Spirit of the Wolf

by Vonna Harper

  Another touch to her sex, this one by his cock, emptied her lungs and bowed her back. She was a bitch, a bitch in heat. Coating her man’s cock in proof of her readiness for penetration.

  Reaching under her, he claimed a breast. “You know what I want. Same thing you do, right?”

  “Yes.” Damn you.

  His hold tightened. “Now, right? Nothing held back?”

  You know me too well. That’s the hell of it. Tears burned as she lowered herself onto her forearms and presented herself to him. This morning she’d been Cat, horse trainer. Now she was an animal.

  Matt’s bitch.

  He’d let go of her breast while she was preparing herself for him. Familiar pressure against her opening filled her mind’s eye with an image of Matt aiming his cock via a practiced hand. Instead of the harsh invasion she expected, however, he played with her by repeatedly rubbing his cock head from side to side and up and down. Not once did the union of cock and pussy break. Juices gushed from her. Her temple pounded; her breasts ached.

  “Damn you. Do it!”

  A growl layered over her outburst. Her heart hammering, she tried to look back at him only to nearly lose her balance as he rammed home.

  Her inner tissues stretched, distancing her from everything else. Then her sex settled around what was both familiar and new. Fresh tears dampened her lashes.

  Matt belonged here. In her. No matter what had taken place over the past few days, this was right. Perfect. What their relationship had been about. Lifting her head so she could fill her lungs, she tightened her muscles around him. Maybe he didn’t know, maybe it didn’t matter to him, but shortly after that first night with him, she’d started practicing with her inner muscles until she could clench them one section at a time in a wavelike action. Doing so fueled her, and she had to work slowly and methodically to keep her climax under wraps.

  She didn’t always succeed.

  “Damn you.” Matt slapped her right buttock and then her left. “Not so—Damn you.”

  Good! He wasn’t as in control as she’d thought. Ignoring the sting and thrill of his repeated slaps, she tightened and released, tightened again. Energy filled her. Could she hold back until he climaxed? Throw him over the edge and then take her own sweet time while he struggled to become sane again.

  Not love between them. Far from that. Something wild instead, a road she’d never taken. Her thoughts bouncing, she captured a mental image of them. He loomed over her, against her, staring at her ass. Because he still held her cheeks apart, even in the poor light, he’d have no trouble seeing her butthole.

  How romantic. How glamorous.

  How damn unimportant.

  Joy rolled through her, touching off a long, low whimper. She tried to continue her assault, but every time she started to send a message to her muscles, he shoved into her. Screaming heat tore at her nerves. She was falling apart. About to rip in two.

  Matt repeatedly buried himself so she was hard-pressed to keep her face off the hay. There was so much to do, so many things to try to concentrate on. What mattered most, commanding him or drowning in her impending explosion?

  “You’re mine! Mine.” He hammered into her. “Belong to me.”

  Yes, that and more. Now.

  “I ran you down. Brought you in here.” A long, strained hiss spilled out of him. “Claimed you.”

  “Don’t talk! Just do.”

  Something frightening and alive snaked through her. One instant she knew who she was and where. The next neither mattered. The explosion hit hard, fast, unrelenting, and incredible.

  She rocked forward, lost her balance, and buried her nose in the hay. Her pussy on fire, she somehow got her forearms under her. She screamed repeatedly. Everything about her jerked. Again and again.

  After a time without meaning, her exhausted muscles forced her to acknowledge the world. To face what was real. No matter how much she fought to hold on to her climax, she couldn’t win. Resting her upper body on her elbows, she planted her chin in her hands and pulled air into her spent lungs.

  Matt was still going at her, carving a home for himself. She should praise his ability to hold back so long, but maybe they’d only fucked for a few seconds before she exploded.

  “Do it,” she whispered into her fingers.

  A hot flood seared her channel. She tried to tighten herself around him only to shake her head in defeat. Joyful and exhausted defeat. Repeated groans accompanied Matt’s efforts, and his fists lightly tattooed her spine. She had him for these moments. He was lost, primitive and primal, unthinking. She could rope and tie him, keep what was left of him under her control. Tap into the wild animal he’d become.

