Laura's Wolf (Werewolf Marines) (28 page)

Hoping it wouldn’t work, her hands tingling with anxiety, Laura said, “
Sleep
.”

Nothing happened.

“Too bad.” Roy glanced at Laura, and seemed to sink deeper into the sofa, as if he was suddenly very tired. “Or maybe it’s just as well.”

“What do you mean?” Laura asked.

He hesitated. “You obviously didn’t want it.”

Laura was certain that hadn’t been what he’d been thinking, but she decided not to pursue it. The entire idea gave her the creeps. She smiled at him. “It’s still badass. Let’s go run with the wolves.”

Roy went out first, sniffing in all directions before declaring that the coast was clear. Laura looked around, memorizing the landscape so she could see it shift. The driveway was dry but it was still muddy beneath the trees. She could smell pine and wet earth. The air was chilly, the sky overcast.

“Since you like to watch me do it…” In a shimmer like a heat wave, Roy became a white wolf. He nudged at her hip with his massive head.

She had a moment of irrational fear that she once again wouldn’t be able to change. But when she searched within herself, she found the part of her that acted without thought and lived for danger, all instinct and ferocity and the joy of simply being.

Laura changed.

It’s like Dorothy arriving in Oz,
she thought.
Except that the color goes away instead of appearing.

But the impression of everything being brighter and more vivid was the same. She still smelled pine, but now she could distinguish the oily astringency of the needles from the resinous scent of the bark. The ground wasn’t merely earthy, but rich with dead leaves from various trees and interspersed with the mineral smell of stone.

Laura hadn’t realized how huge Roy was as a wolf, or how small she was; he was nearly twice her size. She nosed at him, inhaling his complex scent of leather and chocolate and charcoal, rich and smoky and earthen.

The pack sense was much more clear and detailed when they were wolves. She could discern Roy’s intentions almost as thoughts: his pleasure in her company, his delight in his sensory perceptions, and his suggestion that they head uphill, into the woods.

He bounded off, and she followed. Her legs seemed to fly beneath her, she didn’t feel the cold, and her body worked like a perfect machine. She wondered if humans ever felt like this—athletes at the top of their form, or maybe Roy before he’d been changed—and then lost herself in the pack sense, in running, in being a wolf.

Rain began to fall in a sudden storm. Her thick coat held it off at first, but it ran into her eyes and mouth and spattered at her feet, then gradually soaked through her fur. She had the impulse to roll in the mud, but he thought she shouldn’t. Instead, he suggested that they go back. With a lupine shrug, she acquiesced.

They ran down the hill and on to the porch, where they both shook the rain from their fur in a flurry that soaked the walls. Roy became a man and opened the front door, gesturing to her to go inside. She padded in, her claws clicking on the hardwood, and changed.

They stood together, dripping all over the floor. Roy’s black hair was plastered to his head, sleek as a seal. There were even tiny drops of water in his extraordinary eyelashes, framing eyes the color of rain clouds. His white T-shirt was so wet that it might as well not have been there, outlining the bulging muscles of his broad shoulders. She could even see the raised welts of his jagged shrapnel scars.

Laura could no longer catch his unique scent, but she was close enough to smell what a human could: the rain, the clean scent of his wet hair, and a whiff of soap and mud. Heat rose off his body in an almost visible fog.

“You’re soaked. You have to dry off. You’ll catch a cold.” Roy’s voice was even deeper than usual, and rough rather than velvety.

Laura was caught between laughter and desire. Or maybe, like the place where action and intention were one, they were the same thing. “Then you’d better get me out of these wet clothes.”

Rain drummed against the roof and window. Laura didn’t hear the sound of Roy’s feet as he took a step forward. He took the gun from his belt and put it on the counter, then caught the hem of her blouse. She stood stock-still, her breath coming faster, as he laid his palms flat on her waist. They were cold and wet, but they quickly warmed as he slid them upward, making the removal of her shirt into a caress.

He pulled it over her head and tossed it on to the counter beside the gun, then unsnapped her bra and sent it to follow the blouse.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he said.

