What This Wolf Wants (19 page)

No. That was a lie. She could feel the need for Zan all the way to her bones, and it wasn’t just a sexual need. She worried about him when he was out of her sight; and didn’t know if she wanted to jump him or knock him upside the head when he was.

She and Zan were mated, there was no question about that. If she took to heart what her grandfather said last night, nature didn’t mess up.

She’d mess it up. Which, she had to admit, she may have already done so because of her prejudice and bitterness towards Zan, thanks to her uncle’s treatment of his mate. Logically she knew all men weren’t created from the same darkness that engulfed Rafe, but logic and emotion weren’t always in sync. Diving into an unknown future with Zan was just as scary a proposition as going back to her own life. Alone.

She truly didn’t know what to do.

Joe must have mistaken her frown and silence for fear. “The place is secure, Doc. You won’t come to any harm.” Maybe not from any outside source, but Jackie was very afraid the true danger lay inside. In her heart.

Just then, they reached the heavy locked gates. As Joe typed in his passcode on a recessed keyboard, Jackie peered around her. Huge trees lined the street while houses hid behind walls and gates similar to the one in front of her. The neighborhood was clearly a high-end area, with homes built far and wide from each other. One could live their whole life on this street and never meet their closest neighbor.

While the location made it a haven to keep their shifting nature a secret, it went against a wolf’s inherent need to belong to a pack. Which was probably why Russell had turned his childhood home into a base facility for LunaWatch. In essence it
was
a small pack. The shifters lived together, which satisfied their social need, while still retaining their secret from the world.

How could Jackie conceive asking Zan to leave his pack for her?

Yet how could he demand the same?

The no-win situation caused a pain in her chest. Days ago she felt justified by blindly accepting what she perceived was the obvious ending of her relationship with Zan. Now she only felt despair.

After thanking Joe for his company, Jackie headed upstairs, anxious for a shower. Stripping, she couldn’t help wondering where Zan was and if he was alright. Surely nothing happened to him, otherwise Scott would have contacted Russell or Joe. Unless he was hurt too.

An unwanted image of Zan as she’d first seen him, hurt and bloody, flitted in her mind.

God. Please let him be all right.

As she was rinsing out her hair she felt the first familiar twinges in her belly. With it came the realization that when her period started, the mating heat would end. So would her need of Zan, and he for her. While that was a dismal thought, it did nothing to dampen the need she had now.

Just thinking of Zan made her blood race. Every minute in his presence she fell deeper under his erotic spell. He was addictive, charming when he wanted to be, sexy from head to toe, protective, and possessive.

Both a giving and demanding lover with the wildness her body craved. She was afraid she was giving Zan more of herself than was smart. Tendrils of love had already taken root, but giving any more would only make her an idiot.

Though she didn’t think it odd to believe herself falling for Zan in such a short time, she deliberately pushed away her grandfather’s idea that Zan loved her. He wanted her sure, but love? That was a much deeper emotion. Besides, if he loved her, wouldn’t he take her needs—outside of the sexual—into consideration? Than again, shouldn’t she? Wasn’t she being just the slightest bit greedy, wanting Zan to change his life for her while she resisted doing the same?

Which brought her right back to what she thought that first day.

The best thing that should have happened between them was nothing. But now that they had something, she would have to make the best of the coming days without risking her heart any further. Accept that she would take what she could and then leave with a week’s worth of irreplaceable memories.

She had just dried off, leaving the towel wrapped around her hair, when she sensed Zan’s presence. Both his scent and his alpha-like shifter power hit her at the same time and an unknown knot unloosened in her gut.

He was alive and back. And while his scent and impending approach had her body readying its already ready self, the type of energy rolling off him gave her pause. He might be hail and hearty, but he was pissed about something. And heading straight toward her.

Not wanting another confrontation in another bathroom, she quickly unlocked and opened the bathroom door to see the man never far from her thoughts glowering at her. A look that only lasted a second before a carnal heat flared to life as he took in her nude form, still dewy from the shower.

Green eyes darkened, lips parted, nostrils flared, and he went preternaturally still as if in some type of trance. While the anger was still evident, unquestionable desire had broken to the forefront. As a distraction, she couldn’t have done anything better.