  “Enough.” Still going at her, Matt again gripped her buttocks. “Damn enough.”

  Confused, she held her breath, but he didn’t say anything else. Wise to his body’s ways during sex, she believed he was nearly done. Instead, he paused as if gathering something around him. Reaching under her, he raked his nails over her belly.

  “Shit! Matt!”

  He scratched her again, forced something between pleasure and pain onto her. Thrilled and confused, she tried to scramble out from under him only to collapse when his weight dropped onto her. Spitting out hay, she went limp.

  “Don’t forget this. Remember who claimed you.”

  Get off me. Damn you, Matt. Matt? I don’t know who you are.

  His cock had slipped out. Empty, she struggled to clear her thoughts, but his body blanketed hers and his cum and her juices leaked onto the hay.

  What might have been a long, long time later, he got to his feet. When she tried to do the same, he planted a foot on the base of her spine. Held in place, she looked over her shoulder at his shadowy and magnificently naked body.

  “Mine.” His teeth flashed.

  11

  A braless Cat walked out of the barn ahead of Matt. Hay stuck to both of them, and her hair looked as if she’d been sleeping. He wasn’t sure how he felt about facing her or whether he could keep his expression neutral enough to fool her.

  To convince both of them he wasn’t losing his mind.

  What had happened? He didn’t remember making any decisions about their frantic and frenzied sex. One moment they’d been standing face-to-face either talking or silent, he couldn’t recall. The next, she’d presented herself to him like a bitch in heat—hadn’t she? Like the cur he was, he’d ridden her. Clamped his fingers over her ass cheeks and breasts and scratched her belly.

  Damn him! Damn whatever creature he’d just been and might still be.

  She circled her truck and reached for the door handle. “I don’t want to see you for a while,” she said without looking at him. “I don’t think I have to explain why.”

  “Do you want me to apologize?” Could he and have it be the truth?

  Shaking her head, she opened the door. “Right now the less said the better. Matt, be careful.”

  Always before, his body needed time to restore itself after sex. Now, however, he had the energy to race from one end of his property to the next, to see if he could outgallop a horse.

  Most of all, he wanted Cat under him and him in her.

  “Be careful?” he finally asked.

  Running a hand into her hair, she faced him. Her eyes were haunted, alarmed, something. “You’re changing. I’m not sure I understand the new you, or want to. Back in there”—she nodded at the barn—“it was damn good. Incredible. But, Matt, I felt as if a part of you, the man, was missing.”

  You aren’t making sense, he wanted to insist, but she was right. Much as he needed to tell her what had happened after she’d left Antelope Grove, he lacked the words.

  Maybe the truth was he was afraid.

  “What part’s missing?” he asked.

  She stared at his jeans-encased cock. “I hope you aren’t trying to make a joke because I’ve never been more serious. What is it? This business with the wolves has turned you on end? It’s that simple? Maybe you’re afraid your her
d’s in trouble and . . . We’ve had this discussion before, haven’t we?”

  It sounded vaguely familiar but at the moment even her voice sounded strange. In fact, he wasn’t certain he’d ever had a conversation with this woman. Fucked her, yes. Gotten to know her, no.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “If you have to ask—Hell, maybe nothing.” Her shrug drew his attention to her full breasts. “Look, we’ve each got a lot on our plates right now—you more than me. You need to protect your herd and replace Beale.”

  “I’m not sure I’m going to.” The truth was, he wasn’t clear on what Beale’s responsibilities had been.

  “Oh? Well, what about that call you got when we were in the barn? It’s an example of how things keep piling up, right?”

  His mind a blank, he took out his cell phone and noted he had a new message. Still watching Cat, he accessed it.

  “It’s me,” Addie said. “I’ll be back tonight. I just turned south so that’s, what, another six or so hours. Don’t worry about having dinner ready. I’ll get something along the way. God, it’ll be good to be home.”

