Scout: Reckless Desires (Norseton Wolves Book 7) (14 page)

“You can touch me whenever you’d like,” he assured her. “If you feel clingy, I’m sorry. You’re sensing that from me and taking on a bit of the burden yourself.”

“Oh. Well, that’s not so bad.” She dropped her hand for him to slide her shirt down her arms.

“We’ll see.”

Before she could get her hands up again, he reached around her and loosened her bra clasp.

“Am I the only one undressing?” she asked.

“Fine. You finish. I’ll be right back.”

He undressed in closet, kicking his shoes to the corner and tossing his scrubs into the hamper.

When he returned to the bed, she was clutching her arms over her chest, and goosebumps textured her tanned flesh.

“Cold or scared?” he asked, but he already knew.

She was scared, just like him, and he suspected they wouldn’t stop being scared until their connection was complete. Everything would make sense then. All doubts would go away.

“Come here.” He tugged back the covers and patted to the spot closest to the window.

She crawled in and tugged the covers up to her chin.

“This is usually my side, by the way.”

“Mine now. I always sleep so the right edge is beside me.”

“Yeah, I figured. I’ll adapt, I imagine.” He climbed in on the other side, but couldn’t relax just yet.

No more talking. No more stalling.

Like he’d said, they could do things fast or slow. Slow meant days or weeks of being in each other’s company and not doing much more than talking and holding hands.

He wouldn’t survive weeks of that. He needed to touch her in far more carnal ways. He needed to claim her in the same way she insisted she should claim him. Maybe her inner wolf was causing the added urgency, and he’d absorbed some of her anxiety. Their connection would come with a learning curve for both of them.

He needed to let down his walls. The easiest way was by giving her his body.

“Petra,” he said quietly, hoping he could leave his question unspoken.

“If you want to, then so do I.”

“You’re sure?”

“Don’t keep me waiting. Let me come home.”

“Home. Yes.”

He found a condom in the pile of mess in his nightstand drawer, and then rolled it onto his already hard shaft. Scooting beside her, her rolled her toward the window and pulled her smooth, warm body against his.

She let out choppy exhalations as he caressed her neck with his lips. Moaned as he strummed his thumb across her nipple.

“You can live where you want.” He kissed down her neck, nipped at her shoulder. “Here, or with the wolves. You don’t have to decide immediately.”

“We could live anywhere?”

“
Mm-hmm
.” He lifted her top leg over his and pressed his palm over her pussy.

Wet and ready for him.

“We could build a house somewhere. Or get a bigger apartment. Up to you.” He pushed the head of his cock against her sex and waited for her to show resistance, but instead, she wriggled against him, working his tip into her body and letting out a ragged exhalation when she scooted down more. Took more of him in.

Fuck.

He’d need to find some distraction, or the thing would be over before they’d really had a chance to start.

But there’ll be other times.

Night after night of passion. He finally had someone to go home to—a good reason to have his regimented schedule upset.

A good reason for him to be scared.

He was scared for her—that she was sick, for one thing. And also that he wasn’t enough. The second thing was the harder fear to swallow.

“Paul,” she whispered. She bore down, taking him in deep as she grabbed his wrist.

So deep
.

He could hardly breathe, much less think. “Fuck,” he muttered. He gave an experimental thrust and nearly shot his load. He felt like his dick held thunder and lightening, and that he
had
to let it out, or the storm would turn into some catastrophic event.

He thrust again, emboldened by her sharp nails piercing his flesh, by her growls. Her clenches around him.

“Just like that,” she said. “Hard. You’re not going to hurt me.”

“I don’t think you know what you’re asking.”

“You said it yourself. I’m a werewolf who survived a tree and a truck window. I can handle a cock.”

Growling as if he were a wolf himself, he rolled her into her belly and grabbed her by the hips. “Like that?”

He tugged her back onto him again and again, punishingly hard, but she didn’t cry out.

She dug her fingers into his bed sheets, and he heard the rip, and he didn’t care. He could get new sheets, but he and Petra only got one first time.

“Just. Like. That.” She punctuated each word with a squeeze around his drilling cock.

He leaned over her and set his teeth into her shoulder, rolling his hips as he found her clit and pinched it between his fingers.

Another rip.

A gasp from her, and then there were pictures in his mind.

Her past. Of why she didn’t claim her last name. Her father had left his wolf wife because he was a coward, but Paul wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn’t going to send his woman away, even if he didn’t understand entirely what she was. She was just as confused about him. They both had a lot to learn.

