Feral (Wolf Ranch Book 3)

by Renee Rose

  I must be close to ovulation because my nipples hardened even before I had the conscious thought that it might be Rob, my cocky cowboy.

  God, that kiss! A million—no a trillion—times better than Markle’s. Markle’s wasn’t even a kiss in comparison. No, Rob Wolf had curled my toes last night, for sure.

  The next time you come, it will be beneath me.

  He was wrong. I’d come last night with the massaging showerhead thinking about him. And he was the guy I couldn’t stop thinking about last night as I fingered myself to sleep again afterward.

  But yes, I was definitely considering his offer. I’d been considering it non-stop since the moment he sauntered off into the darkness. And who walks in the dark, anyway? There was no moon last night at all, and the guy didn’t have a flashlight.

  He probably thought he could see in the dark. I remembered when I was a kid, I could. Until my foster brothers locked me in a dark closet to prove I was wrong. Then whatever superpower I thought I possessed drowned in a new fear of the dark.

  The knock came again. When I opened the warped door, a dark-haired woman in her early thirties stood there with a smile and a plate of brownies in her hands.

  “Hi.” I pushed open the screen door.

  “Hi! I’m Audrey Ames-Wolf, your new neighbor.”

  Wolf. I peered past her at the Wolf Ranch, as if that would clarify who this woman was. Hopefully she wasn't Rob’s wife because that would make him a cheater, considering how he’d kissed me last night.

  “I heard my brother-in-law barged in on you yesterday. I’m sorry about that. We didn’t know you’d already arrived. Rob’s been looking in on the place. He was close with your uncle and felt responsible while you were away.”

  Brother-in-law. Good. “Yes, I met Rob.” She didn’t mention just how I met him, and I wasn’t going to. “Come on in.” I stepped back to invite her in.

  “Here.” She pushed the plate at me. “Brownies. I made them, but you can just throw them in the trash. My sister, Marina, is the baker in the family, and you’ll meet her soon enough. She’s… engaged to my husband’s brother.”

  I stood there and stared at her trying to figure it out. “You married one Wolf, and your sister’s engaged to another?”

  She grinned. “That’s right. But not Rob. He’s not married. Single. Very single.”

  “Okay. Got it.”

  “Back to the brownies. They’re a housewarming gift, but the gift may be that I tell you not to eat them. I’m a doctor, not a chef.”

  I led her toward the kitchen. “How about something to drink, and we won’t eat the brownies?”

  She laughed. “Sounds great. I hope Rob didn’t make too bad of an impression. He seems gruff and grumpy, but he’s actually a softie.”

  Softie?

  Nope, it was plenty hard.

  “Um, it wasn’t so much gruff and grumpy...” My pussy clenched remembering the sight of his very long manhood straining his jeans. The sensation of it pressed against my belly. My mouth twisted into a wry smile. “It was more cocky.”

  “Oh!” Her laugh was musical. “I thought that was my husband’s specialty. I guess all the Wolf boys have that in spades, though.”

  I shoved away my sudden interest in finding out everything there was to know about these Wolf boys. They hadn’t come up in any part of my investigation, which meant they weren’t involved with Markle. I liked the guys more just for that. I had Markle to worry about. That’s why I was here, not to have a fling with a sexy rancher.

  Oh God, I really wanted to have a fling with the sexy rancher!

  I set the brownies down on the table. “I don’t have much to offer you, yet, but I did buy some of these flavored seltzer cans. Are you a fan?”

  “Sure,” Audrey said.

  I opened the fridge and stared at the cans. “Lemon or mandarin orange?”

  “Mandarin, thanks.” She took it and cracked it open while I opened a lemon one.

  “So do you all live together there?”

  She cocked her hip against the counter. “No. Boyd and I have a little cabin west of the ranch house, and I—we—also have a little house in town, which is easier when I’m on call or at the hospital late. I’m an Ob/Gyn.”

  “You live in both places?” I scrunched my forehead, trying to figure out how that worked.

