A Howl for a Highlander (31 page)

Surely, Kenneth was staying around the place now that Sal had no one else to guard it. Not that Duncan believed the guy would offer much protection. Duncan tossed the body over the low wall and then catapulted over it. After lifting and carrying the dead man to the pool, he dumped the body in with a splash. Then he propelled himself back over the wall and stalked back across the sand toward the villa. He was already out of sight of Sal’s place when he heard the patio door squeak open.

Sal cursed out loud. “Damn you, Duncan!” Then he turned and shouted, “Kenneth! That son of a bitch did it again! Get the boat ready.”

Duncan smiled smugly, feeling some satisfaction from the whole vile matter. That would teach Sal to leave a dead body in Shelley’s villa.

He wanted to run as a wolf because he could reach the house much faster. But he hadn’t brought a lot of clothes with him on this trip. He couldn’t afford to ditch what he was wearing, especially since he might need to wear the swim trunks again. Having worn just his swimsuit to avoid getting blood on his clothes, he jogged into the ocean, washing off whatever blood he might have gotten on his skin, and then left the water to continue jogging down the beach.

The wind was blowing now, whipping around him with a slight undercurrent of cool mixing with the smell of rain. The clouds that had been building earlier now covered every inch of sky, blocking out the moon, the stars, and every speck of light in the universe. By the time the villa was in sight—with lights on only in the downstairs part of the house and the guest room upstairs dark—a light rain had begun to fall, trickling over his heated skin.

Before he reached the back patio of the villa, the rain was flowing in a mighty torrent. He was soaking wet.

When he was at the back door, he knocked a couple of times. The seconds passed like a lifetime as he worried that something untoward had happened to Shelley. Kenneth and Sal were at Sal’s estate so she couldn’t be in any danger from them. Unless Carlotta had managed to get another goon…

Duncan didn’t have any lock picks with him, but then he remembered Shelley had dead-bolted the door. Maybe she didn’t hear him because of the torrential downpour sliding off the roof onto the granite patio.

The bolt slid open, and she turned the knob and stood before him, one towel wrapped around her body and another around her hair in a turban.

She gave him a worried smile and looked damned sexy. He wanted nothing more than to sweep her up in his arms and take her back to bed. He had to shower first, though, and didn’t plan to touch her until he was truly clean.

Even so, Shelley kissed his lips lightly. She had to know by the way he stood so rigidly just inside the doorway, dripping water on the tile floor, that he couldn’t give in to the lust he always felt when he was around her. He didn’t want to take this any further just yet. She pulled the towel off her body and wrapped it around him, teasing him with the lush sight and fragrant scent of her, when she could just as well have removed the towel from her hair and not given him such an eyeful.

Siren
.

He cast her a wicked smile as he wrapped the towel around his waist. That garnered a mischievous smile from her, and then she relocked and bolted the door. “Wait for me in bed. I’ll join you momentarily,” he said, his voice already husky with need.

She sighed and slipped her arm around him as they headed for the bedroom. “I never went to the reserve today. So I need to do some more research tomorrow.”

Plants. He couldn’t believe that she was still thinking about plants after what had happened. On the other hand, maybe they gave her a sense of peace and tranquility, no matter what else was going on. He had to admit that when he ran through the Caledonian Forest back home, he loved being immersed in the wild and nature.

“If you won’t return with my brother to Scotland, we’ll all three go to the reserve.” That was the only way she was going back there, he decided, given the way things were going. He was certain they’d only get worse.

***

Shelley was half asleep when Duncan finally joined her in bed. He’d not only showered and smelled of her tangerine body wash, but he’d called his brother to apprize him of the latest news. She’d heard him talking in the kitchen, unable to make out what he was saying, and nearly drifted off to sleep. At first, his duty to his brother had bothered her, when she felt he really only needed to talk to her since she was here with him and they would face whatever they had to alone.

But when he returned, she realized how much more relaxed he was. Discussing their situation with his brother, who
was
the pack leader, helped to ease the tension Duncan was feeling. For that, she was grateful. He tugged the covers aside and slid in beside her, pulling the covers back over them as if they were just going to sleep.

There was something sexy about the way he did that, skimming his hand underneath the covers and softly over her belly without seeing what he intended to do next. As if he were sliding his fingers up a nightgown—if she’d worn one—caressing and maneuvering until his fingers touched the underside of a breast and cupped it. She gazed into his beautiful dark eyes and saw the love in them but the worry, too. She smiled wearily up at him, tilted her chin up, and said, “Kiss me, Highlander.”

He actually grinned at her, as if that was the last thing he’d expected her to say and it both amused and pleased him. She knew the latter was true as his hand moved over her breast, molding to it as his lips pressed against hers in a way that said he wanted to block out the whole world and just experience this.

Her hands swept over his back as he leaned closer, his mouth partly open, his tongue slipping over her dry lips and moistening them for another assault. She greedily surrendered, shifting her hands lower until she was cupping his buttocks and squeezing the firm muscles.

His breathing instantly grew ragged, his eyes smokier, his tongue and mouth more insistent. She felt him already on the edge, his cock rigid with arousal as he pressed against her thigh. He was a considerate lover. She knew he wanted them to meld together as one and wouldn’t think of putting his own needs before hers.

He continued to touch her where it counted, her skin sensitive to his caresses, preparing her for his ultimate conquest. His fingers teased her nipple as she ran her fingers lightly over his backside, her touch making him move his fingers lower over the curls between her thighs, parting her feminine lips and stroking her into a fevered pitch.

She moaned against his mouth, his tongue flicking at hers. His fingers stroked her clit faster as her fingers dug into his buttocks. She rocked with the motion, arched against his fingers, trying to quicken the feeling aroused in her.

