Her Wicked Wolf (3 page)

“I’m not going to hurt you, Brie. You’re in no danger from me.
You have my word.”

Brie watched him warily. “How am I supposed to believe that?
Even if you’re telling the truth, you just said there’s another—”

“Owain,” Alistair interrupted. “My brother. It’s true, he’s
anything but safe. All I can tell you is that when he’s nearby, I can...feel it.
All his hatred. Wolves of the same pack are like that with one another,
especially family members. Sensing one another’s emotions. It’s uncanny, I know.
But useful. If you want, though, you can walk upstairs and try to pretend this
didn’t happen.” His voice dropped, softening. “I won’t come after you, Brie. I
swear it. You might be better off that way, really.”

She considered it, or tried to. But the invisible bonds that
seemed to pull her to him every time she was anywhere near him only seemed to
tighten. He looked so impossibly sad, all the chilly distance he normally
maintained gone. And her heart ached for him, in a way that shouldn’t have been
possible given how little she knew him.

“How long have you been running?” she asked. She could see his
surprise at the question, but Alistair didn’t hesitate.

“Five years,” he said. “I was badly wounded. Until I healed,
running was all I could do. It’s kept him busy. And my pack safe.”

Slowly, Brie nodded, her decision made. Though she supposed it
had been made long before she’d run down here clutching a kitchen knife.

“I’ll stay for tea,” she said. And then maybe she’d walk
upstairs and shut the door. Or not.

“Good,” he said solemnly, and held out his hand. She looked at
it, suddenly sure that accepting such a simple gesture was actually a very
important choice. Then Brie slipped her hands into his, feeling the bright snap
of connection between them like a shock. Alistair gave no indication that he’d
felt anything, but the echoes of it left her palm tingling.

She allowed herself to be led to the large, overstuffed couch.
Alistair took care to skirt her around the section of rug where the other
werewolf body had been, and Brie was grateful for it. It would be a long time
before she got those images out of her head.

He could have been killed. Someone had come here and tried to
kill him. The fact was slowly sinking in, just like her realization that she’d
nearly gotten herself killed with her crazy need to protect him. He hadn’t
seemed to need the help, and she’d probably done more harm than good in
interfering. But because he was Alistair, he hadn’t said a word about it. Nor,
she expected, would he. Shaken, confused, and unable to deny the overwhelming
need to stay close to him now that she was here, Brie accepted the fact that she
wasn’t going anywhere. It was nonsensical, but she wanted to find out exactly
what was going on with her neighbor.

The werewolf.

She stopped in her tracks right in front of the couch, her hand
still in his. Unlike earlier, he stopped as well, managing to keep a small
amount of distance between them instead of nearly crashing into her.

“Alistair?”

The sudden wariness in his expression surprised her. After all
this, what could she possibly do to him? All it did was drive home the fact that
they didn’t know one another. She knew him even less than she’d thought, and
that was saying something. Maybe he’d been lying about who the dead wolf was.
Maybe Alistair was the cold-blooded killer.

Except the second she thought it, Brie knew that wasn’t true.
He might be a lot of things, but not that. Her certainty about it was so strong
that it was actually unsettling. She was just a writer, not a psychic.

“Yes?” he asked when she said nothing.

Brie hesitated, trying to find the right words, hoping not to
get tongue-tied around him the way she occasionally did. Finally, she said,
“Look, I appreciate the...tea...but I’m the one who came storming in here.
You’ve obviously been keeping to yourself for a reason. If you want me out of
here, don’t worry about saying so. You don’t even know me, and I...I mean,
especially after earlier...”

God, she hadn’t meant to bring that up. She was supposed to be
an artist with words. She should have at least managed to say something like,
“
Look
,
I
know
I’ve
been
completely
creepy
with
you
,
and
that
the
finger
incident
coupled
with
the
botched
heroic
act
probably
make
your
skin
crawl
when
you
see
me
.
In
short
,
I
should
go
.”

