Blue Moon Saloon Box Set 1

by Anna Lowe

  Mine, she nearly squeaked, but he sucked a nipple into his mouth, cutting the sound off to a muffled moan.

  Mine, mine, mine! she wanted to chant, over and over as he worked her harder, then eased off to scoop the flesh of her breast in his hand. Her all-too-small breast in his all-too-powerful hand, yet it felt just right. So, so right.

  She dropped her hands to his head. Tangled her fingers in his hair just the way she’d done in her dreams. Made helpless little kitten sounds as he spread his fingers, letting the nipple peek out just far enough for him to pull it into his mouth and suck.

  Then his hands fell away to pop the button on her jeans, and it was just his mouth on her breast. His very capable, very talented mouth, moving from one side to the other.

  She thumped her head back against the wall, pushing her chest out. “So good…”

  “About to make it better,” he murmured out of the side of his mouth.

  He slid her jeans and panties down together, freed her from the tangle, and dropped to his knees before her like a penitent man who hadn’t worshiped at the right altar for a long, long time.

  “Janna…” he murmured, then leaned right in, pushing her legs apart.

  She teetered over him. Teetered in every sense of the word as his thumbs spread her slick folds and his tongue slipped in.

  The mewing sounds she’d been making went to all-out bordello songs, and she vaguely wished they’d closed the door. But a closed door would have shut out the clean desert air, and that wouldn’t be right. Not with her wolf so close to the surface. Not with her dusty cowboy, who seemed a part of the outdoors. A tiny sliver of fresh breeze whispered in, carrying a thousand scents and sounds. The buzz of a bee around the flowers on the sill. The quiet snort of horses in the stables below.

  “Cole… Yes… Ah…”

  It seemed that every time she tried to communicate how good it felt, he lapped deeper, trapping her words into gridlock that couldn’t budge forward or back. Her body was about as useless, too. A good thing for his hands clamped over her hips and the bulk of him parked in front of her boneless limbs.

  Cole had two fingers inside her before she knew it, and the dual rhythm of his tongue and the drive inside pushed her closer and closer to the edge. She grabbed his shoulders and let her head roll to the side as her wolf dreamed of a mating bite, and she barely held back her cries as he took her higher…higher…

  Cole moved like a man who knew everything about pleasuring a woman and wanted to try it all out on her, A to Z.

  “God, Cole,” she cried as muscle after muscle clenched. A total meltdown, and he was nowhere near done with her.

  “Come for me, Janna,” he growled.

  “Cole!” she squeaked, then bit her lip to keep the sound from traveling too far. She choked down all the desperate, animal noises building inside until she came with a deep, husky moan. “Cole,” she murmured as her knees buckled.

  He slid up her body as if commanded — slid easily, like he’d done it all his life. Over her mound, between her breasts, and up along her neck until his chin was tucked over her shoulder and his arms held her tight. His fingers stroked her hair like it was the finest, most exotic silk, and his chest lifted in a sigh.

  She’d never felt so cherished. So special. So…renewed.

  “Cole…” She guided his chin left and met his lips in a kiss. A kiss that tasted of passion and desire and…and…her. He tasted of her, and just like that, she was on fire again.

  “Got a bed in this bunkhouse, cowboy? Or are we going to screw right here on the floor?”

  For a second, his look was pure danger that turned on every aching nerve in her body, but then a cheeky cowboy grin came over his face again, and he was all Cole again, all charm.

  “Lady’s choice.”

  She laughed. “What if I say both?”

  His eyebrows shot up in a surprised look her mind captured and parked among the greatest memories of her life: the most blazing sunsets, the most sidesplitting laughs, the biggest, warmest smiles.

  He blinked a little, then grinned. “As you wish, ma’am. As you wish.”

  Chapter Nine

  Cole took a deep breath before Janna nodded him over to the bed, trying to keep himself under control. He’d just about slung her over his shoulder to get her up the stairs, then pulled the rip-her-shirt off stunt that shocked him. Since when did he drag women off onto his turf and tear off their clothes?

