Cry of the Wolf (16 page)

He thrust a thumb into her mouth, and she moaned, loudly, as earth and sex exploded in a taste sensation so primal, so
primitive
…

“Just like you’re doing now.” His voice dropped in desire. “Come for me, Lydia.”

She didn’t need telling twice. His words shot fire through her faster than a rocket. She cried out his name as she ground herself onto his hand, convulsed against him…

He lowered his head and took a breast into his mouth, right along with the cotton of her bra, and bit down on her pert nipple through the material. It would have hurt, but she was high from her orgasm and the sharpness of the bite just took her higher. Another wave of bliss crashed over her.

Taylor’s groan reverberated around the small mound of her left breast, where he still latched on; still pumping her with his digits … slower … bringing her back down…

She tugged at his hair and brought him up to her, eyes locking on his.

He smiled. “Next time you scream my name like that, I’ll be inside you, I promise.” His smile widened until it was ear-to-ear, and even though he was in human guise, she swore she could see his tail wagging. She giggled.

“What’s so funny?”

“You.” She tugged at his hair again, this time teasingly, then stroked his face as seriousness took over. “You know, for someone who’s never been at peace with his wolf, you’re so instinctual. There’s a wildness about you.”

He placed a last kiss on her lips, and then rose up off the bed. “I’m learning.” He held out his hand to her.

She took it and he pulled her up to sitting.

She was now eye level with his cock, which looked about ready to burst free from its own skin.

Nice imagery, Lydia.

“You must be aching big time.”

He waggled his eyebrows at her, playful Taylor putting in another appearance. “Why, Ms Martin, are you referring to my manhood?”

Light laughter filtered out of her. “Yes, Mr Harper, I am indeed referring to your hooded man.”

A bellow ripped from him at her words. It warmed her up inside and out, until she was grinning like a lovesick schoolgirl.

I love them.

The realisation took her breath away – literally. She exhaled with a whoosh as the reality set in: she loved them. In her own way, she loved all three of them. Her men. Her wolves. Her mates.

“It’s not a problem. It’s had to wait for months; another few hours won’t hurt. Hey,” he ran a finger down the length of her nose, “why the serious expression?”

She almost said it then:
I love you
. But she bit the words back, her feelings so great, the moment too fleeting because she had to leave in five minutes.

Instead, she smiled. “Just … thank you.”

His finger ended on her lips, stroking them briefly. “Thank
you
.” He gathered her clothes from the floor and handed them to her. “We’ve got to get a move on. Lawrence wants me to go with you.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Yeah, I met him downstairs before I came up here.”

“Was he all right with you?”

“Same as ever. Still trusted me enough to let me look out for you tonight, so I guess my tearing out of here like a bat out of hell is something he can overlook.” He paused. “Ryan was great.”

“Yeah, he is,” she agreed.

“Right, I’ll be five minutes in the shower, then we’re whizzing you to work.”

“On your motorcycle?”

“Is that okay? I know it’s not a bespoke Honda, but—”

“I’m not discriminatory about motorbikes – you’re good.”

He beamed her a smile, grabbed his belongings off her bed, then wandered out of her room to get ready.

Lydia let out a sigh of contentment, and fell back on the mattress.
Er, no … you need to hurry up and get dressed.

Oh, right.

But then tonight, after work, it was Taylor night. All night. Unrushed and languorous in that way Sundays should be. Her lovesick schoolgirl grin graced her features once more. There may be a part of him that was naturally wild, but out of all her mates, he knew how to make her feel like a woman – and human. It was a connection she needed as much as the wolf in her needed the solidity of the earth and the pack, and the strength of Ryan and Lawrence’s dominance.

And she loved all three of them.

Wow.

She hadn’t even known it was possible to love more than one man at a time, but then, love wasn’t a thing you could measure, was it? It wasn’t something you could put a cap on. It simply …
was.
It flowed, it existed, and it would do so in whichever way it needed to.

She wondered if her three males felt the same way about her as she felt about them.

Anxiety squeezed her heart. What if they didn’t? What if they never could because they had to share her – or because it wasn’t in their nature to love in that way? It’s not like Ryan seemed willing to say those three little words, despite their strong dream-link over the past ten years.

Lawrence might never love her.

But maybe Taylor could…?

She shook the thoughts away and jumped off the bed, racing to get her clothes on.
I guess time will tell
. And since all mated werewolves had supernatural longevity, she had a lot of time to spare.

Chapter Ten

Intermission.

The critics were right. Russell Maddox as Marvin Michaels in Neil Simon’s
California Suite
, was
amazing
. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d had this much fun.

“Ice cream,” she whispered to Amil as people grappled over them to get into the bar. “Can we have ice cream?”

“Of course,” he laughed.

On impulse, she kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. This is so much fun. I need to run to the loo. Do you want me to grab the ice creams on the way back from the bar?”

“No need – look.” He pointed towards the front of the stage, to an usher who had taken on the role of ice cream seller, with the obligatory serving tray hanging around her neck.

“Great,” Sarah beamed. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“See you soon, darling.” Amil stood up and he towered so, that the crowd literally parted for him like the Red Sea did for Moses. It was a bizarre simile that made Sarah’s head buzz for a moment, but oddly, it seemed right. She wondered if they knew they were doing that, or if they did it instinctively.

