A Werewolf's Valentine: BBW Wolf Shifter Paranormal Romance (5 page)

She was a cat shifter.

Five

McKenzi

McKenzi took maybe five steps before she thought, where was West?

She glanced back, to see Rolf standing on the porch of her parents’ place, his tail wagging as he let loose a happy howl.

Then from among the barren oaks trotted a huge silvery gray wolf, as big as a Rocky Mountain gray. It halted, nose lifted, ears alert, as her inner cat bristled—but then she quieted again, watchful, listening, as the human part of McKenzi thought,
This is the most beautiful wolf I’ve ever seen
.

She glanced at Rolf, who pranced in a circle on the porch, then back again. Clearly he knew this wolf, and wanted him to come to them.

And then it hit her.

“West?” she called as she ran to the top of the road, as rain pelted her. Normally she loathed getting rained on, but now she scarcely noticed. “Is that you?”

The wolf stilled, eyes raised. They were gray, instantly recognizable. Light filled McKenzi as she laughed and cried at the same time. “Was that it? That was it? Rolf . . . he’s never shifted—we thought he wasn’t a shifter—that was amazing—oh, please, come inside, okay?”

She wiped her straggling hair out of her face, and saw that Rolf had shifted to his human self in order to open the door to the ranch house. And he’d left it open, but luckily the porch kept rain out. She heard his teenage voice breaking as he yelled, “Aunt Doris! Grandma! I
shifted!
I’m a
wolf
. . .”

McKenzi turned and splashed back to her cottage, her mind in a whirl. By the time she’d thrown off her clothes and pulled on something dry, West was back, dressed again. She didn’t think, but ran to him, and threw her arms around him. “I don’t even know what to say. Except thank you.”

He bent his head, his whisky voice soft. “You’re . . . a cat?”

“We’re all cats,” she said, cupping her hand to the stubble on his chin. “That is, my sister’s actually a raccoon, and my uncle—Rolf’s dad—is a bloodhound. But the rest of us? Cats.”

“Your uncle didn’t know?” West murmured. “His son was a cub?”

“I guess not,” McKenzi said, drawing him into the warm kitchen, as she quickly toweled her hair. “We haven’t talked that much. When my aunt left Uncle Lee, he was pretty broken up.”

“He lost his pack,” West said, his voice low and soft.

“I kinda get that. He had a tough time when he was Rolf’s age, Dad told us once. Found a pack, but one was a real jerk. I don’t know much about it, but as soon as he graduated, Uncle Lee moved away. He only moved back after his wife dumped him and took everything they had.” She glanced toward the door and lowered her voice. “Uncle Lee is a sweet guy, one of the sweetest guys you’ll ever meet, but he’s kind of a loner.”

She stopped talking then as the front door opened and Rolf crashed in, splattering rain drops everywhere as he rushed up to West. “My dad is coming as soon as they finish their milk run,” he said. “He said, he wants to meet you. A wolf! I didn’t know I was a wolf. I thought I was
nothing
. When did you know you were a wolf? Are there wolves in your family? I don’t know if there are any in my family. My mom never said anything about her family, and we don’t see them anymore.” He talked so fast he had to stop for breath.

“I think I had wolves in my family,” West said slowly. “Not sure. Maybe those memories are only dreams. I grew up in foster care.”

“Oh.” Rolf caught himself up. Then said, “But you’re a musician! Like my dad was. He was in a bluegrass band. But they didn’t make it.” His gaze lowered. “That’s what that dickwad Jeff Olsen said once, when I punched him right in  . . .” He flexed his hands, his shoulders tightening, then he backed up. “I gotta go.” And he was gone again.

Leaving McKenzi staring at West as the clue stick hit. Did he even know?

Rolf had
imprinted
on West. Wolves
did
that. Rolf might not have been able to shift until he had a pack to help him. And now he was part of a pack—a pack of two, but . . . it was a pack.

And West would soon be on the road, because that was their deal. No expectations, no promises to regret and to break.

The urge to grab hold of him and make him stay was so strong it actually hurt somewhere behind her ribs, leaving her unsteady. She’d never felt that way, ever, about anyone, and had no idea what to say.

He looked back at her, blinking rain from his eyes—

“I could kiss you,” she said.
Yeah, stay in this moment. That’s right. Don’t think about the future.

