but chained her to him? This close together, his features had blurred. She wondered if his view of her was the same, or if he cared.

  “I’m not going to fight you or try to get away,” she said, not sure she was telling the truth. “We need to talk, Matt. About the oversized prints and your reaction to . . . What’s happening isn’t normal.” She struggled. “You know it isn’t.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  She couldn’t remember when touching his cock hadn’t caused her heart to hammer and her temperature to raise. Right now was different from anything she’d ever experienced, a lifetime away from the man / woman relationship that had kept her in a nearly perpetual state of arousal, and yet . . .

  Damn it, and yet the woman in her was responding to the male in him.

  Hoping that reacting as she had in the past might make an impression on him, she rubbed her belly against him. Her arm was still above her head. Any other time she would have laughed and called for a strategic realignment of body parts.

  This wasn’t any other time.

  “I’m all for spontaneity,” she said. “You know I am. A quickie behind or in the barn, maybe in your truck bed—you’ve caught me off guard; that’s the problem.”

  “Be quiet.”

  This wasn’t happening, absolutely couldn’t be. “What’s going on inside you, Matt?”

  “I . . . don’t know.”

  He’d spoken so softly she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. She was far from the world’s most intuitive when it came to understanding people, but she’d always been able to key in to horses. Now she used that skill to decide what to do next. Contrary to what a lot of people thought, horses were complex creatures. Some responded to a firm hand while others needed a gentle touch. Matt’s hold bordered on the painful. She could either treat like with like or let him believe he held the upper hand.

  He does. Don’t ever for a minute forget that.

  “I’m glad I was there yesterday.” She smiled to reinforce her soft words. “Even with the gore and death, the experience was unique, life in the raw. I’d hate to have missed it. What about you? I imagine you—”

  “You don’t know anything about me!” Even before the words were finished, he shoved her away. She slammed into a wall.

  Stunned, she straightened, whirled, and bolted for the doorway. Where the hell was her cell phone?

  He caught her from behind, circling her waist with both arms and effortlessly pinning hers to her sides. Grunting, he lifted her off her feet. She kicked back at him. Her boot glanced off his leg. Despite her struggles, he easily carried her to the couch and threw her facedown onto it. She tried to plant her hands on the couch in preparation for pushing off it only to have him snag her wrists and pull her arms behind her.

  “You don’t want to be doing this, damn it! Goddamn, you don’t!”

  For all she knew, he didn’t hear a word. Bending her elbows, he pulled her arms higher on her back, crossing her wrists over each other as he did. He released her, but before freedom registered, he closed one large hand over her wrists and anchored them.

  She’d landed with her face on the couch. Desperate for breath, she turned her head to the side. She couldn’t make out his features, not that she wanted to. What if the look in his eyes was inhuman? Driven by the possibility, she fought to free her wrists. Damn his strength!

  “Don’t force yourself on me, Matt,” she hissed. “I’ll never forgive you if you do. It’ll be the end of everything between us.”

  Always before all it had taken was a cautioning word from her and his handling of her gentled. This time, however, there was no apology, no asking what she wanted from him. Nothing of the Matt she thought she knew.

  Head pounding, she stared at his torso. He’d become a chest, waist, belly, hips, cock. Because of the couch, it was as if his legs no longer existed. Neither did his intellect, his mind, his compassion for living things.

  He pulled up on her arms, forcing her breasts deeper into the couch. The strain in her shoulders brought tears to her eyes, and yet would it do any good to tell him? Maybe it would make him even angrier—if indeed that’s what ruled him.

  Sudden male strength and warmth pressed against the insides of her thighs. No doubt what he had in mind, none at all. Whimpering, she clamped her legs together. “Matt, don’t.”

  “No!” He slapped her right buttock. “Don’t fight me.”

  “What do you expect me to do, damn it? Matt, you’re crazy.”

  When he didn�
�t reply, she again wondered if he’d heard. No matter how many ways she spun what was happening, it made no sense. Matt was a sexual creature. Hell, that was his greatest appeal where she was concerned. But he’d never been cruel. Never wanted anything but for her pleasure to equal his.

  What had happened?