Time to change your knickers, Ms Nun.

Right, yes. By god, she was horny. She’d never felt so turned on by any man in her life, especially now she’d let go of her irrational hang-ups about taking their relationship further.

She made her way along the aisle, up the stairs, then out of the stage doors towards where she thought the toilets were.

Damn.
The queue was ridiculous. There must be another washroom somewhere. Hadn’t she seen a restaurant on the way in?
Better hurry, or you’ll miss the second half.

Guided by memory, she wandered in the opposite direction and down the first flight of stairs she came to. It ended in a foyer, the revolving doors that led into the theatre just ahead.

Yes, this was it. The restaurant was on the left, and a sign on the wall said the toilets were through that door on the right.

She hurried through them, glancing at her watch as she did so.

The battery was dead. How annoying. She reached into her bag instead and pulled out her Blackberry, which flashed 19:50 at her. Her watch seemed to have stopped just forty-five minutes ago. Superstitiously, she wondered what had happened forty-five minutes ago.

Oh, well… Ten minutes to go.

That was cool – she could eat a small tub of ice cream in about sixty seconds flat, her hips proved that. She grinned.
And Amil and his hot bod
still
wants to bed me. This is the best year ever!

Stopping outside the door to the Ladies’ toilets, she frowned as she noticed yet another email from Holly:

Flight booked. I’m on it tonight. Honey, I know all about it. Taylor told me he cheated on you, and with Beth too! What fucking assholes! You don’t need to bottle this all up. I’ll be there in just over 24 hrs. Love you.

Holls xxx

Sarah stood stock still.
She’s officially lost the plot.

You’re crazy, you know that? I don’t know any Taylor. And “asshole”? Lol. America is growing on you :) I’m confused as hell as to why you’re coming out here, but would be lovely to see you anyway. Have missed you. Gotta go. Hot date ;)

S x

And suddenly an idea occurred to her. An idea that would make her just as crazy as Holly, but she couldn’t get it out of her head.

She scrolled downwards until she landed on her friend’s previous email. There it was – the mobile number that belonged, supposedly, to someone called Taylor.

She scrolled down even further, Holly’s capital letters screaming at her:
I mean it Sarah: TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HUSBAND.

Husband.

Her heart hammered in her chest.

No. No, she couldn’t do this.

But why on earth not? Holly’s words held absolutely no truth.

She scrolled back up to the number, highlighted it and pressed ‘call’ … just as a tall, very cute, red-haired woman flung open the door to the Ladies’ and walked right into her.

~*~

Amil looked at his watch: 19:53

Damn. He was running out of time. He really shouldn’t be on a hunting mission, but as soon as they’d arrived, he’d noticed that this entire building smelled of werewolves. It was a lingering musk that told him they frequented here often, and ‘musk’ was accurate: he could scent a male. An Alpha no less, with high pheromone levels, and
not
the Alpha that they had captured last month.

But two Alphas in the same area? It was unheard of.

He hadn’t had time to ponder on it any further, because underlying that masculine spice was that of the she-wolf – the very same scent that permeated the blouse he’d stolen. She was the wolf he had to catch for Gabriel.

However, although her core fragrance was still the same, he could tell there was a slight difference: she had mated. What was strange beyond explanation though, was that he couldn’t hone in on her mate’s scent. At first, he’d thought she smelled like the Alpha who dominated this building, but that wasn’t quite right – he swore there were other males attached to her, but her mate, especially if he were an Alpha, would never allow that.

Confused, and torn between the she-wolf and the Alpha, he’d decided to follow the trail of the she-wolf; after all, it wouldn’t do to alert an Alpha to his presence, not when he had Sarah with him, and that was the worst thing of all: Sarah could get hurt. He didn’t want her anywhere near this mess if the shit hit the fan. She was
his
mate, he knew that now.

Who are you kidding? You’ve always known.

It was true, he relented. He
had
known it from the first moment he’d caught her scent as she walked past him in the woods – he had even known it before then, when he’d caught the tiniest hint of it on the blouse, so faint it was hardly there at all. He’d been so intrigued, prepared to follow the she-wolf even then to try and track the scent down, and fate had been so kind to him when it had orchestrated that Sarah cross his path at that precise moment. It was one of the few reasons he believed his soul could still be saved: fate had never given up on him.

Yes, she was his mate, even as unusual as it was for Tridents to find their mates in their very short life span.

When he’d finally tracked her down and locked eyes with hers, all he’d wanted to do was make her his, by force if necessary. It was what Tridents did, turning their human mates into Tridents in the process, and he’d been quite prepared to. But mating alone had not been the driving force behind his need to have her. He had been so desperate to connect with his human self; to feel loved. So he had hesitated, getting to know the human better.

Well, it turned out that Sarah was some kind of saint. She was embodied purity, and with every minute he’d spent with her, the taint on his soul became less. He had wanted to make her his; she had made him hers instead, and more than that, she had given back to him what he thought had been destroyed beyond repair:
himself
.

He patted the two vials of liquid he carried in his jacket’s inside pocket – one small vial and one large – as he followed a winding staircase all the way down to a foyer. The smaller vial was sealed up well in a plastic Poly Grip bag.