Laura pulled him down to her, unable to wait any longer, kissing him with all the passion she’d been too exhausted to feel the day before. His mouth opened under hers, his lips soft, his tongue hot. He hadn’t shaved that morning. His stubble scratched her chin.

He moved in closer, pressing her against his body. Her nipples hardened. She eased back, then moved her torso so they slid against his chest, letting him feel them. Roy let out a muffled groan, his hands tensing against her back. He kissed her hard, catching her lower lip between his teeth and pressing down almost to the point of pain. Then he broke off the kiss and pushed her up against the wall.

Laura was so dizzy with desire that it was hard to think. Roy was breathing quickly, the rise and fall of his chest easily visible beneath his clinging shirt, his hair tousled and falling in strands over his forehead, his pupils huge and black.

If Laura had somehow failed to notice how hard he was when they’d stood so close, she’d have noticed now. His soaking-wet jeans were so tight that she wondered if he was uncomfortable.

Roy reached for his belt buckle, but a mischievous impulse made Laura hold up her hand.

“Take my shoes off,” she said.

Obediently, Roy knelt at her feet and removed her sandals. He could have just pulled them off, but he unbuckled them instead, lifting them from her feet as reverently as if she was a queen. She watched him do it, enjoying the view of his powerful shoulders and his long, long eyelashes.

“And my jeans,” she added when he was done.

He worked them over her hips, taking her panties off with them. Still kneeling, he looked up at her. “Do you want me to—”

“Stand up.”

He stood. His hands were clenching and unclenching, as if he was having trouble controlling himself. “Do you—Do you want—”

Laura took a deep breath. “
Kneel.
”

Roy dropped instantly, his knees slamming into the floor with a bang.

“Oh, God!” Laura exclaimed. “I’m sorry, I hurt you.”

“No,” Roy gasped. “Fuck, no. Don’t be sorry. That was hot.”

Without moving from where he knelt, he put his hands on her hips and bent his head to her. Laura leaned her head back and rested her hands on his shoulders as Roy laid his mouth on her.

Electric heat rippled through her body, a new jolt going through her with every flick and caress of his tongue. Laura drifted from pure sensation, as divorced from thought as when she’d run as a wolf, to occasional thoughts like
How the hell did Roy get so good at this when he’s spent most of his adult life with no women around
and
I hope he was serious when he said he didn’t mind if I drew blood because I don’t think I can stop myself.

Roy reached up and pressed one hand into her sternum, pinning her to the wall. Laura wondered why he was doing that, then forgot to care about anything but the climax she could feel building in her, like a current washing her out to sea, dragging her inexorably forward until, inevitably but still suddenly, it pulled her under.

Laura heard her own cry burst from her lips, felt her nails driving into Roy’s shoulders through the wet cloth of her shirt. Then a tide of warm relaxation washed over her, her knees buckled, and she would have sunk to the floor if he hadn’t been holding her up.

When she could stand on her own feet again, Roy let go of her. He was still fully dressed, all the way down to his boots. Laura wasn’t surprised to see spots of blood on his shoulders, and was equally unsurprised, though a touch more guilty, to see that he was in danger of ripping out of his jeans.

He looked up at her, still kneeling, his eyes reminding her less of rain clouds than of molten steel. “Get me out of these wet clothes before I lose my fucking mind.”

Trying not to laugh, Laura hastily pulled off his shirt and took off his belt. The bullet he’d taken for her had left yet another mark on him, as a star-shaped pink scar.

He sat back to allow her to haul off his boots, and then his jeans and underwear. This time Laura tried not to be so distracted that she forgot to look for the scar on his hip. It outlined the bone, white and thin, curving all the way around to his back. “How did you get that?”

“Tell you later. I don’t think I’d make any sense right now.” Roy took a condom out of the back pocket of his jeans. As he started to roll it on, Laura started laughing. “What’s so funny?”

She reached into the back pocket of her own jeans and held up another condom. “I guess we both hit the stash under the pillow this morning.”

“Great minds think alike.” Roy scooped Laura into his arms and got to his feet. “Like I promised. Standing up.”

She opened her mouth to ask if she wasn’t too heavy, then closed it. He’d run for at least a mile carrying her the day before. His everyday gear weighed eighty pounds. Whatever the rest of the world thought about women like her, she certainly wasn’t too heavy for Roy.

