Wolver's Reward (21 page)

"Killing each other keeps their numbers
down."

River didn't give a shit if the rogues killed
each other. It wasn't his business. It wasn't his fight. But until
the Alpha was back on his feet and in familiar territory, the Sweet
Valley pack was. He was being paid to make it his business.

Scar didn't appear to be looking for trouble,
but a good con artist never did, so River couldn't be sure. The two
youngest were definitely not a threat. Big Ben was the big question
mark. He was too damn interested in Reb, and didn't seem all that
bothered that the Alpha might be at death's door.

Nope, River didn't like Ben one bit and liked
him even less after dropping the Mate off at the RV's door and
turning back to the strip of rooms.

The blond bastard was standing in front of
River's room in a full frontal clutch with the Babe-in-the-woods.
He had his arms around her, slowly rubbing her back and she wasn't
looking like she minded one damn little bit. Her right cheek was
pressed to the center of his chest with her hands flattened lightly
against his pecs.

As if to push away, those hands pressed a
little harder once she saw River walking toward them. In contrast,
Ben strengthened his embrace.

River's jaw clenched so tight he thought his
back teeth might crack. His hands curled into fists and his wolf
surged so close to the surface, he thought it might emerge full
blown in the broad light of day.

Ben saw it too, but he only loosened his hold
on the girl enough for her to step back. One of his hands stayed at
her waist in a casual gesture that belied the bulging tension in
his shoulders and his jeans. River marched past the two of them,
unlocked the door, and held it open.

Reb looked from one to the other with a
mixture of worry and fear. "River, what's wrong? What did
mother…?"

"Inside," he growled through his still
clenched teeth. Reb ducked past him and into the room. Ben made a
move to follow. "Not you. Tell your friends I'll be down in a
little while to talk."

He slammed the door without waiting for a
response and then laid his head against the framed Rules of the
Establishment that hung on the inside of the door.

"What's wrong?" Reb asked again. The fear was
gone, leaving only concern. "Why are you acting this way?"

River heard her through the haze of his
anger. He had to get it under control and so, with deep breaths, he
started to count to ten. He only made it to five when the glass in
the frame cracked along with his resolve. He turned to her, eyes
blazing.

"What the fuck was that?"

"What was what? And please don't use that
word. It isn't very nice."

"Good, because I'm not feeling very nice, and
I'm talking about the cuddly clutch with the clock tower, that's
what."

"Clock tower?"

Did she have to repeat everything he said?
"Yeah, Big Ben. He can't bong the hour like the real one does, but
you can bet your sweet little ass he can bang, and he's looking to
bang you."

"That's crude." With an indignant 'hmph', she
put her fists to her hips.

"I'm crude. Get used to it."

"You're not. You're angry, and I don't
understand why. We weren't doing anything wrong."

"The hell you weren't." It was wrong on a
number of levels, but River only chose one. "You stay away from
him."

"So you're acting on my father's behalf?
Because you don't need to, you know. That's not what a Champion
is."

"Thanks for the lesson, Babe, but I already
know what it is and if I didn't, your mother explained it pretty
clearly, and it's got nothing to do with this. Neither does Daddy.
This is about me. And you."

Reb's eyes widened and she almost smiled,
which didn't do a damn thing to settle what was growing inside
him.

"You're jealous," she said, sounding pleased
with the idea.

"Jealous? Not a fucking chance," he snarled.
He needed to knock that stupid idea right out of her pretty little
head and fast.

He'd never been jealous of anything in this
whole damn life. For that, he'd have to care about something and he
didn't let himself care about much of anything except his
reputation.

"I told you I wouldn't be used unless I knew
what it was for. You're the one who came up with the boyfriend
routine and I agreed." He lowered his head and his voice and
stalked forward. Reb took a step back. River continued. "Your rules
didn't include making me look like a fool." He kept moving forward
and that kept her moving back.

She licked her lips nervously. "I
didn't..."

