Wolf Tracker (22 page)

And that was when he realized her scent had changed. The spice of her desire was only a distant, muted memory in the air, smothered by something more sour. Tracker stopped his push into her to look down at her face. Her eyes were clenched as tightly shut as her jaw. He tested the air delicately. Fear. The scent hit him like a wave of ice water. Her breathing was harsh, just as it had been a minute ago, but she wasn’t jerking in air unevenly because of an orgasm. She was terrified.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tami chanted to herself,
Relax, relax, relax, it’s Tracker. He would never hurt you.
And when that didn’t work she told herself,
It will be over soon
. But his weight trapped her against the mattress and panic welled. She was frozen. Helpless. It was her worst nightmare. Still, she tried to recapture her earlier enjoyment of his lovemaking. Dixie and Jodi’s message was to stay in the present. She tried. This was Tracker, the man who had always treated her with respect and had just given her the first orgasm she’d experienced in over a year. She had loved what he’d done to her with his hand. Why couldn’t she get back in the mood? Keeping her hands from clenching into fists and her screams locked inside was the best she could do.

Tracker must have realized it. Abruptly, his weight was gone and she could breathe again. He rolled to his back beside her and threw his arm over his eyes. In the dim lamplight Tami could make out his elegantly chiseled jaw clamped tight.

“I’m sorry,” she said miserably.

“That’s okay.”

The gruffness in his voice made Tami feel worse than ever. “Really, Tracker, I’m sorry. Let’s try it again.”

He lifted his arm slightly so he could peer sideways at her. He sniffed delicately, then moved his arm back. “Nah. You’re still scared.”

“Yes, I am. But just do it, okay? My head knows you don’t want to hurt me. We just have to convince the rest of me. The first time might be rough, but after that it will be better. So just ignore me and do it.”

His arms moved to cross over his chest as he stared at her. “I can’t,” he said simply, looking back up at the blackness of the shadowed ceiling where the low lamplight didn’t reach. “I can’t hurt you like that.”

Tami lunged up to sit up beside him. “But you have to! It’s like when you get bucked off a horse. You have to get back on and try it again…” She trailed off, an idea coming to her. A horse. She was stark naked, leaning over him and seeing the way his eyes focused on her tight nipples, and the trapped feeling was still absent. A laugh rippled out of her. “Save a horse, ride a cowboy.”

“What?” said Tracker blankly. Then, when she lifted the covers away from him to straddle his waist, he added, “Hey! What are you doin’?”

“Riding a cowboy. Or a Tracker.”

He gripped her on either side of her waist and shuddered when she took his penis in her hand to caress it. He had softened a little bit at her body’s rejection, but her playful fingers made him even harder than he had been before. “What?” he gasped.

“This position, with me on top, doesn’t bother me, Tracker. We can make love like this.”

There was doubt on his face, but she ignored it. His hair spilled over the pillow and onto the mattress in a silver stream. It was silky when she reached to pet it. He was beautiful. His chest and abs were sleekly muscled. She remembered looking at him during their ride to the den and thinking he was built like a swimmer or a long-distance runner. She’d been right. Unlike most of the wolves here, his muscles were lean and streamlined, not bulging. She liked his physique and showed him she liked it by pressing kisses over his shoulders and throat while she petted the sparse soft hair on his chest. He still smelled of the herb sage, a scent she’d always loved. She had never considered it erotic before.

He made a sound when she brought the tip of his penis to her opening and moved him through the moisture gathered there to coat him so he’d slide in smooth and easy. She found her fear was gone. In fact, she laughed again at his half hopeful, half hesitant expression. They both gasped and then sighed when she lowered herself on him. Her passage parted for him when she forced herself down on his erection. His penis was long, but it hadn’t looked as thick as it felt. When she had sheathed him completely, she sat up straight and tilted her head back with a moan.

“Oh, Tracker, that feels so good.”

“Yeah.” He swallowed, Adam’s apple moving. “You okay?”

“Yes.” She leaned down toward him and took his hands, clenched in the blanket, and pulled them to her, one to her breast and the other to the hair where he was buried. “Touch me. Feel where we join. Isn’t that great?”

“Great,” he echoed. His finger on her clit made her shiver with remembered pleasure. “You okay?” he asked again.

