Cry of the Wolf (10 page)

As if she was his mirror, her own anger flared within her, but she had to admit that a slither of fear coiled at the bottom of her stomach. She’d never seen Lawrence look like this before. His ice-blue eyes burned with fury and a strange, freezing cold fire surrounded him like a blazing shroud.

With startling clarity, she envisioned some parallel universe in which she was twenty years older and still alone, still serving tables, still numb to emotional attachments …
untouchable…

No. No
way.
She was
nothing
like him!

“Lydia!” Brendan had chased her around the corner and chased her out of her disturbing thoughts.

Lawrence eyed him up and down. His jaw twitched, his fists clenched, and he strode towards Lydia with a definite purpose. She could guess what it was.

“It’s okay!” she shouted out, and she didn’t know who she was trying to calm down, because Brendan reacted to Lawrence’s presence by straightening up to face him head on.

Very bad.

She struck a palm hard into Brendan’s chest, not caring that she was using some of her werewolf strength to hold him back. “It’s okay,” she repeated, but it was Lawrence she glanced at. His knuckles had turned white from the way he balled his fists.

“Don’t you
dare
hit him, he’s done nothing wrong.”

He ignored her, just ten yards away now.

“I mean it!”

With a speed and agility he didn’t look capable of given his height, Lawrence ducked, fastened an arm around her legs and hauled her over his shoulder.

“HEY!” The world turned upside down and spun around far too quickly, before she realised they had made it half way back to his motorbike.

Brendan was cursing left, right and centre from where they’d left him, and she knew he would have followed them had three groups of bikers not just roared up the drive, and his father not been yelling for him to get back inside to get the food on the go.

“I’m fine!” she called out to him, although she didn’t know why she was bothering to try and pacify anything any more. “Family issues!”
Really, Lydia…
her brain laughed at her. “I’ll text you!”

That earned her a growl from Lawrence.

She hit him as hard she could in the small of his back.

It didn’t even break his stride, and he retaliated by smacking her hard on the rear.

Heat flamed her face. He did
not
just do that!

“Put me down, you crazy areshole!”

He did, and not lightly, right on the front seat of his bike as he straddled the back of it.

She scrambled to get off, but he pinned her either side with his arms and kicked the stand off at the same time.

Lydia yelped as the bike tilted with her efforts, and instinctively sought to balance herself on it rather than escape. She ended up sitting astride the damn thing with her back to the handlebars, facing Lawrence. She did
not
want to look at him, but before she could alter her position, he started up the bike and they were thrust forward as it took off.

Christ!
She locked her knees around what she could of the seat and grabbed the ridge on the front of it, from behind. Luckily, because the motorbike had been made to his specifications, the sides of the seat had slight grooves in them that her calves nestled into despite her angle. Why on earth he’d had the seat made this way was anyone’s guess. Maybe whisking unwilling females away on his bike in a dangerous fashion was a regular thing. Bastard.

Lawrence still had her fastened between both of his arms as he leaned forward to grip the handlebars. There was about half an inch between herself and his chest, and she was holding on for dear life as the motorbike accelerated. They were doing at least forty miles an hour along narrow country lanes.

“Are you insane?!” she cried.

“Hold on tight,” he bit out, clearly still angry.

Fuck! Her truck. They’d left her truck behind.

That thought lit a fuse, and she exploded in anger. “What the hell is
wrong
with you!” she shouted into the wind, putting as much ferocity into her words as she could because she couldn’t put anything else into them, what with her being as precariously balanced as she was. Damn it, in the whirlwind of his lunacy, neither of them even had helmets on.

“Is this something you get off on? Being a complete wanker to people who don’t deserve it? I was making amends back there, you know. I was trying to make peace with Brendan; to make sure he wouldn’t come after me, god knows he’s been trying. But you just blew
that
out of the water, didn’t you!”

“You should have told us where you were going,” he roared into her ear. She could feel the fine hairs on his cheek brushing hers.

“Why? I don’t need to tell you shit.”

“That guy knows too much.”

“Brendan? He doesn’t know anything.”

“He’s been trying to get hold of me ever since you disappeared.”

“Because he’s
worried
about me. Is that an alien concept to you? He doesn’t know I’m a werewolf, don’t you
dare
wipe his memory.”

“Wipe his memory? Jesus, woman, you think I go fixing things by wiping the memory of everyone who happens to cross our path?”

“It’s what you did to Taylor’s wife.”

“Sarah was attacked and out of her bloody mind! She was a babbling wreck and next to catatonic. We had three days before Taylor turned, she’d seen too much and couldn’t deal, and it’s not like she could ever have her husband back again –
ever
. Do you think I didn’t weigh all my options before making the decision I did?”

“So, what if Brendan
did
know I was a werewolf and
could
deal with it?”

“You’re not just a werewolf, you’re a storm-wielder for Christ’s sake – don’t you know how much danger you’re in? How much danger you put all of us in?
Including
the human?”

“His name’s
Brendan
, and fuck
you! This isn’t my fault. You can hate me all you want; I know I’ve ruined things for you and your pack, but I’m not leaving the people who mean something to me out in the cold, no matter how much you might want me to. I’m not
you
.” Tears stung her eyes. She couldn’t tell if they were because of her temper or because of the wind that whipped around them.