  “Just for now. We’re newly married—still getting settled.” Her hand drifted to her lower belly. The detective in me didn’t miss the gesture.

  “Oh, congratulations.” I let my gaze drop to her belly, too.

  “Oh!” She blushed. “Yes, I am expecting. It’s not public yet. How did you guess?”

  I liked Audrey already. She seemed open and friendly. No hidden agendas. A down-to-earth type. “You rested your hand there.” I pointed. “Always a tell-tale sign.”

  “You have kids?” She looked around as if some were hiding behind the furniture.

  “Me? No. Single.”

  “Your neighbor’s interested in you,” she replied with a grin, then took a sip of her drink.

  I shrugged. “We had dinner. Nothing else.”

  She frowned, cocked her head to the side. She had sleek dark hair and wore glasses, but the way she studied me was more from keenness than confusion.

  “He moves fast. I’m impressed.”

  I did, since I’d gone over and introduced myself, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

  “Markle’s a nice guy and all, but I don’t see it getting all hot and heavy. I mean, he’s got this… fake cowboy vibe about him. You know what I mean?”

  “Jett Markle?” she asked.

  I took a drink. “Yeah. Who did you think?”

  “Rob.”

  I had butterflies in my stomach like a high school girl from just his name. “Rob?” I repeated.

  “He’s interested in you. And he won’t be interested in knowing you went out with that jackass Markle.” She pushed her glasses up her nose and set her drink on the laminate counter.

  I already found that much out. What I needed to know was if Rob had anything concrete on Jett besides shooting his dog. “What’s wrong with Jett?” I fished.

  She pursed her lips as if she’d tasted something sour. “He’s just a jerk. He’s got a hard-on for your land.”

  “Did you just say hard-on?” I couldn’t help but laugh, and she joined me.

  “He does. I have no idea why, since you told him even before you got here you weren’t interested in selling.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not. I am curious why he’s so eager though. I mean… is there oil or something?”

  “Who knows. But I was talking about Rob.”

  “Yes. Well, I’ve only spoken with Rob briefly.” First in just a towel—with a vibrator in my pussy. And then in a robe—with his cock against my belly. So yeah. Just briefly.

  “The Wolf boys know what they want when they see it, and Rob wants you.”

  I didn’t doubt her since I’d seen the proof. All… nine inches of it inside his jeans.

  “That’s a little crazy.” It was. The way he’d looked at me when he found me in the bedroom, the way he’d ensured the other person he was with didn’t see me. The way he’d guaranteed me pleasure…

  It was crazy, but that made me crazy, too, because I was still thinking about the possibility now. A fling would take the edge off, but I was supposed to be interested in Markle, not Rob Wolf. I’d be messing with my investigation.

  No, my investigation was messing with my sexy times with a hot, bossy cowboy.

  Her cell chimed, and she pulled it from her pocket. “Sorry.” She read the screen. “Shoot. I’ve got to go. I’m on call, and a patient’s water just broke.”

  “No problem.”

  “We should do a girl’s night soon. Marina’s just back in town, and I know she’d love to meet you.”

  “Sounds great.” I led her back to the front door. It did, and it didn’t.

  I’d love to hang out with her, maybe get more informat
ion on Jett, but the more people I met and befriended under false pretenses, the more would feel betrayed when my real identity was revealed, and the real Natalie showed up. I wasn’t here to make friends and have a good time. I wasn’t here to fix up this old house although that was what I’d been doing all morning, and I still needed to get up on the roof.

  “I’ll be here working on the house.”

  She glanced around. “It’s a nice place. Good bones. You could make it a bed and breakfast or something.”

  I shrugged. Even if it was up to me, I’d have no clue how to run a business like that. I didn’t do hospitality. “Today I have to get up on the roof. There’s a leak, and it’s got to get fixed.”

  She went down the steps, then turned back, tilted her chin up to look at the front of the house. “Be careful up there. I don’t want to see you in the ER.”

