Animal Instincts (6 page)

Cale nodded. “You could smell it on them.”

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“If it is the men who were here earlier,” Brian broke in, “it’s a damn good thing you didn’t go with them. You might not be coming back.”

“I agree,” his brother Luke added. “I wonder how much that visit and the phone call were nothing more than a ploy to throw you off the track.”

“Of what?” Drew raised an eyebrow. “They have no idea I’m out looking for that preserve. If they took me seriously, they’d believe I wanted nothing to do with it.”

“And maybe that was the purpose,” Regan put in. “To sound you out so they knew they’d have free rein.”

Drew spread his hands. “You’re talking about some pretty powerful men. Three ranchers, the county commission chairman and the bank president. They’re a tight little group and very power-hungry, but I can’t see them doing something that illegal.”

“Come on, Drew,” Regan said. “Those are usually the first people to get their fingers dirty. Want me to cite a few of my cases for you?”

Ann Marie couldn’t sit quietly any more. She set her mug down on the table with more than a little force. “Excuse me. It seems to me we’re wasting a lot of time here with maybes.

Drew and I found something tonight, and we need more information about it.”

Again conversation stopped.

Brian looked at Drew. “Well? Spit it out, then.”

Drew told them about the piece of property with the strange
No Trespassing
signs and fences both electrified and topped with razor wire.

“And we heard animals screaming,” Ann Marie added.

“Whose property?” Brian wanted to know.

“That’s the thing,“ Drew said. “We went to the far side of Bo Sheridan’s place, but I didn’t recognise the piece of property. I’ve never ridden to that spot before so this is the first time I noticed it.”

“We need to identify the owner,” Brian said, the anger evident in his voice.

“That’s at the top of the list.” Drew looked at Drake. “You’re the computer hacker. If I tell you the web sites, can you get in?”

Drake grinned. “Does day turn into night?”

“Okay, wise ass. Here.” Drew pulled a pad of paper towards him and scribbled on it.

“The top one is the property appraiser’s site. Shows ownership and description of every ANIMAL INSTINCTS

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parcel in the county. You’ll have to figure out the exact location from this.” He drew a crude map at the bottom of the page.

“Any place else I can dig into?”Drake asked.

“Yeah.” Drew added something to the notes. “This is the county engineer’s data base.

They survey everything for utilities, present and future. One of those places should give us a starting point.”

“Let’s get started, then.” He looked at Regan and Sierra who were still standing, leaning against the counter. “If one of you ladies would be kind enough to hand me my laptop?”

As soon as he had it in front of him, Drake booted up the computer and his fingers began flying over the keyboard. As he worked the others reported on their forays.

“Nothing but the hunters on horseback,” Luke reiterated. “No sign of any kind of enclave with ranch boundaries, nothing to draw suspicion.”

“My guess,” Drew speculated, “is they were looking to see if there were any more wolves for them to trap or fire at. It just chaps my ass to think that people who actually do a lot of good for the community would stoop to this kind of garbage.”

“Like I said.” Regan moved over to the table and stood behind Brian’s chair. “Too often those are the very people who think they have the power to indulge themselves.”

“Okay.” Drake looked up from his keyboard. “I have something, but it’s still nothing.”

“What do you mean?” This from Sierra.

“I found the parcel in both data bases, but the owner is listed as unknown.”

“That’s not possible,” Brian said, getting up to stand behind him. “Every piece of land has to show ownership. Believe me, they aren’t going to lose one penny in real estate taxes.”

Drake pointed to the screen. “Look for yourself. Same thing on the other site.”

“Wait a minute.” Now Drew pushed away from the table and moved behind Drake.

“Brian’s right. I know damn well this county won’t let one square foot of ground go untaxed.

Here.” He pointed to a box on the page. “Click here.”

“I did. Look. It just says foreclosed property, owner unknown.”

“Damn it to hell, anyway.” Drew banged his fist against the wall. “It might not have his name on it but it’s plain as day.”

“What is?” Luke asked.

