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Laughing, he leaned my way, his lips closer to me than they should be. “I have no problem with getting any woman I want.”

“You can’t have me.”

He targeted me with a heated gaze. “Then let me just mentor you.”

“You want to do more than just mentor me.”

His gaze dripped with sex. “Yes, I do, but I’m an adult. I can control myself. I won’t take what’s not given.”

“You’re behavior tonight says otherwise, besides, I don’t need you.”

“Yes, you do. I have funds, skills, and contacts that will take you years to gather.”

“Goodnight, Wolf.” I got ready to turn and he stopped me,

his arms wrapping around my waist,

his huge hands pulling me in,

and his mouth consuming mine.

Damn.

I pushed away,

but not soon enough.

He’d already snared me with that huge jaw.

“No, Red. Don’t go. I’m hungry.” He drew me back in and lathered me in impossible desire, a sensation that I’d never experienced.

He made me lose control.

I embraced him, taking my torture and understanding it for what it was. He was a prowling beast, and I just an innocent who was drawn to wickedness.

That was why Red fell in bed with the dressed-up wolf. She knew it wasn’t grandma, had to have figured it out right before she leaned in closer and became consumed.

Like Little Red Riding Hood’s fate,

Wolf devoured me, and I couldn’t ignore it all,

how soft his lips were,

how his tongue moved elegantly along mine,

how his scent tugged at the feral beast inside of me and made me want to do nasty things,

how his arms felt so strong and right wrapped around my waist,

how I missed that sensation,

the feeling of being truly adored,

the drumming of another’s heart against my chest,

lips against lips,

minds intermingled in a private session of passion that people could only dream of witnessing.

He let me go. “You kissed me back.”

I said nothing. Sometimes silence was a better response than a jumble of lust-stricken words.

Dear God, he had me. It wasn’t fair. All the things he’d done tonight should’ve pushed me away. But I wanted him.

I craved Wolf.

And not just yearned to fuck him. I needed to learn about the man behind the ego, the person behind the paint and the passion to change society.

When he pulled away, I needed more.

“Just let me show you something,” he begged. “The gallery and then I’ll take you to your friends and have a car take you all home if you need it.”

I stood there stunned, still blinking away the lust.

“Red?”

“Don’t kiss me like that again,” I whispered back.

“Can I hold your hand?”

Say no.

But I blurted out, “Yes.”

“Just let me show you my art. I won’t kiss you again.”

And I followed him down the path like a hypnotized princess walking into a tunnel with an evil wizard ready to strip her of everything. My body hummed with pleasure, and not just the space between my thighs. My eyes yearned to see his art, murals I’d only witnessed on websites and newspapers.

His hands shook as he held mine.

Why is he nervous?

He stopped as in the doorway for a second, inhaled, exhaled, and whispered, “Okay. Here we go. This is my work.”

“I’ve seen it before. You know you’re already a legend, right?”

His hands didn’t stop shaking. “I’m not used to being around someone as they see it. I usually just put it up and run off into the night. When I brought my parents in here, I threw up in the corner over there.”

“Wow.”

“Not a very wolfy thing to do, huh?”

“Not really.” I walked forward and tugged at him to come with me.

The space was the size of a warehouse. There was no way this place had been a gallery. Someone must have rented the penthouse under it, cleared it all out, knocked away the walls, and made it into a perfect place to put slabs of brick covered in art.

Like metal to magnet, I couldn’t help myself. I walked in, drawn by the art and the oddness of it all. Here was this white space—cement floor, stark walls, high ceilings, and bright lighting that bathed the area in a bright glow.

“One day, I’m going to have a gallery like this,” I muttered to myself.

He nodded. “Yes, you are. Sooner than you think.”

Hand in hand, we walked around together, my heart pounding in my ears the whole time.

The place looked like a graffiti art museum. There were ten broken away brick walls in the room and mounted against the white walls by huge metal bars. He’d actually had someone cut into the freaking buildings somehow without ruining the mural, and then shipped them off to Miami.

“How much did it cost to get your own work from the street?” I asked.

“A fortune for each one. It’s why I only have a few.”

“How many murals have you painted?”

“I stopped counting at a hundred.”

“Damn.” I shook my head. “Amazing.”

Wolf utilized the wall to add to his work. If windows were there, they became the eye of a creature or the opening to a bulging and beating heart. If there were pipes, then he made them the legs or borders of an image.