In answer she moved up and down the long length of him at a leisurely pace he matched for a minute before taking over the rhythm, surging roughly, desperately, up into her. To keep her balance, she had to lean her hands on his shoulders, but she laughed with the joy of making love with a man who so obviously wanted her and so obviously was afraid of hurting her. Tracker, for all his frantic lunges into her body, kept his hands gentle on her breasts. It had been years since she and Brad had been so hot for each other.

Simultaneous orgasms were almost a myth, but this one was close. Tami’s climax hit her like a volcano erupting, and only two or three thrusts later she felt Tracker shudder under her. Hot liquid warmth flooded inside her, and Tracker gave a strangled shout through clenched his teeth. She collapsed on him, leaning her forehead on his shoulder where it joined his neck. In spite of the cool air in the room, there was perspiration gathered there. She touched her tongue to it. He shuddered again.

When his penis, limp now, slid out of her, she got off him and lay on her side beside him, stroking one hand over his heart. She could feel it thundering, just like her breath. He pulled the covers up over them.

“Tami?” He lifted the hand she was petting him with to press a kiss to the inside of her wrist. “You okay?”

He asked her that a lot. She smiled over it, knowing he really wanted to know because he cared. “Yes, I’m fine. You?”

“Fine,” he echoed. “I didn’t know we could do it that way, with you on top.”

Tami blinked. He didn’t know that? Well, the Grandmother had said the men here didn’t get much chance to fool around and there wasn’t any porn to watch. She and Brad had experimented enthusiastically in the early years of their marriage. She was a connoisseur of sexual positions. “There are a hundred different positions to make love in. We could do it standing up, or I could sit on your lap facing you or away from you, or you could lay behind me, or I could be sitting on the edge of a table while you were standing with my legs around your waist, or you could bend me forward, facedown, and come in me from behind, or we could try it on horseback.” She stopped, not because she had run out of positions, but because he was laughing very softly. Had she ever heard him laugh? “What?”

“I reckon we’ll try all of ’em. Eventually. I’m just glad you’re all right.”

The fervent sincerity in his voice brought a hint of tears to her eyes. She smiled and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “Me, too.”

They lay quietly for long minutes, each lightly petting the other. Tracker’s fingers were careful as they learned the shape of her breasts, the slight indentation of her waist and subtle flare of her hip. While she had stayed in Kearney she had learned men in 2064 preferred plump women with wide hips and big breasts. Tami was built along narrow lines, with scant curves. She was a B cup, and her hips were boyishly slim and her butt was flat. She often bought men’s Levis. Did Tracker mind? Since he was growing hard again under her fingers, Tami thought not.

“Tracker? I want to try something. Will you lie on top of me? I want to see how I feel about it now.”

He hesitated a second, then rolled on top of her and let his weight press her into the mattress. “Okay?”

The trapped feeling was there, muted, but still enough to make her heart thunder. “It’s better now, but I don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet.”

He obligingly removed his weight from her and tucked her against him, her back to his chest, pushing his hair behind his shoulder impatiently. “Good. I reckon we should try the me-lying-behind-you position next. Too cold for the standing one, but that one sounds mighty fun, too. So how exactly do we do this?”

She laughed out loud at his eagerness. It was good to be able to laugh again. As she showed him how to position her legs to open her for his entry, and how to tease her clit with his hand, she realized he had given her more than just orgasms. He had given her back the joy of lovemaking. When they had finished, and lay in boneless puddles against each other she whispered, “Thank you.”

The lamp had gone out long ago, so she couldn’t see his expression, but she was sure he was giving her that tiny almost-smile. “I don’t know what you’re thankin’ me for. It oughta be me thankin’ you.”

No, she thought as she curled against him, he was wrong. She had given him sex, but he had given her not only laughter and joy, but gentleness, trust, and respect. When she had escaped from Greasy Butte, she never would have expected to have this sort of relationship with a man. They were married. Maybe they didn’t love each other, but they liked and respected each other. That was more than some couples had. And the sex was fantastic.

She snorted a laugh, and when Tracker hummed a sleepy inquiry, she said, “At least we were quiet. Jelly can’t complain about us keeping him awake tonight.”

Tracker roused a bit. “Taye says the louder a woman is during sex, the more pleased she is. Didn’t I please you?”

