Conner's Wolf (6 page)

“Fair enough. Not much more than what I’ve read in the papers. He’s reclusive and eccentric. A larger than average number of his fans seem to be nut jobs who believe there are aliens among us with wisdom to share, and Scholes is in contact with these extraterrestrials, giving him kind of a cult-like following. But to give the man his due, he gives back, and one of his charities is wolf preservation. He spends a lot of money trying to get bills passed supporting the reintroduction of them into areas they once inhabited. He’s got a compound in Florida where he houses wolves rescued from various situations. Now what do
you
know about him?”

“He believes in werewolves.”

Conner laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “So he’s as whacked as his fans. Why am I not surprised?”

“You might want to keep an open mind here, Conner.”

The sharp tone of her voice warned him against smiling but he couldn’t prevent it any more than he’d been able to stifle the laugh. “I’m all for keeping an open mind,
within reason
. But you want to know what happens when you open your mind too wide?”

“No. But I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“Your intelligence falls out and you start believing in demon possessions, little green men from outer space, werewolves and a wide array of other crazy shit.”

“And if I’ve seen some of it for myself?”

He put his knife and fork down and opened his arms wide. “Show me the proof, baby.”

Her glare was ruined by the tiniest hint of a smile. “I can’t.”

“There you go.”

“It’s not as simple as that.” Exasperation threaded through her voice, attracting him rather than repelling him. “There are things out there, but there are also rules in place as to who gets to know about them.”

“Isn’t that convenient. If I never hear the world supernatural again, I’d be a happy man. Same goes with seeing it.”

He picked up the knife and fork, spearing his steak hard enough to hear them slam into the plate. He didn’t know how Trace handled it, except he wanted Aislinn badly enough to deal with the weird shit, not just Inner Magick, her shop, but the psychic stuff.

Remembering Aislinn’s ability to pick out the glove belonging to the Morrison boy when faced with dozens of choices, and then, on another occasion, being able to locate the missing Kirby kid, had his mind shying away, not wanting to look too closely at unexplainable things. Even as the memories forced him to silently admit it’d be a mistake to discount the possibility someone like Aislinn might lead Scholes to Khemirra.

His fingers tightened on the knife and fork. They could revisit the whole psychic thing later. There couldn’t be too many out there who weren’t crackpots or con artists.

The feel of the shoulder rig and the weight of the gun formed a solid anchor to the world he understood. For now, that’s all he needed.

“So Scholes believes in werewolves, which probably wouldn’t shock his fans if you reported it. Why is it relevant?”

Khemirra pushed her empty plate away. Truth time. Sort of.

“He granted me an interview. Rare, but then I’ve reported on all kinds of offbeat topics, including stuff about wolves. I went to his compound, the idea being to work in a tour along with the talk. He got it into his head I was a werewolf and I managed to escape. If I hadn’t, I’d still be there. And if I don’t keep running until I find a way to stop him, I’ll end up in a cage somewhere and no one will ever see me again.”

Conner’s expression hardened and his scent changed, anger bleeding into fierce protectiveness. “You should have gone to the police. False imprisonment is a felony charge.”

“My word against his, with no proof? No way, Conner.”

“Anyone witness your being there?”

Her stomach threatened to reject dinner at remembering the clamp of the wolf’s teeth and the taste of human flesh and blood. “There’s nobody to back up my statement in any way, shape or form.”

Conner finished the last of his steak and pushed his empty plate to the side. “Shit. Give me some time to think about this. Let me run it by a few of the guys I work with. We can kick around some ideas and figure out a way to keep Scholes away from you.”

Khemirra had no hope of human law making that happen. This was going to require supernatural intervention, she just wasn’t sure yet about how to pull that off.

She stood, thinking to gather their plates and end the conversation. He stopped her with a hand on her wrist, a warm, firm shackle.

“No more running, Khemirra. Promise.”

“I can’t promise that.”

“Then say you’ll give me a chance to help you. Come back to Florida with me. Stay at my place and I’ll call in some favors so you’ve got around-the-clock protection.”

The extent of her desire to say yes was warning enough about her growing feelings for him—
hers
, not just the wolf’s attraction to a dominant, protective male. But the longer she remained with him, the harder it was going to be to leave if his attitude toward the supernatural didn’t soften and change so she dared reveal the full truth of herself.

