In the Werewolf's Den (11 page)

"If you want me to stop, tell me now,” he warned.

His tone should have frightened her beyond thought, but she was way beyond thought already. Way beyond fear. Instead, the knowledge that she excited him this much, that she drove him past his ironclad control, made her feel powerful, desirable.

"I've waited too long already,” she answered. Her hands fumbled at his belt.

He groaned with need, then grasped both sides of her silk blouse and pulled.

Silk may be thin, but it's incredibly strong. Against the power of Carl's grasp, her blouse disintegrated as if it were made of rotten cotton.

She brought up her hands to cover her breasts, but he caught both her arms in one of hand, holding her immobilized while he lowered his lips to the exposed tip of one breast.

The touch of his hands had been fire. The hardness of his teeth as they grasped her nipple, the warm touch of his tongue against its very tip, raised her heat to levels of pleasure that she had never imagined.

She took advantage of his distraction to free her hands from his grasp and reach, again, for that hard bulge.

Carl laughed, pulled away, then peeled her from her pants as if they weren't even there, left her standing naked and exposed in front of him.

His eyes gleamed with passion as he admired her, his hands everywhere, stroking, touching. His lips following with gentle kisses and firm nibbles.

"You too,” she urged. “I want you naked."

"Soon."

He picked her up and put her on the bed, then slid beside her.

One of his hands brushed against her sensual folds and she responded with a liquid surge.

"Don't torture me,” she urged. “Hurry."

"You've been torturing me for weeks,” Carl answered. “It's turn-around time."

She hadn't been a deliberate tease, even when she'd worn skimpy workout attire in Carl's presence. But she had noticed the way he looked at her. Had savored the knowledge that he desired her.

Slowly, deliciously, he slid a finger into her, then brushed his thumb against her sensitive nub.

She moaned, again pressing herself against him. She didn't need artful lovemaking. She needed to be taken, to be ridden hard, to find release. But Carl's touch sapped her protest, tore her between the urge to sink back and savor the pleasure and the need to feel Carl inside of her, driving toward their fulfillment.

His belt buckle finally gave way against her probing hands and she seized the evidence of his hunger.

"Two can play at this game,” she breathed as she squeezed down hard on his erection.

Carl gasped. “Easy, honey."

She hadn't been able to admit it before, but she realized she liked his pet names.

"Oh, no,” she answered. “I don't want easy. I want you hard and inside of me. Now."

Carl looked rebellious. She was disturbing his fantasies. Well, tough. Danielle was a big girl. She knew what she wanted and wasn't about to accept the next-best thing.

"I mean it,” she added. She released his erection and wrapped her arms around him, planning to roll him over so she could straddle him and take him into her.

Carl had other plans. He grasped her legs, urging them up until they opened her like a flower waiting for a bee.

And like a bee, he plunged toward the nectar.

Danielle was a wildcat beneath him, bucking as he brought toward her as if trying to swallow all of him into herself.

He'd almost lost control when she'd grasped him. But his continual battle for control of the wolf gave him more endurance than he had ever had.

She groaned as the tip of his penis brushed against her lips, then moaned as he entered her.

She was tight.

Even with her legs pressed up near her chest, even with her moisture flowing rich and lubricating, he had to bear down to enter into her.

But she pressed back, welcoming that entry.

"Oh, yeah. Give it all to me,” she whispered.

He slid his length into her. Slowly, enjoying and savoring the sensation of velvet-cloaked muscle clamping down on him, holding him into her.

He'd fantasized about this moment from when he'd first seen Danielle, all formal and stiff in her warder uniform but still looking like an angel of pure sexuality. Even his fantasies hadn't prepared him for her responsiveness, the need in her that matched his own.

He balanced his weight on his hands and knees to avoid crushing her beneath him, but Danielle reached her arms around him, pressing him to her.

"I want it all,” she groaned as he thrust deeply into her. “Don't hold back."

He'd intended to do just that. To make their first time special, lingering, emotional. But Danielle's need ignited a matching fire within him.

