Dark Wolf: 1 (Spirit Wild) (15 page)

“That look he’s got. He can stop anyone in their tracks with that look. Except you, of course.”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever stopped me,” she said. But a shiver raced down her spine. One man had that power. Only one.

Sebastian’s image filled her mind. Firmly, she pushed him aside.

 

Goddess, he was such a fucking idiot, but he’d run like a scared rabbit the moment the girls shifted. Lily was beautiful, a truly striking woman, especially naked, but when he saw Annie McClintock naked for the first time, it hit him like a speeding locomotive. She stood there beside Lily, looking so petite and perfect, and he’d realized that whatever he’d ever felt for Lily Cheval paled beside the feelings he had for Annie.

He’d wanted to beg her to shift back to her wolf form so he could mate with her right then and there with Lily as their witness, and wasn’t that just the dumbest thing ever.

They hardly knew each other. She’d been gone for six years. He’d not seen her once, not on any of her visits home, and why was that? Had she been avoiding him? Had he somehow known this was going to happen and stayed away?

He raced as if an army hunted him, ran until his sides were heaving and foam covered his lips and realized he’d made a huge circle and was almost back to the hot spring where the girls waited. What the hell was he going to say? What should he do?

He’d never imagined this feeling. He’d heard his parents and the other elders talk about meeting one another, how they’d known from the beginning when they’d found their one true mate, or two as the case may be. Star’s parents, Tala, AJ, and Mik, certainly made their relationship work.

How did he court Annie? He didn’t have a clue. His relationships weren’t relationships at all. They were serial one-night stands with human women, or hot, no-holds-barred sex with Lily whenever they got together.

He’d avoided most of the girls in the pack as they’d grown older because he didn’t want to get entangled with anyone in particular. Now he couldn’t imagine not being tangled with Annie.

He slowed to a trot. Wished he could get Lily off by herself and ask her for advice. Of course, he’d have to put up with her snarky “I told you so.” He’d just have to man up and handle it.

A rabbit jumped up under his feet and took off across the meadow, and suddenly it all came very clear. Alex leapt after the foolish creature. He knew exactly how to win Annie’s heart.

 

“What am I going to say when he comes back?” Annie hugged herself, terrified and thrilled, apprehensive and anxious, and so tied in knots she thought she might throw up.

Lily thought Alex loved her? Impossible, but what if it was true?
She shivered and her stomach lurched.

Lily wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “I’ve got an idea how to take your mind off Alex until he gets back. One that requires sharing body heat. Among other things.”

A frisson of awareness raced across her skin and settled right between her legs. “I think that’s a marvelous idea. I’m a wreck.” Talk about your understatements. Before she could talk herself out of it, Annie wrapped her arms around Lily’s shoulders and pulled her close for a kiss.

Warm, firm lips, the tip of a tongue, the taste of her own kind, of Chanku. “It’s been so long,” she breathed, opening to Lily’s searching lips. This was comfort. Familiar ground, a woman she’d been with before. One she had known intimately when they were teens, admired greatly as an adult, and would always love.

The one she’d thought would stand between her and Alex. She felt so stupid now, thinking of all the wasted years, time when she might have been with him.

“Not wasted.” Lily smiled against her mouth before running kisses across her jaw, along her throat. “I’m not snooping. You’re broadcasting your thoughts, sweetie. Don’t feel as if you wasted time. Those were the years Alex needed to grow up, to mature enough to be the man who could possibly love you back. And it was a chance for you to explore life without the pack to fall back on. That’s huge.”

Annie’s lips were busy, but she had so much to say. She slipped into mindspeak, connecting easily with Lily.
I was so lonely at school. I wanted to come home, but I couldn’t bear to see him. I didn’t want to see him with you.

Laughing, Lily slid off the stone shelf, dipped down into the warm water, and grinned up at Annie. “Which is exactly why they’ve wanted Alex and me mated. Ain’t gonna happen.”

She wrapped her hands around Annie’s thighs and easily lifted her to sit on the smooth stone edge of the pool with her feet dangling in the warm water. Shoulders deep, Lily leaned forward between Annie’s knees.