  8

  ROB

  I stayed away overnight, my wolf keeping me awake. He was restless and riled after that kiss. After the pseudo-intervention in the kitchen. I’d just kissed my mate but was being pushed toward another woman. A she-wolf. Claiming and biting a female who wasn’t your mate might or might not end the moon madness—the subject was up for debate. There were not scientific studies on wolf shifter physiology.

  They were being thoughtful, in a matchmaker sort of way, but it might not actually solve my problem.

  The only way to do so was to sink my teeth into Natalie’s sweet flesh and permanently mark her as mine. The one my wolf wanted. If I claimed her, the moon madness would be gone for certain. But I’d be mated to a human.

  I’d be dead from moon madness otherwise, meaning there would be a new alpha. Or, I’d be mated to a human and alive, but there would be a new alpha.

  I didn’t want to fuck my pack like that. So I was fucked.

  I shifted my dick in my pants. I wasn’t fucked. I wanted to be. By Natalie.

  She was just down the road, no doubt getting off without me. Maybe even with Markle. She wouldn’t dare go to him after the kiss we shared. That was my job now, to see to her pleasure. If she had needs, I’d meet them, whatever they were. Clint and Boyd had kept silent, understanding the situation I was now in. They had no answers.

  I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. Did the pack think I wanted to turn feral? To go so mad I couldn’t shift back to human form? A danger to man and shifter alike? Wolves like that had to be put down before they injured someone.

  That was why, after I’d had my third cup of coffee, that I might as well be damned. Again. I shouldn’t have gone over there, confronted her about seeing Markle. Shouldn’t have kissed her. I couldn’t help it, just like I couldn’t help it now. I didn’t have to claim her. I could fuck her out of my system. Boyd and Colton had fucked their mates without biting them. If they could do it, I could. Hell, I wasn’t a virgin. I’d fucked and not bitten a female before. But none of them had been my mate. I could do it. I’d rather die with a sated dick than with blue balls. I could let my wolf be happy for a little while before I had to give her up for the pack. For a Canadian she-wolf mail order bride.

  My cell rang, and I sighed when I looked at the name of the caller. “What?” I barked at Boyd.

  “Your mate’s on her roof.”

  I pushed off the counter and stared out the kitchen window. “How the fuck do you know that?”

  I couldn’t see her house, so I grabbed my hat off the hook and stormed out the back door, the screen slapping behind me, so I could get a view of the Shefield house. I might have exceptional night vision, but I couldn’t see a woman on the roof from this distance.

  “Because Audrey went to visit her this morning, and Natalie told her she was going to fix a leaky roof.”

  “Why?” I stalked to my truck, my wolf panicking about our mate getting hurt.

  “Because there’s a fucking leak, and it rained last night,” he repeated.

  “No, why did Audrey visit?”

  “Because it’s neighborly. She took her brownies.”

  “Fuck neighborly. I thought you said your mate couldn’t boil water. Is she trying to kill her?” I snarled, putting the truck into gear, the wheels kicking up dust with my haste to get down the road.

  “Fine. I won’t call next time your mate is in danger.”

  “You told your wife,” I said, circling back to a big issue.

  “Of course, I did.”

  “Did she tell Natalie she’s my mate?”

  “Of course not, you asshole. Natalie’s new to town. If she’s going to be your mate, then Audrey figured they should meet, since they’ll be sisters-in-law and all.”

  “She’s not my mate.” I slowed the truck around the corner and went down the Shefield drive.

  “Then why are you pulling up to her house? I know you’re driving over there. If she wasn’t yours, you wouldn’t give a shit she was on the roof.”

  I turned off the engine, tore out of the truck when I saw my mate just where Boyd had said: kneeling two stories up on the fucking roof with a hammer in her hand.

  “I don’t know if I should thank you or punch you in the face for sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “I’m not the one you’re angry at. If someone needs to be punished, it’s your mate for putting herself in danger.”

  Well, fuck. That suggestion made me hard as stone. I’d like to punish her. Over my knee. I ended the call and shoved my cell back in my pocket. Boyd might have been right. The idea of taking that feisty redhead in hand was the best one I’d heard all day.

  Just as soon as I got her down from the goddamn roof.