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“Who has control of over foreclosures? Who could make sure the taxes are paid and keep everyone’s nose out of it?”

“The president of the bank,” Regan answered. “Easy as pie.”

Drew smacked the wall again. “Damn his evil hide to hell. And the others have to be in it with him. Sheridan probably hires people to patrol that property.”

“And I’ll bet they get a fancy price from the people who come to hunt there,” Luke put in.

“You bet your ass. It’s not out of the ordinary for any of the ranchers to have out of town guests. Nobody really pays attention to who they are.”

Ann Marie was gripping her hands together so tightly she was afraid she’d break her fingers. She cleared her throat and faces turned in her direction. “Do you…that is…I mean, is it possible my brother is still alive?”

Drew went to her immediately. “Darlin’, we’re going to pray real hard that he is. And figure out how to get him out of there.”

“Well.” Brian leant back in his chair. “We need a plan, and we need it quickly.”

“I think I ought to call the game warden in the morning,” Drew told them. “Get him over here.”

“And how will you explain a pack of wolves going out at night from here?”

Drew shook his head. “I won’t. But he can bring in outside help, including helicopters.

We can do our thing and stay out of his way.”

“All right,” Brian agreed. “Then let’s get our act together.”

They were alone in his room again. Everyone else was bedded down for the night.

Some had even shifted into wolf shape, taking the largest of the guest rooms, insisting they’d be better off that way.

“Come here.” Drew held out his hand to Ann Marie. It shocked him to see that it was trembling. But others in the group and in his former pack had told him that when his true mate appeared he would not be able to control his feelings. And how fucking weird was that for a man to whom control was the essence of his life?

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Wetting her bottom lip with her tongue, she walked towards him but stopped just out of his reach. Eyes sparkling with mischief, she slowly drew her shirt over her head, tossing it gracefully to the side. Her hands moved to the snap of her jeans and heard the distinct pop!

as she opened it and the slow rasp of the zipper sliding down. His own zipper was in danger of bursting from the pressure behind it.

“Darlin’, you’re killing me here.”

“A little temptation is good for the soul,” she teased as she shimmied out of the jeans with a fluid wiggle of her hips. She kicked the jeans away to land in a heap with her discarded shirt.

When she cupped her hands beneath her breasts, holding them out to him as an offering, he swore under his breath and began stripping off his own clothes, almost ripping them in his desperation. He barely remembered to grab a condom from his nightstand.

As hard as he was, rolling it on was a painful exercise in self discipline.

“Jesus, Ann Marie. A man only has so much control Remember what I said earlier today?”

He picked her up and stood her against the wall. Reaching between her thighs with one hand he nudged them apart and ran his fingers through the slick wetness of her cunt. When he licked her essence from his fingertips, he nearly lost it. Placing his large hands beneath the cheeks of her ass, he lifted her so the tip of his cock was centred at the entrance to her pussy.

He leant forward and opened his mouth over hers, rubbing her juice on her lips.

As she gasped, he drove into her with one hard stroke, closing his eyes at the erotic feel of her wet flesh gripping him so tightly. The thought flashed through his mind, or what passed for his mind at the moment, that he couldn’t wait for the moment when they could mate as wolves, with no latex barrier between them.

He kept his mouth fastened to hers, his tongue plundering the warm cavern inside with strokes in time to those of his penis as he rocked her back against the wall. He felt her hard nipples pressing into his chest and her nails digging into his skin as she clutched his shoulders.

Not a chance for slow and sweet this time.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he commanded in a hoarse voice, tearing his lips from hers.

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As she did so, he gripped her ass more tightly and set up a hard, driving rhythm, in and out, in and out. Again and again.

“Now,” he shouted, “Come now.”

As if the words had released a trigger inside her, Ann Marie immediately began convulsing with her orgasm, the walls of her vagina squeezing him so tightly he could barely breathe. With a loud cry, his own release rolled over him and he jetted into her, damning the need for protection. He didn’t think he’d ever stop spurting, just as he wondered if the walls of Ann Marie’s sweet cunt would ever stop spasming around him.

