The Wolf in Her Heart (4 page)

Sam stared at Lou’s back, letting a few stray tears fall, until at some point she actually fell asleep.

A knock came from the door.

Instantly, Sam was awake and alert. Her body tensed like a bow about to release an arrow. Instinct told her the faint scent curling into her nose was another wolf. She kept her voice at a whisper. “Who knows we’re here?”

“It’s okay. Trust me.” Lou yawned and waved her hand, then got up and answered the door.

The man who stood there was thin and wore glasses. He had the beginning of a receding hairline and a few days of scruff. He held two grocery bags. “Delivery for the new guests?”

“Sam, this is Alex. Alex owns the place.” Lou took the bags. “Did Reggie pay you?”

Sam’s body slacked again. “Oh. Hi, Alex.”

“Hey. Yeah, for today. I’ll try to bring something by tomorrow if I can.”

Lou nodded and embraced the man at the door. “I appreciate it. Seriously, you’re a life saver.”

Alex nodded, and looked between Sam and Lou for a moment, then shrugged. “If you hear a fire alarm, go out the back window, and run. Don’t answer the door unless it’s me.” He shut the door and footsteps signalled that he was walking away.

“How will we know if it’s him?”

“I recognize his scent. You just don’t answer the door, okay?” Lou set the bags down on the little table near the window and pulled out a bag of something brown. “Rare roast beef. Awesome.”

The scent tickled at Samantha’s nose. “Guess going vegan isn’t really an option any more, huh?”

Lou cackled. “Like it ever was. You haven’t really tasted ham yet. Or bacon.” Lou grinned. “Wait until you taste bacon with your new senses, Sam.” Lou’s eyes met Sam’s, and then her smile vanished and her eyes searched the floor as she turned away.

Sam bit the inside of her cheek.
What killed that smile?
“Hey. What’s wrong?”

Lou didn’t turn around. “Nothing. Never mind. I’m sorry.”

“Tell me what you were thinking.”

“You don’t want to hear it, Sam.” Lou’s brow furrowed deep, and she shook her head. “So, now we lay low for a day or two. See how the Colbys react once they find Rick’s body. If they sweep it under the rug, we’ll hear about Rick being in an accident. That means they accepted that he did something wrong and paid the price for it.”

Sam sighed. “And if they don’t?”

“Then we’ll hear that he died under mysterious circumstances, or worse, that he was murdered. If we’re mentioned, then we can assume the worst.” Lou sighed. “We’ll be on the run, at least for a while.”

Samantha shook her head. “I wish I’d never met that asshole.”

Lou gave a mirthless chuckle and turned back to the bags of food. “If you were lucky, they’d have turned you before the test results wrecked everything. You’d still be with Rick. You’d still have a reasonably comfortable existence.”

“Shut up.” Sam’s gut writhed at the concept. That Lou would say such a thing, and after Rick not only kicked her out but then drugged her to try to get her back, made her hands into fists. She forced herself to unclench them.

“It’s true. You’d have been better off with Rick.” Lou turned back. There was that thing, again, in her eyes. That broken, worthless sense of self-hatred.

“Shut
up
!” Samantha had crossed the room and slapped Lou before she could think about it. “You can’t undo things. He threw me away, and you’d rather I was still with him?”

“You’d be better off.” Lou rubbed her cheek.

“Better off? Better off as a rich prick’s family incubator?”

“Better off without me.” Lou’s eyes slipped away. “I can’t make your life better.”

“You already made my life better, Louann. You changed everything. You woke me up. You’re who I always wanted, I just didn’t understand it.”

Lou bit her lip and sighed. “I’m not good for you.”

“Not your call to make, is it?”

“Why not? How long do you think the thrill of being a monster is going to last? You signed on for a lifetime commitment to being a werewolf. What the hell were you thinking?”

“Thrill?! I love you! That’s why it’s so hard to watch you do this every time, Lou.” Sam took one of Lou’s hands in her own, then pressed the other one, palm flat, over her heart. “I love you. I trust you. Trust me to know me. Trust that I know what I’m doing being with you. I’m not some thrill-seeking idiot. I want to be with you, whatever it takes, wherever it takes me.” She held Lou’s gaze, and hoped the thumping in her chest could make her accept things, even if it was just a little bit.

There was a crack in Lou’s expression, and then her eyes shut tight. “Okay.”

“So we lay low, like you said.” Samantha squeezed Lou’s hand. “Give it a few days, check the news, and we’ll know what to do.”