At the same moment, he said again, in a tentative voice, “You’re a cat.”

“Is that a bad thing?” She peered at him, sorrow crowding her throat.

“No. It’s a . . . new thing.”

She reached him, took his shoulders in her hands, and kissed him. “Look,” she said. “The rain is bad, and the roads will be dangerous. And I owe you big-time. So let me pay you back the best way I know how.” With each word she backed him toward the bedroom, her hands tearing at his coat.

Inside, her cat had gone still. Was it because he was a wolf? But she’d been with shifters as well as non-shifters, and had never felt much difference. In fact, they pretty much all ran together in her mind. If she got laid once a week, that was usually plenty—a little drink, a little fun, then out of her space.

The rest of her life was her family, and the town, but here she was tearing the clothes off a guy she couldn’t get enough of: hands, mouth, skin, she wanted to touch him everywhere.

She kissed him, hard, then whirled away just long enough to click the lock on the front door.

Then he was on her, pressing her against the kitchen wall as he possessed her mouth, hands cupping her breasts, those rough, callused thumbs ravishing her nipples through her shirt.

“I should have seen it, your being a cat,” he whispered, when they broke for breath.

“You like cats?” she asked, grinning as he ran his hands slowly up her sides, catching her top with his thumbs and pulling it up. She shimmied out of it.

“I’ve never been with a cat shifter before,” he admitted.

“Oh, wolves only, is it?”

“Only one wolf,” he said, his gaze heating as she flung her bra onto the dish drainer.

“Ready for a walk on the wild side?” McKenzi grabbed him by the hips and pushed him into one of the two kitchen chairs, then knelt at his feet and pushed apart his legs.

A laugh escaped him, and then a gasp as she got his pants unzipped. “Cats like to play,” she chortled as his cock emerged, ramrod hard. “Come to me, my little cat toy,” she said, and took him into her mouth.

He tasted incredible. As she nibbled down the ridge of his cock, enjoying how it jumped, how his breathing hitched, she felt powerful, full of heat and fire. She settled in to tease and torture him into coming his brains out, but he suddenly pulled free, and grabbed her. “It’s gotta be us both,” he said in a guttural voice. “With you . . .
In
you.”

She was already kicking off her jeans. His hot gaze followed the fabric down, then he took hold of her, turned her around, and with a hand between her shoulder blades, pushed her down onto the kitchen table.

“I
ssssssso
like where this is going,” she hissed.

His hips thrust up against her, his cock pressing against the lace of her thong. She groaned, urgency driving her wild as she tilted her hips up into him, grinding against him.

He slid her thong slowly down her legs, which were trembling with heat by the time he gently lifted the fabric over her heels. Then he was back, kneading her butt and stroking up her waist to her ribs, and under to palm her breasts.

She arched her back to give him better grip, her reward his fingers massaging her tender nipples as his knees nudged her knees wide apart. She stood on her toes as he slid into her at last, at last, then pulled out slowly, enticing her with his cock at her opening.

“Uh,” she keened. “Now, now, now!”

“Now,” he said, and rammed himself home. She tipped her hips more to pull him all the way in, clenching on each stroke. One of his hands slid over her hip and down under, that versatile thumb finding her clit, and massaging deeply on every thrust, rocketing her skyward in a frenzy of want. Two, three, four thrusts and then his teeth found her neck, grazed, and bit.

She exploded in the hottest orgasm of her life, her eyes blinded by twinkling lights. Still floating among the stars, she was vaguely aware of a couple of more thrusts, then his long, hard shudder.

Then his weight rested against her back, and his cheekbone on her shoulder. Tenderness flowered through her, almost with the strength of her orgasm, leaving her weak-kneed, nearly delirious.

His hands caressed the nape of her neck, and she murmured, “You bit me.”

“Was that bad?” he whispered.

“It was hot,” she said. “Um, it won’t turn me into a cat-wolf, right?”

The table shook with his silent laughter, then his weight lifted away, and he helped her up from the table. “This place is small,” she said, “but my shower fits two.”

They were in it under the stinging heat five minutes later—and as she tipped her head back and let the water run over her, she thought, condom. Her eyes flew open.

She hadn’t forgotten a condom since . . .
ever
. She had an implant, so wasn’t worried about pregnancy, but . . .

