Authors: J. Rose Allister
“You think so?” The woman stood up and tucked the knife up her sleeve. “You really are stupid, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“They followed you down here.”
Terra shot up, ignoring the twinge in her knee. “They can’t have. They don’t even know where I live.”
“I found you, didn’t I? And they are here in town. Any idea why?”
A little flip turned over her stomach, but she shook her head. “Not because of me. I didn’t even give them my cell number. It has to be a coincidence.”
“Don’t underestimate a wolf. Trust me on that one. If you do see them again, take my warning at face value and steer clear.”
The huntress turned and started away.
“Who are you?” Terra asked.
She turned back. “Don’t forget my warning.” Her eyes traveled over Terra for a minute, landing on the tiny rip in the side of her jogging hoodie. “Sorry if I hurt you.”
The woman disappeared through the trees while Terra stood among the leaves, staring after her.
Chapter Eight
No way in hell would Terra let herself toss and turn all night again, fretting over why the men she was with for all of a few hours hadn’t wanted her. Or whether they were really in her town. Most likely, the woman had been lying. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Of course, Springton was three towns removed from the base of the mountains, so their sudden arrival was a little odd. Nevertheless, she would not lie around trying to imagine why they were here, whether they were trying to find her, and if so, why they hadn’t when the huntress managed to do so quite readily.
She refused to lie awake thinking such things. Nor would she flip around rotisserie-style while she worried about the mysterious, red-haired woman.
Terra stared out her open bedroom window, listening to crickets gossip about God knew what under a bright moon that was a sliver short of full, while she reviewed the list of things she would not be thinking about. Could werewolves shift if there wasn’t a full moon? Nope, wait, add that to the list of don’t-go-theres. If she could just figure out how to get that memo through to the part of her brain that kept flipping up these topics over and over, like a mental Rolodex.
Music. That was what she needed. Something to fill her head with words and themes that weren’t of her own making. She reached over to her prim white nightstand and grabbed her iPod, sticking the ear buds in her ears and punching up her favorite get-me-out-of-this-life playlist. George Michael’s breathless sensuality sang to her of love, sex, and all the things she knew nothing about. Ah, yes. Eighties oldies were good for what ailed angst-ridden virgins.
Terra groaned and shifted beneath her leopard-print bedding, aware of the faint pulse of interest stirred by the sensation of her naked labia rubbing together. Her no-fail playlist was about to fail her. Why the hell she’d shaved her pussy, of all the bizarre things to do, was beyond her. The impulse eluded her totally. She hadn’t even consciously thought about it when she’d done it. She’d been shaving her legs as usual, and the next thing she realized, her entire pubic area was velvety smooth. Maybe she just wanted an excuse to touch herself there, since apparently no one else was interested in doing so.
Well, who the hell said she needed a reason, anyway? It was her body. Besides, she didn’t need to look any farther than the direction of her own thoughts lately to find all the inspiration she needed to get herself off.
George sang to her about finding what he wanted in her eyes, and when she closed them, an image sprang up of Connor claiming her lips in the shower. Her hands began to move beneath the covers, enjoying the soft feel of her knee-length sleep shirt as she skimmed her round breasts. They weren’t as large as she’d wished for, but her nipples were responsive and sprang up readily to her touch.
A happy throb shot between her legs, and one of her hands followed the trail of pleasure and slid the nightshirt up to expose her pussy under the sheets. Wearing underwear to bed had irritated her since coming home from the hospital, and tonight’s added little delight of bare cunt lips brought a tiny smile to her face. A single finger stroked over the padded mound of her pubis, tracing each lip down to her ass and back up the other side. She reveled in the heightened sensitivity of having a hairless pussy.
Another memory flashed to mind, of Connor and Nash together on the floor of the motel room. Nash’s ass was red from Connor’s belt, he was bent over his alpha’s cock, and his lips and tongue were pleasuring Connor until the man could barely control himself. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter and moaned softly, arching her hips off the bed while her other hand joined the first between her thighs. She circled the nub of her clit while dipping two fingers inside her cunt, which was already hot and wet with need.
When Terra imagined that her cowboys’ tongues and mouths were down there, doing to her what she’d seen Nash doing to Connor, her juices flowed faster and the throbbing in her bud became insistent. The fantasy became so real that she actually caught the tangy musk of male sweat, which she inhaled deeply, and she felt a tingling, hot breath on her face while her body began to tremble. Damn, she needed this release, and it was shaping up to be a real wall-shaker.
The first pulsing contractions of orgasm were stirring when she felt something press down over her mouth. She lost her peak immediately, and her eyes flew open with a scream that was muffled into the hand that was clamped there.
She ripped her ear buds out while a finger pressed to the lips of the shadow above her. She heard a quiet, “Shh.”
The silhouette standing over her in the dark set her heart drumming even faster than her near orgasm had. An intruder with a hand over her mouth should warrant immediate fight or flight, and her body was certainly responding with a flow of adrenaline that had efficiently killed the taut need in her pelvis. The fact that the silhouette was clearly male, sported a cowboy hat, and featured eyes glittering with gold flecks, however, funneled some of that heightened chemistry right back into her arousal. If Connor had chosen that exact moment to come back for her, she was about to show him just how fucking glad she was to see him.
