Releasing the Wolf (14 page)

It probably didn’t help that Ryan stood there looking like Ryan and doing an even better job of it than he did in her dreams; all bulging muscles defined under a casual grey T-shirt and faded jeans.
Fuck, look at his arse in those jeans!

No,
don’t
look at his arse in those jeans.

She wandered around the room to try and clear her lusty thoughts.

This was another bedroom – also humongous – and her belongings were all neatly housed in various places: on chests of drawers,
in
the drawers, in the wardrobe, on the mantelpiece – every single thing put away or displayed with care. A vase of small sunflowers sat on the window frame, with such an obviously failed attempt at arranging them it conveyed a boyish charm. The overwhelming effort to make her room homely was evident in every corner she looked.

All trace of anger at their intrusion into her life melted into a puddle on the floor. “You did this?”

“I picked the yellow,” he said, his barely contained excitement etched into every word. “It’s sunny. It reminded me of you.”

“It did?”

“Do you like it?”

Like it? She loved it! But, shit, she couldn’t admit that, even in her reduced-to-puddle state – they’d still ransacked her home and—

Her eyes landed on the local phone book that she’d found Dr Allbright’s number in. It had been ripped apart, the pages strewn on the floor, although some of them had made it into the bin.

She glanced at him in bemusement. “Is there a puppy somewhere in this room, or did you just not like my phone book?”

He glowered and crossed his arms over his chest.

Her mouth suddenly went dry, because his biceps and triceps and all his many-ceps were just insanely gorgeous. Uh-oh. She wanted him just as much as in her dreams – more so. Like,
now
.

“I didn’t like the red circle. You’re not insane. You don’t need to see a therapist.”

“Insane or not, I may actually have wanted to talk to someone.”

“You can talk to me.”

Yuh-huh – I wonder how well
that
will go.
She made a mental note that Taylor would be her go-to man for chats.

Oh, crap! Now she was thinking of Taylor and his kindness, the strength of his friendship… How was this fucked up mating arrangement even going to work? “You don’t share,” she blurted out.

He stared at her, confused. “You want me to talk about my feelings or something?”

“What? No. I’m talking about three nights ago: the thunder and lightning and the mating. With
three
of you.”

His face took on a stony expression. “Oh, yeah … that.”

She found herself inexplicably pissed off at his flippancy. “That?” she bit out, grinding her teeth. “Hey, maybe
that
was a weekly event for you, but I find myself with an altered life and tied to three men.”

“Werewolves.”

“Whatever.”

He sighed. “No, it’s not a weekly event for me, or any of us.” Looking up, he met her eyes with his liquid-brown ones and her breath caught in her throat. How did he turn her to goo with just a look? “I’ve dreamt about you for ten years; been looking for you for almost just as long. Wolves mate for life, and you’re right: we don’t fucking share. It’s not just a choice – it’s biological. The way our genes are made up, there’s only one mate for us. I’m not all fancy on the terminology like Lawrence is, but the gist of it is this: our mate matches our DNA so exactly that when we bond, we lose our human years – the two of us create longevity for each other and our actual genetic code changes after the mating. Mated werewolves can live for centuries; unmated ones die within decades. The exact match of a pairing guarantees fertility. We mate, impregnate and produce children so our race can survive. It can only happen with the
one
we’re supposed to mate with – not three. Lawrence is looking into that part – it was all rather unexpected.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded. Biological? DNA? “That is
so
unromantic.”

He threw her a lopsided smile. “I did get you flowers.”

She glanced at them again. Yeah, the disarranged flowers did hit her soft spot. It was stupidly endearing that he’d tried so damn hard to get them to look right.

In the time she’d looked away, he had taken two strides and now stood in front of her. His hands snaked across her stomach and back where they rested, fingers interlocked, and she suddenly remembered she was wearing nothing but bedding.

Of course, her body responded to his touch, nipples puckering, moisture pooling … because they were DNA compatible.

Sod that!

Ryan had been more than ‘biological’ about sex in her dreams – he’d been sexy and aggressive and gentle, and sinful when sin was needed… And looking at her the way he was looking at her now.

Her heart rate accelerated.

He lowered his head towards her, then abruptly stopped and she all at once knew the scent he’d picked up on.

“Taylor’s been to see you,” he growled, possessively.

“He dropped off my clothes.”

His growl deepened. “He dropped your clothes off you?”

“No – he dropped
off
my clothes; the ones I wore three nights ago.”

“Why aren’t you wearing them now?”

“I was too angry to put them on.”

“Angry at Taylor?”

“Angry at you … for taking over my life.”

“That explains why you stormed in here, storm-wielder.”

Storm-what?

His expression changed from possessive to dangerously hungry – in the Lydia-be-sexual-prey kind of way.

Oh, god, she wanted him holding her down as he fucked her to oblivion, but she battled it anyway out of principle – the men in her life could
not
go doing whatever they wanted with it, whether they were werewolves or not. “You owe me an explanation. No, wait, actually, you owe me
lots
of explanations.”

“I know exactly what I owe you.” He fisted her hair, pulled her head back and possessed her mouth with his.

Good god!

She died a mini-death under his sensual attack. “What?” she gasped, coming up for air. “What do you owe me?”