Deep inside the wolf whined at the prospect of losing him. She urged the woman to take the chance, to risk her human heart. And though Khemirra
knew
said heart stood a very good chance of getting broken, she yielded. “I’ll go back to Florida with you.”

“Good.”

He stood and moved around the picnic table, scooping her up in his arms and startling a laugh out of her, though amusement quickly fled as his expression darkened with possessive intensity.

He didn’t need to tell her to strip when they got inside. The moment he set her down on a thick throw rug in the bedroom, she shed her clothing and he did the same.

Moonlight streamed in through the windows, caressing her skin and touching the wolf beneath it. But rather than a call to shift forms, it was a call to give herself to her mate.

“God, you’re beautiful,” Conner said, wanting to worship every inch of her with his hands and mouth. She made him feel things he’d never felt with any other woman, made him hunger in a way he’d never experienced before.

She placed her palms against his chest, silently urging him to sit on the bed. He went willingly and she rewarded him with the press of her nipple to his lips.

He latched on to it, letting her feel teeth and tongue and the pull of his mouth. Laving, biting, sucking. Alternating between breasts as he played with her clit and slipped his fingers into her channel, working her until she was shivering, trying to bring herself to an orgasm with his hand, something his cock promised would lead to his abdomen being coated with come.

He freed her nipple but it wasn’t a clean break. He returned, nuzzling, licking, giving each dark, dark areola another kiss before looking up at her face. “Scholes had it all wrong, you’re pure cat.”

Her smile promised sensual retribution. “Now you’re just trying to rile me.”

“I can’t help myself.” He rubbed arousal-slick fingers over her clit. “Not any more than I can stop wanting to be inside you. Time for the main act, baby.”

“I don’t think so, Conner.”

Her eyes glittered with wildness as she pulled away, only to drape herself across his lap facedown. “Is this how you like to punish your women?”

There was a growl in her voice and the sound of it brought intense pleasure, a feral smile at recognizing her possessiveness. Good. She’d pretty much ruined him for anyone else.

He lifted his hand and delivered a spank, the blow sending a surge of white-hot need through his cock.

Somehow he managed a second one.

A third.

A fourth would cost him the last of his control.

He leaned down, kissing her buttocks. Biting the spot he’d already marked on one ass cheek as if reestablishing his claim before repositioning them so he was above her, his mouth covering hers, his cock sliding into her like it was coming home.

Chapter Five

Conner woke hard, his cock pressed to smooth buttocks. Kissing a soft shoulder, he got a mumbled response though Khemirra’s legs parted and her nipple pebbled when he brushed his palm over it.

“Not a morning person?” he teased, shifting position just enough to allow for the slow slide of his cock into the scorching heat of her sheath.

“Damn, I’d like to start every day like this.” It wasn’t a line. And he meant with her, not just any attractive female.

She pushed against him, taking him deeper and threatening to cut off the blood supply to his brain. His fingers clamped on her nipple, delivering pain and pleasure as he smiled against her shoulder, gave her a little bite. “I’m not going to let you rush me.”

She laughed and finally spoke. “We’ll see about that, Conner.”

“A challenge? This early in the day? Why am I not surprised?”

He kept his thrusts slow, measured. A sensory ecstasy he lost himself in.

Her channel fisted on him as if she’d never let him leave and he savored the tightness, the overwhelming feel of their being perfect together, right together. Drew out the pleasure, only relenting when his testicles burned in warning.

His fingers left her nipple then, capturing her clit, giving her what she wanted, what they both wanted—a surrender to the mind-numbing rapture of release.

Khemirra twined her fingers with Conner’s where his hand rested against her mound. It felt good to be with him like this, skin touching skin, lying together with the morning sun streaming through the windows, the air not yet heavy with the particular heat of the South.

“That was nice,” she said.

“Very.” He kissed along the length of her neck. “Maybe there’ll be an encore.”

“Only maybe? You slowing down, Conner?”

He laughed. Damn if she didn’t love that sound.

Her thoughts wandered back to the first time she’d seen him, the memories bringing pleasure and then the familiar stirrings of guilt. She tensed, or must have, because Conner pulled her more tightly against him and asked, “Thinking about Scholes?”

“Yes.”

“Far as we know, he hasn’t found your Jeep.”