  “I heard that,” Cat said. “Does she know?”

  “About what?”

  Disbelief claimed her features. “The wolves, of course.”

  “She caught the news and called.” He didn’t say when because he couldn’t remember.

  “And your explanation?” She tugged on a strand of hair. “Never mind. Matt, if something important happens, I hope you’ll let me know. Otherwise, we need space and time between us. You agree, don’t you?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “What I want is an idea of who you really are, starting with the basics like your background.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, for—What is it, you want me to think you don’t have a past?”

  Not knowing what to say and not sure it would make any difference anyway, he watched her get behind the wheel. He’d never mentioned his parents because they had nothing to do with his life today and because, hell, he’d wanted things simple between them.

  Just sex.

  He held his hand over his nose and mouth when dust kicked up as she drove away. Yes, sex had defined their relationship, but that had been blown all to hell, and he didn’t know what remained.

  Time and space apart, like she’d said.

  She wasn’t yet out of sight when Matt knew he wasn’t alone. Much as he hated the comparison between what he was feeling now and what he’d felt at Antelope Grove, he didn’t dare ignore it. Something had intimidated the wolf Cat and he had seen. If whatever that was had followed him here . . . no, damn it! That kind of thinking had destroyed his father. He was better than that, stronger and rooted in reality.

  Striding over to his gelding, he reached for the rifle still fastened to the saddle. Before he could draw it out, however, the well-trained horse reared and bolted, heading for God knew where. Cat’s mare charged after it, and he had to force himself not to race for the ranch.

  Months ago something had terrified Santo’s mount. A man who couldn’t be thrown had struck boulders headfirst.

  Trying not to hyperventilate took effort. Although he ordered himself to study every detail of his surroundings, his attention skittered from shadow to shadow and possibility to possibility, none of them good. The now-distant hoofbeats reminded him of gunshots.

  There. Under a trio of scrub oaks not a hundred yards away.

  As a small boy, he’d crawled under his bed trying to hide from his guardians’ demands. Long ago he’d told himself that child no longer existed. Still, if there’d been a bed here, he’d have to force himself not to scramble under it.

  Shaking off the past, he shielded his eyes. The wolf standing under the oaks surprised him, and yet it was as if he’d been waiting a long time for this moment.

  Even at this distance, he knew this wolf was different from the others. Bigger. Stronger.

  Dominating.

  “What do you want?” he asked the creature. “Me?”

  “No, no, I don’t want to rush you,” Cat told Addie when she reached the older woman at the Coyote Ranch the next morning. “I’m sure you’re still tired from all that traveling. I just . . . I feel bad because I haven’t been a good neighbor.”

  “Neighbor is relative around here,” Addie pointed out unnecessarily. “You had me with the offer of a drink at the Cattlemen’s Bar. Who told you how much I like a cold beer?”

  Truth was Cat hadn’t known that about Addie. Her intention had been to set up a meeting away from Matt’s ears. After the hellos were over, she’d suggested that Addie and she schedule their next trip to Lakeview for the same day. She’d mentioned the Cattlemen’s because in the middle of the day, it was a cool and quiet place for a conversation.

  “I hope you won’t be offended if I order wine instead of beer,” she said. “And if I ask questions or bring up things you’d rather not talk about, tell me to mind my own business.”

  Addie hesitated. “Santo’s death still isn’t easy to talk about, all right, but I’m learning that getting things off my chest is easier than bottling them up inside. As long as you don’t hit me with psychobabble the way my sister did—”

  “I’ll try not to. Ah, Matt doesn’t happen to be around, does he?”

  “No. We’d hoped we’d have time to catch up, but he got a call last night. Some of the other ranchers and a few members of that rural Oregon hiking club want him to join them for a meeting.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think they’re going to put pressure on Fish and Wildlife to declare open season on the wolf that attacked Beale.”

  “The wolves have federal protection status.”