“Yeah.” Lou breathed the word out, then closed her eyes. A leak became a tear and rolled down her cheek. “I still don’t understand why you let it scratch you. Maybe I never will.”

“I let
you
scratch me. I didn’t want to be different than you.” Samantha felt another tear roll down her other cheek, and sat on the bed again. She buried her hands in her face. “I was scared you’d leave me.”

“What?” Lou’s question was muffled.

“It’s the reason behind the other reasons. I was scared. I was scared that our differences would make you not want to be with me. I was weak.” Sam couldn’t hold back the wet, choking sobs.

Lou knelt in front of her, and took her wrists, pulling them away from her face gently. “You were never weak, Samantha. I knew you were strong from the first time I met you. Some people would have been destroyed by what Rick did. Some people would have given up on themselves or on life. You didn’t. You hurt but you didn’t stop.”

“That’s not what strength is.”

“That’s everything strength is,” Lou whispered, and leaned in to press a kiss to Samantha’s lips, warm and gentle, possessive and comforting all at once.

Sam whimpered and tears began to flow like a river. Everything crashed into her brain—two days of her life gone with no memory, Lou bleeding and fighting Rick, Rick’s throat gone and gushing blood, and Lou’s wolf, whining outside the bars of the cage, uncomprehending why she wasn’t with her mate.

Lou wrapped tight around Sam. “Shhh. I know. I know it’s a lot. I know I’m angry but it’ll—it’ll fade. I love you too and I just don’t want to see you become something you hate, Sam.”

“I won’t. I won’t because we’re together. I won’t because you love me and you won’t let it happen.” Sam wiped away tears. Just saying it made her feel sure it was the truth. Lou might not be perfect, but she was trustworthy and she was loyal.

Lou leaned back, a ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “You are such an optimist.”

“I have good reason.” Sam kissed Lou, putting her arms around Lou’s neck. “I have you.”

Lou was trying to maintain a disapproving glare. “I’m still mad at you.”

“I know. I know you are, and I’m sorry it happened this way, but I’m not sorry it happened.” Sam met her gaze. “I’m not sorry I’m with you. I never will be.”

Lou’s brow furrowed, but her eyes softened. “I was supposed to save you.”

“You did save me.”

“I mean from all this! You should be home, finding yourself, talking to your mom. You should not be hiding from monsters and working out when the next full moon is so you don’t kill someone.”

“Stop. You can ‘should’ all day long, Lou. It doesn’t change what is. I am a werewolf now. You and I are mates.” Sam pressed another kiss to Lou’s lips.

“You hurt me. You hurt me and it was wrong.” Lou’s voice had shifted, the anger no longer its primary color.

“That’s why it’s called make-up sex, doofus.” Samantha stamped little kisses along Lou’s cheek, then suckled on the side of her neck. “I love you, Lou. I’d do anything for you. Kiss me. Touch me.”

“You don’t want that. You just think you do.” Lou gave a soft whine, her hands quivering and warm on Sam’s back. “This is your wolf talking, Sam. You’re not thinking straight.”

“I am
definitely
not thinking straight.” Samantha nuzzled under Lou’s chin, giving little licks there, moving to her neck. Even just the taste of Lou’s skin was different, more intense and varied and strange. “I’m thinking about you. I’m thinking about how you taste. I’m thinking about your hands holding my wrists.“ It was the truth. Sam wasn’t precisely sure how she’d slid into it so easily but it was on her mind. Maybe it was proximity. Maybe it was coming down off almost being killed and finally being somewhere safe. Maybe Lou was right, and it was the wolf, but the wolf was part of Sam now and nothing would change that.

Lou gave a soft growl and both of her hands slid, slow and cautious, down to the small of Sam’s  back. “To think I called you ‘innocent’.”

Sam bit her lip and lifted her eyes to meet Lou’s. ”Maybe I didn’t want to be innocent in the first place.”

Lou’s hands finally stopped to squeeze Sam’s buttcheeks, her fingers pressing into soft, warm flesh. She turned her head and took Sam’s neck in her teeth.

Samantha gave a loud whimper and felt herself become a little slack all over. The bites had always been electric in her flesh, but now they were more. Something in her instincts told her this was simply where she belonged, being pushed back on the bed with her throat in her mate’s teeth. Blood sang in her veins as she squealed.