Lawrence threw her a sharp sideways glance, and she wished she hadn’t seen the pained look in his eye, because it made the wolf in her want to nurture him when all she wanted to do was beat him with heavy objects.

Was he really just looking out for her? It seemed more than that the way he’d shown up at the café. He seemed on some kind of personal, half-cocked mission.

New words of anger formed in her mind, but she could no longer get them out because her wolf had been alerted to the hurt that lay within her mate. It was almost a ghost of itself, it was buried so deep – cold; so hard – and not sorrowful like Taylor’s grief, but sharp and ferocious as if whatever had caused it still knifed away at his heart, cutting parts of his soul away. What had happened in his life to cause that kind of torment?

It’s eating him alive from the inside out,
whispered her wolf.

Infuriating son of a bitch! This was so unfair! He was a crabby, obstinate wannabe Alpha who saw fit to haul her around like his possession, and her inner-Lassie wanted to
cuddle
him. This was the fall of any decent woman, she thought angrily.
This
was why women became victims, and tied to chauvinistic pigs who used and abused them, and it was why she’d bought the pick-up truck – the last symbol of her independence – which was now nowhere within her reach.

She glared daggers at Lawrence, then shut her eyes because she didn’t want that penetrating tortured look of his to add further confusion to her emotions.

Nope. There was a reason why she stuck to one night stands: complications. No need to get emotionally involved with anyone, thank you very much.

Except Ryan.

But that had been okay, because he’d been a dream.

Well, he had before she’d known otherwise.

Well, you can hardly have one night stands now, can you?
retorted her wolf.
You’re mated. To three males. You didn’t want emotional attachments? Well, now you’ve got three. Forever. What are you gonna do about it?

Inadvertently, she growled, because she didn’t have a clue. This was way out of her comfort zone.

Quick as a heartbeat, Lawrence nipped sharply at the right side of her neck – at his bite mark – before turning his attention back to the road.

She let out a small yelp.
Did he just tell me to shut up?

Lydia fumed … and then she fumed some more when she realised that his action had also caused a not so unpleasant reaction from her somewhere down below. Somewhere that suddenly became very aware of the vibrations of the bike’s engine right against…

You’ve got to be kidding me!

All at once, everything changed and she could stop it no more than she could ignore it. Just as moonflowers came undone for the night, Lydia came undone for Lawrence. Or maybe it was her wolf that came undone for his, because she could barely contain the animal inside her. With Lawrence, it was like some ancient dance, so different to what she felt with Ryan or Taylor. It had taken her unawares before when he’d pinned her up against the corridor wall three weeks ago – when she’d pushed him away.

As if he could read her mind, he leaned in once more and licked his mark on her skin.

She gasped, whimpered even though she tried not to, and this time, she couldn’t push him way, because her hands were trembling on the ridge of the seat behind her with the effort it took to keep herself upright. She hoped to god he had one eye on the road.

“We’ll fall.”

“I never lose my balance. We won’t fall.” And then he was devouring her neck, sucking at it hard, pulling at her tendons…

Her moan was a loud one, complete with an underlying frustration at everything she’d lost. “I hate you right now.”

He grumbled something she didn’t quite catch, then said, “I’m going to let that comment slide, ‘cause it’s pretty damn obvious how much you don’t.” His right hand came off the handlebar and, to prove his point, he flicked his thumb across her pebbled left nipple clothed under her vest.

She jerked in her seat, then cried out when she lost her grip and slid down.

Lawrence didn’t miss a beat. He levered her back up with his hand between her legs and oh,
god
that should be illegal. In fact, she might have just said that out loud.

Without warning, he gripped the crotch of her jeans harder, holding her in place, then swerved the bike to the left and onto a private road – it was more like a dirt track – that ran into the woods. No doubt, it was another entrance onto his property. She wasn’t sure exactly how many acres he owned but she knew it was a lot.

They whizzed past a sign that read, NO TRESPASSING. Underneath that, another sign read, BEWARE OF THE DOGS.

Oh, that’s hilarious.
She wondered whose bright idea that was.

The motorbike bounced over the uneven surface.

“We’re gonna—”

“We’re not going to fall. Will you just fucking trust me?”

A perplexing warmth flooded her belly among all the fiery lust and anger consuming her. He wanted her trust? It seemed baffling with the way he was around her. He’d never asked her for anything before.

No, that wasn’t true. He’d asked her permission to bite her.

Shifting just a little, his hand moved against her jeans until he found the seam of her crotch with his fingers.

She hissed as he dug into it; into her clit. She undulated under him, and then cursed when the bike wobbled.

“Christ,” he moaned, “You’re so expressive. Everything about you is so damn expressive. You need to keep still Lydia. I can only hold my balance if you keep still.”

“You have to be fucking joking,” she breathed.

Another hard rub against her most sensitised spot, told her he wasn’t.

She bit her lip to keep her concentration so she could do as he instructed – she did
not
want to end up as road kill.

“So much heat,” he said, hoarsely, “even through this denim.”

His hand disappeared, she felt a tug against her waist, and then her button was open, her zip sliding down… No way. No way could she keep still through this…

With one hand steering the bike and his other hand spanning her pelvis, he eased his thumb down beyond the elastic of her underwear.