  Maybe he knew how much strain he was subjecting her shoulders to because before she could say anything, he stopped drawing them up. Burning relief ran through her, and she nearly thanked him. Then he grabbed the ankle closest to him and yanked it toward him, and the impulse died. Once again she resisted, but he had no trouble pulling the leg off the couch and down, so it now dangled with her boot on the carpet.

  Of course. This way her legs were separated and her crotch within easy reach. Bottom line, he’d splayed her out for his use.

  Her consideration unimportant.

  “I mean it, Matt,” she said, determined not to let panic have the upper hand. “You don’t want to do this.”

  “Yeah, I do. Have to.”

  “Have? What do you mean?”

  He didn’t reply, but instead of pressuring him, she lost herself in what was happening to her body. In ways she did and didn’t want to think about, it no longer belonged to her. He’d taken control. She could either fight or surrender.

  Surrender? Jump flat-footed into the exciting fantasy of becoming some man’s sexual possession?

  Turn today into something incredible?

  A simple touch to the denim over her sex and she went limp. Pressure built against her core and with it came a kind of dummying down of her will and mind. Simply because Matt was rubbing her crotch, she lost touch with the woman she’d been moments ago. Having her waistband loose and the zipper unzipped made it easier for him to touch her deep. Deep and long. Long and full of delicious friction.

  Not wanting to give away her responses, she held her breath as long as she could, but at length it escaped in a gasp. When he gave no indication he’d heard or cared, she gave herself a mental shake. She had to take control. Despite the warning, however, she remained lost. This was no longer her couch, her living room. Somehow Matt had turned it into a foreign place, maybe because he himself had become a stranger.

  A stranger who knew all her triggers.

  One lingering, hot cunt stroke after another stripped her muscles. She stopped trying to lift her head, half believing she was looking at his naked body beneath the practical clothes. He was slightly bent over, giving rise to images of tight thigh muscles. Everything from his ragged breathing to the insistent and knowing hand between her legs screamed that he was aroused.

  How long would he be willing or able to keep his need under wraps? Surely at any moment he’d haul off her jeans and panties and bury his fingers in her sex. The moment he did, she’d be gone. She wouldn’t try to escape or demand an explanation. Propelled and controlled by his commanding fingers, she’d press her body against his and tighten her cunt muscles around those invading fingers. If he tried to pull loose—which she couldn’t imagine him doing—she’d hold on with all her strength.

  Do me, she’d demand. Finish what you started. Forget what I said about not forgiving you.

  Halfway through her silent message, relief spread over her shoulders and at the base of her spine. At first she couldn’t put one and one together. Then she realized he’d released her wrists. One arm now hung over the side of the couch while the other was trapped between the couch back and her side. She should sit up. Gain control of the situation. That’s what the woman she’d always prided herself on being would do.

  Before she could move, however, Matt grabbed her jeans and yanked them down over her hips, pulling her about as he did.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way.” Where were her words coming from? “I can help.”

  “That’s not how I want it.”

  After getting nothing but silence from him for so long, his voice startled her. What was it he’d said, a command maybe?

  The couch felt wonderful. As long as she lay on it like this, she didn’t have to worry about how to sit or stand with her jeans hobbling her. Okay, so her ass was naked. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen it before.

  “How do you want it?” she asked.

  7

  The buzzing in Matt’s head had quieted a little. Either that or he’d become accustomed to the strange sound. He tried to shake it off, only to close his eyes in frustration and surrender. When, finally, he opened them, they focused on the pale feminine form before him. Enthralled, he touched.

  A woman’s buttocks.

  Cat’s.

  How did this happen, and where are your clothes? he wanted to ask, but he sensed he’d done something that demanded an explanation, and he didn’t know what that was.

  Ah, soft and warm flesh.

  Swallowing, he splayed a hand over each ass cheek. His intention, maybe, had been to study the contrast between his tanned and work-scarred hands and her offering to him.

  Was that true? She’d turned her body over to him?

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  The inner buzzing built again, only he was wrong to call it that. A growl was more like it. Or a howl.

  Yes, a howl.

  Something vised his cock; it took all he had not to cry out. Determined not to let the pain overtake him, he clenched her buttocks. She gasped and tried to turn over, prompting him to press down. Yes, the female trapped under him.

  He growled.