She stroked a hand through his hair that had fallen over her shoulder. “You pleased me a lot. Some of us just aren’t screamers.”

Tracker yawned. “Good. Now go to sleep. We both need to rest up for tomorrow night. We got lots more experimenting to do.”

Smiling, secure under Tracker’s protective arm, she fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tami was woken by fingertips tapping on her shoulder. She lunged up on one elbow, immediately aware of her nudity and ready to defend herself, but it was Tracker, already dressed in his usual leather clothes, damp hair braided neatly. She blew out a sigh of relief. A smile tickled her lips.

“It’s almost your turn to shower,” he murmured. “You have two or three minutes of hot water to yourself. One of the Pack will knock when it’s time.”

“Where are you going?” she asked when he moved away from the bed.

“Breakfast. Meet you there.”

“But aren’t you going to kiss me good morning?”

The smile he reserved for her peeked out. “Reckon not. I might not stop, and then you’d miss your shower.”

Oh. She watched him leave. Too bad the shower would be so short. They could have had some fun in there. But as she lifted the blankets she didn’t have to be a wolf to smell the scent of their lovemaking. She certainly did need a shower.

The dining room was full when Tami got there, and she saw a lot of bare brown skin. Now that the weddings were over, the wolves had reverted back to their usual scanty dress. She scanned the room for a certain white blond head and found Connie Mondale first. The pilot was sitting very close to Des at the head table with Carla and Taye, and Rose and the Grandmother, eating a hearty breakfast with every appearance of smug good cheer. The Beta wolf had a dazed expression on his face and he blinked at Connie every now and then. That wedding night must have gone well. Tami smothered a grin and looked further until she found Tracker at a table with Sherry and Stag. Tracker jerked his chin at the counter where Jelly stood ready to serve eggs, ham, and fried potatoes. Tami went to get breakfast, feeling her stomach growl.

“Good morning, Jelly,” she said, holding out her plate for eggs.

Jelly shoveled eggs on to the plate with an expression as morose as yesterday’s. His eyes looked a little puffy and red. She wondered if he’d gotten much sleep last night, but decided to keep her mouth shut about it.

“Morning,” the teen said. He looked at her carefully. “You were pretty quiet last night. Didn’t you like it?”

Tami froze, staring at him. Kids really did say the darnedest things. “You know, Jelly, it isn’t polite to ask about that. It’s private.”

Jelly looked straight back at her, somehow seeming quite grown up. “We’re family. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

When she just stared at him, he went on anxiously. “We’re all worried for you because of what happened to you in Greasy Butte.”

Oh, God, of course they all knew what had happened to her.

“But you’re okay now, right? I mean, last night was nice. Wasn’t it?”

Tami was sure she was as red as a tomato, but Jelly seemed honestly concerned. “Yes, last night was very nice,” she managed to choke out.

Jelly gave her a happy smile and finished filling her plate for her. Tami took her breakfast to the table where Tracker was sitting. All the wolves she passed gave her friendly nods and said good morning. As she sat next to Tracker he ran a quick hand down her arm.

“You okay?”

“Fine.” It warmed her, hearing those two gruff words. If anyone else had said them it wouldn’t mean much. Tracker used them a lot, at least to her, and what he was really saying was, “I care about you. You are important to me.” Those two simple words made her feel absurdly happy.

The cold sun came in through the window, lighting Tracker’s blue eyes to sapphires. He dipped his head to avoid the sun and put his lips against her ear. “Last night was ‘nice’?”

Tami darted a look at the others at their table. They didn’t seem to be paying any attention. “I said it was
very
nice.”

Tracker brushed a kiss over her cheek and straightened. “That’s different.”

Tami was well aware most of the people in the hall could hear her softest whisper, so she just smiled and nodded. Father John came into the dining room and beamed benignly on them all. He raised his hand in blessing. Carla got up to welcome him, and sat down abruptly when Taye gave her wrist a sharp tug. The Lupa glared at the Alpha for a minute, then sighed loudly enough that Tami could hear it. Sherry got up and maneuvered her cane so she could leave their table to go to Father John. Tami heard a grinding noise and looked at Stag with surprise. His jaw was clenched tight like his fists, and his gaze glared a hole into the priest. When Sherry took the priest’s hand a low growl came from Stag.