Blue Moon Brides: The Complete Series (33 page)

And she was
his
. Every sweet inch of her.

He realized he hadn’t fully believed it before, even though he’d hoped.

“Look,” he said hoarsely, letting her step back some more. He didn’t let go of her hips, though. He was never letting go now and the sooner she got used to him, the better. She was stuck with him.

She must have seen something on his face, because she tipped her head back and looked. That unconscious gesture of obedience and vulnerability heated him right up. Showing your throat was gesture of submission in the pack. She might not know it, but she was speaking his language now. He dragged his thumb up the vulnerable curve, massaging the tense muscles.

“The moon is blue.” He heard the unmistakable wonder in her voice. “I thought that was just a figure of speech. That I’d misremembered what I’d seen.”

The blue light danced over her face, down her arms. No more dark, lonely nights for either of them, he thought fiercely, embracing what the blue light meant in some secret, hidden part of his soul he’d believed long dead. She belonged with him—and he with her. Arousal uncurled fiercely. This wasn’t just sex, he realized. Damned if he knew what it was, but it was something
more
.

“I’ll be a good mate,” he said roughly, wanting to share his revelation. “The vamp, he don’ get near you. I’ll be your right hand,
boo
. Whatever you need, I’ll be providin’. I got more than enough to keep you and I’ll give you cubs.”

“Whoa.” She jerked her gaze away from the moon and stared at him. “How’d we go from sex and safety to making babies?”

His erection jerked, reaching for her as he reached for words and came up empty. He didn’t do feelings and he hadn’t missed them much over the centuries. Now he regretted that. He should have saved up some thoughts for her. He hadn’t expected to need to convince her. She was his blue moon bride. She was supposed to want him as much as he wanted her.

“You’re my mate.” He pulled her towards him. “The blue moon, she finds mates for my kind.”

He’d thought mates appreciated hearing the truth—Rafer had certainly made it clear he didn’t keep secrets from his Lark—but Riley stiffened up.

She shook her head, sending her hair dancing all over. “I didn’t sign up for any cosmic dating service,” she said. “So I’m opting out of this happily-ever-after fantasy you’re concocting. No sex. No cubs. I’m no Mrs. Breaux for you.”

He’d tried talking. Now he’d do what he did best.
Act
.

He licked her ear. “Too late.”

~*~

Stubborn, arrogant,
naked
son of a bitch. Riley wasn’t the prize in the Cracker Jack box. Hell, she was no kind of prize at all, but that wasn’t the point. No, the point was she made her own choices. Found her own man if she wanted one—which she didn’t. Not one bit.

She slammed her foot down hard on his, prying at his fingers. It was like trying to shift a wall. She got nowhere.

“You’re violent.” Yeah, he had a pleased glint in his eyes. What the hell was wrong with him? And what would it take to get him to hear the word
no
? He let her go, though, which counted for something. Still, she had a feeling the new space between them was nowhere near enough. She needed an entire boat length. A parish. The fucking state of Louisiana.

“And you’re not normal,” she countered. “Don’t you dare stay on my boat, Breaux.”

He considered her words for a moment, before slowly shook his head. “Now that’s a problem,
boo
, seein’ as how this is my boat.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are we here by some lucky coincidence, or was this your plan all along?”

He looked at her and she didn’t need his curt nod to know she’d been had. He’d guided her through the bayou like a sheep—or prey. He’d hunted her and she’d fallen for it. That made her mad, because her escape suddenly seemed far less about her and way more about him. He’d wanted her to do something and she had.

She reached down, snagged a stick from the deck, and hurled it at his head.  The slim piece of wood didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of hurting him but that wasn’t the point and they both knew it. She was pissed and making sure he got the message.

So message clearly received.

He moved so fast, she didn’t have time to avoid him. In a heartbeat, he had her pinned against the wall. “That’s not nice,” he growled.

Yeah, well, she didn’t care. Two hundred pounds weighed down on her, his legs pinning hers, his hands capturing hers and drawing them over her head. Heat flared low in her belly. She didn’t
want
to want this man, but her body clearly had other ideas, because it was melting for him. His erection pressed hard against her pussy and, damn, he was thick. One hand wouldn’t be enough to hold Dag.

He stared down at her. Damn it, she hated the way his face gave away nothing. “You goin’ to act nicer?” he asked.