As if he read her mind—or maybe he felt her tighten up all over—he said, “I don’t want to say I lost my head back there, because it was pretty much front and center—”

She couldn’t help a spurt of laughter.

“—but if it helps, I got myself checked out last summer, when I visited a doctor.” He made a vague gesture toward the scars she’d noticed earlier. “Haven’t been with anyone since. I’m sorry.”

“That’s two of us who totally spaced out on the protection front.” She leaned against him, still craving that skin to skin contact. As her hand ran up his sides, her fingers found one of those many scars. “Tell me it’s none of my business, but did this hospital stay involve this one?” She caressed his ribs.

“No. That’s from a knife fight when I was in Chicago,” he said.

“And this one?” She stroked his lean hip.

“Broken bottle. Another fight.”

“And this?” She kissed the top of his shoulder.

“Gunshot wound. That was the doctor visit. Some assholes in four wheel drives went wolf hunting.”

She gasped, cold shivering through her. “Did they know?”

“Oh, yeah. That was incentive,” he said, low. “And there’s nowhere to hide in upstate Texas.”

She slid her arms around him, aware that for that one second, she never wanted to let him go. She couldn’t articulate why it was so good, why
he
was so good, and was afraid to even go there, and so she hid her face in the hollow of his shoulder so he wouldn’t see the truth . . . whatever that was. And she was no more ready to define that truth than she was to face it.

Stay in the now
, she told herself as clean water poured all around them, and his heart beat beneath her ear, and his warmth pressed all down her body. And then he drew his fingers up her spine . . .

When her hot water threatened to go out they finally got out of the shower and dressed, he in his worn old jeans and black tee. They were both ravenous.

By the time she’d fixed them some big, fat BLT’s (and he liked them the way she did, crunchy bacon, crunchy lettuce, and plenty of mayo and cheese), it was suddenly time to get ready for work.

He’d gone back to the banjo, and she remembered that Amelia’s boyfriend played in some band.

She said, “West, I know we made no promises, and if you want to take off, it’s cool, but if you stay, I was thinking, this friend has a guitar, and I never really got a chance to hear you sing except that once.”

He turned his head, and his changeable wolf eyes darkened for a long moment as the rain poured down and down, then he dipped his head. “Sure. I’d like that.”

Inside her, the cat—so oddly quiet until now—gave one, tiny, purr.

Six

West

Three times, he was thinking.

They’d made love three times in less than twenty-four hours. That had never happened, not even with his first, a frisky young wolf named Carley, who had stayed with him because he was good with his hands, and knew where to find food, but when she found a big, strong alpha with a pack, she’d flicked her tail and turned her back without as much as a goodbye.

His early songs about his search for love had been full of howls of hate and betrayal, but later songs about her changed to a song of regret, even mirth, about feckless, reckless youth. He’d come to see that Carley wasn’t at blame. He’d thought it was love because she’d been his first. But he wasn’t hers.

He could see it now, looking back, they had not been mates, not even a pack. He’d liked the sex and the warmth as they slept through the cold New Jersey nights as wolves before rising and running, but his heart had still been in the search for his missing pack. And, well, her heart found what it was looking for.

He could look back down that long road with no pain, and he could even smile at the memory after three times with McKenzi.

Oh, McKenzi. How could he find enough words for her? Her song was still shaping, and he knew it would be his best. Three times, each different, the last one better than both because it was long and slow and tender, under the hot clear water.

He couldn’t find the words because it would take all the words in the language. All the music he knew still wasn’t quite enough. She was a song different from all his other songs, a new melody he was still reaching to express. And when she asked him to stay, and sing, it felt like she’d given him a gift. He would give her a song in return, oh, yes, but it was still taking shape in his mind.

She had to go to her work. She kissed him there under the painted town with all the happy animals. He strummed chords as he gazed at the smiling pig behind the hotel counter, the rooster texting on his phone, a chicken skateboarding down Main Street, and a rabbit racing in a tiny car over a hill to where a cow lay mooing. There were songs here, a small song in each busy animal doing human things. . . and then it hit him.

All those animal tracks he’d sniffed that night?

This town was full of shifters.

McKenzi’s sister’s painting was a love song with brush and color to a whole
community
of shifters.

