Brandi (24 page)

Brandi shoved hard and broke his hold at last. His erection still jutted, but she decided to ignore it. If Gareth wasn’t embarrassed by it, then damn it, she wasn’t going to be either.

“I better not be pregnant… not if you want to keep that thing pointing north.”

Gareth laughed. “It’s not pointing north. It’s pointing to you, Agent Jenkins.”

Brandi rolled her eyes. “I got bears that need to be human, an unconscious mad scientist, and a testosterone poisoned guard. Tell your equipment to stand down and point later. I have no time to deal with you… or it.”

“But you will make time soon, right?” Gareth demanded.

Brandi felt a clutching in her midsection. Her fangs sharpened and grew longer. She clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Yes… uck… ou,” she mumbled behind her hand. She glared as Gareth grinned, shifted to his wolf, and then shifted back fully clothed.

She turned to a still naked Jon and waved her hand. “…ee?” she demanded, fingers clamped over her fangs.

Jon snorted, but nodded.

Then she made the mistake of looking over at the wall by the door. Fallon hadn’t exactly been elegant when it came to piling the guy’s guts on his mangled form. Dizziness and nausea washed over her. Her hand dropped away from her mouth, letting the world see what was happening to her.

She looked at Fallon, and then at Gareth, but they were no help against the wave of dizziness she could no longer fight. Apparently, she’d seen all the death she could take for one day.

Her eyes rolled up in her head as she blacked out.

Chapter 18

Brandi woke with fangs extended to her bottom lip. There was also a terrible ache in her pelvis. She moaned as she rolled to her side and drew her knees up trying to ease it. She was madly craving sex again, which seemed to happen all the time lately, especially when she was around Gareth. The longing was as intense now as it had been during her burning time.

When consciousness returned fully, Brandi suddenly remembered the lab, the bear hybrids, and passing out at Gareth’s feet. Panic had her jumping from the bed to the floor… stark naked she rapidly discovered. She looked down at her nude body and started checking for… well, that was odd. She didn’t know what to look for, but she almost never slept in the nude. Her breasts ached. Her nipples were hard and sensitive. What the hell was happening to her?

Looking around, she saw she was in a strange place she’d never been before. Fortunately the strange place had a restroom, which she badly needed now that she was upright. She slipped into it and quickly made use of the facilities. The absence of towels was odd, so she washed and wiped her hands on the single washcloth lying on the sink.

The painful ache in her gut still radiated to her groin and was now making itself felt every moment. Coming back out of the bathroom, she shoved the pain aside and looked for clothes but found none. None in the closet. None in the drawers. No shoes. No gun. Literally nothing.

Which might explain the absence of bath towels, she decided, especially if someone had wanted to make sure she couldn’t leave unless she did so naked.

She headed for the door of the room to look for the clothes thief just as it opened. Instinct shoved logic aside as panic ruled her decision making again. She shifted to her wolf for protection and bared her teeth at the person coming through the door.

“Is your sense of smell affected too? Better save those nano thingies that help you shift. You might need them for other purposes before we’re done with each other tonight,” Gareth advised.

Brandi shifted back to a human, but no clothes came with her change. She doubled over because it had hurt way more than usual. When the change pain subsided, she looked down at her traitorous body. Her skin was on fire everywhere as the nanos scrambled. How had she become so ill?

She glared at Gareth and put her hand over her pubic area where his eyes had been glued since he walked into the room. “Stop staring. Why am I naked? And why am I cramping like hell?”

“Hormones,” Gareth answered quietly, forcing his eyes away as he closed and locked the bedroom door behind him. He wasn’t leaving her again, unless she threw him out. It had come down to a claiming—one way or the other.

“You’re in full-blown female werewolf heat. This is your first time from what Ariel told me. It was probably why you fainted.”

“I did not faint,” Brandi said firmly. “The fumes in the cage room must have drugged me… or something.”

“The ‘or something’ is that you fainted because your female hormones are too far out of balance. Your nanos can’t keep up. I’ve been on the phone with Eva since you passed out yesterday. Ariel and Heidi are in heat too, but their bodies seem to be handling it better. You moaned in your sleep all last night. I can tell you’re hurting. I’ve been worried sick about you.”

Brandi ignored his statements that she wasn’t holding up as well as her packmates. Screw his opinion. She knew she was a survivor. “
Yesterday?
What the hell do you mean yesterday?”

Gareth growled in warning. Her anger was pushing all the wrong buttons in him.

“I mean
yesterday
, and that belligerent, disbelieving tone is not helping me control myself. Zip your lip and listen for once. I’m barely able to keep my hands to myself as it is. You passed out yesterday and have slept ever since. We’re in a hotel room back in Virginia. They sent a rescue copter to retrieve us because you never regained consciousness.”

Brandi moved her hand away from her crotch to fist both hands on her hips. “You’re making shit up. Don’t mess with me, Gareth. This is not a good time. I’m hungry, hurting, and not in the mood.”

Gareth closed his eyes and counted to ten before speaking so he wouldn’t yell back. “Why couldn’t you have been one of those women who cry during her heat cycle? No. You just had to be the pissy mood version, didn’t you? Hell, I guess that fits the rest of your cranky personality.”

Brandi heard the warning growl leave her throat. Her fangs grew even longer and thicker, extending well beyond her bottom lip this time. Worse, the burning between her legs was demanding something be done… and done now. But at the same time she thought she might kill Gareth for real if he touched her sexually. Her inner conflict was annoying on more levels than she could explain to herself.

Gareth opened his eyes and glared. “Who are you fighting, Brandi? Me? Or yourself?”

