Moonlit Embrace (4 page)

“Grow up? I’m not hearing this.”

“Life happens. Mom and Dad started traveling, Michelle moved away and Kate’s...well...Kate. I didn’t have anyone to run with.”

“You’re so lucky I came into your life.”

“That’s awfully cocky of you.”

“There’s a joke there, but I’m letting it go because I’m the mature one.” He jerked his head toward the woods. “March!”

There was no point in lying to herself. Her thighs and fingers prickled at the memory of reshaping into lupine form. They walked until the fields gave way to weeds, and the weeds gave way to brush so dense that they might as well have been in an undiscovered jungle.

“I promise to have you back at work before nightfall.”

“Baron!”

“You’re quitting anyway.”

“Well, not this minute.”

“One hour, Johanna. I promise. Less even. I’ll have you back in forty minutes.” He lifted the gray tee shirt over his head and tossed it to the ground below.

Just as she expected. The man really was cut from rock, with every muscle pronounced and piggybacking on another one. She knew she’d been busted staring when he flexed his pecs. “Your turn.”

She readied herself to fake up some confidence and found she didn’t need to. Odd. She’d always struggled to shift in front of others. The nudity, the half-second of vulnerability between forms often suffocated her.

Often, but not now.

Not with him.

His desire hit her with the heat of a volcano. She made that happen. Every current rolling off him was her doing. That wicked part of her was back again and she didn’t shoo it away. “Help me?”

Without a word he knelt before her, lifting the hem of her black dress up, up, up. He took in a very audible breath as her own scents started flowing. He didn’t stop though, pulling the rest of the dress until it joined his pile of discarded clothes.

Either of them could have shifted by now, but he yanked her tight against him, her breasts pinned against his chest. Impossibly large hands ran down the length of her back until they cupped her cheeks. “You’re built for a wolf. You know that?”

“Is that codeword for chubby?”

“That’s codeword for perfect.”

Then he kissed her and the heavens damned near opened for glory. Total situational overload. His tongue, raw heat, begged for permission at the corner of her mouth. She didn’t have the will to deny him.

She also didn’t have enough hands for what she wanted to do, but Lord knows she tried using what she had. She touched his face, clawed his chest and gripped his cheeks until one of her hands found its way to his manhood.

She’d never been this forward before. Everything in her human mind told her to stop. Reminded her that she didn’t know him.

Luckily for her, her wolf took precedence.

He groaned into her mouth and nipped at the side of her lips when her hand closed around him. Well, as much around him as it could. Laid across a QWERTY keyboard, the man was ASDFGHJKL and maybe the ENTER key too.

She wanted to see what she held, but that would require her mouth leaving his. Neither of them seemed intent of having happen. Instead, his hands wandered down until they lay upon the damp hair between her legs. His fingers didn’t enter her, but he rubbed his rough palm against her core until her knees threatened to give way.

“You’ve been like this – ready for me since the moment we met. I’ve smelled it on you and been waiting to find out what it tastes like.” He dragged his hands against her one last time before pulling back to look her in the eyes. He shifted his tongue - just his tongue - and licked off the evidence of her lust from his hand, before sending it back for seconds. “You told me to lick you from top to bottom. I intend to.”

In the seconds it took him to drop to his knees, she told herself to keep her heart in check. No expectations.

Just this.

Just him.

Just now.

And just for the moment, she felt womanly, desired and gave herself permission to be free and to harbor no regrets.

His mouth honed in and rational thought transformed into a slippery, tricksy thing impossible to hold on to.

Baron buried his face between her legs. She slid down the tree he had her locked against until she straddled him, her knees on either side of his head.

He licked, sucked, bit, and pulled every inch of her.

Her orgasm built. She  felt it pressing against her inner walls as surely as she felt his tongue.

But that wasn’t the only thing pressing.

Baron snuck his hand around until he managed to shove two fingers inside her.

Three.

And they weren’t just pressing. They were massaging, hooking to hit the area that turned her muscles to mush.

“Please, Johanna?”

“Huh?”

