The Wolf Within (31 page)

I stepped back, reached up under my skirt and pulled my panties down, tossing them over my shoulder once I’d stepped free of them. “Better?”

“No.”

“No?”

“You’re too far away.” He moved like lightning and picked me up, backing us up against the island bench. I clamped my legs around his waist as he kissed me again, even more furiously than before.

Chapter Twenty-Three

For a moment all that existed was the kiss and the weight of Dan’s body on mine. The roughness of denim against my thighs and the heat burning under my skin.

I wanted more. Wanted closer.

I tried to pull him tighter against me, wanted him to just take me then and there so I didn’t have to think any more. Didn’t have to need any more.

Instead, he pulled away and a growl rumbled low in my throat before I could help it. “Where are you going?”

“Bed’s more comfortable than marble,” he said.

I growled again as he straightened and tightened my legs around his hips. “But the marble is right
here
.
Now
.”

He shook his head, laughter glinting in his eyes. “Impatient, are you?”

“Yes.” I arched into him for emphasis. I didn’t want to move or think or stop for conversation. I wanted raw and fast and hard until there was only sensation and pleasure.

Dan, it seemed, had other ideas.

He scooped his hands under my back and lifted me, backing away from the counter. I growled again as my body came hard against his, flesh to flesh.

He carried me across the room and I knew if I didn’t do something to get him back on my track we were going to end up in my bed. Doing nice, polite sex. Or worse. Making
love
.

Not what I needed. Not what I was anywhere near ready for.

I twisted my hand in his hair and nipped at his ear, just a little too hard.

Or maybe not
too
hard, if the lowdown drunken rumble of pleasure that shook him was anything to go by.

I nipped again and he bumped into the sofa as his arms pulled me even closer.

“Ashley.” He pressed his face into my neck and held me tight, weaving across the room. His lips skimmed the pulse in my neck, making me shiver.

“No talking.” Talking meant thinking. I tugged his head up so we could kiss again, savoring the taste of him—wild and spicy and tinged with tequila—against my tongue.

“Ow,” he muttered against my mouth as we half-fell against the door to the hallway, my back coming hard up against the wood.

“Quit whining,” I said, wriggling against him. Too much fabric still separated me from him where I most wanted to feel him, so I gripped one hand around his neck and sent the other down between us seeking his buttons. My fingers brushed the tip of him, hard under the fabric and I smiled as he groaned and closed his eyes.

“I want you,” I said, tracing circles with my fingers down the length of his erection then back up his zipper. I flicked the button open and made short work of the zip so I could slide my hand against all that lovely hard flesh. “Now.” I clamped my mouth over his. “Now,” I repeated, more a breath than a word.

Dan groaned. “Oh, fuck it. Whatever you want.”

We slid to the floor, tearing at clothes in between kisses. Each touch sent me spinning higher until I was dizzy with the taste and smell and feel of him. I wanted my hands all over him and his all over me.

His mouth closed over a nipple, teasing it to the edge of pain and I whimpered for him to do it again. Lightning bolts shot through me, pure heat from breast to groin as he complied.

God.
Dan
.

He felt so good.

So right.

I pulled his head back up to mine to taste his kisses again. His tongue flickered against mine and his need scented the air like a physical thing, wrapping around me and dragging my senses to some dark, hot place made of nerves and skin and pleasure.

I floated there as our bodies moved, as his mouth traveled down my torso, flicking tiny kisses just where each nerve seemed most sensitive. Drowning in him.

I surfaced briefly with a startled gasp as his fingers slid into me and his mouth sent the burning heat between my legs into flash fire. But then the sheer overwhelming need for him dragged me back down to the darkness so I lay arching and writhing, wanting more with each stroke, each delicate lap of his tongue.

I could feel the orgasm begin to build, tiny tremors running over my skin, making my thighs tremble.

Dan must have felt them too because he stopped, forcing a protest from my throat.

“Not without me,” he said fiercely. “Not this time.”