  “I know, but a deliberate attack on a human changes things.”

  “I guess,” she hedged, because she hated agreeing with Addie. “How do you feel about the group’s plans?”

  “Confused. I can tell it’s getting to Matt, and that bothers me.”

  She wasn’t going to think about Matt, Cat told herself as she hung up. Hadn’t she made it clear she had no intention of seeing him for a while?

  How long was a while anyway? A day maybe if she couldn’t stay away. A month if she knew what was good for her.

  She’d been in the kitchen doing dishes when she called Addie, but now she had no choice but to go into her bedroom with the still-tangled sheets from one of the most restless nights of her life. Darn it, in the wake of barn sex, she should have had no trouble sleeping. It wasn’t as if she’d had sexual tension to deal with.

  Right.

  Torn between giving herself a good chewing out and cutting herself some major slack, she made the bed and grabbed her riding boots. Today’s agenda called for taking a mare and a pack mule into the foothills around her place for a daylong ride. The animals belonged to a governmental surveying pair set to do some mapping project. However, one of the men wasn’t familiar with horses and wanted her to make sure the agency had provided him with dependable animals. Her salary for three days of work was nothing to be sneezed at. Maybe best of all, she’d been given a valid excuse for being alone.

  And getting close to her cave. Hopefully taking more pictures, this time with her new digital.

  Studying the images and maybe, somehow, answering the question she’d been trying to avoid.

  Cat was placing a pack on the mule before she allowed herself to acknowledge her concerns. Thanks to the wolves, the hills might not be as safe as she’d always believed they were. At least, she reassured herself, her friend Daria knew her agenda as did the surveyors and the retired neighbor who was taking care of her small herd today. Her cell phone was charged.

  Bottom line, she refused to run scared when there’d been no sign of wolves in the area she was going to. Swinging into the saddle, she repositioned her baseball cap so her eyes were shaded. Matt looked sexy in his Western hats, but she preferred something more compact.

  Matt. It was always going to be about him, wasn’t it?
And because she couldn’t get him out of her mind, she might as well let her thoughts go where they insisted. She hadn’t thought to ask Addie where and when the meeting was scheduled. As a result, she didn’t know whether it was over or not yet begun.

  In many regards, Matt was the stereotypical loner cowboy. She wasn’t sure how he’d react to the pressure the others might put on him. The truly sad thing was, she didn’t know how deeply Santo’s death and the attack on his ranch hand had hit him.

  She should, damn it. She owed that to him.

  Just as he owed it to her to open up, right?

  The foothills closest to her place didn’t have a formal name, but she’d heard them referred to as the Badlands, often accompanied by a string of profanity. Since the rugged land was pockmarked with lava outcroppings, the label seemed fitting. Scruffy junipers and sagebrush had somehow found room for their roots in what looked like worthless soil. Only her cave had value.

  If she’d any say in it, she wouldn’t have brought the two animals to where the footing was so precarious, but since this was the general area where the surveyors would be working, she didn’t have a choice. Hopefully their responsibilities wouldn’t bring them close to the cave.

  Keeping the reins loose so the mare could pick her way over the lava chunks, she occasionally looked behind her to make sure the easygoing mule was keeping pace. Like the cautious mare, the mule walked with his head low. If either animal thought the human with them had lost her mind, they gave no indication.

  Riding was hard. Okay, not in ways someone else might think, but her crotch definitely didn’t need the vibrations. Despite the long climb, walking would have been easier. At least that way she’d be able to keep her legs closed. Her pussy wouldn’t be open and vulnerable and turned on.

  After readjusting her hat, she straightened and looked around for something to take her mind off her sex. During the explorations that had taken her to the cave and its rich treasurers, she’d twice seen mule deer. There’d been plenty of birds, jays, quail, hawks, and once buzzards in the distance but few ground animals. Either they were incredibly good at hiding, which was a distinct possibility, or not many rodents and lizards lived here. No wonder. As far as she was concerned, the vegetation sucked nutritionwise.