“What’s wrong?”

His lips pressed back into a hard line and she could have smacked herself. Maybe if she’d kept her mouth shut he would have just snatched her up and taken her to that big, comfy bed right behind him.

“What’s wrong?” Jackie winced as Zan’s roar bounced throughout the bathroom. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. You left this house.” Warily, she raised an eyebrow. “Your point?” He gaped at her calm question. “Christ woman. There’s a killer out there and you went for a fucking jog as if all was right in the world.” She shrugged and his eyes dropped down to her exposed breasts.

“I’m not that much of an idiot. Joe was with me. He knows Shider’s scent.” Zan’s eyes flicked back to hers, gleaming with something just this side of human. “And he’d only catch it if Shider was upwind. If you’d felt the need to work out some excess energy, you should have either stayed on the premises or called me.”

“Really,” she ground out between her teeth. “If Shider climbed up a tree with a rifle, I wouldn’t have been any safer running in circles around the house. I refuse to wait around, twiddling my thumbs until something happens.”

Angry herself, she didn’t recognize the muscles twitching in his jaw for what it was. “And since you left me to go play soldier, I had to find something else to do. Joe was handy.”

However upset Zan had been before, it was nothing compared to the present. Twin spots of fury spotted his cheeks. Steam was practically pouring out his ears and Jackie paused in her tirade, thinking that her runaway emotions followed by her big mouth had just kicked her past the point of no return.

“Joe?” He snarled. “You don’t belong to Joe. You belong to me.” Refusing his possessive doctrine, she gnashed her teeth. “I belong to myself!”

Zan reached out and grabbed her by the hips, lifting her until they were eye-level and her toes were dangling in the air. The towel unraveled and fell to the floor at the sudden move, causing her hair to slap wetly onto her back. Amber ringed the green of his irises as the beast inside him struggled for supremacy. “You are my mate. Not Joe’s. Not anyone else’s.

No matter what you say about others out there. You, Jackie Chavez, are mine.”

Taken aback, she blinked. Well, what did she expect from a dominant male shifter on the day of the full moon? Overly protective, aggressive, and possessive. That about summed Zan up.

This time she couldn’t complain about him using his height or weight to intimidate her as she had so many days ago. Though this time his strength and fury made her want to gulp in trepidation. He might proclaim he’d never physically harm her, but she had a strange feeling he wouldn’t be against locking her in a room and throwing away the key.

She was abruptly back on her feet and spun around to face the large mirror over the sink. Zan had one hand on her chin, the other over her belly. As angry as he was, and as close to the surface as his wolf was, his touch remained gentle. He wasn’t hurting her, but his hold was unbreakable. “Look at us.”

At the demand her head snapped to their reflection. While she was naked as the day she was born, Zan was fully clothed in his custom tight-fitting jeans and T-shirt. His chest was squashed up to her back. Heat poured off him, each muscle taut as he wrapped himself around her. His scent was everywhere, making her brain fog with desire. It took everything she had not to rub against his erection currently pressing into the soft flesh of her ass.

“We are mates, Jackie. You belong to me and I belong to you. All of us. This,” his fingers contracted over her abdomen. “Is mine. This,” his hand slid up over her ribcage and cupped her breast, thumbing her nipple into a hard peak. “Belongs to me. And this,” the hand holding her chin moved down to cover her mound. “Will only ever know my cock.” She bit back a moan and tried to remain absolutely still. That lasted all of two seconds, until he parted her nether lips with two fingers and stroked a third over her damp clit. Her eyes fell into slits, inexorably drawn to where his clever fingers worked. “You’re so wet. You need me, angel. Only me.”

His voice had dropped into a dark whisper, a breath of warm air across her skin. Not only could she feel her need slicking her thighs, she was so hot she thought she might combust on the spot. One denim-clad thigh pushed her legs farther apart, opening her wider to his naughty fingers. Dipping his middle finger inside her, she writhed against him, clenching her inner muscles tight. She didn’t know who shuddered, her or Zan, but when she managed to drag her eyes back up to his face, his reflection showed an expression that bordered on pain, turning his handsome features almost harsh.