“More,” she whispered.

“Yeah? More of this?” He bit her again, and there was another rip.

Grinding into her once more, her body bucked beneath his.

She wouldn’t need much more, and he’d never been gladder for a quick release.

Back on his knees, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the noises she made and her body’s response.

He didn’t stop when she screamed and her wetness gushed around him.

He didn’t stop until he fell into the white light and didn’t have a choice but to stop because he couldn’t see.

He was no longer there.

Petra probably could have tried harder to wake Paul, but she liked holding him while he slept. She didn’t know how long he would sleep. He’d already been out for three hours, and for all she knew, that was typical of his ilk.

He’d slept through her climbing out of her own murk of unconsciousness and flailing like she was falling. She had fallen, in a way. But instead of hurtling toward the ground, she’d fallen out of a vision, of sorts.

She didn’t think the vision was anything like what Arnold had. The magic was foreign to her—it was Paul’s.

Petra’s lover amused her goddess. They were the first pair of their kind, and she thought the match was good.

But Petra had already known that, and the connection gave her even more knowledge. She knew how to take care of him and what he was afraid of, and that was what having a mate was all about—having someone to just
know
.

He’d even slept through her wriggling out from beneath him, and her cleaning him up.

He was “out like a light,” as Arnold would have said.

She wasn’t going to worry about Arnold. Arnold could take care of himself, and she could only hope he showed up eventually. He’d need to come home at some point, too.

She snuggled against Paul, contemplating taking another comfortable nap when he finally shifted and moaned.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

She craned her head up to see him.

His eyes were closed tight, and face screwed into a grimace. “Huge fucking headache,” he said.

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault. Afótama shit.” He pushed up one eyelid, then the other. “You all right? How long was I out? I didn’t expect that.”

“I’m all right. I was only asleep for an hour. You were out for three.”

He grunted. Hugged her tighter.

They didn’t need to talk. There was really nothing that needed to be said at the moment. Every important iota of information had been transferred when Petra had been swimming around in that white light, being teased lovingly by the wolf goddess. Everything else would fall into place in time. She hoped he knew that. She thought he did, but she had to ask.

“Are we…
okay
?”

He tracked his hands down her back. Cupped her ass. Grinded against her.

“Quit it,” she said.

“I was just answering your question.”

“Go back to sleep. You’re easier to handle that way.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“Yeah, well, you’re stuck with me.”

“Someone should give me a trophy.”

“I’ll give you a trophy kick to the dick. How about that?”

He chuckled into her hair and kneaded her rear end playfully. “I’m not a masochist in the slightest bit, but thanks for asking. Go back to sleep. I was having an interesting dream earlier about a six-year-old Petra falling into a ditch. I think it cut off when you woke up.”

She tensed against him, eyes open wide and lungs clenched tight. “You saw that?”

“Mud all over you. Arnold laughing.” He snorted. “Poor baby.”

She snarled at him, and that only made him laugh.

“I’m going to have a good time sorting through your memories.”

She didn’t want him in her memories. He’d pity her.

She must have been lowering her head, because he caught her chin and tipped it back up.

“Hey,” he said. “It works both ways. You get some of mine. I get some of yours. You already know a lot more, right?”

She nodded. She’d inherited more of that Afótama sense of belonging, and she wasn’t going to give that up for anything.

“And you’re still here.” He chuckled, but the sound wasn’t very mirthful. It was fearful. He was still afraid, but so was she. She believed, though, that the goddess knew what she was doing, and so did the beings who’d kept Paul available for Petra to claim. There was no Afótama clanswoman who could break down his walls, and no wolf with the right kind of strength for her. They were a match.

She was going to let herself belong to Norseton, to her new pack, and
especially
to Paul. Being needed felt good.

“You were in my head. You saw everything about who I am, and you didn’t leave me,” he whispered reverently.

“I’m where I belong.”

“Now that you’re here, I feel the same.”

“I hope so. Something good has to come of me crashing that truck.” She kissed his cheek and curled up close. “I can’t believe I’m finally
home
.”

Dear Reader,

If you’re been following my Afótama Legacy series, you know that Norseton Wolves spins off from it. Paul was first introduced in the novella
Viking’s Pride
as a neighbor to Norseton’s new demographer Will Valle. His friend Chris is there, too. You can read that novella without having read the rest of the series, though to fully understand Queen Tess and the Afótama quirks, consider going back to the beginning with
The Viking Queen’s Men
.