And he loved color—golden rays where black should be, heavy coats of aqua blues and grassy greens. The few times he used black and white, they were to make a somber point. Solid black prisoners stuck behind white bars as they peered out onto world bursting of color.

“I can’t believe you’re Wolf.”

“Are you sure?” He smirked. “I could be a rich guy that’s obsessed with him.”

“No.” I shook my head. “You have a pretty big reputation for sneaking into places and painting murals in the living rooms of those who steal your work.”

“Awww. You’ve heard the stories.”

“Those stories are what breathe life into our world. It makes new artists like me, motivated to step in the big boys’ shoes.”

“And big girls.”

“Yes.” I nodded. “And big girls.”

“Come here.” He led me into the further into his gallery past tons of white space where future murals would probably go. Far in the back, the whole wall was covered with a massive ceiling-to-floor curtain. Two big ladders lay on the floor next to tons of new spray cans, some still in packaged boxes.

His fingers shook more against my hand. “I’ve been working on a concept, but I think there’s something missing. I want you to help me.”

I let go of his hand. “What?”

He looked away. “Paint with me.”

I walked around and got in front of him, but he wouldn’t maintain eye contact. “What? I can’t paint with. . .Wolf, the legend. No.”

“Just take a look at the concept first.” He headed over to the side of the curtain and pressed a button near it. Buzzing sounded. The fabric moved away and revealed a mural on a brick wall.

I gasped.

He’d painted me. My red hair swarmed over my head like a cape made of blood. It dripped down my bare body, covering all of the appropriate places, yet lathering me in erotic mystery. I held an empty basket in my hand. My eyes were closed and full lips formed into a straight line. Dark skeletal woods stood off in the distance behind me.

“Paint with me,” he whispered.

“This is. . .”

“It needs your touch.”

“It needs nothing.”

“Trust me, Red.”

“But—”

“Paint with me.”

And I did.

We mounted the ladders against the wall and he followed my vision. Something else needed to be there to finish the story.

The wolf.

I painted my feelings.

I placed a massive wolf that merged within the cape of my hair, consuming me, his jaw locked onto my head, but not piercing the skin, more just forming around me just like that cape. In the image we became one. The predator and prey, neither sure who truly had the other trapped.

We did this for hours. Fumes filled the room. He turned on this special ventilation system that sucked in the vapors. We smoked too. He rolled long blunts filled with sticky leaves that shimmered right before my eyes. When sweat beaded around his forehead, he took off his shirt and turned up the air conditioner.

Damn. How can I paint with him half naked?

On the ladder, I watched him. His whole body was coiled muscle. No wonder he could sneak in and out of places with no problem. I could picture him jumping up walls with ease and racing away in the night before anyone knew that he’d been there.

He looked up at me and froze.

“What’s wrong?” I climbed down the ladder. “You don’t like being stalked? You don’t like it, when someone is being creepy with you”

“You can’t stalk someone that wants to be your target.” And as if on a dare, he placed his hands to his belt buckle and undid it. “Just be careful, Red. This isn’t a fairytale. No one will save you, if you decide to see how sharp the wolf’s teeth really are.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” Step by step, I walked to him, high off creating, smoking, and just lusting over him.

Now was the time to surrender,

to just let go,

and lose all control.

Targeting me with a heated gaze, he undid the top of his pants. “Come here.”

I slipped off my dress.

It fell to the floor and he groaned.

“No, Wolf.” I unsnapped my strapless bra behind my back. “You come here.”

And she swallowed him whole.

Wolf

S
tunned.

I was stunned.

Never had I imagined tasting her tonight, although I’d dreamed about it a few times—her red strands scattered across my bed and my body.

Is she going to let me taste her tonight?

“Come here,” I groaned.

That body.

With nothing but confidence on her face, she pulled that night black dress down. It fell to the floor. With her heels still on, Red stepped out of it. “No, Wolf. You come here.”

I stood there frozen.

“Are you scared?” she whispered and touched the top of her panties.

After seeing her naked, it was hard to talk, but somehow I managed. “Don’t.”

Her eyelids drooped over her gaze like a naughty, lust-filled kitty. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t take those panties off.”

She quirked her eyebrows. “Why not?”

“I have to take those panties off myself.”

“Do you?” She touched the top of the panty’s line. It was such a beautiful thing, black silk against caramel skin, and what lay behind them. . .I needed to touch and taste, feast and swim all through it.

And those breasts. They were bigger than I thought. Soft pillows, full, and perky, ready-to-devour brown nipples that stood erect in front of me.