  But this was one part of impending lunacy he’d be glad to run with as long as Janna was on board with the plan. And man, was she on board.

  I want you to touch me. To want me. To take me.

  He was a goner the minute she’d spoken the words. They’d hijacked the thinking part of his mind and let instinct take over, and now instinct was taking her to the bed. Not the floor, because somehow, it seemed very, very important to hang on to the last few threads of civilized man left in him. Critical, almost, that he not cross that invisible demarcation line.

  So he backed Janna over to the bed and tilted her down, and she went willingly. Enthusiastically. Spreading her long, lean, naked body out under his hungry gaze. Trusting him completely. Which was crazy, because he didn’t even trust himself.

  “Hey.” She smiled, wrapping an ankle around his calf. “Time to lose the jeans.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “I wasn’t asking, cowboy.” She grinned, making his hard-on even harder.

  He slid the jeans off slowly, fighting back his darkest urges. Promising himself he’d keep control of whatever it was inside him that kept trying to grab the reins.

  Take her! Claim her! Make her ours!

  He almost snarled at the voice in the back of his mind. No way. No how. He would make love to Janna the way he wanted to and she agreed with, and no other way.

  Show her! Take her! Now! The voice became a roar when her eyes widened at the sight of his hard-on springing free. His nostrils widened, catching the sticky-sweet scent of her desire. The scent threw his mind into the same dizzy spin he’d experienced when he’d first tasted her. Sex used to be all about touch and feel; suddenly, smell and taste were part of it, too. Which might have made him worry if the sensations didn’t drive him so wild.

  He stepped into the space between her legs, and when she wiggled back and propped her heels on the edge of the bed, exposing herself to him completely, he growled. Really growled, though Janna didn’t seem to mind.

  I need you, too, her eyes said. Eyes that were wide and wild, but a little worried, too, like they harbored some terrible secret he really, really didn’t want to know.

  He stood transfixed for a moment, undecided between dropping to his knees to taste her again and prowling over her prone body to nestle his cock at the entrance to her soft folds. Or flipping her over and going at it on all fours, like the voice in the back of his mind kept voting for.

  He cocked his head at her. Lady’s choice.

  He didn’t say the words aloud, but Janna seemed to know just what he meant.

  What if I said all three? her saucy grin asked.

  She broke the stalemate a second later by reaching out and pulling him down for a kiss. A deep, greedy kiss she broke a second later with a barely suppressed gasp.

  “God, I need you inside me. Now, Cole.”

  He grinned despite the throbbing ache in his cock.

  “You know how often I dreamed about you saying that to me?”

  She tilted her chin up, making her hair cascade back. “Really? Dirty dreams? Why, Cole Harper, I didn’t think you were the type.”

  “Then you must not know me very well,” he countered.

  “No? Then let me get to know you better.”

  God, it was fun, to go back to the easy banter they’d enjoyed at the start. Before his world upended and everything went askew. He finally felt whole again. Balanced. Complete.

  Well, close to complete.

  Janna wrapped her legs around him and whispered, “Take me.”

/>   The rest came without thinking. He claimed her mouth with a bruising kiss and settled his weight over her body as naturally as though they’d assumed the position a thousand times before. He grabbed a condom from the bedside table, rolled it on, and let his burning cock slide a hard trail down her stomach, across her folds, and finally—

  “Cole,” she moaned as he thrust in. Deep, deep in, in one hard, hungry slide.

  He sucked in a lungful of air and dropped his face to her shoulder, panting there for one silent second.

  Will not hurt this woman. Will not hurt her…

  It became a chant as he pulled back then pushed forward again, relishing her hot, tight hold on him. Relishing the sensation of her body stretching to accommodate him and take him deeper every time.

  “Yes…” she murmured dreamily. “Yes…”

  The sticky-sweet scent was strongest at her neck, and he got high on it as he set into a rhythm she met with little bucks of her own.