He walked slowly along the wall, looking at each animal, noticing what they did and with whom, and tried to find a wolf among them. He still hadn’t found one when he heard footsteps at the front door of McKenzi’s cottage. Old habit poised him to run, but then a deeper instinct kicked in, and he knew it was Rolf. The door banged open, and Rolf towed in a tall, stooping man.

“Here’s West! He’s a
wolf!
He helped me shift. How did you know, West? Oh, this is my dad, Lee Enkel.”

West fully expected the father to be wary, hackles up, but Lee stuck out a hand with its telltale calluses on fingers and thumb, mumbling, “Thanks for helping my boy. Had no idea . . .” He shrugged, waving a hand.

Rolf flopped on McKenzi’s couch, grinning from one to the other. “I told Dad you can play that banjo.”

West remembered what McKenzi had said, and held the banjo out. “I think this is yours?”

Lee shook his head. “No, go ahead. I parked that years ago. Don’t play anymore. Was never good enough to make a go of it.”

“Sure you were,” Rolf said, though with less certainty.

West could sense the boy’s emotions so clearly—he wanted his dad to be impressed by West, but he also wanted West to be impressed with his dad. To bridge the awkward moment, he began a Scruggs style riff, then shifted to one of his loping wolf ballads. No singing, just the music, as he watched Lee’s shoulders come down a notch, and Rolf grin with . . . pride?

Pride? The obvious hit West at that moment: he’d imprinted Rolf. Without intending anything but to help the kid shift, somehow the pack bond had come into play.

Oh, shit. Now what was he supposed to do? He had zero experience here—after all these years of running. Seeking his own pack.

He bent his head, the music turning stormy as he tried to sort through a tangle of emotions far more powerful than that storm outside. Shit, shit, shit.

Rolf’s voice interrupted him. “Do you know ‘Howl’ by Axe and the Banshees?”

West paused, shaking his head. “I don’t sing anyone else’s music. My head’s too full of my own. Sorry, kid.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Rolf said, and West could feel the cub in play bow, head turned anxiously up. Trying to please his . . .

I’m no alpha
, West thought. But that didn’t seem to be true anymore. After a lifetime of being a lone wolf, an outsider, he was now the alpha of a pack of two. And Lee’s shifter animal was a dog without a pack of his own. Lee was watching with the anxiety of a parent as he said to his son, “So what happened this morning?”

Rolf looked ready to run, but glanced at West. Whatever he saw in West’s face seemed to settle him down, because he burst out, “It wasn’t my fault! It was that dickwad Jeff Olsen. He and his goons had Timothy Beck up against the wall, hassling him, something about Lisa Finn and the Valentine’s Day Dance.”

Lee sighed. “The Olsen kid again. Can’t you stay away from him?”

“I can’t help it! He goes around looking for trouble! And he gets away with it because his dad’s the coach.”

Lee bristled all over. “Stupid dances. Always hated ‘em, especially Valentine’s Day.”

Rolf said defensively, “LaShawna Odom asked me.”

“The sheriff’s girl?”

“Yeah,” Rolf said, preening a little. “She coulda asked anybody. But she asked
me
. That’s why Jeff started hassling me again, last week. I know you told me to pretend not to notice, and I tried. But that doesn’t stop it. He just keeps at it. So when I came into the restroom and saw him with Tim backed up, I slugged him. First time! Caught him totally by surprise.” He deflated a little. “Then the rest of them landed on me, but luckily Mr. Penrose came in, yelling
what’s all this noise
, then sent us all to the VP, and of course Jeff said it was my fault, and gave his butt-heads dirty looks, and they all said real quick that Jeff was right.”

“And Timothy?”

“Said he didn’t see anything. I don’t blame him. He’s about this tall—” Hand held out three feet off the floor. “And his voice squeaks. But the girls all think he’s cute.”

“Well, just stay away from that Olsen kid. That family is bad news,” Lee said with gloomy conviction. West, sensitive, heard an undercurrent of long-unresolved anger.

And saw Rolf typically shrug off his father’s words.

This was a situation he had no idea how to handle, so he took refuge in strumming the banjo. Lee’s expression began to lighten as West ran through some chords and then riffs. They got into a conversation about different styles of banjo playing until Rolf got impatient.

West began to play, which quieted the restless teen. He sang something he’d composed while he was still a teen, one summer in Virginia. Rolf grinned and tapped his fingers on his knees, so West gave him a series of the young wolf songs, some fun, some sad, a lot about the open road.