He didn’t need her in his life any more than she really needed
a hunted werewolf in hers. “Earlier,” he repeated, and then understanding
dawned. Brie wanted to sink through the

floor. Incredibly, a light flush stained his cheeks. Even
Alistair Locke, it seemed, could blush. “Ah. Earlier.”

“I have no idea what happened,” she rushed out while she still
had the nerve. “I’m not like that. I mean, I don’t find random attractive men
and...” Flustered, she tried a different angle. “And then tonight, I’ve never
chased after anyone with a knife before. I don’t know what came over me.” She
looked at him beseechingly. “Please understand that I’m not a freak, is what I’m
trying to say. I’m not a freak, and I’m sorry your brother is trying to kill
you, and don’t feel like you have to make me tea.” She closed her eyes, wincing.
“Yeah. Look, I should go.”

Alistair was completely silent, just for a moment. Then she
heard his voice, beautiful and soft.

“No. Stay.”

Brie opened her eyes to look at him and saw that he was, as
always, deadly serious. But there was more there, emotion she could only guess
at. It gave her the courage to ask the question that encompassed everything
she’d longed for and worried about since the first time she’d seen him.
Everything she didn’t understand and desperately wanted anyway.

“Why?”

Alistair said nothing for a long moment, watching her with eyes
that began to glow faintly again. Brie made no move to back away, determined to
get some kind of answer. But he said nothing, instead stepping closer to her,
leaving their fingers entwined. Brie drew in a soft, shallow breath. Even now,
the hunger she saw in his eyes didn’t frighten her.

Werewolf
. She forced herself to
think the word, willing herself to feel the right kind of fear, some modicum of
terror. Instead, Brie felt safe when there was no reason she should have.

Their eyes locked. He didn’t touch her, but she could feel his
nearness like a caress, every inch of her body thrumming with it. Waiting for
his touch.

“Brie,” he said, a soft sigh filled with so much longing. Then
Brie was rising up, melting into him as Alistair lowered his mouth to hers. And
all she could think was:
Yes
.

FOUR

The first brush of his lips against hers was feather
light.

The second pressed just a bit more firmly, though it was just
as fleeting.

But when his mouth met hers a third time, Alistair sank into
the kiss with a soft sound of yearning that Brie thought was the most sensual
thing she’d ever heard. Her eyes slipped shut and, with the first tentative
sweep of his tongue, she opened for him on a broken sigh. Brie curved herself
around him, lifting her mouth into his as he began to taste her.

Some part of her expected the rough, wild kiss of a man who was
part wolf. Instead, even now, Brie found herself more aware of how much Alistair
was holding back rather than what he’d chosen to give. It left her with the kind
of want that had her quivering, almost afraid to move for fear that he’d pull
away altogether. One of Alistair’s hands slid into her hair while the other
skimmed down to the small of her back, fitting her to him with the barest hint
of pressure.

It was the sweetest kiss Brie had ever had, though it was
excruciatingly gentle, as though he worried she might break—and as Alistair
continued his lazy torment of her lips, it was Brie who found herself struggling
with the urge to sink her nails into his back and drag him to the floor. She
moved against him restlessly, wanting to get closer, to feel more of him against
her. Tension pooled at the apex of her thighs until all she could feel was the
hot, insistent pulse of her growing need to have him inside her. And still, he
held her as though she were fragile, kissing her softly, thoroughly.

“Please,” she finally managed to gasp between kisses, pressing
her fingertips into his back, urging him closer. When that produced little
change, she dragged his lower lip through her teeth, not hard enough to draw
blood but plenty hard enough to get his attention.

Through heavy-lidded eyes, she caught a flash of glowing blue.
His voice, when he spoke, had dropped to a sexy growl. The sound of it had her
breath catching in her throat.

“Careful,” he warned her.