He slid up my body until his cock was resting against me, teasing me sweetly, just nudging my entrance. I wanted to move, wanted to take him but I couldn’t. I was frozen by the look in Dan’s eyes. By the pleasure and satisfaction written across his face.

By the answering emotion that tangled me up as he raised my hands above my head and linked his fingers in mine.

“Not without me,” he repeated as he slid inside me so slowly I almost screamed.

My flesh was so sensitized I felt each millimeter of him move into me, felt the hair on his body brush against my skin and his heart beating inside his chest.

I was painfully aware of the heavy thud of my own as I fought not to feel what I wanted to feel, not to let myself be foolish and slip back into love.

When he was finally all the way against me, he stilled as if he was waiting for something. Or as if he couldn’t quite believe he was finally with me again. The look on his face was reverent.

Too much.

I shut my eyes. “Please,” I said, trying to move against him. “Please, Dan.”

His hips were heavy against mine, holding me still. I couldn’t do this slow and tender. It would rip me apart.

And, if I was any judge, Dan was riding a knife’s edge between control and giving into to instinct.

So I did what I had to do to ease the conflicting needs of head and heart and screaming-for-release skin.

I pulled my hands free, pulled his head down to mine as I tightened my muscles around his cock and whispered, “Fuck me.”

He did.

With a cry that sounded like it was torn from his throat he pulled back then plunged into me again. Hard. Fast. Over and over. Everything I’d wanted. Everything I needed to send me speeding back toward pure sensation and overwhelming drive toward release.

It was no longer Dan and me and everything that implied. It was just male and female and the need to claim each other as simply as possible. With flesh and hunger and bodies that spoke things we couldn’t say.

I don’t know how long it took. But it was glorious and wonderful and I wanted to lie there forever moving with him, rolling and tearing and drinking him in. But my body had other ideas as the slide of flesh quickened and our breathing roughened and the noises and words we spoke grew more frantic.

Dan slid his hands under my hips, angling me up so he could go even deeper, each stroke hitting some point inside me that sent sparks flashing behind closed eyes.

Slick skin against slick skin made me shiver as the sensations built and built. His mouth coming down on mine again finally sent me diving into an orgasm so intense I did scream for him as I just held on, muscles spasming and pleasure I’d never imagined flooding every nerve.

A few seconds later, Dan shouted my name and drove into me again before collapsing against me like he’d forgotten how to breathe.

I wasn’t so sure I remembered myself so I just held him and drifted until the aftershocks faded.

Eventually, Dan lifted his head. I opened my eyes to find him grinning down at me. The curve of his mouth did strange things to my stomach. Or somewhere north of that, if I was totally honest. But I wasn’t ready to deal with my heart.

“You were right. Beds are overrated,” he said in a half growl.

I laughed though I was starting to become aware that my back didn’t necessarily agree with him. “Doesn’t mean I would object to one for round two.”

“Round two?” He laid his forehead against mine. “Fuck, Ash. You trying to kill me?”

“You got some better way to go?” I moved my hips, felt his cock stir to life.

“Hell, no. Bed it is.” He rolled off me then reached out and took my hand.

“Your room,” I said as we staggered to our feet and he picked me up again.

He looked confused. “Why?”

I summoned my best just-shut-up-and-do-me smile. “It’s closer.” And I wasn’t ready to wake up with Dan in my bed. Tonight was about now. Not forever. I couldn’t cope with forever. If I let Dan into my bed, I was going to have a hell of a time kicking him out again.

Dan frowned a little but then shrugged and headed for his room. Sometime—about four orgasms—later, I left him sleeping the sleep of the righteously laid and snuck back to my own bed. For a long time I just lay under the covers, staring into the dark and wondering what the hell I’d just done.

Especially that last time when I couldn’t help it any longer and heat and passion had slowed to something sweeter and deeper, Dan’s eyes almost drowning me as he moved softly inside me until we both melted. Just like we used to before any of this had happened. It was enough to bring back all the doubts and fears about what letting him in would mean and send me scurrying back to my own bed as soon as he’d fallen asleep.