Lee listened with his eyes closed, gradually relaxing, but finally he glanced at his watch and got to his feet. “It’s suppertime. Your grandma won’t like it if we’re late. And afterward, you still have your homework, even though you got suspended. Especially since you got suspended.” Then he turned to West. “You’d be welcome to join us.”

“Don’t want to intrude,” West said. “I’m good.”

Lee got up to go, but Rolf still sat there in a slump on the couch. When his father began walking up toward the ranch house, the kid said, “Will you show me some more wolf things? I want to practice shifting. It kind of hurts my stomach.”

“You’ll get used to it,” West said. “Tell you what. You do that homework your dad mentioned, and we’ll take a run. And I’ll also show you some self-defense moves.”

Rolf sat bolt upright, grinning. “You
will?
I’ll be
right back
.”

The rain had let up some, stars peeking through the clouds when Rolf returned. West showed him how to roll his clothes and tuck them somewhere out of sight, then they practiced shifting. When they were both in their human shapes, Rolf asked, “Where’d you get all those scars?”

West looked down at himself, reflected in the light from the ranch house windows. “Fights, mostly.”

“Wolf or human?”

“Both.”

West thought of his scars as evidence of how many fights he’d come near to losing, but Rolf seemed to be impressed. West shifted so he wouldn’t have to talk about his past, and Rolf also shifted. Each time seemed to be a bit easier.

They ran down the hill and up along the ridge behind the town, all the way to the palisades above the ocean, then circled around again. By then, Rolf was drooping. They shifted back, dressed, and West further tired the teen out by teaching him basic stances and blocks in self-defense. All the while his internal clock waited for midnight and McKenzi’s return.

Presently a woman came to the door and called for Rolf.

“That’s my Aunt Doris,” he said reluctantly.

“Run,” West said and watched with amazement—and amusement—as Rolf obediently squeezed out one last spurt of energy as he ran home.

West returned to McKenzi’s cottage, and sat in a chair looking up at the mural. His eyes traveled to the little round house up on a hill, with a group of cats playing around it. Which one was McKenzi?

A rush of light and heat spun him around when the door opened, and there she was, glossy brown hair spilling over her shoulders, brown eyes wide—how could he have not known she was a cat? She moved with a lightness to her step as she came in, tossing her coat, purse and keys on a side table, and with an expression of loathing, threw the bunched-up pink apron on the floor. “
How
I hate that thing,” she snarled, kicking it across the room before she carefully set a battered guitar case next to the couch. “A friend’s old guitar. She said feel free to play it as long as you like.”

“Thanks.” He turned to the mural. “Which one is you?”

Her answer was to pull off her red sweater-top, slip out of her leggings, and shift. A fluffy tabby leaped up onto the coffee table, tail up, and pranced around in a circle.

Never in West’s life had a cat seemed so fascinating. He didn’t think—just shucked his clothes, shifted, and bounded around the table as the cat batted playfully at his muzzle. Then she leaped onto his back, and he tried to wrestle, but his tail sent a lamp flying, and his front paw tangled in the electrical cord to the TV, which teetered dangerously.

He shifted back, ready to apologize with real remorse, but she had shifted too, her head thrown back as she laughed with abandon. Light shone richly, enhancing the curves of her breasts, and adorning the roundness of her hip. An ache so intense it hurt seized him, but it was glorious, too. She was so beautiful as she said, “No biggie, so a lamp breaks. Everything in here is vintage garage sale. I think we’re going to have to do that again. But maybe not around electrical cords.”

She laughed again. He reached for her, and she pounced on top of him, bending her head to brush her hair teasingly over his chest.

“I thought about you all night,” she purred in a low growly voice that sent heat straight to his cock.

“I missed you,” he said.

“What did you do?”

“Taught Rolf a little stuff. Talked to Lee. Played some music. McKenzi, there’s something I need to talk out.”

“Later,” she whispered, licking his throat. “Every dinner roll I put down made me think of this.” She bit his shoulder. “And every plate of French fries made me think of this.” She nuzzled his ribs.

“Really? French fries?” He laughed in spite of the hard-on getting more insistent by the second.

She slid his hands over his buns, kneading slowly. “Want to know what made me think of these?”

“No,” he growled, flipping her over and spreading her knees wide. “Because now you’ve made me hungry.”