Rutledge Werewolves 1: Scent of Passion

Rutledge Werewolves 1:

Scent of Passion

Elizabeth Lapthorne

This series was a huge undertaking for me, and couldn’t have been completed without my very best friends. So I dedicate this in particular to old friends: Danni, Mar, Martha and my sugar daddy as well as my new friend—Peggy. You’re the very best of friends a girl could hope for and I love you all totally.

Chapter One

Sophie looked down at the innocuous blue line and for the first time in her twenty-seven years of life felt frozen with shock. After staring numbly at the line for a moment, she snapped back to reality and reached for the box. Checking that the strip in her hand really did match the picture on the back of the box, she swallowed and tried not to panic.

Damn, blue really does mean positive.

Fearing the whole situation was some sort of cosmic joke, with shaking hands Sophie hastily used the second test from the box.

If these damn things didn’t make mistakes, there’s no way they’d give out two in a packet, right? Must be something faulty with that test
, she silently assured herself, as she calmed down.

Blue again.
Well, hell. Twice in a row. I wonder if I need another box? There’s just gotta be a chance this box was screwed up in the factory.

Sophie wondered at the odds of this pregnancy. Almost six weeks ago, on the winter solstice, she had thrown caution to the wind. Leaving all the papers and files she had brought home to read and review, she left her work behind in her little one-bedroom apartment. She had dressed herself up and, determined to give herself a much needed break, had gone down to the local bar and partied all night.

After a few glasses of wine, followed by a vodka—or two—she could feel the beat and pulse of the music sing through her veins. There was a live band playing and the drum seemed to call to her, beckon her almost. The deep, steady beat pulsed through her like another heartbeat calling out to her own. Silently admitting to being slightly tipsy, she had leapt up onto the stage and started dancing around the band of edible looking men.

Not being a consummate partier, she wasn’t surprised she didn’t recognize the band. After being so wrapped up in her work for the last few years, she had lost touch with the local bands trying to make it big. The more she drank and danced, the more she mourned the lost wild woman that dwelled, deeply hidden, somewhere inside her.

The Howlers
were four drop-dead gorgeous men, all buffed up with varying lengths of dark brown hair and sexy bedroom blue eyes. Even in her slightly tipsy—or more-than-slightly-tipsy—mood Sophie had felt an electric and instant attraction for the drummer.

The singer was tall and lanky, with a voice that could easily woo and cajole each and every woman in the bar to do indescribable acts. The sax player looked to be the youngest of the brood, and had been winking at a number of the younger girls screaming out for him on the edges of the packed dance floor. The bass guitarist had the longest hair, falling in waves halfway down his back, and even though she hadn’t seen him grin like the other two, he was still a damn fine specimen of sexy male, a make-your-panties-wet fantasy man.

But there just seemed to be something about the drummer that caught and held her attention.

Usually she felt attracted to the powerful business-man-in-a-suit style; but this drummer was every woman’s secret fantasy. The dark and dangerous bad boy.

The drummer had the shortest hair of the lot, being cropped fairly close to his head, but something about the way he held himself back; his almost, but not quite under control demeanor, told her
he
was the one in charge of the small and surprisingly good band.

Dressed in a suit he could have walked into any boardroom and easily commanded the attention of every person present from the top manager to the lowliest secretary.

He had a presence. Power appeared to simply cling to his large frame and ooze out of his pores.

Sophie had danced until the very early hours of the morning when the band had finally finished up. When the drummer offered to buy her a drink, then led her off to a dark corner of the now packed bar, she hadn’t resisted in the slightest. It had been a short jump from there to following the sexy man home.

Sophie knew her inner wild woman was awakening. The sexy voice and intense way this man made her feel was more than enough reason for her to follow him back to his apartment. Promising herself this one night of passion and indescribable sex, Sophie felt no reservations at all.

Even though she hadn’t been drunk by the time they had arrived at his small apartment—within walking distance from the busy bar—she had still been on a buzz from the alcohol, adrenaline from all the dancing, and pure excitement. It had been ages since a man had made her feel so excited. Her last lover had left her more than four months ago, stating he simply couldn’t be with someone who could only organize her social life around work and what currently resided in the “today” section, under Personal Appointment Calendar on her PDA

Sophie had tried to explain that her diary and calendar helped her organize everything simply so that she wouldn’t forget an important event, but Steven hadn’t been listening or interested by then. Sophie knew her greatest fault was that she tended to forget anything not written into her schedule or tattooed on her forehead.

Yet she doubted she would ever forget the drummer.

Artemais
.

Even now, she smiled as she recalled their conversation on the slow walk back to his apartment. When he had initially introduced himself, she had wondered briefly if it was a stage name, to make him sound more exotic.