“Like hell,” she spat and tugged, because she couldn’t give in to the heat. “Let go. I got my bondage fix last week, so this really isn’t working for me.” He left her no room to move. Almost no room to breathe.

“Okay,” he said slowly, like he was actually trying to give her what she’d asked for. His hands slid away from her body. “But I was thinkin’ we could go inside. Clean you up some and take a look at those hurts of yours.”

Wolf boy wanted to give her a bandaid.

The idea was strangely reassuring.

She looked down at her hands and arms. Clean up was definitely called for.

“Just a pit stop?” She had to ask, because the warm light in his eyes wasn’t purely platonic.

He nodded reluctantly. “If that’s what you’re really wantin’.”

“And then we’ll head back to town.” She wanted their plan spelled out.

“Got it.” He nodded again—and then picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, his shoulder biting into her stomach as they moved swiftly across the deck. His back and his ass were as hard as the rest of him and she had a spectacular view of his bare cheeks flexing with each step he took. The traitorous warmth came back. He was no door-opening, flower-toting male.

And yet he was looking out for her.

The deck blurred before her eyes as he moved, then he stopped, yanked open a door and stepped inside.

He’d brought her to a goddamned bedroom. If Riley had come in here, she’d have known the houseboat wasn’t abandoned. The furniture was as worn as the boat’s outsides, but comfortable. A pair of cane-backed chairs flanked an iron bedstead heaped with a mismatched pile of wash worn patchwork quilts and creamy sheets. Gauzy mosquito netting spilled around the bed and a stack of well-thumbed paperbacks crowned by a kerosene lantern. Hell, the man even had himself a genuine armoire, although she had no idea how anyone had dragged such a heavy piece of furniture this far into the heart of the bayou. Dag’s interior decorating was tidy and clean, each item positioned with methodical precision, and she wanted to scream. The room was romantic as hell, but bed also had unobstructed line of sight of door. The nearby window afforded an alternate escape route she’d bet wasn’t accidental.

Dag Breaux was definitely more wolf than man and this was his den.

He cradled her to his chest. Was that tenderness from Dag Breaux? No, she decided a moment later as her ass bounced on the mattress and promptly hit an old spring. Not at all. He turned to the armoire, rummaging inside, and she lurched to her knees, not sure what was happening next.

But all he did was drop an old T-shirt in her lap. She wasn’t going to argue. She pulled the tent-like shirt over her head, inhaling Dag’s musky scent with each breath. Stripping off her dirty clothes beneath the shrouding folds required channeling her inner contortionist, but no way she sat here naked either. Predictably, the shirt was too large, the neck falling down one shoulder. She hated being small.

But he didn’t do anything else. Not that she was going to let him. She didn’t really want him to touch her. Not after the caveman stunt he’d pulled and certainly not after he’d tied her up. She didn’t play games. But God, looking at him, she wondered if maybe she would if he asked. Nicely. With his hands and his tongue.

She was in so much trouble here.

His eyes examined her. “You’re still muddy. We should do somethin’ about that.”

“And you’re still naked,” she pointed out.

He nodded. “I can fix that too.” Stepping away, he pulled on the rattiest pair of military cargo pants she’d ever laid eyes on. Watching him drag the pants up his legs and over his lean hips, she wondered if he’d dressed just for her. Maybe there was an ounce of civilization in him after all. That had to explain why she felt safe with him. Oh, not her virtue—she nearly snorted at that thought—but Dag Breaux wouldn’t intentionally hurt. Accidentally, sure. She had a feeling he trampled feelings like no one’s business, but he wouldn’t raise a hand to her or try to cut her down. He was part wolf, but he was no monster.

He zipped and buttoned, the sounds overly loud in the small room. God. He definitely filled up all the available space. The view was great but despite the wicked temptation of ogling his body, exhaustion beat at her. The mattress, despite its sprung state, felt damned good. She wanted to curl up and drift off. Just for a few minutes. Just because she
could
and because it had been a hell of a week.

She closed her eyes. She was so tired of fighting. Later she’d worry about her crazy-ass werewolf companion. She’d got away from the vamp, so she’d deal with Dag too if she had to. Just—not now. Right now, all she wanted was to curl up on her side, tug one of those blankets over her head, and sleep for a month of Sundays.