The man’s hand slowly pulled away. “Connor?” she whispered into the dark.
“No. It’s Nash.”
“Nash.” Her voice heightened in alarm, and she thrust herself away from him on the mattress, clutching her comforter against her. Shit, did he know what she’d just been doing? “How did you get in here? Where’s Connor?”
“You left your bedroom window open, darlin’. He’d have come up, but I was in better shape to climb the drainpipe to the second floor.”
She sat upright. “What do you mean ‘better shape’?” Her whisper was gradually increasing in volume. “Where is he?”
“He got hurt, Terra.”
“What?” She lunged out of bed, cursing mentally when her bare ass flashed him for a brief moment before the nightshirt she’d tugged around her waist fell back around her knees. “Take me to him.”
“He’s right outside.”
“Was it the huntress?”
His nod sent a chill through her. “She fired a silver bullet in him.”
Panic fluttered in her chest, and she sucked in a breath. The woman had said something ominous about silver when she’d first confronted Terra. She jabbed her feet into her fuzzy wolf slippers, hoping Nash wouldn’t notice the stuffed claws and brown fur.
She turned to him. “What do we need to get the bullet out?”
“Some kind of sharp knife, I suppose. Or large tweezers. Maybe both. A bottle of whiskey wouldn’t be the worst idea, either.”
She nodded. “Right, I remember that from old western movies. The alcohol sterilizes the wound or something.”
With Nash framed by the moonlight spilling in from the window, she could barely make out a hint of his celebrity-caliber smile. “It ain’t for healin’. I figure the booze might make the pain more tolerable while we’re diggin’ the slug out.”
“Oh.” She shuffled toward her bedroom door. “Stay here.”
“Are you plannin’ on comin’ down the drainpipe with me?”
“I need supplies. If my parents see me, it’d be a lot easier to explain being out of bed than being out of bed with a man.”
“Better than explainin’ bein’
in
bed with a man, I’d reckon.”
She shot him a look. “Don’t touch anything while I’m gone.”
“I managed not to touch the only thing in here that I’m interested in.” His smile dialed up to a simmer. “Which is more than I can say for you.”
Fuck, so he knew exactly what naughtiness she’d been up to. Irritation grated at her stomach. Still, arguing was a waste of time. Connor needed her.
Getting the necessary items proved little problem, except for the liquor cabinet that was downstairs. They’d have to grab the booze on the way out, if she could manage it. If her dad was watching television late, Connor would have to live without tossing back the sauce. Worse, shimmying down the drainpipe would be her only recourse for getting out of the house.
She snuck back to her bedroom and stopped short. Nash had turned on one of her bedside lamps and was staring at a photo of her on the wall. In it, she wore a bright smile and a red cheerleader skirt rendered even shorter by virtue of the pom-poms she held aloft over her head.
In the improved lighting, she could see Nash was clad in full cowboy regalia, including pointed-toe brown boots, illegally tight Wranglers, and a white T-shirt that stretched like a layer of skin across his pectorals. The only thing missing was a lasso.
He turned from the glossy photo. “You were a cheerleader?” he asked.
“Are you crazy?” she hiss-whispered when she pushed the door until it was barely open a crack. “Why not turn on all the lights in the house while you’re at it? What if my mother had come along?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time I hid in a girl’s closet.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please.”
His gaze slid over her, and she was thankful it stopped before reaching her animal slippers until she saw his frown. “What is that?” he asked, nodding at her leg.
“What?”
He strode up to her and slid the bottom of her nightshirt upward, dragging it along her thigh. “This.”
The shirt was halfway to her lack of underwear and still climbing when she yanked back and tugged down the edge of her garment. “Stop that!” She shoved the small pile of goods she’d pilfered, which were wrapped in a towel the same green as his eyes, into his hands. “Here.”
“What is that mark on your leg?”
She lifted her chin. “It’s just a scar.”
Now his eyes drifted to her throat. “How did you get ’em?”
Her fingers went to the spot self-consciously. That did it. She’d be sleeping with a turtleneck or scarf from now on. “I was in a bad car accident a few years back. Now could we please stop worrying about old scars and focus on new bullet wounds?”
He opened his mouth, but then shut it with a curt nod.
“Follow me,” she went on, “and try to use a bit more stealth. That means no snapping on lights behind me, unless you want to see something even scarier than a full-moon werewolf.”
Nash squinted at her. “What’s that?”
“My mother finding a boy in my house.”
He snorted. “I ain’t no
boy
.”
“You’ll be a eunuch if she catches you. Come on.”
She grabbed a red scarf off a peg hook behind her door, sliding it around her neck as she opened the door enough to peer into the hallway. At the end near the top of the stairs, her parents’ bedroom door was shut. No light shone out from the crack in the bottom. At least one of them was inside and sleeping. Hopefully both.