“I’ve thought of almost nothing except how tight you felt around me,” he growled at her ear, low and raspy. “And when you come. Fuck.” She felt his fangs scrap across her shoulder before he nipped lightly. A slight pain that only increased her arousal. “I always think I’ll die from the pleasure before I can even come.”

The wicked words, his expert touch, that brief tingle of pain all combined to drive her abso-freakin-lutley insane. “Zan,” she pushed against his plunging fingers, rubbed her ass over the hard bulge in his jeans. “Please. I-I need you.”

All movement stilled and she had a brief and horrid thought that he would walk away. Then he was tearing at the front of his pants, and then the hard length of him between her thighs. She stared in the mirror, watching the heavy crest slip through her wet folds, sending flames from her vagina to her engorged clit.

His eyes were heavy-lidded as he peered over her shoulder, one hand kneading her breast, the other spreading her wide as they both locked onto the sight of his glistening cock. All that fierce maleness directed at her was almost more than she could handle. Pushing onto her toes, she tried to trap him inside her, but the evil shifter nipped her ear in reproach and snaked one arm around her waist, holding her in place.

His hips shifted and then—finally!—he was parting her, sliding inside. Only to pull back out before he’d barely breached her body. The snarl on her lips turned into a gasp of pleasure when he plunged back in, stretching her muscles, gently, firmly, into accepting his thick length.

“There I am, angel.” He crooned in her ear. “I’ll always be here for you.”

Jackie went to her toes again as he began stroking inside her, burrowing deep, inch by glorious inch until she could feel him all the way to her heart. She bucked backward, fighting for more. More pleasure, more of Zan. More of everything.

She was losing herself under the onslaught of his possession. For that was exactly what Zan was doing. Possessing her. Each stroke more of a claiming than his bite. Nothing mattered more than this man, his touch, his hunger, his cock filling her. Not only by his flesh, but by his very essence. Pleasure spiked through Jackie as her body tightened. Her hands were clasped around his wrists, holding him, needing him for an anchor as her vision began to blur. Soft cries escaped her parted lips.

“That’s it, angel. Squeeze me harder.” His voice was thick, his breath ragged as he rained her neck and shoulders with open-mouthed kisses. The hard, steady rhythm he’d set picked up speed, his fingers never ceasing as he continued to work her clitoris in sure strokes.

She was trembling, her legs shaking, unable to keep her steady.

The ache in her belly intensified to near painful proportions until she couldn’t handle any more. She was going to die. Then release came in an exploding rush of lightening and thunder. Her back arched violently, giving Zan better access as, with a snarl of pure predatorial victory, he clamped his fangs onto her neck, sinking the sharp points into her flesh, shooting Jackie’s orgasm into a white-hot blaze of ecstasy.

Her eyes fell shut in complete satiation and when she collapsed weakly against Zan, she knew without a doubt she would never be the same. Nothing and no one could replace the man trembling behind her, holding her upright even as he gasped for breath, spreading his own legs for support. She floated on sweet sensation, feeling limp and lazy, and so very relaxed she could sleep for a week.

Chapter Nineteen

“Shit.” Her eyes popped open at Zan’s soft curse. Not something a woman wants to hear after mind-blowing sex.

“What?” Did he hurt himself? Maybe his ribs hadn’t completely healed. She knew he’d come, she’d felt the hot pulse of semen inside her.

Every limp muscle coiled and snapped back, taut. Well hell.

Zan gingerly pulled out and she turned, gaping down at his bare flesh. No condom.

A chill went through her. Double hell.

“Jackie. I didn’t mean…” She yanked her gaze from his groin to his stricken face, his eyes never wavering from hers in the ensuing silence.

A dominant male shifter might do just about anything to keep his mate, but Zan would never try and get her pregnant to tie her to him. While he might have bit her—again—to stake a claim, and yes maybe coerce, fib, seduce, and charm her, she knew in her heart of hearts that he’d never attempt to bind her to him in that way. He had too much pride, and knowing she’d stay with him because of a child and not because she wanted
him
would only gnaw at that pride until he’d come to hate himself, and her.