Sounds reached her through the sudden fog of exhaustion. Water pouring, followed by cloth on cloth and footsteps as Dag came back towards the bed where she waited. She had to wonder if he’d deliberately let her hear him coming. The man moved silent as a ghost when he wanted to. Was he actually worried he’d frighten her?

He sat and the mattress sank beneath his weight, rolling her towards him.  Sleep banished for the moment, she opened her eyes. He had a towel tossed over his shoulder and, as she watched, he hooked a cane-backed chair with his foot and put a bowl of water on it. Then he reached for her feet, his intentions clear.

God. To be
clean
again.

“I can do it.” She reached for the cloth.

He didn’t let go. “I’d like to do it,” he said roughly. And then, “Please?”

Wolf boy had asked for her permission. She was bone tired… so why not? “Okay,” she said.

The cool roughness of the cloth woke new nerve endings as he worked the fabric against her feet and legs. The sheer pleasure of dirt and blood washing off her skin almost had her eyes rolling back in her head.

“I need to get home,” she admitted. This
thing
he was doing for her, taking care of her, wasn’t something she’d normally allow. She always stood on her own two feet. Always. And yet here he was, cleaning her up, and she was allowing it and not just because she’d kill to be clean again. But because his careful touch felt good.

Better than good because, if she was being honest with herself, it was erotic as hell. She didn’t want honesty right now, though. No, she’d prefer to pretend life as she knew it hadn’t changed. She absolutely wasn’t alone in the bayou with a morose, closed-off, uncommunicative werewolf who could probably eat her up in one bite.

Not to mention the vamp that definitely
bit.

Dag dipped the cloth into water and then wrung it out. “That’s a powerful old vamp out there,
boo
. You’re safer here with me.”

Oh, she didn’t think so. When she said as much, he nodded matter-of-factly.

“Yeah. You seen me shift. You mind my goin’ wolf?”

She had secrets of her own—secrets she had no intention of sharing with this man—so being scared of what he could do was pure hypocritical on her part. She’d seen plenty in the bayou and, while his big ass wolf was no cuddly kitten, he hadn’t hurt her.

“I’m good with it,” she said finally, and something flickered in his eyes.

“That so?”

Did he want her to run screaming into the night?

“Yeah,” she repeated. “I’ve seen worse.”

“True.” For a long moment, there was nothing but near silence, punctuated by the drip of water and the rough whisper of the cloth over her bare skin. She was acutely aware of her nudity. Between the two of them, they had only his pants and her borrowed T-shirt. A quick zip and a shove and they could be skin to skin, his dick sinking deep inside her. She should have been afraid—and yet she wasn’t.

He
wasn’t the problem here.

“The vamp—did he hurt you?”

She froze. Dag didn’t meant external hurts, wasn’t asking about anything he could see on her body. After all, he had a ringside view of the scratches and tears the vamp had left on her body. No, he meant something far more intimate. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened, and certainly not while she was almost naked.

“You can’t tell?” She asked the question lightly.

His thumb ran down her calf, paralleling a partially healed scratch. “I wan’ you to be tellin’ me,” he said.

“And if I don’t want to?”

He shrugged. “I’d like to be sure. And,” he looked up, meeting her stare head-on, “I’d like you to tell me. So there’s that.”

She wouldn’t be his mate simply because he’d decreed it so. Still, the whole sharing and let-me-take-care-of-you line was strangely seductive, despite the years she’d spent looking out for herself. She was tired and that had to be the reason why she wanted to lean into his touch while she answered his questions. She’d never been much of a talker, preferring her relationships long on sex and short on words. Even then she’d never found a man capable of giving her toe-curling, rip-your-clothes-off-now sex—a lack she suspected Dag could address—and she’d certainly never done heart-to-hearts. Not even with Mary Jane, and the two of them were close.

“Why do you keep asking how I’m feeling?”

He shook his head, like she was a puzzle missing a piece or three. “You don’ wan’ me to ask, you bein’ my mate and all?”

She wasn’t touching that
mate
business with a ten-foot pole. Not now. Not while she was mostly naked.

His hand tightened on her knee.

“Nope. Not really,” she said.

“Huh,” he said and picked up her right arm, stroking the cloth down her skin in a long, firm stroke. “You got somethin’ you do wan’ to talk about?”

She thought for a moment.

“Yeah. I want to talk about Ameline.”