He forgot the tricks that a dozen girlfriends had taught him and thought only about Danielle, about her body beneath and around him, about the way she clenched him, and about the way she lit his day simply by being there.

Danielle pressed up against him, pushing him to a faster and faster pace, her breath short, a pulse in her neck vibrating at a rate that would have been dangerous on anyone less fit than she.

They both strained at control, found a rhythm that kept them close as they pressed their bodies together. Carl's breathing was harsh in his own ears, the scent of sex and clean sweat filled his nostrils.

Danielle's face flushed beneath his. She smiled, then reached up and sank her teeth into the side of his neck and raked her fingernails into his back.

There was no pain, only an impossible increase in intensity.

Then it was too much. He clamped down on his control, desperate not to complete before Danielle reached her own climax, but knowing it was hopeless.

Just when he lost control, as his throat readied for a cry of satisfaction, Danielle's moan and the sudden tightening of her inner muscles told him that she too had achieved completion.

A few hard surges pushed him over the edge. He spilled himself into her, then gently kissed her on the lips.

"That was incredible,” she told him.

He wanted to linger in her, to share the afterglow of a moment that he would remember for the rest of his life. Until he felt it.

The change.

Danielle closed her eyes and savored the feeling of a man, swollen inside of her.

She wasn't the most experienced woman in the world, but she had been around enough to know that she'd just enjoyed something extraordinary, something that would change her life. Exactly how it would change things, and whether how she'd deal with the differences, was an open question.

She closed her eyes to better focus on sensation: Carl's male scent mixed with the scents of sex; the rough texture of his stubble, now hours from its latest shave against her face; and the weight of his body on her own.

Abruptly, he pulled away.

She groaned in protest, reached to stop his retreat.

Her hand caught at a tuft of Carl's hair and she used that to tug him gently back to her embrace.

Except, Carl didn't have hairy shoulders.

She opened her eyes hoping that her fears were unjustified.

A huge wolf crouched on the bed next to her, tugging to free itself of her grip.

"Carl?” As if she needed to ask the question.

His howl was a mournful cry into the deepening night.

From outside, more howls answered. The moon was full and the beasts of the night were at their work.

Her leash was somewhere on the floor, mixed with her clothes and Carl's. She was naked, alone with a wolf.

She hadn't been so frightened since the moment she'd walked in on her mother and stepfather. Then, she'd screamed. Now, she kicked wildly at him and scrambled for a weapon.

The kick connected, but did no damage. His wolf grin seemed to mock her.

Her hands connected with something—Carl's belt—and she wrapped it around her fists and punched at him.

He backed off.

"Out,” she demanded, irrationally. As if a wolf could understand English.

The
Were
slunk out, his tail between his legs.

Danielle waited until he'd left, then locked and barred the door behind him and buried her head in her pillow.

She had no one but herself to blame for what had happened. She knew better than to sleep with an impaired. Still, she felt empty, deserted. Despite what she'd seen, despite her memories of her mother and stepfather, a part of her wanted to call Carl back. Another part of her wanted to jump in the shower and scrub until every trace of Carl had been washed away.

Carl's scent remained behind him, in the pillow she held to her face, on her body, in the sheets.

She got up, threw the sheets, pillowcase, comforter, and even the pillows into the washing machine, then went to stand in the shower. As if soap and water could wash away her mistake.

"The Tigers are planning a breakout,” Arenesol told Carl.

Danielle had thrown herself back into her work after making her mistake with Carl. She was in her office, writing a report to Joe, when she heard the elf's voice over the microphone she'd planted in Carl's office. Arenesol hadn't been on Carl's appointment list and she'd tagged him as a dangerous element.

"A breakout is insane.” Carl's voice was low and reasoned. And sexy. Despite everything, Danielle still responded to it.

"We need it."

"The minefields would tear you to shreds. And the warders would slaughter anyone left. Besides, where would you go?"