At last, wrung out, he leaned his forehead against hers and waited for his heartbeat to approach something close to normal. Ann Marie was like soft putty in his hands, limp and spent. Rather than lower her legs to the floor, he dredged up enough energy to make his way to the bed, his rod still impaling her, and lowered both of them to the mattress.

She opened her eyes to look at him. “Were you trying to tell me something?”

“Yeah. That I get so hard just looking at you it’s a wonder this doesn’t happen every hour on the hour.”

Her smile was tremulous. “That would probably be some kind of record.”

Drew slid out of her warmth, took a minute to dispose of the condom, then stretched out beside her. “This time we take it slower. A lot slower.”

“My god, Drew, I don’t know if I’m ready for you again.”

“You will be by the time I’m finished here.”

He nipped her ear lobe, then trailed his tongue down the slender column of her neck and felt her shiver at his touch. One hand drifted lightly across the muscles of her belly and reached up to cup a breast. Fingers rasped lightly over a nipple before tugging on it and pinching it, even as his mouth continued its slow assault.

Ann Marie moaned soft and low in her throat, pushing herself into his touch, bending her head to the side to give him better access for his marauding lips. He nipped lightly at her collarbone, then moved to the hollow of her throat, brushing each nip with the tip of his tongue. Her nipple stiffened under his touch and he pinched it harder. When she arched up to him, he moved his hand between her thighs and ran the edge of one finger the length of her slit.

Drenched!

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He swallowed a smile.

Moving his mouth to the nipple he’d been teasing and sucking on it, he let his hands play with the folds of her pussy, stroking and brushing against the warm flesh. He let the tip of one finger probe at her entrance, drawing tiny circles that elicited more moans and shivers from her.

“Like that, do you?” he crooned. “I’m just getting started.”

The same fingertip stole to her clit and set up a soft back and forth motion. Her body tensed beside his, muscles tightening at the onslaught of sensual stimulation. Her breathing hitched, and Drew raked his fingernail across the swollen nub. Kissing the sensitive flesh just above her mound, he shifted position to kneel between her legs. Widening her thighs with his palms, he bent his head and placed a hot, open kiss on her liquefying cunt.

Ann Marie bowed up, and the moan escaped her throat. She wrapped her legs around his neck, drawing him closer to her as his tongue licked and probed at her folds and her juicy canal. Drew was sure he’d died and gone to heaven.

She couldn’t stand it. It was too much. She had to make him stop. No, she had to make sure he
didn’t
stop. Oh, god, he was driving her crazy. Tormenting her. Teasing her. As his wicked tongue lapped at her and cleverly fucked her, she wondered if she’d died and gone to heaven. Her hands fisted the sheet as he moved his mouth, and his teeth nipped her sensitive clit. When he bit down oh so lightly, probing the entrance to her pussy at the same moment, electricity shot through her, jolting every pulse in her body into overtime.

Every place he touched with his hands and his mouth felt singed, as if her skin had burned away leaving raw nerve endings that craved more and more of him. Despite the intense orgasm that had consumed her so quickly, the need was rising within her even more strongly. This man reached her in places no one ever had before. Elicited responses from her that rose from deep within her body. Even her soul.

Mate!

How had this happened?

She wanted to search her mind for answers, but at that moment her mind had vaporised as Drew’s mouth and hands turned her into a shivering mass of hunger. His lips were back at her pussy, kissing his way up and down her swollen flesh. As his tongue thrust ANIMAL INSTINCTS

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inside her and moved in and out of her wet channel in a steady motion, the pulse in her womb increased its steady thrum.

When his tongue curled and rasped that oh so sensitive spot deep inside her cunt, the orgasm she’d been fighting broke over her in jolting waves. As the spasms gripped her, Drew pressed the tip of one finger against the tight ring of her anus and pushed inside. Her body arched higher, taut and strained. She tightened her legs around his neck and locked him to her as her body convulsed over and over again.