“Okay.” He set her right arm back on the bed and reached for her left. She’d half lifted it towards him before she realized it. The man was too good at sneaking under her defenses. “So talk,” he continued. “I’m listenin’. Maybe start with who Ameline is.”

“Was.” She didn’t want to remember, but the memories came anyhow. Waking up inside the shack after being abducted first trip and hearing the sounds of the vampire feeding. It hadn’t even tried to make the act quick or merciful. Ameline had screamed for a long, long time, until she hadn’t, and the silence had been worse than the noise.

“The female in the vamp’s nest?”

“Yeah.” Her throat clogged, but she refused to cry. Not now, when she was so close to getting free. Getting even made sense and tears wouldn’t get her any closer. Ameline hadn’t deserved that kind of end. Death was sometimes a welcome respite in the bayou—after a person had lived long enough, sometimes a rest was no bad thing—but Ameline hadn’t been ready. Certainly no one would choose that death. Mauled and chewed on until she bled out on the floor, alone because the vamp wouldn’t allow Riley go to her.  “Her name was Ameline.”

“You knew her before?”

She considered how much to tell him, because he was male and possessive and because she’d seen for herself how many unhappy endings that could lead to. Dag Breaux, for all his rough edges and rougher words, didn’t strike her as mean, so she opened her mouth and let the words come out. “I work in a women’s shelter. She came there maybe eight weeks ago because her boyfriend liked to hit on her.”

Dag swore. “You went after him.”

Clearly, things were simpler in his world, because his words were all statement and no question. Maybe wolf-men didn’t have to worry about Louisiana law enforcement. That would have made some of her work at the shelter easier. Sometimes, though, it didn’t matter how much force your punch packed. Some things, all the fighting and vengeance and getting even in the world couldn’t fix. Ameline had ended up being one of those things.

“I wanted to,” she admitted.

“You would,” he said and she wondered what he thought when he said that.

“She came in to the shelter and she hadn’t left, not when I went out on the
Bayou Sweetie
with Mary Jane. Maybe she checked out in the last week, but what if the vamp grabbed her? And,” she continued, because the connections she was drawing in her head bothered her too much to keep to herself, “she wouldn’t be the first woman to disappear this month. We had two others leave.”

“Unexpectedly?” He got up, emptied the water and returned with fresh. He gestured for her to tilt her face back and she hesitated, then did as he’d silently asked. She wasn’t sure what his low growl meant, but it sounded almost—
happy
.

“Women come and go. We usually have two or three long-terms stays and another three or four who come for a night or two. We serve the entire parish. But what our women usually don’t do is up and disappear in the middle of the night without so much as a
thank you
or a
he didn’t mean to and he’s real sorry, so I’ll be going now
.”

“And these two did?”

“Yeah. I didn’t think too much about it, because fear and anger can make a woman do strange things, but now I’m wondering.”

“If the vamps took them.” Dag bent over her, the cloth’s slow drag finding the perfect spot. She could feel the tension in her muscles relaxing.

“It killed Ameline,” she admitted. “It drank her to death. I thought that only happened in books, but no, it goddamned happened right in front of me.”

“It drank from you too.” He turned her forearm over carefully, exposing the ragged wound. Already, the injury looked better. She held her breath, wondering if he would ask questions. But he didn’t. Instead, he lowered his head and her breath caught as he brushed his lips softly against her skin. With his fingers, he spread some antibacterial ointment from a scrunched up tube onto the injury, the small sting followed by a slow, soft burn that reminded her she’d heal and everything would be okay.

“Is there anything I should know? Like, am I growing to grow fangs or want to suck your blood?” She asked jokingly, but God, she didn’t know what she’d do if he said there was something to worry about.

“It’s not contagious,” he said and wrapped a strip of gauze around her wrist. “You won’ be turnin’ into a vampire, Riley.”

“Good.” Her teeth bit into her lower lip. “Because I wouldn’t be okay with going all fanged. I’m just putting that out there.”

“You askin’ me to stake you if you develop a craving for raw meat?” He lifted his head and his eyes were definitely laughing at her, although his mouth didn’t twitch.

She wondered if he’d really do it and decided he would. There was nothing gentle about him. Which was good. She didn’t want or do
gentle
. The damned moon gone now, but heat still uncurled in her, making her restless.