  “Shit, Matt, this—”

  Caught in what had claimed his mind, his fingers bit into her pliable flesh and left indentations that touched a half memory. Where had he recently seen similar marks? Not ones left by a human hand but . . . something.

  Shaking his strangely heavy head, he pressed the heels of his hands into Cat’s buttocks until she made a sharp, nonsensical sound. Confused because she wasn’t reacting the way he needed her to, he raked his nails over her flesh.

  Another cry slammed against the battle raging inside him. What he was doing was wrong, and yet right. Necessary. Essential to his survival. His cock fought its prison. Determined to put an end to what caused him more pain than pleasure, he yanked at the jeans’ snap. The zipper sound sliced the silence.

  “Damn you, Matt.”

  Grunting, he lowered his jeans and briefs to free himself and ran his hand between her legs. One and then two fingers touched her sweet, soft, weeping core. That was the truth to her, not her words. Moments ago his muscles had been so taut he thought they might shatter. They loosened now, gentling him a little, not taking him back to the man he used to be but connecting him with something new and good.

  Cat was his mate, his woman.

  Teeth bared, he ran his thumb over her opening. She responded with a long, low whimper. He liked the look of her with her legs held together by her jeans. As long as he did what she wanted, she’d stay like this.

  But what if he pressed her too far? Gave in to the dark impulses? She’d fight, hate him.

  Didn’t matter.

  He ruled her.

  Owned.

  Shaking his head against the darkness nibbling at his mind, he grasped her legs and hauled her on her belly toward the end of the couch. With no plan in mind, he lifted her legs over the armrest. Her arousal swamped his nostrils and slammed into his veins. Panting, he positioned her so the armrest pressed against her crotch and lifted her buttocks. Leaning down, he lapped at her rear opening. Tasted her.

  “Holy shit, Matt. If this is a dream, don’t wake me.”

  No dream. Just something he didn’t understand. Action he had no control over.

  About to drink from her again, he caught sight of his cock. Mesmerized by its length and breadth, he clutched it in his right hand so he could feel its weight. Warm strength flowed through his fingers, encircled his wrists, moved into his forearms.

  “My jeans.” Her voice sounded both uncertain and excited. “Get rid of the damn things. Spread me. Please.”

  Too much to think about. An end to maste
ry when primal impulse drove him. Wishing he could remember how to laugh, he slapped her buttocks with his cock. The resultant jarring spiked through him and tore his mind apart.

  He slapped her again, then positioned himself between her legs as best he could and guided his cock forward. She braced herself on her elbows so she could look back at him. Her arms started to tremble.

  He loved her helplessness.

  Using one hand to guide his cock, he pulled her ass cheeks apart with the other. Holding his breath, he touched his tip to her puckered rear opening.

  “Oh, shit! Matt?”

  Tension? A sign that she didn’t want this? Incapable of asking her, he went in search of her pussy lips. They welcomed him with a heat and wet only his cock fully understood. Arching his back, he pressed.

  “Yes,” she whimpered.

  One word. The only one he wanted to hear.

  Barely aware of what he was doing, he glided his cock over her sex. Making mewling sounds, she scooted closer and struggled to lift her buttocks. Her soft, pale ass cheeks contrasted with her riding-honed thigh muscles. She could ride him until he came close to dying. Hell, she’d done so enough times that thinking about her strength threatened to overwhelm him. However, today she was at his mercy. He in control and she ready, willing, and helpless.

  Her juices coated him, covered him, challenged him to determine where she left off and he began and he entered her.

  She sounded like a bitch in heat, whimpering and growling and the sounds blending into nonsense. When his mouth opened, he thought he might be about to echo her sounds only to nod in acceptance and satisfaction at the deep, low growl rolling out of him.

  “Matt?”

  Matt? Who was that? Some man who had something to do with him, a casual acquaintance maybe, a civilized and responsible human whose mind and body belonged to him alone.

  Who hadn’t heard the wolves howl.

  Greed overtook him. Threw him about. Filled him. Clasping her ass cheeks, he pulled her apart and stared at his nearly buried cock. Her drenched tissues surrounded him. Embraced him. For a moment, he wondered if her sex wanted to eat him, but that couldn’t be and if it was true, he’d show her! Take her down deep into that fiery place with him.