He tugged at her duvet and it fell to ground, leaving her exposed to him. “Ten years worth of orgasms – real ones you don’t have to wake up from.”

Her brain froze mid-thought – it might even have drooled a little. What had she come in here for?

She groaned – practically grovelled – when he slid his fingers against her folds.

“Christ, so wet.”

“Always wet for you, babe,” she whispered. “Ten years worth of orgasms?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

The wolf in her rose instantly to the challenge, although she doubted her human self would have complained. “Do your fucking worst.”

He threw her on the bed – literally.

She squealed mid-air, and then bounced a couple of times on landing on the mattress.

He skewered her with his eyes, a devilish glint in them. Slamming the bedroom door shut, he prowled towards her, whipping his shirt off in a matter of seconds, then tugged at the buckle of his belt. His ravaging smile told her all she needed to know: she’d be walking out of this room on shaky legs … or crawling.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She’d lost count after the seventh orgasm. Being a werewolf had its huge perks – like stamina. Oooh, yeeeaaaah.

Lydia grinned against Ryan’s chest where she lay. He’d fallen asleep and was snoring his head off, but she was really here, and
he
was really here …
in her arms!

She sighed contentedly, and then found herself frowning. The whole biological, DNA crap was an issue. She didn’t want it to be, but it was. It meant they were duty-bound to be together. This wasn’t what she’d dreamt of over the years. Subconscious Ryan had always been
in love
with her. God knows, somewhere along the years she’d fallen in love with him – or at least her illusion of him, if that’s all her dreams were. She didn’t think that’s all they were. She
hoped
that wasn’t all they were.

She chided herself. What the hell had she been expecting? A relationship? A husband? A cardboard cut-out hero from a romance novel? Her eyes pricked hot, and she realised that she had. With the safety net of thinking her dreams were merely fantasy, she’d allowed herself the luxury of falling into them as if they were reality, and she’d fallen hard. How much of her dreams had been real, and how much had been her own yearnings? More fool her.

But the sex was awesome, just like it was in her dreams – more so in reality. He really did fit her perfectly in that respect. There was a physical completeness she didn’t feel and had never felt with anyone else. She just kind of wished that completion extended to her heart. Maybe her dreams had in fact been a mesh of Ryan, Taylor and Lawrence – it was just Ryan’s form that had imprinted itself in her mind, so that’s all she saw – who knew.

She sighed again.

Taylor and Lawrence.

Taylor was a sweetheart, and even though she could ignore it ‘til the cows came home, she knew she was developing feelings for him. She was pretty sure everything was accentuated by her being mated to him – them – all three of them… And where did Lawrence fit into this? She’d only ever seen him twice, and both those times she’d pretty much embarrassed herself by almost undressing in front of him, and whimpering for him to bite her. Albeit, the whimpering may have had something to do with his skilful hands on her breasts.

God, she was getting wet thinking about it.

Shit!
She was wet thinking of Lawrence, while lying here with Ryan. Christ! Talk about fucked up!

She gently pushed herself off his chest and slipped out of bed. He didn’t show any signs of noticing, his snoring still steady, and she got the distinct impression that he slept like the dead.

Not a very good guard dog then,
she smiled, unable to deny herself the delight of staring at that muscular torso for an extra few seconds. She loved his impetuous, live-for-the-moment nature – it was so fucking sexy.

She reached down and picked up her duvet off the floor, wrapping it around herself once more, then slipped out the door into the dark corridor. She could do with a shower to wake herself up a bit and … er … ease the ache of raw Ryan-sex. She was also looking forward to getting some clothes on her. Then she’d pop back to her studio flat to make sure they hadn’t missed anything, although she was still pissed they’d just forced her out of her own home.

That home was a cesspool.

That’s so not the point
, she argued with herself.

She wasn’t even sure where she’d been brought, but she’d bet it wasn’t that near town, and she had no other mode of transport other than her feet. How was she going to get to work every day?

“You must be the new girl,” drawled a voice from behind her.

She turned to find a woman there, about her age, her long, silky, strawberry-blonde hair doing nothing to soften the look of pure hatred in her eyes.

“Er—”

“How does it feel to have your cake and eat it too?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Selena.”

The woman’s eyes widened at Lawrence’s smooth tone, then she cast them downwards.

He stepped towards them out of the corridor’s shadows, although half of his face remained in darkness. “Full moon was last night. No need for you to be here any longer. Your family will be expecting you.”

“Yes, Lawrence,” she mumbled, but when she looked up, it was Lydia she glared at.

Lovely. Just what she needed: a potential bitch fight on her hands.

Selena flipped her hair back as she turned, then made her way down the corridor towards the stairs, her back straight as she disappeared from view.

With Selena gone, Lawrence’s presence suddenly magnified. Goosebumps raced over her skin, and her body trembled slightly, just as it had in the restaurant when she’d first seen him.

“I trust you slept well.”

She blushed, which was annoying because she wasn’t the blushing type, but she was standing in front of him in her duvet and she couldn’t shake the feeling that he could see right through it.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes.”

Her inability to form words annoyed the crap out of her. “Yes,” she finally managed, and wished she’d kept her mouth shut, because her ‘yes’ came out breathless and she sounded all whimpery again.

She caught sight of his lip curl upwards. Was he smirking at her?
Bastard!