  “Yes… Please…”

  His steady slide became a feverish pound, but Janna just dug her heels into his ass and spurred him on. Gripping the headboard hard, she opened her mouth in silent cries as beads of sweat appeared on her skin. She tilted her hips right and let him scrape along one side of her slick channel, then the other. She spread her legs wider and grazed his back with her nails.

  The pinch in his balls became the best kind of about-to-burst agony he’d ever felt, right on the razor’s edge of pleasure and pain. He drew her knees over his shoulders, lifting her clear off the bed. Pounded harder and harder, groaning her name.

  She mumbled incoherently and swung her head from side to side, drowning him with her heavenly scent. He burrowed against the skin of her neck, and everything in him screamed for him to bite. Janna’s body screamed that, too, as she exposed the soft, sinewy flesh of her neck to him.

  An artery pulsed in time with his thrusts, and it mesmerized him. Hypnotized him, practically. He reached a hand to her forehead to tip her head even farther back, unable to resist.

  Bite her! Claim her! Make her mine!

  Temptation. Instinct. Desire. Each wrapped around the other, singing the same song.

  Take her! Claim her! Bite!

  “Cole,” she groaned, exactly at the same time.

  He twisted his fingers in her hair and ran the other hand down the line of her neck. Sniffed and found exactly the right spot.

  The right spot for what? a distant part of his brain asked.

  He had no idea, only that biting her there was what he had to do. What she wanted him to do.

  “Yes…” Janna mumbled, digging her nails into his back. “Yes…”

  He spread his jaws wide. Tipped Janna’s head even more, then dipped down and scraped his teeth over her throat.

  God, that felt good. God, he wanted more.

  “Yes…” Janna panted so hard, her chest rose and fell.

  He nipped at her skin and jolted at the shot of electricity that sent through his soul. If a little nip could do that, a bite would be better, right?

  Bite, the inner voice agreed. Bite deep.

  It was all so dreamy. So intoxicating. So tempting.

  “Cole…” Janna urged him on.

  She was close to coming, as was he, and he wanted nothing better than to bury his cock to the hilt and bite at the same time.

  Then Pip barked outside, and both their heads swiveled toward the open door. A momentary distraction that made him gulp.

  Holy shit. Had he just been fantasizing about savaging Janna’s neck?

  He saved the inner lecture for later and tucked his chin a safe distance from her throat. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on finishing what he’d started. Sliding in and out. Reaching deeper and deeper. Letting the windstorm of desire rise inside while he tunneled further into the heaven that was Janna.

  “Janna,” he croaked. One muscle after another went stiff as he held on, milking his high as long as he could.

  “Cole,” Janna breathed, shuddering at exactly the same time.

  His whole body shook as he came, and a warm wave washed over him. His chin dipped, and he dropped onto her, spent and empty and yet fuller than he’d ever felt. Of love. Of belonging. Of hope.

  He closed his eyes and breathed it all in. Pretended there wasn’t anything scary about the emotions she unleashed in him. He held her tight against his chest and listened to her heart pound.

  “Janna,” he whispered, stroking her hair into place. He said it over and over, drowning out the sleepy voice in his head.

  Mine, the deep voice mumbled. Mate.

  Chapter Ten

  Janna snuggled closer to Cole, all but purring in contentment.

  Wolves don’t purr, her inner beast hummed.

  She ran a finger down Cole’s arm, tracing the cords of muscle that ran this way and that.

  Purr, hum, whatever. She felt good.

  Real good, her wolf agreed.

  “Can I get a rain check for sex on the floor?” she murmured.

  When Cole lifted his head to look at her, a long line of muscle stood out along his abdomen. The clouds in his eyes had settled to a warm, calm gray with a golden glow around the edges, like the sun about to peek out from the trailing edge of a winter storm.

  “No good?”

  She chuckled. “Too good. I think I need to spread out my guilty pleasures. You know, like eating chocolate.”

  “Like what?” The look on his face said he’d never struggled with that particular sin.

  She patted his chest and heaved yet another sigh. “Believe me, I want it. Soon.”