As if he’d read her mind, he smiled and said, “I’m not going to claim you weigh less than my SAW and my pack and my body armor. But I’d much rather be carrying you.”

Laura sucked in a startled breath as he eased her down on to him. She pushed her hips forward, and he was inside her, filling her. Roy gasped too, his eyes opening wide.

“Wrap your legs around my waist,” he said, his voice roughened.

Laura did so, drawing her legs tight and pressing him all the way in, her hands clasped around his back. She waited for him to move in her, but he stood still. He was trembling, his chest heaving against hers, his skin hot and damp.

She’d forgotten the pack sense, but she touched it now. Laura could perceive his emotions more easily now, when they were so intense and close to the surface, unmixed with conscious thought. Even the lightest touch sucked her into a storm of lust and love and, to her surprise, fear.

“Hey,” Laura whispered. “What’s the matter?”

“I love you so much,” Roy said, his words stuttering and ragged. He took a deep breath, and Laura expected him to explain. But he only repeated, desperately, “I love you. I love you.”

“I love you too.” Laura again reached out through the pack sense, and this time tried to hold it open. It felt strange, as if she was in two places at once. “You can feel me, can’t you? I made it, Roy. You saved me. I lived.”

His fear faded. He took a step forward, bracing her back against the wall, and began to thrust inside of her.

Normally Laura wouldn’t have been able to come more than once, but whether it was from the position or because she was in love or because she could feel an echo of Roy’s own building climax through their bond, she was carried with him. They were breathing in the same rhythm, she realized. Even their hearts were beating as one, synchronized by the pack sense.

Roy’s eyes were closed, his lashes trembling and wet. His hand clenched on her shoulder, harder and harder until she was sure he’d leave bruises. But she didn’t mind. She’d marked him with her nails. He could mark her with his fingers.

“I love you,” he gasped. “Laura—”

She felt his shattering ecstasy through the bond, triggering her own. For a brief and endless moment, they were not two but one, lost in a single joy.

Chapter Sixteen: Roy

Guinness

Roy trotted through the woods, the scent of damp earth and leaves rising up from under his paws. Laura’s lemon meringue scent wafted up from her as she ran beside him, her short legs taking two steps for every one of his. He checked through the pack sense to make sure he wasn’t wearing her out, and she sent back her delight in running and in the movement of her own body.

Roy halted, smelling metal and plastic and wood smoke, oil and tomato sauce and the distinctive herbal-woody scent of a human. He became a man, and watched Laura shift from her elegant wolf form into her beautiful woman’s body.

“How’s your ankle?” Roy asked, though he hadn’t noticed her limping. Still, it had been three miles.

“It’s almost completely healed. Doesn’t hurt at all.” She was still radiant with the joy of running, her round cheeks flushed and her curls blown back in the cold wind.

Roy brushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes, then took her hand. Maybe it only felt like such a gift to be able to do that because their relationship was so new, but just feeling her slim fingers curl around his made his heart lift and lift until he felt lighter than air. It was hard for him to imagine that he’d ever take Laura for granted, even if they were together for the next fifty years.

They walked out of the woods toward a small wood cabin. A gray-haired man in a bulky jacket stepped out, leaning on a cane and eyeing them suspiciously. Roy was certain he had a gun under the jacket, and moved to stand in front of Laura. But he didn’t do more than that. After all, Roy had a pistol under his jacket, too. It didn’t necessarily mean anything sinister.

“I’m Laura Kaplan,” Laura called out. “George Adler’s daughter. You’re Jim, right? Thanks for the venison.”

Jim relaxed at that, and beckoned them forward. As he came closer, Roy saw a scattering of tiny scars on his face and bigger ones on his hands. They might be from an industrial accident or a motorcycle crash, but Roy was guessing shrapnel.

“Want more of it?” Jim asked. “I’ve got another fifty pounds in the freezer.”

“That would be lovely, thanks.” Laura produced a jar; they’d learned that about five pounds was the most weight that would transform with them, clothes included. “I made some chili for you with the last of your venison. I hope you like it Texas-style.”