Shivering, as much from anticipation as from Lily’s sensual touch, Annie closed her eyes as her arousal blossomed. Lily left soft, sucking kisses along her inner thighs and then bathed those sensitive spots with her tongue. Moaning, Annie’s nipples ruched into tight peaks, and it was hard to catch her breath. Biting back a sob, she lay back against rock still warm from the sun. When Lily’s tongue stroked a line of fire over her labia, her entire body jerked. Arousal once blossoming now exploded.

She whimpered and ached. So long. It had been so damned long since she’d felt this perfect touch, this molten fire racing through her veins, sizzling along her skin, and stoking a climax that kept building, building higher and hotter. Lily clutched her thighs with strong, long fingers, lifting her hips, tonguing her clit. She slipped her fingers deep inside Annie’s clenching sheath, curling forward against the sensitive inner walls, until the fire raced from clit to womb and back again.

Too good. Over the top good. The damp sweep of Lily’s beautiful hair, the perfect pressure of her lips, her teasing tongue and long fingers touching and stroking. On the edge, gasping for air, Annie raised her head and glared at Lily. “What about you? I don’t want to come without you.”

“Good. Me either.” Laughing, Lily lunged out of the water as Annie quickly turned and scrambled into the thick grass beside the pool. She was so much shorter than Lily, but somehow, laughing and giggling, they made it work with Annie on her back in the soft but chilly grass while Lily knelt above her, caging her in warm arms and strong legs.

The grass warmed quickly beneath her body. Annie sighed. This was something familiar. Comfortable, this touch and taste between women. Between herself and someone she’d known so well, so long. She used her tongue and her fingers, teeth, and lips to nibble and suck, to penetrate and caress.

Lily responded, her senses obviously as tightly wound as Annie’s, and she whimpered when Annie clasped her sensitive clit between her lips and used her tongue and even her teeth to tease the sensitive bud.

Yet even as the pleasure between them grew, Annie wondered vaguely when Alex would return. If he would return. Then Lily was touching and tasting, quickly bringing her back to her peak, and Annie lost herself in taking and giving pleasure with one of her dearest friends.

Even dearer, now that she knew Lily held no claim to Alex.

Opening her thoughts, she found Lily waiting to connect. Mind to mind, she promised.
I’m never leaving again, Lily. Whether or not Alex loves me, I’m not walking away from the pack.

She answered Lily with laughter.
I’ve missed this!
She felt the swipe of Lily’s tongue running from her butt to her clit, swirling a tight circle around that sensitive nub. Whimpering, Annie arched closer to Lily’s mouth.
And dear goddess, Lily, but you do this so well.

Gasping, hanging on to Lily’s slim hips, Annie opened to the boiling need, the familiar sense of overwhelming arousal and soul-deep yearning that was both the blessing and the curse of shifting, of running as the wolf. She’d forgotten what it was like to satisfy that need with one of her own kind.

With someone she loved. And with that thought in mind, with Lily’s taste on her lips and tongue, Annie gave in to the rush, the heat, the amazing climax she shared with Lily Cheval.

 

Lily had sensed Alex’s presence just before she and Annie reached their shared peak, and she’d wondered what his reaction would be.

He’d done nothing. No, he’d just stood there beside the pond, not five feet away from them, his ears forward, eyes bright, holding a freshly killed rabbit in his mouth. Now he sat motionless, still holding the rabbit, still watching Annie, his amber eyes glittering in the last shimmering rays of moonlight as it passed behind the mountain.

Substitute that damned dead rabbit with a duck or pheasant, add a shotgun next to his feet, and he’d look like one of those old paintings: faithful hunting dog bringing in the kill.

She wouldn’t laugh. She couldn’t. Not when she could sense how deeply Alex had been affected by Annie. She had the distinct feeling he hadn’t expected this at all.