  Crazy little human. What was she thinking? Did she not realize how fucking fragile she was? When her bones broke, they didn’t repair overnight like mine. If she broke her neck, her life would end, just like that.

  I wanted to shout up to her, but that would be foolish. Startling her while she was up there could be disastrous, even though she had to have heard me tear up her driveway. Instead, I checked out how she got up there. A ladder was on the roof of the wraparound porch, a window open right next to it, most likely her bedroom or the one next door. She either had no care for her safety or wanted to win the Darwin awards. The wooden ladder had to be older than I was and warped. It wasn’t braced or anything on the roof. And that was just how she got up on to the main roof, not the fact that she was there to begin with.

  I hopped onto the porch, then climbed onto the railing, turned and faced the house and reached up to grab the porch roof. With a hop, I pulled myself up, then swung a leg onto the shingles. With a little sweat and a whole hell of a lot of swearing, I pushed to my feet, then checked the stability of the ladder before using it to join her.

  “What are you doing up here?” She knelt by a decent sized hole in the shingles. It hadn’t been ripped off from the rain the night before, but maybe from the storms a few weeks ago, when one of our trees fell through the barn during Boyd’s and Audrey’s wedding reception.

  “What the fuck are you doing up here?”

  She waved the hammer she held in her left hand. “Fixing a leak.”

  “The only way to fix it is put on a new roof.”

  “Not happening.” She was squatting down, and she shifted slightly to face me. At least she had on jeans and sturdy leather boots. I wouldn’t have to punish her for wearing something stupid like flip flops. “I found a few shingles in the old barn. I’m giving it a patch for now.”

  “I’m not arguing with you about what you’re doing, I’m arguing at the fact that you are doing it. It’s dangerous as fuck up here. You could have slipped off, and no one would have known.”

  Her back stiffened, and her eyes narrowed. Her breathing picked up, and I couldn’t miss the way her breasts rose and fell beneath her white tank top. Or the fact that her skin had a sheen of perspiration or that I could scent that tang of sweat along with her sweet essence. She had on more clothes than I’d ever seen her in, but she was still stunning. And now she was as pissed as me.
It was obvious she didn’t like to be told what to do. In a situation like this, thirty feet up? Too fucking bad.

  “You’re not my keeper,” she practically growled, which made my wolf want to growl right back.

  “It sure as fuck isn’t Markle,” I countered.

  Her eyes narrowed, and her cheeks flushed. “It isn’t you.”

  “It sure is, angel. Give me that hammer, and we’ll get this patched. Then you’re getting your hot little ass off this roof.”

  “I can patch it just fine, thank you.” Her sass was supposed to piss me off. It only made me hard. Made me ache to sink balls deep inside her. But not up here on a fucking roof.

  “You have two minutes to finish.” I didn’t move, just glared. Waited. My issue wasn’t with her ability to fix the roof—she could do the job. Once she was down though, I was going to destroy that ladder so she couldn’t get up here again.

  She huffed, then slid one of the rectangular roofing sheets into place, hammered it along the top side. She did two more, covering the damaged area.

  I held out my hand for the hammer. With a frown, she handed it to me.

  “I’ll go down first. You follow. Then we’ll discuss your punishment.”

  Her mouth fell open, and one brow lifted, but I stood and went to the ladder. She hadn’t moved.

  “Punishment?”

  I tipped my chin. “Bad girls get punished.”

  It was a loaded statement, especially given to someone who was far from submissive. I’d had women run scared… literally and figuratively, at my aggressive ways. With sex, I liked it rough. Wild. Lately, I’d avoided women because I felt almost… feral with the need to take. To dominate. To fuck hard and long. I didn’t want Natalie to be afraid of me, but I needed to know how far she’d go with me. As my mate, I knew she wouldn’t be all vanilla and missionary. I’d seen the damn dildo. But how far would she go?

  “Are you serious?”

  If there was a button on Natalie labeled Fucking Pissed, I just pushed it. Except her nipples popped through her tank top, telling me how much she loved the idea.