Yet when she had asked for his real name he had smiled wryly and explained that Artemais
was
his real name.

She had laughed, and demanded his explanation of such an unusual name. With a laugh and a sexy glimmer in his eye, he had pronounced his name very slowly,
Art-eh-MAY-is
. When she repeated it after him like a dutiful child, he had laughed, taken her hand and continued their walk.

He explained back when he had been born, the family name of Artemis—the God of the Moon—was supposed to be bestowed on him. Yet in the two days previous to his birth, no less than three other mothers had provided their children with the then-popular name.

According to his grandfather, his parents had been undaunted by the sudden popularity of their chosen first-born’s name and had spent the remaining forty-eight hours and then the full eight hours of labor “discussing” alternate names to their originally chosen one.

Extremely surprised to find such a fairly normal explanation to such an unusual name, she had asked him to finish the story. Even in her sobering-up state, she knew her curiosity had gotten the better of her, but there was also the way she felt captivated by the soothing cadence of his voice. She knew she could happily sit and listen to him talk to her forever.

Artemais chuckled and snapped her attention back to their conversation. Sophie felt slightly silly at her naïve, romantic thoughts. Artemais continued, explaining that as his head had crested his mother’s womb, she had screamed and declared “Artemais” was close enough, and damned if she would have an unnamed firstborn while they continued to try and compromise.

Entranced by the birth of his firstborn and new son, Artemais’ father had capitulated and the matter was over.

Thus, he had been named.

Sophie laughed and declared though his name was truly exotic, it did seem to suit such a gorgeous man who drummed so well. As they continued their leisurely walk, Sophie learnt that the other men in the band were his younger brothers, and she smiled thinking about the resemblance between the men.

Artemais certainly to her was the most delicious of them, but one could never account for personal tastes. Not that it mattered—none of the four sexy men had lacked for willing women throwing themselves at them that night.

Spending the next six hours having mind-blowing sex with Artemais had Sophie nearly incoherent with lust and satisfaction. All thoughts of work and her lonely state of life had abated in the sheer force of their lusts and sheer volume of mutual orgasms.

Sophie performed acts she had only fantasized about previously, truly letting out her inner wild woman in every sense and wallowing in the pleasure and gratification that came from their acts.

Grateful she had woken up first the following morning, Sophie mentally debated for five minutes what to do.

Morning-afters and relationship questions were not her forte. Yet she felt kind of sneaky simply dressing and casually leaving.

She dithered, very unlike her usual self, about whether to raise the question of his sexual health. The last time before she had collapsed into sleep, overcome with lust and passion in that moment, she had completely forgotten to place a condom on Artemais.

As she used the pill, it seemed easy enough to squash her pregnancy worries. Surely one night didn’t matter?

A few days later, Sophie noticed she had missed a day’s pill. Again she brushed the thoughts aside—the chances of her getting pregnant were still slim to none. She would be fine.

When her period hadn’t arrived on time, she hadn’t been too worried. Off the pill, she had been the most irregular woman alive. Pre-pill as a teenager, anything from three to eleven weeks had been common to her barely pubescent body. But it was now nearly nine weeks since her last period and she was fretting.

Now here she was, with only one sexual encounter in nearly six months,
two
positive pregnancy tests and one skipped period. She was probably six weeks pregnant to a man she had only met once, and had dreamed about almost nightly since.

You dreamed of the sex
, she reminded herself,
not the man
.

Sophie felt her legs wobble when she thought of the erotic, almost pornographic dreams she entertained in her mind nightly since her time with Artemais. It felt as if her dream body sought him out and seduced him over and over—or maybe his dream self sought her out for seduction.

Either way, every single night over the last six weeks she had entertained fantasies so explicit, so erotic, she became wet merely thinking of them. She couldn’t even tell if half the positions they used were physically possible, so intricate and complex they were.

More worrying still were the tender aftermaths of these encounters. Artemais would hold her, cuddle her, stroke her short curly locks and murmur sweet nothings into her ear, telling her she was the only one for him. Worse was the way she would tenderly stroke his chest, his shoulders, cup his face and respond to these soft words of love, giving him her love in return.

Soon enough their small caresses and soothing, soft love words would turn steamy again, and their lusts would take over, but Sophie had come to crave her dreams for the soft, post-coital words of affection as much as the mind-blowing good sex.

Sophie tried not to think guiltily about the fact she now avoided the district of the small bar like the plague, even driving out of her way to avoid it. She didn’t want to come across Artemais again and humiliate herself by drooling—or worse—casting herself at his feet and begging for another night of the better-than-fantastic sex they shared. She had finally managed to convince herself he didn’t think of her at all, even if
she
dreamt of him nightly.