Loyal Wolf (12 page)

“My bedroom is just down the hall.”

* * *

Jock had promised himself before to keep his libido in check. His wayward body parts, too.

But his erection had a mind of its own. Oh, yeah.

And the erotic dance with this woman on their way to her bedroom was filled with deep, deep kisses, not to mention hugs and caresses and touches outside his clothes to his most sensitive and responsive areas. Which he reciprocated, and then some.

He couldn't wait to strip. And to strip Kathlene, too.

The thought aroused him even more, if that was possible.

Her scent was spicy and salty and altogether sexually incredible. The atmosphere was enhanced by the sound of her deep, irregular breathing, her soft, sexy moans.

“In here,” Kathlene gasped momentarily against his mouth, and he responded by kissing her even more deeply, even as she guided him through a doorway and flicked on the lights.

To her bedroom.

Like the furniture he had already seen, this room, when he managed to pry open his eyes and look at it, had a floral motif, from the carvings on the mirror over the dresser to the rose-and-lilac design on the comforter on the bed.

The bed. That was the way they were heading. Good idea.

Better idea was how he at last started removing Kathlene's clothes on the way over to it. First her knit shirt over her head. Then his hands on the buttons on her slacks, and they soon slid to the floor.

“Now me,” she said, and it was his turn to lose his shirt, his pants, his briefs. He was naked first.

Fine by him. He quickly got the rest of Kathlene's stuff off, too.

And then they tumbled right onto that pretty, flowery bed.

* * *

Yes, oh yes,
Kathlene thought. She refused to even consider how unwise this was.

Not with Jock's gorgeous, hot, muscular body on top of hers, writhing gently, obviously trying to feel all of her against him without squashing her with his substantial, tense weight.

He was still kissing her mouth. At this angle, she couldn't do much more than kiss him back, squeeze his delightful, firm buttocks in her hands.

Feel his thick arousal pressing against her.

But she wanted more. A lot more.

She wriggled, whispered, “My turn,” and maneuvered so she could get loose from beneath his body.

He let her, without removing his hands. Which was a good thing. Otherwise, she would have felt bereft if she no longer had his touch upon her.

As it was, he gently grasped her breasts, rubbing his thumbs against her nipples so erotically that it made her feel like crying.

Instead, she moved, curling up a bit so he could no longer reach her chest...but she could reach his hard shaft, which she took into her mouth.

And reveled in the sound of his gasp even as she tasted its heat and hardness and enticement.

“Now,” she heard him say, and it sounded as if he spoke through gritted teeth.

But she couldn't quite comply with what he said.

If she remembered correctly...she pulled away from him entirely and left the bed, giving only a quick glance to his narrowed eyes that stared at her so sexily.

She opened the top drawer of the nightstand nearest her and reached past the makeup and other inappropriate contents toward the back.

And found exactly what she sought: a box of condoms. Unopened. There for years, a box of unfulfilled hope that she'd never been tempted to use with any man she'd met recently.

Until now.

She pulled it open, took out a foil packet, and tore it, holding it out toward Jock.

“You do it,” he said. “I'm busy.” That was when he reached toward her, claimed her hot and wet and aroused area with his hand and stroked it, inserted a finger, then two...

She cried out even as she got the condom in place over him. He pulled her onto the bed, rolled her back into the position she had been in before, beneath him, and entered her.

She reached a climax nearly immediately and was happy to hear Jock's own cry of fulfillment.

In moments, his body became a loose weight on top of her. He panted as he laughed, moved off her and said, “Too fast. We've got to get in more practice.”

More?

Did she want to do this again with this man?

Oh, yeah.

Chapter 12

L
ying there beside Jock, Kathlene was still breathing heavily from what they had just done together when he asked to stay the night.

She graciously said yes. Heck, she wasn't just being gracious. He was fulfilling her dream. Her desire.

For even though they both talked about how tired they were, she knew that they would make love again. And, maybe, again.

First, though, he left her bedroom, ostensibly to use the bathroom. She saw him grab his phone from his trousers before he left. Her head on her pillow, her body beneath the sheet, she soon heard his voice as he talked to someone else. Ralf?

She couldn't distinguish much of what Jock said, but she did hear the word
protection
. Was that what he called what they had done?

More likely, he was just giving an excuse to Ralf for staying here.

But if protection was really on his mind...

No. He surely wasn't using his body to try to control her, to make her more amenable to his staying around her. Protecting her.

She didn't need that.

He returned to the room. She sat up, ready to confront him, to make sure he continued to remember, despite their amazing lovemaking, that she wasn't just some needy woman, a female who wanted a man around who would take care of her.

She could do it all by herself.

But as she sat up, the sheet dropped from her...and her upper body showed. Her breasts.

They began tingling as he looked at them.

And when he slid back onto the bed with her and reached out for them, touched them, slid his fingers back and forth over their sensitive nubs, she forgot all of what she intended to say.