Where indeed. The morning after she'd fallen to Carl's attraction, Danielle had gone back to the river. The bodies of two little brownies had washed up on the shore.

"Elves can move swiftly and silently in the dark,” Arenesol reminded Carl. “Some have escaped before. They've shown us the way."

"A few, maybe. But a whole gang? With children?"

"They are killing us here in the zone, Carl. We'll head south, toward one of the abandoned cities. Maybe Houston, or San Antonio. But we need you to help—to arrange a diversion."

Danielle held her breath. It wasn't too late for Carl to save himself. All he had to do was tell Arenesol that he was too busy, that he couldn't betray his mission.

"Once we find the cure, everything can go back to normal, Arenesol. Can't you just wait a few more months?"

"For us, life outside is a distant memory. But it's a memory of a golden age. We want it back. And we aren't going to wait for some miracle cure. Besides, not everyone thinks of it as a cure. We're elves now. Not many would be willing to sacrifice who we've become and go back to being merely normal."

"What?” Carl's voice sounded as shocked as Danielle felt.

"Maybe it would be different if I was a zombie or a brownie. But I'm an elf. I can see in the dark. I'm graceful. I used to be a klutz but now I can walk across wet concrete without leaving a mark and carry bottles of nitroglycerin without worrying about exploding myself.

"I've learned five languages since I got my talent. Before, I failed high school English. So, why would I go back? Should I throw away the best thing that ever happened to me just because of the prejudices of a bunch of freaking normals?"

"But it's a disease."

"It's no disease, it's who we are. Think about it,
Were
. Would you give it up? You'd have to surrender your added senses, your ability to recover from injury, your near-immunity to disease. It would be like ripping out an eye, wouldn't it?"

"I'd give it up in a minute."

Arenesol paused. “Well, not everyone feels that way. Besides, you haven't finished your cure and there's no certainty that you ever will. We want to create an elf community, for ourselves. There's a lot of open territory in south Texas where it's gotten so hot and so disease-ridden that all the normals have moved out. It wouldn't hurt anyone."

"I think you're making a terrible mistake."

"Maybe. But it's our mistake to make. All we're asking you for is a distraction."

Carl paused and Danielle crossed her fingers. It was his last chance to back out, his last chance to save his life. “What sort of distraction do you have in mind?"

Danielle put her head in her hands. Watching Carl turn into a
Were
had seemed like the ultimate blow. But this betrayal was worse because it was conscious. There was no way she could justify his decision. She'd have to report this. And she'd have to terminate him.

"Well, we figure another riot would be perfect,” Arenesol said. “They plan their riots, you know. But sometimes they happen off schedule. And when they do, the warders go crazy. They'd have to pull warders off the border watch.

"In the confusion, the Tigers, a couple of hundred elves strong, break out. We've already mapped the minefields and we've got their electronic surveillance systems hacked. And if a bunch of elves can't sneak past a squad of distracted normals, they don't deserve to be called elves anyway."

"A riot won't be enough. It'd still be suicide."

"It may be suicide, boss, but it's our choice. The Tigers put it to a vote. Every single one of us voted to make the break."

"Give me a month and I'll give you a distraction you won't be able to believe."

Danielle removed her headphone and stared at it. Carl had completely thrown in his lot with the impaired.

She had thought his plans to reconcile normals and the impaired to be honest and even noble. Understood in that light, making love with her could be almost acceptable. After all, if he really did find a cure, they'd all be normal again. But she'd been wrong. In fact, she'd fallen for the oldest trick on earth. Carl was one of
them
. He'd co-opted her, used his physical charm to suck her in like an anxious puppy, and betrayed her and everyone who counted on her.

And for what? Even a
Were
should know it would be kinder to turn the Tigers in, let the warders arrest their leaders and let the remainder survive in the zone where they could be protected and where normals could be protected from them.

She wouldn't have believed Carl was capable of betraying humanity if she hadn't heard the words herself.

She switched on the encryption mode on her cell phone and called Joe.