Eventually, after the answer had come back as “no fucking idea" about fifty times, I managed to convince my brain to take the Scarlett O’Hara approach and think about it tomorrow.

I fell into sleep like a dead thing and didn’t move until my door crashed open around five am and the light blazed into life.

“Get up,” Dan snarled, voice like ashes.

I blinked up at him, trying to get my brain to connect. The look on his face worked effectively as a bucket of ice water over my head, clearing the cobwebs with an icy blast that left me chilled.

He looked pissed. More than pissed.

Enraged
.

“What’s going on?” I sat up, hoping my leaving him alone in bed wasn’t responsible for his mood.

“They found Ben,” He said, staring at me with eyes like shattered silver ice. “We have to go.”

I abandoned all my planned explanations and rationales for why I was in my bed, not his as the words sank in.

Found Ben
. Oh God.

It couldn’t be good news. Dan wouldn’t look like he did if it was good news. I pulled the covers closer around me, suddenly freezing. I didn’t want to ask the question. I wasn’t sure I could bear the answer. Natalie’s face at the pack meeting–happy and laughing as she looked up at her husband–floated before my eyes.

“Found him?” It was as close as I could get to the real question. I prayed in my head, prayed that Dan would say “he’s okay” and everything would
be
okay.

But I knew it wasn’t, even before Dan opened his mouth.

“In pieces,” he said.

The room spun around me. I half-rolled to the side of the bed and threw up.

Dead. Dead. Dead
.

Natalie was right. This was my fault. I threw up again. And again and again until I was dry retching.

When I finally lifted my head, Dan still stood by the door. Which didn’t make me feel any better. It wasn’t just Ben. He was mad about last night. Otherwise he’d be comforting me.

“Finished?” he said icily.

I nodded slowly, not really sure.

“Then get dressed. I’m leaving in ten minutes with or without you.”

Then he was gone.

I staggered into the bathroom and ran cold water over my head until the worst of the dizziness and nausea passed. Then I got dressed, hair dripping everywhere and made it downstairs and into the car just before Dan turned on the ignition.

He didn’t say anything and I couldn’t think of anything to say that could possibly make the situation any better. So I just shut up and hid behind my sunglasses, pretending there were no tears rolling down my cheeks as we sped through Seattle and pictures of body parts filled my head.

Dan took the exit for Sea-Tac and it dawned on me where we were headed. The Retreat.

“Oh God,” I said. “Please, not there.” The tears came faster. Tate couldn’t have come up with a better way to attack the pack than to kill one of its members in the place they were supposed to be safest.

Dan kept his eyes on the road. “Where else?”

His voice was bitter and I knew whatever I was feeling had to be a thousand times worse for him. He’d been a werewolf for four years. A long time. He was friends—family really—with everyone in the pack. With Ben.

And he was the one who’d brought me into their lives. Brought Tate into their lives via me.

Me, who’d just treated him like he meant nothing to me.

Which was pretty much par for the course for how I’d been treating him since he turned. But finally having sex with him and then stealing away in the middle of the night was a whole new level of abominable behavior. Shame mingled with the nausea still riding my stomach. I clutched the armrest by the window, determined not to throw up again.

God. What had I done?

The drive seemed as endless as the chasm that had opened up between us. There were a couple of blue and whites parked at the turn-off to the road that led to the Retreat and an officer flagged us down and made Dan show his badge before the policeman waved us through.

I was tempted to ask Dan to drop me off so I could just stay up here, away from whatever had happened inside the walls. Away from the bunch of angry wolves I’d be facing.

Away from Dan.

As far as I could tell, he’d probably throw me out of the Jeep while it was still moving and not look back.

I wouldn’t blame him one bit.

When we got to the main house, Ani and Sam were standing on the front porch, arms around each other. But I couldn’t see any of the other wolves. Relief eased the knots in my stomach only to be immediately followed by burning guilt.

Esme stood a little way apart from Ani and Sam. She looked almost relieved when Dan pulled the Jeep to a halt.

She came over as he climbed out and started a rapid-fire report I tried not to listen to.