* * *

He actually got some sleep that night. In between delicious interludes of lovemaking with this all-human, all-female woman who knew his secrets. Was she somehow turned on by what he was? Or did it simply make no difference to her?

He counted at least three more times when he rolled over in her erotically smelling bed to find her awake, too. Or maybe they were simply in sync.

They made love over and over, and then he slept.

Not that he felt well rested when he awoke in the morning, listening.

He heard sounds outside—Kathlene's neighbors walking their dogs and chatting with their kids, cars driving by, noises that were not familiar to him in this area while staying in the remote cabins.

“Good morning,” whispered a soft voice from beside him.

He rolled over to find Kathlene's half-open blue eyes looking at him, her still-sleepy face smiling.

Why did that look sexy? He didn't know, except that there they were, still in bed, still nude. He reached for her, and they made love yet again.

* * *

“Are you interested in breakfast?” Kathlene asked once she had returned to her bedroom after showering.

Jock and she had finally arisen after their most recent round of luscious sex that took enough out of her that she could have stayed in bed all day. Except that she had to report for duty in about an hour.

And except that spending any more bed time with Jock nearby was not a good idea. She had questions. He probably had answers. They had discussed only the generalities of Alpha Force last night at his cabin, and more specifics about his shapeshifting when they had arrived here at her home. But she had other questions about what he did. And if they didn't get up, she wouldn't even be able to try to draw responses out of him. They'd be too busy engaging in other, more enjoyable things. Assuming they could find any more energy after last night.

So she had tossed him out of the bedroom first to shower. Then she'd dashed to her wonderfully appointed kitchen—her favorite room in the house—in his absence, still in the robe she had thrown on, to see what she had in the way of breakfast fixings.

Fortunately, she had a few eggs, some bread, cereal and plenty of milk. Coffee, too.

“Sure,” he said now. “Where would you like to go?” He undoubtedly meant for her to pick a restaurant.

Instead, she said, “Down the hall, to my kitchen. I'll take care of it.” She gave him her available choices. Seemingly glad about her offer to cook their breakfast, he chose toast and coffee, with a couple of scrambled eggs thrown in when she said she was making some for herself.

But she liked the fact that he apparently didn't want to create extra work for her, even when she offered it.

A short while later, they both sat at her oval wooden kitchen table, their plates of eggs and toast, and large white mugs of coffee, on red woven place mats in front of them.

Jock once again wore the outfit he had had on last night, of course—T-shirt and jeans, his and Ralf's usual undercover uniform.

She, on the other hand, wore her deputy sheriff's uniform.

“Now let's backtrack a bit,” Kathlene said, smiling as Jock took one bite after another of the eggs that she had seasoned with thyme and oregano to add a slightly Italian flair to them.

“Okay,” he said. “This is really good, by the way.”

“Glad you like it.” Kathlene took a sip of her hot coffee. “Now, last night. When you were wandering around the old ranch area.”

“When I was shifted,” he said with a nod, gazing at her as if waiting for her reaction this morning, after she'd had time to sleep on her initial thoughts.

Well, heck, neither one of them had actually slept much....

“That's right,” she said. “Tell me more about what you saw and heard. And whatever else you did while you were—while you were a wolf.”

His grin at her was obviously meant to be a sexy leer. “I'm always a wolf, but which kind depends on what form I'm in.”

“Right,” she said drily. “While you looked like a wolf.”

“Sure.” Their limited repartee had been enough for him, she figured, for he spent the next few minutes describing what he had seen and heard as he walked, in wolf form, around the outside of the old ranch's fence. “I heard a couple of guys I couldn't see talk about the county commissioners' meeting and how they needed to teach the town a few lessons about backing off when it came to adding any possible limits on hunting.”

“Did you see who they were?”

“No, but I might be able to identify them through their voices and scents, although I was too far away to be sure.”

“Oh. Of course.” His other senses besides sight were undoubtedly sharper when he was actually a wolf, she figured.

Which gave more credence to why the feds would send this kind of secret unit here to deal with the situation she had described.

“Then there was the noise I heard—probably like the explosions you had mentioned hearing a while back. I wasn't close enough to really get a good scent, but I thought I smelled a hint of plastic, like C-4. The sound was muffled, though, so could be they were just experimenting and keeping it under wraps—troublesome, anyway. Something we need more information about, as well as the ability to disarm anything that has the potential of injuring anyone, including the county commissioners this group clearly has no love for.”

Kathlene shivered. She felt vindicated, but that didn't really make her feel good. The danger still existed.

“I'm glad you heard it, too,” she said. “And smelled it. And are checking into it, even though no one else around here seems concerned.”

“Nothing but peaceful target practice,” Jock acknowledged. “And if I believed that's all that was going on there, Ralf and I would be on our way to Yellowstone—or that's what we'd tell anyone here who asked. Which is probably no one.”