Brandi ran a hand through her hair. It grew several inches every month and haircuts only seemed to make it want to grow faster. Left uncut, it would be at her waist in half a year. “I’m not fighting. I just don’t like the idea of you taking care of me. I’m just… fuck, I don’t know what I am.”

“Well, let me enlighten you, Agent Jenkins. You are a pain in my two-hundred-year old ass. But you’re also the most magnificent female I’ve ever known. Look at you—challenging me when you don’t know how precarious the situation is for both of us. Instinct rules you and I’m at the center of it. I can give you the fight you’re needing if that’s what you want, but damn it Brandi. You’re going to have to commit to me first. I’m not going to mate a woman who isn’t ever going to love me back… at least a little.”

“
Love?
I have told you over and over that I don’t know what that is,” Brandi said sharply, dropping her hands. “I had no parents, barely grandparents, and the rest of my life has been one temporary relationship after another. I am the worst woman you’re ever going to find when it comes to having no warm fuzzy feelings for people. Sex I can happily provide, but if you’re looking for spontaneous snuggling and all that other crap… I’m not the one for you.”

His loins tightened at the pain in her words. Gareth knew Brandi didn’t hear the neediness in her voice. Her adrenaline spiked after her denial. Now she waited fearfully for his possible rejection. She didn’t have the good sense to realize how impossible it was for him to ever walk away for real. She also didn’t know the truth her body spoke which was a hell of a lot louder than her words.

Gareth’s frustrated sigh echoed around the room. If he mated the woman in front of him, he might be signing on for a hundred years of fighting, bickering, and emotional hell. A man would have to be either crazy or madly in love to even contemplate such a stressful relationship. Maybe he was both.

“You may not know what love is, but I do. And I love you, Brandi. I love you. I want you in my life any way you’re willing to be there.”

“Gareth…” Her instinct was to deny his confession of love… to deny that he could emotionally feel something for her that she didn’t understand and couldn’t return. She waved a hand down her body. “This is all I have to offer anyone and you know where it’s been.”

“Yes, I do. It’s been with me for months. I don’t give a damn about where it was before that. Your wolf has always belonged to me. I would kill anyone who tried to change that connection.”

Gareth walked forward, tired of being so far away from her… both physically and emotionally. He slipped his arms around the woman he wanted and breathed her in. Her scent was richer than the liquor she was named for. And her taste…? He couldn’t wait to find out how she was in this condition.

When he took her mouth, Brandi let him invade it, opening to him with no holding back. Gareth knew her lack of fight was the closest thing to a yes answer he was going to get. But he also knew Agent Brandi Jenkins only gave in this way to him. He didn’t take her concession for granted—not at all.

He let her mouth go finally and leaned his forehead against hers. “Okay. I accept your limited offer. Screw being worried about tomorrow. If you’re going to destroy me, either physically or emotionally, I’m going to at least die a happy werewolf who’s finally had all he wanted from you for once.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I feel like I’m going to die if you don’t fuck me really hard in the next three seconds,” Brandi whispered. The statement ended on a whimper as Gareth growled in her ear and gripped her butt hard enough to leave bruises.

Her trembling hands pulled his shirt over his head before attacking his jeans with enthusiasm. Gareth’s body was always like a hot rock wall, tense and firm under her greedy fingers. His scent—something masculine and woodsy—was driving her more insane than usual.

By the time she had him naked, she was shaking like a leaf. “Undressing you took all my energy. Now I feel ill again…” Brandi whispered, her fangs sensitive against the smooth skin of his chest.

Gareth lifted her and stepped from the pile of clothes she had pushed down his hips to the floor. He wrapped Brandi around him and carried her to the bed. But instead of falling on her like he normally did, he spun and sat with her in his lap. What he needed for protection from potential pregnancy was still in his jeans, but he was reluctant to let go of her to retrieve it.

“Brandi before we go too far… we need to talk about precautions to take during this time… Eva said I should explain…” His voice broke off as she rose to her knees. Her scent was killing him. Damn it. “There could be consequences from…”

His words were lost as Brandi lowered and sheathed herself in one hot wet slide down on him. Her ride back up was slow and deliberate. The next downward glide was equally glorious. Her rhythm was full of delicious intent and her gaze beneath lowered lids was clouded with lust.

His head spun knowing the woman he craved found so much pleasure with him. On one downward glide, Brandi paused and trembled. Her forehead touched his shoulder. It was an uncharacteristic display of tenderness. He latched on to her choice to show it to him now and gave it the interpretation he longed for.

“I intended to take the high road and protect you from further complications between us,” Gareth whispered.

“I already know this is complicated, but right now I don’t care. I just need you,” Brandi whispered back.

Her tongue snuck between her fangs wanting a taste of the skin she smelled. Already the joyful clutching in her pelvis told her volumes about how much relief being with Gareth was going to give her. She figured she might as well enjoy the journey.

Gareth tasted amazing, more amazing than he usually did to her. Her fangs slid over skin as she rose. She hovered at the top of his erection, her fangs streaking over his face, down his neck, until she could lick his shoulder again.

His body quivering under hers had her wolf rumbling inside. His erection pulsed and throbbed as she tightened around him. She couldn’t kiss him for her enormous fangs being in the way, but she could lick, which she did until he was bucking and pleading for her to ease up on him. It wasn’t their first power game in bed, but it was the first time she wasn’t inclined to concede. She pressed her breasts against his chest and squeezed only the first few inches, laughing when Gareth hissed in frustration over her talent.

Gareth gathered his senses long enough to clear his throat. “Bite me. I know you want to and it’s painfully obvious to both of us how much I’m anticipating it. When it comes to my turn, you can be damn sure I won’t be hesitating like you are. You’re who I want.” He winced when her internal muscles tightened around him further. “Brandi… you’re killing me.”