The backs of her knees hit the faux bamboo
edge of the chair in the corner and she sat, falling back against
the palm treed cushion behind her. River gripped the arms of the
chair and loomed over her.

"You did." He brought his face in close to
hers. "I don't know what game you think you're playing, little
girl, but I don't like it."

Reb's eyes were wide and nervously locked
with his. He kept them there, staring her down until his point was
made. She blinked and lowered her lashes, which was enough to show
that she understood. River began to ease away, ready to let her up,
but she had to go and ruin his intent by wetting her lips again
before she spoke. Her mouth closed and opened around the word like
a kiss.

"But..."

River's head came down, tilting to the side
as he captured her mouth with his. It wasn't his plan, but once his
lips were locked onto hers, there was no going back. He felt her
body tense and knew he should release her, but his body refused to
obey.

In contrast to the cool, clean, crispness of
her scent, her lips were warm and soft beneath his. There was that
honeyed sweetness again that became all the sweeter when her hands
touched his chest and her fingers played upward over the muscles of
his shoulders. He deepened the kiss, drawing her tongue to his.

All hesitancy gone, she followed him
willingly, teasing him with her tongue and playfully showering his
cheeks and eyes with kisses. He nuzzled her neck and nibbled at the
place he'd discovered behind her ear that sent a shiver of desire
through her body and into his.

"Mmmm."

The feel of her pleasure vibrating against
his lips drove away all but the last ounce of his control. He used
it to ask, "Are you sure you want this?"

He pressed his hand lightly over her breast
and was only mildly surprised when she pressed back.

"Why? Don't I seem interested?" she asked
with a slight lift of her brows.

River drew in air through his nose,
exaggerating the display to make sure she understood. "You're
interested."

She shrugged and laughed, a deep throated
laugh that sent his already hardened cock straining against the
confines of his jeans.

"Maybe it's only the moon."

Her comment made him hesitate, but only for a
second. So what if it was only the moon that made his body ache for
want of her? So what if it was only the moon that made her want
him? This is what wolvers did.

"Maybe it is? Does it matter?" he asked as he
leaned further in to be closer to her lips.

She shrugged again, but this time lowered her
eyes almost shyly. "Probably, but not to me."

That's what he needed to hear. River brought
his lips to hers in a kiss much softer than his body wanted and
decided he liked the taste of her even more than her scent. Her
tiny tongue darted out in invitation, and he accepted it by
capturing her mouth and invading it with his tongue.

Bracing himself above her with one forearm on
the chair, his fingers worked at freeing the tiny buttons of her
blouse. Their awkward positions in the chair made it damn near
impossible and his normally nimble fingers had suddenly become all
thumbs. He growled in frustration.

Reb's breathy laughter made it even worse.
"Need some help?"

"No," he barked out, which made her laugh
again.

The last time he'd fumbled this badly was
when he fell over his own four feet his first time going over the
moon. That was normal. This wasn't. He was good at this. He was
smooth. He'd heard the whispers of the females as they watched him
saunter past. Some sighed, some speculated, and some shared. He was
never alone when he came home from going over the moon.

Giving pleasure to a female was something he
enjoyed. Feeling their bodies writhing beneath his touch gave him
the same sense of power and control that he got from speeding along
the highway on his bike. Women thought he was giving and they were
pleased by it, but they were wrong. He didn't give. He took. So
what was wrong with him now?

His wolf thought this was howlingly funny. It
rolled to its back, feet kicking in the air to express its
amusement.

"Fuck it," River muttered and stood. He took
Reb's hand and pulled her to her feet.

"Fudge," she whispered as he brought her body
against his.

"Whatever."

He growled and she giggled and he caught the
sound with his kiss. While his mouth occupied hers, his hands
roamed under the tiny-buttoned shirt. Her skin was like silk.
Everything about her was silk; skin, hair, lips, and tongue. Even
her lashes had a silky sheen. He held her sides and ran his thumbs
over the ridges of her ribs then slid his hands around to her back
and traced the line of her spine with the tips of his fingers. When
their journey was halted by the band of her bra, he searched for
the clasp and smiled when he found it where he thought it should
be. He felt the slight hitch in her breath when the sides of the
band fell free. He smiled at that, too.