You might be asking now, “What’s ‘Reckless Desires’?”

In a nutshell, it’s the first cycle of a multi-author collection of stories about physically or emotionally wounded alpha shifters and the beauties who soothe them. My Norseton Wolves stories
Elder, Scout,
and
Seer
are all a part of that collection, as are fifteen stories from authors Anna Lowe, Jacqueline Sweet, J.K. Harper, Elianne Adams, and Olivia Arran. They’ll be releasing a couple of times per week through the end of June 2016.

Learn more about the Reckless Desires collection
at the series website
.

OTHER NORSETON WOLVES STORIES

Beast

Loner

Idler

Scion

Maker

Elder

Seer

Turn the page for a sneak peek of
Seer
.

The Norseton Wolfpack’s newest guard recruit, Arnold, never ignores premonitions from his goddess, but her latest missive could have him turning werewolf culture on its ear.

His rescue of runaway new mother Leonora quickly escalates to untamed infatuation after Arnold accidentally gives Leo a mating bite. Unfortunately, being married already—sort of—Leo doesn’t want another mate. Her old one was the reason she’d grabbed her baby and left Wyoming with little more than the clothes on her back.

Although Arnold promises Leo that she can have the independence she wants in Norseton, she’s not convinced real freedom is possible. Try as she might to ignore the allure of her goddess-sent rescuer, he holds her in thrall as only a true mate could. Her ex’s reckless stunt to force Leo back to Wyoming leaves Leo with little choice but to trust not only her unwavering mate, but to put her faith in her stalwart new pack, too.

Disrupting the status quo is a dangerous prospect for wolves, but the Norseton pack can’t back down—not if they ever want to put their broken families back together.

___

CHAPTER ONE

“Fucking visions.”

Laying his head from one side to another, Arnold let out a quiet growl at the aches in his body, and shook out his tingling fingers.

Arnold’s premonition had led him to an isolated thicket in the middle of Roosevelt National Forest in Colorado. He was far from home—a strange feeling for sure, seeing as how he hadn’t had a home in more than ten years. He’d been kicked out of his wolfpack at fourteen and had been out, navigating a cruel world with only his twin sister Petra for companionship until a couple of weeks prior.

Petra had driven their truck into a tree and had been in a coma. She was alive, but shouldn’t have been. What the staff at the small Oklahoma hospital where she’d taken saw as a medical miracle had really been werewolf genetics at play. They’d been so astounded by her durability that when a stranger called the hospital switchboard looking for John and Jane Does, the nurses had slipped up. They gave away just enough information that the members of a New Mexican wolfpack could guess that Petra wasn’t quite human.

That’s what they’d been looking for—not-quite-humans in need of saving.

They’d sent a couple of their wolves to scoop up Petra and Arnold before anyone at the hospital looked too deeply into Petra’s physiology, and then offered them a home in their community.

Norseton.

He’d said yes. Wolves needed homes.

But the last time Arnold had seen Petra, she’d been—finally—awake from her healing sleep and was upright and shouting at folks. The shouting hadn’t concerned him. Petra only had two volumes most of the time, and they were loud and louder. Normally he would have stuck around to make sure she was fine, but Arnold had had to go.

He’d had a vision.

The full moon was calling for him to shift into his wolf’s form, but he had to resist the call. Holding off on a shift was never good for a moon shifter’s health, but he needed to be on two legs and thinking with his human brain. As a wolf, he’d rely more on instinct than logic, and Arnold needed to be able to tap into both. He was strong enough to resist for a night.

That lady—she wasn’t.

The lady was why he was in Colorado.

Rolling his shoulders back and flexing his fingers, he knelt silently beside a large tree and stared at the familiar spot he’d seen in his vision. There was a small clearing with a large boulder marking one edge.

If the scene played out the exact same as in his premonition, she’d lay her baby down there, and she’d answer the moon’s call. When she shifted back, he’d be ready for her.

He turned his wrist over and risked hitting the small button to illuminate the screen of his watch.

Nine.

She wouldn’t be able to resist much longer. She likely hadn’t had his practice with avoiding moon shifting. There was no way she could have been on the run for as long as he’d been.

He didn’t know what she was running from or who, only that she was running, and that their paths were supposed to cross.