Lily touched Annie’s shoulder and nodded in Alex’s direction, heard the catch in Annie’s breath, and realized she’d been totally unaware of his presence. As far as Alex was concerned, Lily wasn’t even in the picture. She quietly slipped away from Annie and back into the pool, leaving Alex and Annie to work this out on their own.

Her body still thrummed with the force of her orgasm. The warm water should have soothed her, but she was so sensitive that the small current abraded her sensitive nipples instead.

Gliding through the water, she swam to the far side and found an outcropping where she could sit and yet remain almost entirely submerged. She wanted them to forget she was here, but she didn’t want to miss this, either.

It didn’t appear that would be a problem. Alex waited until Annie regained her composure. Then he stood and walked over to her and gently laid the dead rabbit down in front of her.

Annie’s eyes went wide. She shot a quick glance toward Lily as if looking for confirmation. Lily didn’t say a word. This was for Annie to figure out.

Annie’s eyes were shining with what could only be tears. She knelt and ran her fingers over the rabbit’s soft fur. Then she raised her head, looked directly into Alex’s eyes, and shifted.

Now in her wolven form, she sniffed at the offering Alex had brought.

Lily watched and wondered. Did Annie understand the significance ? For a Chanku male, sharing a fresh kill went way beyond a corsage for the prom. Lily relaxed as soon as Annie took a bite, holding the body down with her front paw, tearing through fur and skin while Alex watched. She swallowed it down, licking blood from her muzzle before sitting back.

Lily grinned.
Good girl,
she thought, but the words stayed behind her shields. Annie was doing exactly as she should, offering the rest of the kill to Alex. He stared at her for a moment. Then he finished the rabbit in a couple of bites.

When he’d cleaned his bloody muzzle on the grass, Alex shifted. There was no way to ignore his blatant arousal, and Lily realized she was enjoying this chance to sit back and admire him. He really was a beautiful man.

What did Annie see when she looked at Alex? Nudity was nothing unusual, but Lily realized she couldn’t remember much about Annie when they ran as a pack. She’d usually arrived in whatever form she was taking and would head back to her parents’ house, still in her animal form.

Their few sexual encounters had been fun and open, but now that she thought of it, none of the guys had ever been around when she’d had sex with Annie. How could she have missed that? But it explained Annie’s hesitation as she gazed up at Alex.

Then she shifted, sooner than Lily expected. Another good sign. Lily had no intention of interfering or even reminding them she was here. At least, not this first time, but she wasn’t about to leave, either. She felt Annie’s need, her insecurities, and even some fear.

Not of sex with Alex, but that he would be disappointed, that he’d expect her to know more, to be more experienced.

Okay. A little interference was warranted.

Tell him,
Lily said.
He needs to know.

Annie nodded and stepped into Alex’s embrace.

 

She was warm and sleek and absolutely perfect. Her hesitancy only made him want her more. She trembled, and he wondered if she was as nervous about this as he was.

Sex was as natural as breathing. Sex with Annie? Goddess, but he’d never felt nervous about sex with any woman. Right now he was actually shaking.

He sensed Lily, knew she waited nearby, close enough for Annie, yet far enough to give them at least a sense of privacy. He’d always loved Lily. Loving her was just a part of who he was, how he saw himself, but watching her make love with Annie had hit him like a blow to the heart. He’d stared at the two women, both so beautiful yet so unique. He’d watched them reach their climax together, and it was then that he realized his attention hadn’t been on Lily at all.

No. His focus had been entirely on Annie McClintock. He’d often wondered if this day would ever come, if he could look at another woman and feel something, anything remotely as powerful as the feelings he had for Lily.

It had finally happened.

He felt more than
something
for Annie. Emotions so powerful he didn’t even mind the fact he’d have to admit, once again, that Lily was right. He nuzzled his chin in Annie’s tousled hair, and kissed her temple and the fading bruise over her cheek. A couple more shifts, and it should be gone by the time she returned home.

Running his hands along her back, he cupped her bottom and lifted her, pulling her close against his erect cock. She smelled so damned good, like the forest at night and clear, fresh water, in spite of the minerals in the pool. Her skin against his was dark silk, but as he held her close, she shuddered.