Reb's hands weren't idle. Her fingers roamed
too, though in the opposite direction. They clung to the muscles
above his wing bones, slid to the center, and traced those along
his spine down to the waist of his jeans. With the freeing of her
breasts, her hands became more insistent. She tugged at his tee,
mewling a little when it wouldn't cooperate and made a tiny grunt
of satisfaction when it finally came free.

It then became a contest to see whose shirt
came off first. River won, but only because she yielded with her
arms raised above her head. The bra fell away before she resumed
her mission of removing his shirt. Her breast rubbed against him
from belly to chest as she rose gracefully on tiptoe to bring the
tee shirt up over his head. Damn, but she was hot, and so was he,
but in a different way.

Heat coursed through his body, a fever of
need not only to feel those silk skinned breasts under his hands,
or to taste those tight and puckered nipples with his tongue, but
to slide between the silken softness of her thighs to that spot he
knew would feel like silk, too. River moved her to the bed and took
her down. He did it gently, with one hand at her back and the other
at her breast.

She didn't stiffen when he bent her back like
other girls sometimes did. Reb withdrew her hands from his body and
relaxed against the hand that held her, trusting him to take her
where she wanted to go. When her head touched the mattress, she
closed her eyes and smiled.

"So this is what it's like," she murmured
dreamily.

"What what's like?" he asked before he took a
brown and tender nipple between his lips.

"To be wanted just for myself," she said with
a little gasp of pleasure. "And I'll have it for days and days and
days."

Well, shit. It wasn't going to be days and
days and days. It was tonight and maybe tomorrow night and then he
would be gone. River stopped his suckling and looked up at the face
still smiling with pleasure at her thoughts. He thought about
letting her comment go, but knew he couldn't. This wasn't long
term. It was two days at most. This was a full moon fling, nothing
more. It would be like lying to let her think this was anything
else.

"Babe," he said gently, "Five hundred miles
isn't that far."

Her eyes opened, questioning. "You're seeing
us home, aren't you?"

"Yeah," he nodded, "And once you're there and
settled, I'll be moving on."

Reb's smile returned. "I think you might be
mistaken," she said slowly. "Five hundred miles isn't that far, but
twenty-five hundred miles is. That's how far away our new home is.
Twenty five hundred miles northwest of where we are right now."

River pushed away from her, hands to either
side of her body, elbows locked. "But the Mate said," he began and
then stopped when he realized she hadn't said anything of the kind.
Margaret had only said that five hundred miles was too much for the
Alpha to travel in one day.

He began to wonder if he'd been conned. While
he'd been looking for the angles the others might be playing, was
the Mate playing him? Wasn't he the one who used the words 'too
good to be true'? A thousand dollars was a lot of money to protect
an Alpha who'd be locked up tight in an RV, and a pack that would
be on the road for a lot of the time.

He'd been snookered alright, and he'd shaken
hands on the deal.

He should have been angry and he would have
been if Reb hadn't run those silken fingers down his cheek.

Chapter 16

"Think of it," she whispered, her voice as
smooth as her fingers. "Days and days and days."

"Yeah," he agreed, blowing out his breath,
"Days and days and days with plenty of time to play." River looked
down at the inviting mounds of her breasts just waiting to be
devoured. Arms still locked he levered back and with his legs,
straddled her thighs in much the same way as he'd straddled her in
the woods. "And this time, you don't have a rock."

He curled his torso until he touched her
belly button with his lips. It was pierced with a gold encircled
gem at the center held in place by a tiny gold ball above. As he
touched the fascinating blue stone with his tongue, he wondered
vaguely if it was real. Natural fibers, minerals, and metals
transformed with the shift. Synthetics didn't.