“I thought I was probably a day ahead of whoever he’s got following me when I stopped at the motel. It seems like finding me quickly depends on figuring out which direction I’m traveling in.” She hesitated, not wanting to spoil the mood, but the need to reinforce an earlier warning of danger made her continue. “If he’s using a psychic or witch, or something a mage made, I think they have to be within a certain range to get a read on where I am.”

The muscles in Conner’s arm tightened and she felt him stiffen where his chest touched her back. He exhaled slowly, the length of it a shout though his voice was low and smooth. “Let’s not talk about supernatural sh— This stuff first thing in the morning.”

His words created a fist around her heart, a squeezed warning accompanied by the wolf’s snarl at his continued refusal to recognize the possibility of her existence. Khemirra took a deep breath, reminding herself that despite the great sex and growing feelings between them, she couldn’t expect him to accept overnight something so foreign to his reality.

She let the subject drop. “I researched you before I agreed to meet with you that day in the park.”

He laughed, totally relaxing against her. He thrust his hips suggestively and moved their joined hands to cover her nipple. “Still researching me, baby?”

She smiled despite where she wanted to take the conversation. “Maybe.”

“Go for it. I’m all yours.”

A flutter went through her womb, a longing that blossomed upward, expanding into her chest so the fist around her heart squeezed again.
I’m all yours.
She wanted it to be true in more ways than just the sexual. But the doubts it ever could be were like talons digging deeper with each discussion of the supernatural.

Just as she’d never deny her children their wolf form, she’d never hide the full truth of herself from the man she shared her life with.

It was all or nothing. Anything less dishonored both of them.

She let silence provide a buffer, a warning before transitioning away from playfulness though she was very careful not to let either her voice or her body give her away when she said, “You killed a man in the line of duty. How tough was it for you to cope afterward?”

He tensed but answered without hesitation. “It was tougher, a hell of a lot tougher than I thought it would be even though the guy didn’t leave me any choice. For weeks afterward I kept replaying it in my mind, looking for ways it could have turned out differently.”

She’d done the same. She still did it, and no matter how many times she replayed the events, not just at the compound but those leading up to her being there to interview Scholes, she couldn’t imagine a different outcome. She’d had no warning, no reason to think Scholes had guessed she was a werewolf. And they, in turn, must have thought the change would be slow and she’d be helpless long enough to be incapacitated and caged. Otherwise they wouldn’t have exposed her to the charm so casually and eagerly.

She shouldn’t care about the mage’s death. Shouldn’t feel anything except justified in the wolf’s actions,
her
actions, but she did.

“Did you feel guilty afterward, about taking a life?”

“No. I didn’t feel good about it, but I didn’t feel guilty either.” Conner shrugged against her back. “I’m not sure I can explain everything I felt, Khemirra, then or now. I’ve made my peace with it. He was a criminal out for himself. He didn’t care who got hurt as long as he got what he wanted. Bottom line, he may not have landed any of the blows that left an old man dead, but he was part of a robbery that ended in homicide.”

She found a measure of comfort in Conner’s words, permission of sorts, to shrug off human guilt. Whether the mage knew about the covenant with its laws applying to the supernatural, or not, he hadn’t cared about the fate of any werewolf who might be forced to change because of the charm he’d created.

She turned in Conner’s arms, smiling when he made a sound of protest as his cock left her channel. “You’re a good man.”

His eyebrows lifted. “What brought that on?”

“I like being with you.”

His hand traveled the length of her spine. “I can say the same about you.”

He followed the words with a slow, thorough kiss, and then another, causing heat to coil downward with each of them and fill her with the need to join her body to his.

She grasped his cock, swallowing his moan as she slid her hand up and down on his shaft, coaxing him into hardening again before pushing him onto his back.

He went willingly. Hands tangled in her hair, extending the time their lips touched, clung, before releasing her so she straddled him, guiding him to her entrance and taking him inside her.

Her hands went to his chest, fingers brushing over tiny nipples. She loved the tone of his skin, the contrast, his lighter than hers by several shades.

His blond, blue-eyed looks appealed to her, as did his cop’s body. He was a warrior in his own right.

She rose on his cock until only the tip of him penetrated her, the threat of loss making him lift off the mattress, his hands going to her hips in a silent demand that she reverse direction so he’d once again be fully seated. She yielded, burying him deep inside her only to rise again, and again. And when she came, he rolled them, claiming the dominant position and thrusting until he spilled his seed inside her.