  I want you, my mate. Her wolf nodded along.

  His eyes glowed a little brighter, and she wondered if he’d sensed her wolf talking to him. Which would be good, right? Maybe that meant her wolf could help him get through the worst of the Change when the time came.

  She glanced at the sunlight slanting in through the open doorway as the sun dipped lower to the horizon. They’d loved their way straight through the afternoon, and night was only a few hours away. Night and the nearly full moon.

  Janna opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, fishing for words. She’d come to tell Cole about the Change. To break it to him gently, if such a thing were possible. And here she was, wrapped around him like a horny python around a tree.

  But he looked so peaceful, so calm. Calmer than she’d seen him in ages, so she didn’t have the heart to say it just yet.

  She would, though. She’d tell him soon.

  A cool wind whispered through the pines on the mountainside nearby. Night. Moon. Coming soon.

  She suppressed a shiver by snuggling closer and nuzzling his neck. Nuzzled long and hard until she’d chased the fear and worry away, at least for a little while. Nuzzling was a pleasure nearly as great as sex. Her sister and Simon did a lot of it, and she’d always rolled her eyes at them, but now she knew how they felt. She scraped up against his shoulder, then his neck, rubbing herself in his rich scent. Her wolf made happy, pig-in-mud noises as she did it, and she giggled.

  “What?” Cole laughed.

  “This. You. Me.” She kept right on nuzzling. “Us.”

  “Us,” he echoed.

  Us, her wolf sighed, relishing the word. Finally, we’re an us.

  She let out her next breath slowly, because that was the problem. They weren’t an us yet. Not by a long shot. Somehow, she had to get him through the Change alive. Explain the impossible, then exchange mating bites, and then…

  There were about a thousand things that could go wrong along the way, and for a moment, she despaired. But then she pushed the feeling away. Right now, she could enjoy the moment, knowing it helped Cole’s inner wolf bond with hers. That was the key.

  Well, it seemed like the key. In truth, she knew precious little about what might help a human survive the Change. As a born shifter from a pack in which no one had ever taken a human mate, she really had no clue.

  So she went right on nuzzling, because that seemed
like the right thing to do.

  “You’re a champion nuzzler,” he chuckled.

  If only he knew.

  “And you’re a champ when it comes to bulls,” she ventured. She’d had her heart in her throat, watching him distract the bull earlier that afternoon. The minute she’d made it to the safety of the fence with the little boy, she’d wheeled around and screamed for Cole. Watched him perform crazy, death-defying stunts, like leaping straight over the bull’s horns, then ducking under the rear legs when it kicked. He made it look so simple, as if tangling with two thousand pounds of murderous bull was nothing but a game of duck duck goose. The near misses, the instinctive reactions, the level-headed self-control. She’d seen him in action in that television replay, but to see him outfox a bull in real life… Her heart sped up just thinking about it.

  Cole made a little sound that said, If only you knew.

  “How’d you get started with bullfighting?” she asked very quietly, knowing she was venturing onto thin ice.

  Cole didn’t answer right away. He tightened his arms around her and nuzzled a little more. So long and so pensively, she was about to apologize for asking. But then he spoke.

  “My older brothers were into bull riding. Well, calf riding, at first.” He chuckled a little, and it didn’t even sound forced. “They made me help. We’d set up a little rodeo of our own…”

  His voice had a dreamy, once-upon-a-time quality, and she smiled.

  “Ha. My sister and I played dress-up when we were little.” They also played howl-at-the-moon and catch-the-rabbit, but she wasn’t about to mention that. “You guys played rodeo.” She shook her head. “How many brothers do you have?”

  “Three. And two sisters. One of them played nurse. The other rode bulls, too.”

  She laughed at the image. “What did your mom think of all that?”

  “As long as no one went crying to her, she was more or less okay with it. I think,” he added in afterthought.

  “Poor woman.”

  “You have no idea.”

  She couldn’t see his smile from where she lay against his chest, but she could feel it spread inside him.