Hot Springs Werewolf Complete Series (BBW Werewolf Erotic Romance) (24 page)

So he had lied to me. But why?

"Naked girl who looks at me like she wants to fuck me?"

"She was in the woods. Had to make it clear what
my protection
meant."

"Why not tell me that?"

Red looked away and bit his lip as though trying to decide whether to tell me the truth. I could guess most of it. If he'd given me any idea werewolves were hanging around out in the forest intent on possibly harming me I would have left Hot Springs before I'd even started working at Greasy Manna.

"I didn't want you to leave. You're my mate."

He looked in my eyes and I saw the yearning on his face and suddenly realized what it must cost him to say such things and yet I still hadn't agreed to be his. It was like he kept proposing marriage to me but I'd said no over and over again, even if only by my silence. Which I was doing once more.

"I'm glad I didn't leave," I said and kissed him again. It wasn't yes or no and it wasn't silence but still, I knew it wasn't what he wanted.

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes."

I agreed out loud before I could stop myself and then inwardly cursed. One thing I know about myself if that if I agree to do something then I'll do it, regardless of how much of a bad idea it is. I get trapped by my own sense of duty or obligation.

I led Red to the door and picked up his bag of clothes that were sitting on the table. I'd had them since that night upstairs in the historical society and hadn't given the back yet. Red took them with an odd look on his face and then smiled before kissing me once more. Then he was gone, walking up the hill in a black tracksuit.

Instead of collapsing on the sofa or on my bed, instead of eating and crying, instead of sitting around and staring at nothing while my mind churned I took myself off to the shower and cleaned the lemon scent off myself. Bits of dirt went spiraling down the drain as I washed my hair and I saw I had little scratches all over me. They were rapidly healing though. As I showered I let my mind wander over what happened at Finch mansion. I had gaps in my memory, like when I'd first shifted and then shifted back three days later with Red on top of me telling me to sing. I don't remember taking my clothes off and there were only little flashes of memory after that, like I had a few frames of a film and that was all. I must have shifted and sprinted downstairs, leapt through the hole and then attacked the werewolf holding Eadie. It must have been over fairly quickly though because I'm sure Red would have been at my side within an instant. Maybe we'd both run the werewolf off and he told me I'd done it to make me feel better. After all, he did lie about how he got that cut on his face.

What else has he lied about?

I let the question drift by, looking sideways at it lest it turn and hit me in the face if I gave it too much attention. He said he hadn't known much about the Finch massacre and I believed him. It had happened so long ago. On the other hand (or paw), Donald Crisp knew all about it and you'd think such a thing would be a big deal to the Guile pack.

I finished up my shower, concluding that I wasn't likely to generate any new answers using soap and hot water (although it did help to relax me). I got out and dried myself and then went to the sofa, trying to avoid the uncooked rice. I fished my phone out of the plastic bag and saw that it had survived me tearing my clothes off. My jeans were ripped and so was my top. There was only one sock in the bag and my shoes had droplets of blood on them. I took out my shoes and decided to throw the rest away, after rinsing the blood out.

The buzz I'd heard was a message from Jem.

HLF! Long time no hear! How goes the man? What about you? xx Jam

I saw her phone had autocorrected her name to Jam and smiled at the idea of my sister signing off as Jam. Perhaps it would have been a better name for her, made her a little sweeter than she was.

How goes the man? Well my darling sister, he's actually an Alpha werewolf and he wants me to be his mate. Oh, and I did I mention I'm now a werewolf too and I can smell a plate of cookies from half a mile? And we're descended from werewolves and you'd probably be one too except for the massacre in the deep past. And maybe you're so mean all the time because you're meant to be a werewolf but you're not, so you're permanently out of place like I was.

Like I was...

I realized with a start that since I'd shifted, I had felt... in place. Secure. Grounded. Before it was like I was a balloon, buffeting by winds and blown all over the place. Disconnected. Not at home in my own skin. Despite all the crazy things that had happened since I demanded Red help me shift, I'd felt amazing. Strong.