He mumbled something back about ‘mouths,’ but she was too far gone to make it out. She pushed and rocked until it hurt. Her core burned, screaming for relief. If it didn’t happen soon, she’d explode. When her body had nothing more to give, her thighs quivered and she screamed out her release into the man between her legs.

Best. Lunch break. Ever.

“Are you okay?”

“What?”

“I need you to tell me that you’re okay, Johanna.”

“Yes.”

“Good girl.” Then he leaned forward and told her every single thing he wanted to do to her. She might have begged for it.

He might have laughed.

But he also pulled away, keeping his eyes on her while he handled his erection.

“You don’t have to do that. I mean we can...”

“When I make love to you for the first time, Johanna, it won’t be in the woods.” He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth before pumping and spilling himself on the grass, seeding the air around them in an aroma of sweat, need and lust. He crawled on all fours to her and together they fell against the trunk of the tree in a jumble of arms and legs.

Satisfaction? Yep.

Fear? A little.

Regret? Nope.

He spoke first. That was good. She was aware that things called ‘words’ existed, but in her bliss had no clue of how to put them together right now.

“Two things,” he said, rubbing his head against hers. “First, I got hung up on licking in one place. We’ll have to try the head to toe thing later. Second, ditto for the run.”

“W
ho does the walk of shame in the middle of the workday?”

Johanna readjusted her dress. “Shut up, Tony.”

His pen tapped against the counter and his eyes twinkled with delight. “I mean, damn girl.”

“We went out for lunch.”

“I can figure out what he ate.”

She hated life.

Bullcrap. She loved life, but this was embarrassing.

Bullcrap again.

This was awesome.

Well, a fairly grin-inducing mix of the two.

She was incredibly late, but a business meeting kept Belinda tied up and no one else seemed to care about the whens as much as the hows and whats.

She gave them nothing, even though the little devil on her shoulder did cartwheels each time someone asked what happened.

She spent the next half hour going back and forth to the bathroom to pat herself clean and convince herself to stop smiling. Both efforts repeatedly and ultimately failed.

Closing time couldn’t come fast enough. In exchange for her coworkers’ silence, she agreed to do the closing on her own tonight. She’d take that deal any day. By the time the cleaning crew arrived, she wanted nothing more than a glass of wine and a bed...with a wolf in it.

She fingered a spot on her neck that he’d paid such glorious attention to. Would he call her? Should she call him? Nothing worse than looking desperate and yet her hand itched to reach for the phone.

In between the hemming and hawing, she grabbed her keys and headed for the door, sensing the object of her lust before she stepped outside. “You’re back?”

“Should I leave?”

“No! I just thought that, you know...”

He pulled a small bouquet of red and orange roses from behind his paint-smeared pants. “Time got away from me. It was either change clothes or not catch you before you left. Sorry?”

Her concerns about Baron getting free milk didn’t work against these roses. She dipped her nose into the petals and kicked away the last twinges of doubt. “They’re lovely.”

“I wasn’t too rough with you today, was I?” He pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, then took a sudden interest in staring at the sidewalk.

She toed his sandaled foot with the tip of her flats. “No. I’m just happy I didn’t suffocate you.”

“Can’t imagine a better way to go. Um, about that. I came back to invite you to dinner. A tasting. You didn’t exactly get to eat during our lunch. I did but...”

She elbowed him in the stomach and turned toward the garage, pausing a half second for doubt to set in. But neither it, nor its frequent companion, indecision, reared their ugly heads. “I haven’t moved my car in a while because of you. Do you promise to bring me back to it tonight?”

“I promise to do whatever you want, remember? So what about dinner? I’m willing to beg.” He shot her the dopiest puppy dog look ever.

“I suppose I can schedule you in.”

“Awesome, because I’ve got most of it on standby. Had a feeling you’d say yes.”

“Getting comfortable already?” She winced at her own words, but he let it go with a shrug and led the way.

His restaurant wasn’t very far, less than six blocks. One might consider that convenient if they were dating.

Which they weren’t.

Must not forget that.