Arnold had never considered himself to be the knight-in-shining-armor type, but the idea of a troubled lady being out in the wild with a baby gnawed at his gut. Reminded him too much of his mother, maybe.

The sound of a tiny protest across the clearing tugged Arnold out of his reverie and made him take his mind off the aches and pains in his body. He pinned his focus on the stumbling blonde with the bundled infant.

She looked bad off to Arnold—clawing at her clothes with one hand while clutching the child for dear life against her chest. Eyes sunken with dark hollows beneath.

She needed to shift. She couldn’t resist.

The fact she had to shift at all meant she belonged to some man and was probably running from him. Wolf women couldn’t shift until they’d had their mate’s bite, and once they’d been bitten, they were stuck.

They were property, not people.

She set her precious bundle down next to the rock and kicked off her dirty white canvas sneakers.

The baby shrieked, and the lady bent, whispering a useless, “Shh. Shh,” and powdering the child’s faces with kisses.

“Ugh.” She rolled back her shoulders, gave her head a hard shake, and stood. She undressed quickly.

Faded blue jeans gone.

T-shirt gone.

By the time she stripped out of her panties, she was moving with real purpose, evidently unavailable to avoid the moon’s pull any longer. Her socks flew off next. Her bra last.

Arnold dug his fingers into the bark of the tree behind him and tried to keep his thoughts chaste and pure. He knew he shouldn’t have been ogling her like that. Nudity didn’t provoke most wolves because they saw each other naked too often. Most were immune to seeing all that flesh, but Arnold hadn’t had much practice in avoidance. The only wolf Arnold had been close to in more than ten years had been his sister. He and Petra had an agreement: “You shift here, and I’ll go way the hell over there.”

He couldn’t stop staring at the woman with the baby. She had to think no one was looking, so she didn’t bother covering the slight droop of her full breasts or the way her belly—still slightly round from a birth that mustn’t have been all that long ago—protruded.

She sat on her heels, eyes closed and mouth hanging open in pain. She kept one hand on her baby even as her skin began to ripple and her limbs morphed.

Her shout was muted as the noise transformed into a pitiful howl, but through the whole ordeal, she kept touching the child as if the touch would make a difference.

Maybe it will,
he mulled.

So much depended on whether she got her bite before or after she’d had the baby. If after, she was probably afraid that in her wolf form, she’d forget that the little human-looking child was hers.

Arnold wouldn’t forget, though. While she ran, he’d take care of the child. He’d be sitting, waiting for her with the child in his arms whenever she returned from her run, and then he’d take both mother and child back to Norseton with him.

His visions rarely made a hell of a lot of sense before they were fulfilled, but he knew—for once—that he had a humanitarian purpose and not a self-serving one.

What she was doing was reckless and dangerous. If she were running, he’d give them a place to go. He’d had practice with running. She, apparently, didn’t. Not if all she had with her was that one overstuffed backpack and a diaper bag.

That was no way to live with a baby.

The gray wolf she’d become shot into the woods, opposite of where he was crouching.

He moved quickly across the clearing, cracking his knuckles and his neck, and ignoring his inner wolf’s compulsion to run after her.

The baby was swaddled tight, but fighting the blankets, squabbling red-faced and protesting with all the might he or she had in his or her tiny lungs.

Her, probably
.

The blanket had pink stars and purple unicorns. He wasn’t curious enough yet to pull back the corner to see if the filling matched the wrapper. The swaddling job looked pretty complicated and he doubted he’d be able to recreate the folds and tucks if they became undone.

“Hey. Everything’s okay, see?” he cooed at the hollering baby and scooped the bundle up off the cold ground.

He plopped his tired ass beside the boulder and rocked, as much to soothe himself as the baby. The wolf wanted out. The wolf wanted to run and to sing to the moon, but someone with two arms and two legs needed to stay with the baby.

“Your ma should have listened to the stories,” he said to the baby.

Fairy tales should have taught the blonde long ago that the woods weren’t safe for women and children. He didn’t know if there was a pack anywhere nearby, but he knew that most weren’t as decent as the one in Norseton. If the wrong sorts found her, they’d take her and the baby in without question. They’d make her someone’s broodmare or put her to work, earning dues for the alpha.

Arnold wanted her to know she had options. She didn’t have to go back to that kind of life unless she wanted to, and no woman in her right mind would have wanted to. She’d run, so there was a chance she hadn’t been completely brainwashed. That was what he was hoping.

