Wild (37 page)

So far, each of the new pairings had brought strong, vital members into the pack. He caught Evan's eye, and his buddy merely shrugged. They hadn't met their mates yet, but the season wasn't over.

Standing, still a bit shaky, Trak slapped his hand down on the table. “Meeting adjourned, gentlemen, ladies. We're lucky we have next week off to get our acts together. I think there's a group of circus performers week after next.” He turned to Evan and, behind his hand, whispered, “Ever fancy a trapeze artist?”

They were both laughing as the meeting broke up.

 

HER PERFECT MATES

A. C. Arthur

 

CHAPTER 1

“Put your hand right here,” she directed, her voice smooth and just a touch husky.

Malec Zenta did as he was told.

“Feel that?” she asked.

He felt something, that was for damned sure.

“It's supposed to be hard,” she continued, moving her hands up and down and sighing heavily.

Malec's hand followed hers, his heart thumping wildly in his chest, dick pressing hard against the zipper of his jeans.

“Somebody broke his leg. Both of them,” the veterinarian continued, moving from one leg on the buck Malec had brought into the office for her to examine to the other.

Her hands were small, moving with practiced precision, gripping and touching the animal with careful diligence. Instinctively Malec shifted his hand until it was beside hers, waiting a beat, and felt the wave of heat flush quickly through his body as she moved her hand and brushed over his.

“Something very powerful did this,” she continued, succulent lips pursing as she focused on the wounded buck.

“A hunter?” he asked, chafing momentarily at the thought.

They lived in Blackbriar, Montana, a small town located along the Blackfoot River and backed against Blackbriar National Park, where hunting certain species during restricted time frames was prohibited. Deer and elk season began in September. It was the middle of the summer.

The doctor shook her head. “A hunter would have killed it and taken it with him. Then you and I wouldn't be standing here trying to figure out what happened to this poor animal.”

Malec nodded. “Right,” he said tightly, noting that a lot of things had come into play this morning to bring him to this moment where he stood across the table from a most delectable human female.

“There's another scar up here that's a bit strange as well,” she continued, and Malec tried to keep his focus.

He was here, in town, at the office of the new veterinarian in Blackbriar—Dr. Caroline Douglas, he recalled from the bright pink paper signs on the front door, because he'd found this wounded deer in the middle of the path he ran every morning before the sun rose. For that reason alone, Channing and the others thought it was Malec's duty to bring the animal in to see if it could be saved. Malec had disagreed mostly because he hated coming into town and having to deal with the people here looking at him like he was some type of pariah—when they really had no idea what he actually was.

He looked toward the deer's neck where there were scratches, four of them. He moved to the top of the table, lifting the animal's head so that he could see the other side of its neck. Four more jagged breaks of the animal's skin.

“Its head should have been severed,” he said.

She nodded. “Should have been. With just a little more pressure I'm guessing it would have. Each of those cuts will need to be stitched. He's lost a tremendous amount of blood. But the real question is, what type of animal would have grabbed this deer around the neck and then tossed it onto the trail where you found it?”

The animal had been sedated ten minutes after Malec had carried it in and put it on the examination table, so it was still and bleeding onto the stainless steel. And she was right; that was the real question. What the hell had happened out in that forest? Instead of answering, he asked, “Can you save it?”

To his question Malec expected a simple reply, yes or no. Possibly—even though he really wasn't in the mood for it—some bogus doctor jargon about seeing what she could do, or doing her best. All of which really equated to “The animal's going to die, so I don't know why you wasted your time bringing it in here.”

Instead, what he received was a jolt of lust so intense he had to take a step back from the table. She was staring at him, her bright eyes wide, blinking as if she wasn't quite sure what she was seeing. Her lips, of medium thickness and glossed a blushing shade of pink, parted slightly. She had a round face, her complexion mocha, no cream and no sugar. Just passion and an edge of something more. His gaze lowered instinctively as if she'd willed him to keep looking, to explore, to find, to conquer. Malec's dick jumped, thrusting as it grew harder, pressing almost painfully against the zipper of his jeans. She wore a sweater, pale blue and thin, that did nothing to cover the voluptuous breasts pressing beautifully against the material of the white shirt she wore beneath it. And there, right there like a beacon, were the piercings. He could see them as clearly as if she were standing before him naked, her nipples hard, puckered, and visible even though he was certain she wore a bra. On the side of each thick nipple were smaller beads—nipple piercings that made Malec want to growl with primal hunger.

“I will do it,” she said, her voice cutting through the haze of desire that had clouded his thoughts.

“You will do what?” Malec asked her.

Let me suck your nipples until you come?

Sit on my face while I look up to see your heavy breasts with those big pretty nipples smiling down at me?

Let me fuck you until there are no other thoughts in my mind, in this world?

The burn of his nails elongating, the beast within threatening to make its horny presence known, pricked the inside of his palm as he clenched his fists.

She licked her lips, her tongue—wet and no doubt warm, like her mouth—darting out quickly, and he imagined that lick tracing the tip of his dick.

“I will get started immediately,” she said as if coming out of her own trance and definitely snapping Malec out of his as she turned away from him. “There's some paperwork you will need to fill out with the receptionist. Leave your contact information with her, and I'll give you a call if you'd like. Or, if this was your Good Samaritan job for the day, I'll simply call the park vets and have them arrange for the buck to be moved when it's stable enough.”

She continued to talk with her back to him, moving about as if whatever she was doing—gathering supplies from a cabinet below, opening packages, preparing, he figured—was more appealing than looking at him.

Malec didn't know why that irritated him. He shouldn't give a damn whether or not this human female looked at him or not. Correction, he didn't give a damn how she or anybody else looked at him; he wasn't ashamed of who and what he was. Besides, he wasn't here for her to judge him—he'd brought a buck to the doctor to see if it could be saved. That was all.