She remembered the site as a Mexican joint, but Baron had a different vision if the smells wafting out from the newspapered windows were an indication. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“Actually, I did. I wanted to get a feel for the equipment. Might as well have some fun while I do it. This was a turnkey operation, but you’ve gotta test stuff out, ya know? So, look, picture a 1920s speakeasy. That’s what I’m shooting for. The interior brick walls will still work. I won’t have to change anything but the paint trim and the menus.”

“And the décor and the furniture.” She tried wobbling the wooden table. “These are fine I guess, but you need new tablecloths, or at least refinish them with a wash of gloss. Your project manager’s handling that I guess.”

“Stop.” He popped open a bottle in a chiller on the next table and poured her a glass. “Take seven and a half minutes to write down everything you think needs changing. I’ll finish cooking and be right back.”

Five minutes in and she had a list sixteen points long and growing. She grabbed it, her wine and headed to the kitchen. Baron leaned over an industrial sized stove, flipping over various slabs of chop licking meat.

Her Baron.

Mate.

She shook that nonsense out of her head. He was just a man like any other. One who shared her wolven secret. One who her made her feel like the hottest thing on the planet. One who smelled
right.

And one who looked at her with unabashed pride at what he’d put together here.

“My nose is loving this, Baron.”

“Me?”

“The food! You’re not bad though. I can’t wait to try it.”

“Me?”

“Hush.” She waved her list in front of his nose. “Everything in the back of the house looks good, I guess. I don’t know, but the front is another story.”

“I can agree with that. This equipment’s old, but solid. Makes no sense to change it. But what don’t you like out there?”

He looked good here. A natural, blending in like a wolf in the woods, as if this was as much his environment as any place else. She had to know more. “Tell me about yourself. How did you get into this?”

Impossibly, the rascally grin deepened. “I’m the middle of five. Not old enough to be catered to and not young enough to be babied. If I hadn’t learned to cook, I wouldn’t be half the strapping man you see before you.”

“Five, hmm? Quints?” It wasn’t uncommon among their kind, but he shook this off.

“Naw. The eldest is forty-two, the youngest is twenty-one. Quite a spread. Daddy’s proud.”

“I see. So you went to culinary school and here you are. But not directly. You’re a little too old for that.”

“I’m choosing not to take that as a dig. I’m from Montana. Born there, went to school here in New York, then moved to Wyoming for a bit. I had to leave and make a fresh start.”

“Getting out from Papa’s wing, or did you break the wrong heart?” Baron’s cheek twitched and she clapped her hands in delight. “Nailed it! You naughty boy. Tell me about her.”

“She died.”

“Oh.” She felt about as tall and as important as a pile of chicken poop and wished for a portal to whisk her away.
I’m sorry,
didn’t sound close to being enough, but she said it anyway, face burning with embarrassment.

“It’s fine. We weren’t serious and stopped seeing each other weeks before she passed.”

Johanna sat down her glass and tried to lay a comforting hand across his shoulder, but he stepped back to address some shrimp, then turned to the roasting vegetables, careful to shield his face.

“According to the police report, the cause of her death was labeled a suicide, but I know better. We broke it off on good terms and went our separate ways. She wasn’t hurting.”

“Women are good at hiding hurt.”

“Trust me, she’d moved on. Anyway, the place was a small town and as I was the most recent outsider, I got a lot of looks thrown my way. Didn’t need the hassle. You know how humans can get.”

“New subject?”

“Please.”

“How about the list, yeah?” That seemed safe enough. “I’ve decided we’ll keep the tables, but not the chairs. They aren’t exactly comfortable. Also, new window treatments and...”

She rattled on happy to see the cloud lift from his face. He ducked to peer between the cut-through separating the dining area from the kitchen whenever she pointed at something and he made little notations on the paper as she spoke. He didn’t always agree, but where he didn’t, she deemed the conflict an issue of vision, not stubbornness.

The place had been closed for a month. Real goods, everything from forks to toilet paper, had been a part of the last owner’s lot. Baron only needed people and product to get this thing moving. With his background and obvious passion, he could be sitting on a goldmine.