Not that I hadn't felt strong before but Harper of the past had put up with her ex (dick) calling her fat and had done nothing more than throw a cup.

Fat.

Wow. I'd thought it. I looked down at my body wrapped in the towel and saw some very nice curves and some quite epic cleavage. Despite running a hundred miles as a werewolf I still looked pretty much the same. You certainly wouldn't call me a skinny girl. But in the past I would say I was happy and think that to myself but sometimes I wasn't really. I'd worry and fret and do stupid things like decide not to eat for an entire day. Now I looked down at my curves and I loved what I saw.

Red loves your curves.

I tried to ignore my inner voice and nearly retorted aloud "oh, so I'm only happy with who I am if a man is happy with who I am?" but there was some truth to it. Meeting Red had been a life-changing experience, in a very literal sense, and the
way
he worshipped my body... I felt myself shiver. Red's mouth between my legs. Red holding my hair. Red biting me. Me biting him. Me wrapping my arms around him. Me feeling the strength of him above me. I'd never known a man so ...
in
to me. The way he looked at me drove me crazy and made me feel secure and happy all at once. Who he was had slipped into my novel and the more I wrote, the more I fell in love with that fictional man and the real one.

Love
.

Love. Love. Love. It's all you need but hot nights with a strong man help too.

I looked at the time. It was early afternoon and despite all that had happened today, I could feel a low heat in my body that I knew would grow into an uncontrollable fire of lust if I let it. Or couldn't stop it. Red had asked me to come to his house tomorrow night but I'd go tonight.

I had something I had to do first though.

I went to the bedroom to get dressed and then I pulled the moving boxes out from under the bed to begin repacking.

I was leaving Hot Springs.

*

B
y the time evening rolled around I was practically running around the cabin. It seemed that for every item I packed into the boxes my mind decided to throw up an memory of Red. In goes the t-shirts and I got the scent of him, standing up on the second floor of the Finch mansion, me kneeling down in front of him, opening my mouth and pulling down his jeans over an alluring bulge. Fold my jeans and I remembered standing naked in the window and then taking myself to bed to kneel on it with my ass up in the air, waiting for him.

I thought I'd be sad but my body and mind were betraying me completely and I had no time for sadness. My mind would throw up a hot image and my body would respond. I was only half-packed but I was already starting to feel the familiar tingles of heat and wet between my legs. My body was trembling like a guitar string waiting to be plucked by Red. To be touched by his strong hands.

"That's it!"

I rushed to the bathroom to wash my hands and to check my hair and saw my eyes were wild and flecked with gold. I had sex brain, sex face, sex eyes. My pupils were dilated and my cheeks were flushed. I pulled my hair back and tied it up before grabbing my keys, leaving my phone on the table (no signal out here) and rushing out of the cabin. I had to see Red. Now.

I made it up the hill in record time and saw the lights on inside Red's house. He must have heard me coming (of course he did) because he opened the door as I approached and just like last time, I threw myself at him. We collided and then we were kissing like crazy, passion overflowing. I wanted to
absorb
him. He'd showered and now smelt like himself again, that maddening warmth and spice. We finally broke apart and I looked at him, very aware I had my sex face on. I didn't care. I didn't care about werewolves and diaries and stolen land or the future. All I wanted right now was him.

"You're meant to be here tomorrow night for me to teach you," Red said, looking down at my body and the back up to my eyes.

The teaching. I'd forgotten about that along with everything else.

"I want to do it now."

"Are you sure?"

It was an innocent sentence but I felt a shiver run through me. Red was standing there in his jeans and black t-shirt with bare feet looking like a cowboy on his night off but there was a tone in his voice, a look on his face. He was the Alpha of his pack, strong and fast and he was a werewolf. He was no tame wolf, despite how he sometimes appeared to me.

"I'm sure."

I said it before I could chicken out or ask too many questions.

"This way."