Lou was on top of her. “You are so lucky I don’t have anything to tie you down with.” Lou crossed her wrists and pinned them against the bed. “I’d tease the shit out of you and leave you frustrated.”

The thought sent confusing shivers through Sam’s spine. Lou’s face said she was serious, that she was perfectly capable of doing exactly that and leaving Sam burning, needy, open. “You don’t, though, and that’d be so petty.”

“I suppose you have a better suggestion?”

Samantha forced herself to say a thing she’d bit back a few times now, afraid to find out if it was the truth. Her voice faltered, but she got all the words out. “I seem to remember s-someone saying they could make me scream . . . with just their mouth.”

Lou’s eyes narrowed but her mouth flashed the razor grin Samantha had come to know and shiver at. “I did, didn’t I?”

Samantha panted. She was hungry, hungry for raw meat and sunlight and racing through the woods—but more than anything, she was hungry for Lou, for the strange perfect woman on top of her in the darkness. “So was it just talk?”

Lou’s grip on her wrist tightened. “It wasn’t.”

Sam bit her lip. “Show me.”

Lou’s lip curled slightly, her teeth gleaming in streaks of light that shone through the blinds. She took her free hand and hooked two fingers into the cleavage of the blouse, then yanked down hard, pulling at the shoulders of the material, sending buttons to the carpet and cool air over Samantha’s upper body.

Samantha bit back a squeal. The sensation of slack fabric with loose torn threads on it felt strange, but right somehow as well.

Lou slid a hand behind Sam’s back and lifted her, then pulled the bottom of the blouse up under her, taking the whole of it right off her arms. Lou aimed a hungry stare at Samantha, panting, then dipped her head down.

The first target was her collar bone, somehow. Gentle pressure of teeth on skin gripped it through her skin, and Samantha squirmed at the bite as Lou’s tongue lashed over the flesh. Licks came after, as if apology. Most were over the bite, but then they spread to the center of her chest, over her hammering heart.

“I can smell your fear, Sam. You don’t have to do it if you’re afraid.” Lou’s words washed over saliva-slick flesh.

Samantha had the horrifying thought for a moment that Lou might stop. “I want it. I’m scared but I want it. Please, Louann.”

Lou brought her mouth to Sam’s and took it, snarling softly into Samantha’s mouth as she did.

Sam whined, stroking Lou’s tongue with her own, unable to stop herself.

Lou broke the kiss. “Then you’ll get it.”

Sam gasped as Lou set her lips over her erect left nipple and took the tip of it between her teeth, not biting—yet—just holding there, her tongue stroking over it, faint suction in her mouth tugging at the flesh. Warmth flooded her chest, and her arms shifted involuntarily in Lou’s grasp.

Lou’s teeth released the tip, then took the nipple itself in between, this time applying more pressure.

Sam squealed, trying to stay still, trying to do as she was told. She trusted Lou. She just had to remember that and she could make herself do anything Lou asked.

Lou’s free hand took hold of Sam’s other breast, squeezing gently at first, then working up to a kneading. She’d never done it with that much force before, and it was painful but exhilarating.

Sam moaned out, and tried to press up into it. She had known Lou was holding back on some level, as if she was glass. Now, with an equal playing ground, Lou wasn’t holding back, and it felt raw and immediate and needful.

“Listen to you, Sam.” Lou’s head had lifted up now, and she was watching with those bright green eyes in the dim light. Her other hand took hold of her other breast. “Listen to yourself. Listen to the sounds you’re making.”

Samantha panted and listened as she was told. Lou’s word was law, in the moment. Sam was squealing and moaning and panting, shudders pulsing through her body. They were the sounds of an animal, of something primal given form through a human throat but still unmistakeable as inhuman.

“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are, Sam?” Lou’s words faltered into a whisper. “I wanted you from the first time I saw you. I just had to hold back. I had to keep to myself. Now I don’t. I don’t have to hold back at all.”

The heat deep inside Samantha’s core spread, pooled, grew into fire. Instinct told her crazy things, told her to lick and suck and burrow against the animal above her.

Lou took the blouse and twisted it a few times into a loose, haphazard band. She laid it above Samantha’s head. “Cross your wrists, Sam.”

Sam didn’t hesitate. She didn’t want to, she didn’t want to give Lou the chance to change her mind or get angry again.

Lou wrapped the band around her crossed wrists, first side to side, then around the side to side loop. With some effort, she tied the whole thing in a tight knot, and sat up, straddling Samantha, the razor grin in evidence again.