The baby had stopped squalling, though the baby’s little lips were quivering. A pitiful sight that tugged at Arnold’s heartstrings.

Apparently, the full moon had made him soft.

“Your ma will be back.” He rocked side-to-side, eyes closed, humming some rhythmless tune he made up on the fly. “She didn’t abandon you. She just had to go. My ma used to do the same.” He cringed. “Well. Kinda. She didn’t have a bite, but she still liked to run with the pack. She wasn’t all alone like your ma, though.”

His mother had never left him and Petra up to their own devices. Their father had been around, for a little while. And then there were friends and aunties who also didn’t shapeshift she got to watch them. Or young girls from the reservation looking to earn some extra cash. Obviously, the blonde had no such support system.

The baby stared up at him through swollen eyelids, lips stuck out in a pitiful pout, and cheeks bright red from exertion.

“You think you’re tired? I’m gonna to be the one feeling the pain in the morning and all through the day. I probably won’t get to sleep until we get down to Norseton. Ten-hour drive from here. Did you know that?” He gave the baby’s nose a little tweak.

The baby made a sucking sound at him. He couldn’t tell if that was baby-ese for “yes” or “bug off, fool,” but as long as the child wasn’t screaming his or her little head off, he figured they’d get along just fine.

“I took a nap before sundown,” he said, rocking a little more. “Before the moon started to pull. I probably won’t get to sleep for twenty-four hours. We’ll hit the road as soon as your ma shifts back.”

He noted the pile of clothes she’d left near the rock. Clean and soft, but a bit abused. Her faded jeans were coming apart around the back pockets and at one of the side seams, and her T-shirt—a simple stretchy cotton that had been printed with rosettes and bows—had a couple of bleach stains.

He pulled the top closer and ran his thumb along the hem, wondering if that frilly motif was her choosing or hand-me-downs she’d had no choice but to take. Petra had been wearing Arnold’s hand-me-downs for ten years. She didn’t seem to mind, but Petra freely admitted that she didn’t have any taste.

He set the shirt, rife with the blonde’s scent and that pungent one of her mate that most any male would have recognized, atop the blanket to comfort the baby.

The baby worked out a little fist and gathered enough of the fabric to push into his or her mouth.

“Gnawing on the sleeve? Really?” Arnold shook his head. “Hope you’re not hungry. How often to babies eat, anyway?”

He pulled the diaper bag closer, unzipped the top, and rooted through the contents. Diapers. Wipes. A few changes of clothes—sized three months. A bunch of little socks and some toiletries. No formula. No bottles. There was a clear plastic bag with some papers inside, though.

He took the bag out and massaged the contents with his thumb, scanning for anything important.

Crisp new social security card, printed with the name
KINZY PHILLIPA BANKS
. A girl.

“Hey.” He tweaked her nose again. “You’re a girl.”

A birth certificate indicated Kinzy was about nine weeks old, and listed Leonora as her mother and Samuel as her father. The document had been issued in Wyoming.

“Wyoming.” Arnold closed his eyes again and clucked his tongue. He couldn’t remember anything at all about the wolves in Wyoming. He and Petra had certainly driven through there on occasion looking for seasonal work, but they’d never stuck around for long. Lone wolves did everything they could to avoid packs. Encountering organized packs was risky business. Arnold could have gotten killed by insulted alphas and Petra could have gotten snatched.

Leonora—whom Arnold assumed was little Kinzy’s mother—probably hadn’t run from very far. Just across state lines if she’d been in southern Wyoming.

He tucked everything back into the diaper bag, pulled the zipper closed, and then shifted Kinzy to his other arm. “Where’s your ma going, huh? Do you know?”

Obviously, Kinzy didn’t give a flying fig. She nodded off, sucking on her mother’s shirt and Arnold battled with his brain to not follow her lead.

Shift or sleep.

His body screamed for him to do one or the other, but he had to remain alert and vigilant. He needed to be awake for whenever Leonora finished her wolf run.

Chances were very good that she’d return growling and ready to claw him up, but she couldn’t really fight him. If he shifted, he’d be bigger, stronger, and more acclimatized to his wolf’s body than she was to hers. She would barely be able to get a swipe in, but she’d try anyway to get him away from her baby once she remembered the baby was hers.

If he were lucky, she’d return on two feet—not four—and he’d be able to rationalize with her. He’d tell her, “I’m here to help,” and maybe she’d go along nicely.