Red took my hand and led me inside. Just the touch of his fingers on mine sent my body into overdrive. I could feel the rough patches on his hands. I ached to pull on his hand, turn him around and kiss him before dropping to my knees. At that thought I nearly moaned and then took a breath to try to calm myself.

Red took me through the kitchen and down the corridor but instead of going to his bedroom we kept going, turning into a room I'd never been into before. There was a staircase with steps descending down to a floor below ground level and I realized that like the Finch mansion and Red himself, there was more here than appeared to the eye. I followed him down the stairs and out the door at the bottom. This floor was dimly lit with small discreet lights. It was warm and dim and comforting. As we walked and passed rooms, I also realized the floor was practically another house underground. We entered a library and as we did, the lights turned on, flooding the room with warm light. I looked around, taking in luxurious chairs and the hundreds of books stacked on the shelves around us. I didn't get a chance to stop though as Red let go of my hand and then pulled a hidden handle set into one of the bookshelves. It swung outwards revealing a hidden wooden door made of dark mahogany.

Red turned to face me and I saw his eyes were glowing gold.

"Inside, you'll be tested. You will learn to obey. You will learn control."

I stared at the hidden door, feeling my mind swirling. I caught the faint scent of metal - iron maybe - and leather, wood.

"I do not obey," I said and walked past him to push the door open. There was a short corridor and then it opened out to a larger room. Red followed me and I heard every pad of his bare feet on the floor.

The room was spacious and lit with indirect hidden lights. In the center of the room was an angled bench. It was dark oak with a padded top of pure black leather. Behind it was a lower bench with a wooden chest made of the same oak sitting on it. I glanced around and saw a pile of rope, white, neatly coiled on another bench set against the wall. A paddle with raised dots on it sat next to it.

I walked in and heard Red close the door behind me. I turned, catching sight of a padded bench against the other wall that had black ropes sitting atop it. It was angled and had platforms further down from the top main one. I saw in an instant how it would be used. The girl would be tied and bent over it, her knees resting on the lower platforms. Her ass would be sticking up in the air. She'd be tied and immobile, waiting to be fucked.

Red moved around me, stepping past the bench and stood next to the wooden chest. As he moved, I moved too.

"You must control the wolf. It has to be a choice to change or you will lose your mind, just like the first time. You need to learn to obey your Alpha"

"I haven't said yes to you. You're not my alpha!"

We continued circling, stalking each other. Then, as before, the gap between us was gone and he was holding me. He had one arm wrapped around my body and his other hand on back of my neck. He turned me and pressed me against the wall. I felt my hips tilt, my ass sticking out, just like the first time, feeling him press against me. His lips were against my ear.

"But I will be. You're my mate Harper. You're mine. And you will learn discipline. You must not change, no matter what happens."

I squirmed, pushing my ass back against him, feeling a moment of hardness but then he was gone, back to the other side of the room. I turned around and moved away from the wall. I could feel my mind spinning and I took deep breaths, trying to calm and center myself. Red was a mystery to me and the more I uncovered, the more it appeared there was to find. A powerful Alpha werewolf with a spectacular garden. An amazing dancer with a room dedicated to sex on the lower floor of his house.

He was no tame wolf I reminded myself. He was dark and light and as I looked around the room, feeling my heart thud, I realized there was some dark side to me too that loved this completely.

Red opened the chest and removed leather cuffs from the drawer and placed them on a lower bench that sat near the angled one.

"I'm going to use these on your wrists and ankles."

I looked down at the bench and saw four points of metal where they could be connected. Loops of black iron. I felt my heart speed up at the idea of it. Would I be on my back or on my stomach?

He reached into the chest and removed a black blindfold which he placed on the bench beside the cuffs.

"Then you won't be able to see."

Into the chest again and this time he removed a vibrator. It was short and bright red and looked very familiar. It was identical to the one that had fallen out of the box the first time we met. The one I'd been terribly embarrassed about but he'd never mentioned since. He placed it next to the blindfold. Then he reached into the chest and stopped. He held my gaze and then shook his head.