Chapter Eight
Damon Caine.
Chloe listened as his name rolled around lazily in her head. The thought of murmuring it as she stared up at him from a subservient position made her grateful that he’d come knocking on her door under the cover of night as opposed to during the daylight when he could have plainly seen that her face was flushed with excitement.
She was more than just a little star struck at meeting this man. Or maybe star struck had nothing to do with it. Perhaps Chloe was on sexual overload sitting next to one of the only people in the world besides her great-grandmother who might understand why her fantasies almost always included a male animal either howling or humping or completely at the mercy of his more primitive urges.
“I suppose a woman in your field might take
some
interest in my work,” Caine stated. “But I’d never really considered that a scientifically trained zoologist would actually enjoy the twisted tales of Damon Caine.”
She let his name caress her mind again and turned to survey the passing darkness outside the window in order to hide the grin that forced her lips upward. She would never have thought that the man who had scared more people than smallpox lived right in her own backyard. But as the settings for his delicious stories of beastly sex and ghastly phenomenon took place in exactly the kinds of rural areas and secluded mountain ranges in which Chloe had grown up, it only made sense that the man would also be from just such a place.
“Do you have a favorite?” he asked.
Chloe took a deep breath as she considered her answer. She had never been able to determine which of his arousing tales of men born knowing and embracing and enjoying their animal instincts was her favorite.
“I’ve enjoyed all of them, honestly,” she offered. “I like the way you portray human nature. The reality of it,” she shrugged.
Caine only partially glanced at her. “Most people don’t see it that way,” he stated very quietly.
Chloe turned to somewhat face him. “Most people don’t care to admit what’s inside themselves,” she nodded. “They don’t like having the dark sides of their personalities revealed.”
“And you do?”
She shrugged. “It makes sense to me. I’m a scientist. And your books speak to that part of me.”
There was more, but that was all she could reveal to him without embarrassing herself. Chloe had found little that excited her in the way of literature or other erotic art. But through his eyes, she saw more stimulating erotica than she could handle at times. Not only did his work remind her of the stories she had heard as a girl, but it also mirrored the sexual world as she saw it through a scientist’s eyes.
Caine sat quietly considering as Chloe watched. Finally, he leaned back into the seat and spoke. “How would such obviously fictional characters make sense to that part of you, Chloe?”
Her heart gripped. His question was dangerous to her control and composure in the situation if she was to answer it honestly. In her world, animals mated as they saw fit without regards to political correctness or morality. Caine had created a very similar world in his books where the only thing that put any restrictions whatsoever on the mating habits of his wolf and human hybrid creatures was the societal hierarchy that their wolf line had handed down to them. And that was very arousing to her.
But she couldn’t tell him all of this.
“I like the system of hierarchy in your novels,” she offered politely.
It wasn’t a lie. She did love discovering Caine’s accuracy when he dealt with the societal systems of wolves in his books. But the hierarchy was also arousing to Chloe. The very thought of an alpha wolf being so domineering that he could prevent the rest of the males in the pack from breeding made Chloe’s pulse race. She supposed that was exactly why she felt so much confusing sexual tension around the alpha wolf that had visited her for the past two nights.
“Ah,” Caine nodded and grinned. “The typical alpha male attraction.”
Chloe laughed a little to relieve her nervousness and his very precise comment. “I suppose you could say that,” she nodded.
“So tell me, Dr. Evans,” Caine said playfully. “In your expert opinion, what is it about the alpha male that a woman finds so alluring?”
She felt her nipples harden at the very thought of answering his question truthfully. Her fingers gripped the door handle beside her.
“An alpha has an urge to survive,” she began her fib. “I believe it speaks to a woman on some primitive level we all have that searches for the best possible mate and father for our young.”
“So it has nothing to do with the more controlling characteristics of an alpha, then,” he stated his question. “You don’t think it has anything to do with a female’s desire to be dominated by a man?”
She did not want to answer this question. Chloe shook her head and looked away from Caine just as he spoke again.
“I didn’t think so,” he said firmly. Chloe heard the silence that followed as loudly as she had his last statement. “Despite what I write in my novels, I am aware of the fact that women don’t want to be dominated,” he stated. “They want to be romanced and tempted and seduced. And they always want to feel that they can say no and not have to worry about the man not accepting their refusal.”
His words almost caused her to smile.
As if any woman would want to say “no” to you, Mr. Caine.
If only I hadn’t just slept with your brother…
A pang of regret gripped her. How many times had she consumed something
this
man had written, all the while wondering if there was any way he could possibly be that brilliant and erotic and creative and still be even mildly physically attractive or have any kind of chemistry that spoke to Chloe?
Chloe chanced a look at the man who somehow made driving a truck look like foreplay.
Mildly attractive?
This guy was warm, grinding, growling sex tucked into a snug pair of faded Levi’s.
“It’s not much farther now.”
His voice had been quiet and much lower than it should have been considering that they had just met and were simply riding in a vehicle together. Its timbre had been that rumble of after-sex affection a man uses when he hasn’t quite gotten enough and is hoping to entice his mate out of just a little more. The sound of satisfaction still tinged with desire. It aroused Chloe just to think about a man who had already fulfilled his physical needs, yet wanted more of his woman just the same. That, to her, denoted a rare passion between two people.
She breathed deeply and tried to refocus her mind on anything other than the thought of how passionate this man would most likely be and how many times he would want to make love before he was satiated with the woman in his arms.