“I want you,” she whispered, most of her inhibition already
stripped away. “All of you.”

For whatever reason, those were the words that spurred him to
action, though not exactly the kind she so desperately wanted. In a flurry of
movement, Brie found herself backed against the wall, her wrists pinned at
either side of her head. Alistair’s face was only inches from her own, and she
was stunned to see how haunted he looked, like some tormented prince of
darkness. His breathing was uneven, his eyes dark and glittering. And she wanted
nothing more than to have him against her again.

“This is madness,” Alistair said roughly, and she could hear
the wolf in his voice. It stirred desires in her that she hadn’t even known
existed. “You have no idea what you’re asking for, Brie. What it would mean. I
can’t do this.”

“If I don’t know, then tell me,” Brie replied, her jaw tight
with frustration. Was he really going to walk away again?
Now
? “What am I asking for that you can’t do?”

“This,” Alistair groaned, and he crushed his mouth against
hers. It was an entirely different kiss than his last one, hard and hot. The
rough thrusts of his tongue kept time with his hips, which ground rhythmically
into her. He kept her hands pinned to the wall, and Brie’s fingers flexed
helplessly as Alistair switched from sweet seduction to raw possession in the
blink of an eye.

She whimpered softly, widening her legs and sliding one of them
up to hook around his hip. Words deserted her, along with rational thought. All
she had left was a flood of desire so potent she didn’t know quite what to do.
The friction between them, even through their clothes, drove her quickly to the
edge of orgasm. She’d waited too long, wanted him far too much to be able to
hold back. The hard ridge of his cock pulsed over and over again between her
thighs, until finally Brie surged against him with a harsh cry. Her body bowed
with the force of her climax, back arching while her hands stayed pinned against
the wall. There was something intensely erotic about being at his mercy this
way, and the shock waves washed over her for longer than she would have
imagined, until she could only barely stay upright.

Alistair’s body quivered, strung tight as a bow, against her as
he went still. He closed his eyes, touched his forehead to hers.

“That...wasn’t quite the lesson I’d hoped for,” he breathed. It
would have been funny, but for the torment etched onto his face.

“You could try again, “ Brie suggested. She was barely upright
from what he’d just done to her, and still she knew they’d only just scratched
the surface of what it could be like together. “I’m game.”

Alistair chuckled, but there wasn’t much humor in it. He
sounded pained.

“You have no idea what I want to do to you, Brie. And we should
probably leave it at that before you get a lot more than you bargained for. I’m
not human.”

“If that bothered me, I wouldn’t still be here.”

“It ought to bother you.”

He backed away, releasing her, and the few steps he put between
them might as well have been miles. He seemed to be struggling to collect
himself. It was small consolation when it was all she could do not to melt into
a puddle on the floor.

Brie let her hands slowly drop back to her sides, and without
Alistair’s warmth the room seemed chilled despite the fire. Brie wrapped her
arms around herself, to ward off both the cooler air and the distance she felt
Alistair trying to put between them. After that intense blast of heat, she hated
to see him retreat back behind his shield. Though a single glance at the
straining fabric between his legs told her that it was costing him.

He looked away and shook his head as though he was trying to
clear it, his shaggy black hair gleaming in the firelight. His smile was as
sharp as the blade of a knife, and the bitterness it held surprised her.

“Tea,” he said. “It’s safer. Though if you prefer to get as far
away from me as possible, believe me, I understand.”

Then, with a flicker of graceful movement, he vanished from the
room. Brie leaned back against the wall, trying to catch her breath and figure
out what had just happened. After a moment, she managed the few steps back to
the couch and sank down onto the comfortable cushions. If she’d wanted
confirmation that he was just as affected by her as she was by him, she’d just
had confirmation, Brie thought. But his reaction to it, to her, to everything
tonight just raised more questions than it answered. He wasn’t just running from
the wolf—his brother—hunting him. He was still running from her.

And she still wanted to know why.