“Do we need to get you more involved in the community?” She had wondered about that. Maybe they needed to be more than just her buddies. But how?

His smile looked both amazed and...tender? A teasing warmth crept up her back. She was beginning to care too much for this man, and she had to get it under control. He was only here for a short time, till he accomplished his very important mission.

Then there was the fact that he was so different from her...

“I knew we were on the same wavelength,” he said, “but I didn't think you'd anticipate this. And maybe you haven't. But here's what I wanted to tell you. Let me preface it by explaining there was another thing I heard. Something else you might be particularly interested in.”

Her curiosity was suddenly almost overwhelming. “What's that?”

“I want you to bring me to your sheriff's department this morning, introduce me to all your coworkers as your longtime buddy, even though I've already met some of them, okay?”

“Sure,” she said, but he hadn't answered her question. She needed to know more. “But tell me why.”

“Because one of the things I heard and sensed last night was a presence I didn't expect. Or maybe I did, but you might not.”

“Who's that?” she asked.

“Sheriff Melton Frawley.”

* * *

Jock took another bite of the delicious eggs that Kathlene had cooked while waiting for her response.

Her beautiful blue eyes had widened, and she was staring at him. “Sheriff Frawley.” It wasn't a question, but a statement. “Did you hear anything he said?”

Clearly, she had suspected his involvement.

But then again, why wouldn't she? From what she had told her friend that had led to Alpha Force's being deployed here, she'd tried to get her boss's support in investigating the people she had become concerned were anarchists and had gotten nowhere.

“Sure,” Jock responded. “That's how I knew he was there. I recognized his voice from when I'd heard him before, yesterday at the commissioners' meeting. But if you're asking if he said anything that would implicate him as being part of whatever those guys are doing, the answer's no.”

“What did he say, then?”

“All the most circumspect stuff, thanking Tisal—I heard his voice, too—for inviting him there and showing him around...again. That wasn't his first time there, apparently. And also apologizing for the way the county appeared to be criticizing a group of licensed hunters like the people camping out there.”

“Really? He...he sounded as if he assumed someone was eavesdropping on him.”

Jock nodded. “I wouldn't be surprised if that's what he thought. Not that he would assume it would be a shapeshifter, but there are a lot of tiny, hard-to-find electronic bugs these days. He certainly did sound like he was covering his butt.”

“He also seemed to be protecting the guys who are hanging out there.” Kathlene looked so affronted and woeful that Jock had to fight the urge to kiss away her bad mood—or at least try. “What are we going to do?”

“Okay, team member,” he said. “Here's what I want. Like I said, you'll need to introduce Ralf and me to your colleagues, including the higher-ups. And pretty soon, you and I, old buddy, are going to have a very public difference of opinion—when Ralf and I make it clear that we're sportsmen, too. We like hunting and are all for those who don't want to add any more protections to the animals that should be fair game for us all. Period.”

“And then?” The worry on Kathlene's face only got more obvious.

“Ralf and I are going to join the anarchists.”

* * *

“But how will you do your shapeshifting then?”

Kathlene knew she was acting almost confrontational with Jock, but she now realized that there was a good reason for Alpha Force to have sent members here to deal with the possible anarchist situation.

Yes, she liked the idea of the two men going undercover with the people she suspected were anarchists to find out what they really were up to.

But if Jock was there with them, she might not be able to communicate with him anymore except in apparent anger.

And his very special abilities, which might help lead to more answers than just some ordinary—even well-conducted—undercover work might wind up being extraneous and unusable.

“Don't worry about that,” Jock said. “You can be sure I'll work it out.” He stood up from the table, his now-empty plate in his hand. He took it over to the sink, rinsed it, and placed it in her dishwasher.

Which she liked. He was a guy who didn't assume that women were the ones who had to do all the cleanup chores, unlike so many of the men she now worked with.

He returned to the table and picked up his coffee mug. He didn't ask her to refill it for him but instead went to the tile counter and picked the half-filled pot off the coffeemaker and poured more into it. And then he brought the pot over and refreshed her coffee, too.

That made her smile. She looked up at him, right into his intense hazel eyes that were so much like the eyes of the wolf he was while shifted—and like Click's eyes, too.

As much as she wanted to stand up, place herself close to him, into his arms, she pulled her gaze away, took her phone from her pocket and checked the time on it.

It was getting late. She had to go.

“Time for me to head to work,” she said. “You go ahead and pick up Ralf. Maybe give me an extra half hour to see who's around and figure out the best way to handle your further introductions at the department—and get you in a position to speak with Sheriff Frawley. We'll have to figure out later how best to keep our
friendship
going on, in secret if necessary. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, and he was the one to take her coffee mug and place it back on the table, then pull her into his arms. “One for the road,” he said, then engaged her in another deep, sexy kiss.