The sensation felt like the strong rising tide, drawing on strength, building, and promising to carry her away on a sea of ecstasy. The rain pounded on the tile roof, but inside they were warm and dry, except for their exertion and how slick and wet he was making her in preparing her for his penetration. She cried out as she came, her words drowned out by the wind and rain and thunder booming overhead.

As if he couldn’t hold on a second longer or wanted to feel her arousal gripping him with spasms of delight, he centered himself between her legs and pressed forward with a deep thrust that sent her thoughts reeling.

Duncan needed to bury himself in Shelley’s sweet flesh, making her moan with sensuous surrender as he drove in deeply, feeling her inner muscles clamping around his cock in a steady rhythm as if gripping him in welcome. Just hearing her call out his name while the storm raged around them, he felt his own storm-filled thoughts subsiding, given over to her sweet, appealing nature, to the way she surrounded him in silky heat.

Nothing else mattered when he was with her like this, loving her as she loved him back. Spirited and tenacious, she was his match, his mate, and he cherished her.

He kissed her soft, pliable lips as she arched against him and deepened his thrusts. His tongue stroked hers as her hands swept up his back in a tantalizing caress. “Shelley,” he murmured against her mouth, feeling her tense as she clenched her muscles around his penis, tightening like a slick satin glove.

He pulled halfway out, wanting to prolong the heightened sensations, and then plunged in again, barely able to maintain control. She drew her fingernails down his buttocks like a sexy cat resting on her back, purring and lightly scratching in rapture, inciting him to finish this quickly.

She was all wolf—growly when she didn’t get her way, and loyal and protective like a
lupus
garou
. She was all his.

He felt the tumultuous end coming and let go. He filled her with his hot seed, bathed her deep inside, and kissed her again, saying sweet nothings to her in Gaelic that made her smile.

***

Falling asleep in Duncan’s arms as the storm raged outside was almost as wonderful as waking up in his arms in the wash of early afternoon sunlight. She would have felt guilty for sleeping so long, if she
had
been sleeping so long. Their repeated bouts of lovemaking wouldn’t count as sleeping—just being in bed.

His hand was caressing Shelley’s breast, his mouth nuzzling her ear, when a violent pounding on the front door nearly gave her a heart attack.

“Sal,” Duncan growled, guessing it was the bastard. “Maybe something else has happened—he found Kenneth dead or something—and he wants to offer me more for my services as a bodyguard.”

“Don’t agree to do it, Duncan.” Shelley began to pull the cover aside.

Duncan shook his head as he slipped his Bermuda shorts on. “Stay right where you are. We’ll finish what we had begun after I get rid of him.”

Bare chested, wearing only his shorts, he shut the bedroom door and stalked down the hall.

The banging started all over again. For an instant, Shelley thought it couldn’t be Sal. Wouldn’t he just have called? Also, she didn’t see him as the rough, violent type.

Except that he had killed the other man as a wolf.

Her heartbeat quickening, she was torn. Get dressed and monitor what was going on? Give Duncan aid if he needed it?

Or stay where she was and wait for Duncan to return to bed? She didn’t trust the situation. What if Carlotta had sent more hit men?

Shelley wasn’t one to wait things out if she had any other option. She yanked the covers aside.

A familiar booming voice at the front door made the hair on her skin stand at attention. “Where the hell is my niece, Shelley?”

Uncle Ethan.

Chapter 18

Duncan stared at the big, scowling Scot, who was standing like a riled-up grizzly in the villa’s doorway. The man’s gruff, angry voice was still tinged with a brogue, although living in America had taken away some of it. This had to be Shelley’s Uncle Ethan, his hair as auburn as hers and eyes just as green, only smaller and narrowed and angry. He was wearing buff-toned cowboy boots, a black Stetson, blue jeans, and a blue-checked Western shirt, like he was getting ready for the rodeo or to rope some cows on the ranch. Only he looked more like an enraged bull, come to think of it, and somebody needed to rein him in. That’s when Duncan remembered Shelley was from Texas.

Then he noted the engraved silver tips on the toes of Campbell’s boots and the belt with fancy silver trimmings. He thought of Shelley and the silver belt and sandals she’d worn at the airport.

“Where is she?” Ethan Campbell bit out.

Duncan moved aside to let the man enter, not backing down but not wanting to be antagonistic, either. The man was Shelley’s uncle, after all. Duncan didn’t want to create ill will with her close family.

“I’ll tell her you’re here. If you’d like to take a seat in the living room, I’ll be right back,” Duncan said with conviction.

“No,
I’ll
get her.”

Duncan knew that wasn’t the best idea. Campbell would smell his and Shelley’s sex fests in the bedroom. Before he could explain that he and Shelley were mated, he was sure her uncle would attempt to kill him.

“We’re mated,” he quickly said before Campbell could storm farther down the hall than the several steps he’d already managed.

Campbell swung around. “It will be the shortest mating in wolf history.” He stalked back toward Duncan. He knew this was going to be bad, no matter how it ended.

He didn’t want to strike the older man, not when he was Shelley’s uncle. Campbell took a swing with one large-fisted hand, and Duncan blocked the blow by throwing his arm up and knocking the man’s arm aside. His quick action didn’t deter her uncle. He rapidly swung his fist for another killer blow.

“Uncle!” Shelley screamed, rushing down the hall, a T-shirt and shorts covering her, but her hair was as tousled as if they’d made love half the night—which they had—and her feet were bare. “He’s my mate! If you kill him, I’ll never forgive you.”

She really didn’t believe her uncle could get the upper hand with Duncan, did she?

Her uncle glowered at her. “What have you done? Disgraced our name after all that went on in the old country? Aye, ’tis a shameful day when one of their kind takes one of ours like the users they’ve always been.”