Contentment flooded into her, her channel rippling along his shaft as if the wolf milked him of semen, an act that would one day lead to growing heavy with young. She tried to stifle the image of a child with Conner but couldn’t quite pull it off, not when he was content to linger in bed, his cock still in her.

She stroked his back, distracting herself with touch and lazy kisses until the desire for a shower and breakfast intruded. They shared both before deciding to go outside.

When he picked up the shoulder rig and put it on, wearing it against his bare skin, she couldn’t resist making a show of giving him a thorough study before saying, “I like the whole Rambo look on you.”

He retaliated, eyes traveling downward to where her nipples were tight, hard points against the thin material of her tank top. “I take it you’re a fan of his.”

“I’m a fan of yours.”

Jesus.
In a minute she was going to have him beating his chest like Tarzan. “I thought you wanted to go outside. Keep this up and we’ll be back in bed.”

She laughed and headed for the back door. He followed her out, admiring the way she moved, the air already heavy, still and thick with building heat.

Claiming a lounge chair, he pulled the gun from the shoulder rig and set it on the table within easy reach. Khemirra joined him on the chair, sitting facing him with her legs crossed.

Christ, he liked looking at her. Liked talking to her and reading the things she wrote. Hell, he even enjoyed arguing with her. All of which he could see himself doing for a long time to come.

Nagging doubts returned, questions lost in sex and the need for more important answers. He couldn’t keep ignoring them, not if this thing with her was heading in the direction his gut told him it was.

“Is Khemirra Reis your real name?”

She stiffened but just as quickly relaxed. He wasn’t ready to read anything into the reaction—yet.

“Are we getting ready to play another round of cop and prisoner?”

She sighed when he refused to rise to the bait. Bringing a knee up, she rested her chin on it and wrapped her arms around her leg. “Yes, Conner, Khemirra Reis is my real name.”

“You were twenty-one before there was any record of your existence.”

“That’s right.” Her smile teased rather than taunted. “I thought cops couldn’t pull DMV records unless they had cause.”

“I had cause,
you
. Why don’t you exist before you got your driver’s license?”

She contemplated him for a long moment before finally saying, “Because I was twenty-one before I decided to leave the small town I grew up in and see what the rest of the world had to offer. And don’t bother asking the town’s name. I won’t tell you and knowing it wouldn’t help you. For generations the majority of residents have lived anonymously, completely off Uncle Sam’s radar screen.”

A band formed around his chest, tightened, compressing his lungs so it was difficult to breathe. “You grew up in a cult?”

“Hardly. I grew up in a place where self-reliance is valued, and at the same time, the concept of family extends to everyone in town.”

“Why the secrecy then?”

“Will it set your mind at ease if I say something like, fear of Big Brother?”

Jesus. He wasn’t sure how much of this he wanted to know. It didn’t stop him from saying, “It depends on whether or not the citizens are armed to the teeth and ready for a gun battle if law enforcement or government officials show up.”

“Then relax, Conner. There’d be a mass exodus well before there was any chance of a confrontation taking place.”

“So why didn’t you run back home?”

“Because I don’t know how Scholes keeps finding me. And though you don’t want to hear this, since I can’t be sure he’s not using a psychic or a witch or a mage charm, I can’t risk leading him to my family and the town I grew up in. He’s absolutely convinced I’m a werewolf. Imagine what he’d do if he thought he’d found a whole town full of them.”

Conner grimaced. This was a prime example of how belief in the supernatural and turning into a certifiable whacko went hand in hand. But open that conversational door with Khemirra and a whole avalanche of shit was likely to push through and smother what they had going together, not fertilize it and lead to beautiful things—a thought that had his lips kicking up at the corners though the smile was fleeting. He wasn’t ready to talk about psychics, much less witches or
mages
tracking her, but he couldn’t quite blow the possibility of it off either, thanks to Aislinn’s having been able to locate the Morrison and Kirby boys.

They needed to consider the wisdom of leaving. If they were a day ahead of Scholes or whoever he’d sent after her, then he’d just as soon use that day to get somewhere defensible. The cabin wasn’t it.

He didn’t regret bringing her here. His gut, reinforced by her long run in the woods, told him she’d needed this and wouldn’t have agreed to stay with him anywhere else. But play time needed to end. “We should leave today.”