And yet, he felt like there was something here he needed to prove. To her or to himself he wasn't certain. Malec moved without speaking, walking until he stood directly behind her. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and took out a business card. She'd stiffened the second she felt him so close. Malec both liked and despised that action. Still, he moved in even closer, until he knew his thick length rubbed against the round curve of her ass. Reaching around her with one arm, being sure to scrape over one of those mouthwatering nipples, feeling the hard brush of the piercing against his sensitized skin, he put the card down on the counter in front of her.

“Call me,” he said after he'd leaned forward, his mouth directly against her ear. “Not the park doctors or anyone else. Call. Me.”

She nodded at first, then gulped, a sound he heard with his sharp lycan hearing, loud and clear.

“I will,” she whispered.

Malec walked away then, using every bit of restraint he'd learned to possess during his years in the corps. He walked out of that office, not bothering to speak to the receptionist—who he knew was staring at him with questions in her eyes—and not taking a breath until he was out in the morning air. He gulped, taking in deep breaths in an attempt to calm the throbbing ache in his dick and his temples.

This was bullshit! His mind roared with that statement over and over again as he stood on the sidewalk, citizens and tourists just beginning to make their way along the small-town streets.

She was a human. Which meant she was off limits to him and the dark sexual desires that pulsed through his blood like a fatal disease.

Malec did not do humans. And he did not do women by himself. Yet he'd envisioned so clearly, sucking the good doctor's big breasts and thrusting his cock into what he knew would be a juicy, sweet pussy. He wasn't an emotionally stable man. He was a damaged lycan who had decided a long time ago, based on his past experiences, that this was the life choice for him. He was a member of a pack that had a mission much larger than this little town of Blackbriar.

And he did not fuck humans. Ever.

Reaching into the inside pocket of his black jacket he pulled out his Gucci aviator sunglasses, slipping them onto his face with one smooth motion. In the next instant he was walking toward his black Ford F-150, where just about an hour ago the buck had lain in the cab, writhing in pain. People stared at him as he moved, watched him climb into the truck and start the engine. They wondered about the man that lived miles away toward the lake and the mountain base in that big remodeled log cabin with those other men that nobody knew a damned thing about. They formed opinions, made judgments, and were probably as wrong as two left feet in all of them. Malec told himself that he didn't care. That the thoughts and misconceptions could never touch him, or guide his actions in any way. Not like they had with Mason.

He pulled away from the curb without looking back, trying to center his thoughts on his one and only mission in this life—to protect his alpha at all costs.

It definitely wasn't to slip his hard dick inside the hot, honey-coated walls of Dr. Caroline Douglas, that was for certain.

*   *   *

“Dammit,” Caroline swore. “You have got to get it together, CeeCee.”

Using the nickname her mother had given her was supposed to strip her of the totally carnal thoughts she was having at this moment. It was supposed to bring her back to earth, where she had a very badly wounded buck to tend to. But that was a laugh, considering Maxine Douglas had been a prostitute since she was ten years old.

Instead, Caroline remained standing at the window in her office where she'd sought refuge the moment Malec Zenta left.

Malec Zenta.

That was his name. A strange and masculine name for someone who was all man, all sex, all the time. She had no clue how she knew that for certain, but from the looks of him—probably a little over six feet tall, possibly 220 or 230 pounds considering all those bulging muscles, skin the color of churned butter, eyes dark, simmering, alluring—he was a woman's fantasy.

Only she was definitely not that woman.

Blackbriar was Caroline's fresh start. It was the small town where no one knew who she was or what she'd come from. A place that needed a veterinarian and that Caroline needed to hopefully, finally, fit in.

As for the guy, Malec Zenta, he was the last thing she needed right now.

That thought circled in her mind as Caroline held the business card he'd given her in one hand, letting its edges pinch into the skin of her palm. She stood right there, staring out that window, watching as he climbed into the big SUV with its shined-to-a-sparkle rims that only made its black color seem darker and its owner sexier.

It was in times like these that Caroline was glad for her thick thighs, because as she saw that truck disappearing down the street she remembered how close Malec had stood to her and how wet her pussy had become from that proximity. It was startling, this quick and fast punch of desire sparked by a stranger. She'd never had that happen before, never thought that type of desire existed. No, Caroline knew it existed, she just never thought she'd experience it again. Truth be told she'd never wanted to experience that immediate and insistent need for sex again. It never ended well, she knew that with brutal certainty. Part of the reason she'd gotten her nipples pierced was to promote her own stimulation. The other reason was that she liked how it looked, how feminine and in control it made her feel each time she stared at herself in the mirror. Funny how the memory of the man who had given her the piercings didn't spark the same positive feelings.

Caroline squeezed her thighs together so tightly, trying to gather just enough pressure to ease that burn that had developed deep in her center, but not quite reaching it. With an exasperated sigh she went to her chair and sat down, still holding her legs together tightly and closing her eyes to resist the urge. It was there, singing a silent melody throughout the privacy of her office.

“Touch it. Just this once. Real quick, to ease the ache,” she whispered to herself, as she'd done so many times before. “Just one more time.”

But it wasn't just one. It would be another and another, because that's what she did; it's how she found the pleasure that she often feared she was addicted to. The pleasure that she still somehow thought wasn't enough.

A brisk knock on her door, and then it was opening, Olivia, her receptionist coming in.

“Did you smell him?” Olivia asked.

Caroline frowned, bringing her elbows to the desk, moving her hands quickly away from her inner thighs where she desperately wanted to place them. “What? Who? The buck?”

Olivia's sharply arched brows drew inward, ruby-red painted lips twisting. “Ewww, no. But Martin said to tell you the sedative's going to wear off soon, so if you're operating you'd better get to it.”