Chloe, for one, would love to try and appease that appetite.
“This looks like one of your books,” she stated without meaning to say the words out loud. She saw him simply nod from the corner of her eye.
“How long have you lived here?”
This time, as she deliberately spoke, she could tell that something in her own voice obviously caught him by surprise, but he stopped his expression just short of showing a major reaction. Chloe hadn’t meant to have the “fuck me” tone when she’d opened her mouth, but it had come out that way just the same.
Oh darn.
“I’ve lived here my whole life,” he replied as he draped his arm up on his door while he drove with one hand.
Chloe could see strength in the tendons and ligaments around his wrists. A sprinkling of beautiful black hair was visible at the cuff of the white long sleeve shirt he wore and it made Chloe long to find out just how coarse and masculine that hair would feel if she were to reach for his hand. And it made her wonder if the same dark hair lay perfectly splayed on his chest and legs and belly. He most likely would be furred just like his twin, she considered as the kinky Doublemint ads just kept running through Chloe’s mind.
“You know, that’s odd because I grew up not ten miles from here,” Chloe stated.
She watched as he maneuvered the steering wheel with one hand and fingered the window with the other, and she let her eyes wander around his body and wondered how similar Caine’s methods of lovemaking would be to his brother’s. Her eyes traveled his jaw line. The broad expanse of his shoulders. Back to those enormous hands.
Strong hands. Hard. Calloused, most likely. Chloe’s
skin
being
kneaded
and
caressed
by hands containing a strength very capable of restraining or hurting
her.
If she wanted
that sort of thing
.
And she would.
Those fingers grasping her nipples.
“I never knew anyone lived back here,” she murmured to him as her eyes caught him licking his lips.
Licking her lips. Her nipples.
Tasting the sweet and salty juice of her pussy.
“My family has lived here for over two hundred years,” he confirmed.
“So your parents lived here as well?”
“They still do.”
He nodded again and moved his free hand over to rest his fingers at his mouth.
They
would smell
of
her
.
And of himself. The honey of her sex mixed with his come.
He would want to taste the results of their union.
Just like his brother had.
Chloe watched Caine shift again in his seat and used the opportunity to do the same. They were affecting each other. It was obvious and electric around them. Heavy. The mutual attraction was as a being all on its own. Just as it had been when Luke had come to her earlier in the night. But she doubted that this attraction would go away even after Caine was gone. It was definitely real. As real and tangible as the vehicle in which they rode.
Chloe felt her tired sex moisten almost reluctantly at the recognition of the simultaneous occurrence of human nature. Of animal nature, as Caine would say in his books.
It would appear that they shared at least one passion.
“I would imagine that you’ve heard the stories that used to circulate around these parts.”
Her statement came with an edge of hope to it. And with a nerve that she had to search to find. Chloe rarely found anyone she could speak to about the tales that she loved. The sparkle that seemed determined to light her eyes told on her whenever she spoke of them. It told of her excitement and desire. Most people claimed they thought the stories were weird and even a bit profane, despite what their own eyes and bodies screamed to her as they listened. The human reaction to smother their own animal urges always seemed to win and so Chloe hardly brought it up to anyone anymore.
With this man, she felt like taking a chance.
But Caine shook his head.
“What stories would that be?”
Chloe couldn’t see his eyes very well, but his voice had sounded teasing. Possibly even flirting with her. Without her knowing him though, she couldn’t be sure. And she damned sure didn’t want to make any false moves and assume that he was more than just physically attracted to her. Or make a fool of herself by letting her traitorous voice and tone and breath tell on her when she spoke.
“Chloe?”
“Huh?”
He was grinning at her. He
was
flirting. She wondered if his brother had told him what they’d done. Chloe had to wonder if Caine already thought her some kind of easy lay because of what Luke might have told him. And she wondered if he was serious about not knowing the stories.
“What stories are you talking about?”
Chloe swallowed hard and thought about how to word such a tale to this man. The man who had taken over the very genre the tales lived in and made it his own.
Chloe was a zoologist. Not a writer.
The thought of telling tales to this man intimidated her because of who he was. And it intimidated her because of the power the stories had over her sexually. Sitting next to Caine, letting her mind arouse her body with her stories while feeling the intoxicating buzz this man seemed capable of giving her, Chloe found herself barely able to think straight enough to answer his question. But the scientist in her knew the basis for the make believe stories as well as she knew the habits of real wolves. Chloe reached for that part of herself to help guide her.
“See, late in the nineteenth century,” her remarkably calm voice began, “the red wolf was hunted to near extinction in the Appalachians.” She spoke slowly, taking the time to keep her cadence steady. Her lecture hall voice took over. “The males of the species reportedly bred with female coyotes in order to survive.”
“I heard they seduced and bred with women to keep their species alive.”
Chloe’s tongue was frozen. She had planned on working her way up to that part, but Caine had beaten her to the punch. The thought of her telling him the ways in which the men of her fantasies had allowed their more primal urges to overpower their human morality had already caused a surge of sexual anticipation to run through her body.
The promise of hearing the enticing stories straight from Caine’s lips was more erotic and arousing than anything Chloe had ever considered.
“Some of the stories even tell of how the hybrid creatures that resulted from such couplings would steal women. Take them, in the most literal and sexual meanings of the word.”