Rutledge Werewolves 1: Scent of Passion (9 page)

When Sophie felt her stomach roll uncomfortably she tried to work out if she had merely laughed too hard, or swallowed her latest piece of double salami-double olive-extra cheese pizza incorrectly. When her stomach roiled again, she nearly choked on her sip of milk, desperate to settle her stomach.

Artemais, noting her distress had abruptly halted his story.

“Soph? You okay?”

She nodded, gasping for breath.

“I think I laughed too hard while swallowing the milk, or maybe the pizza.”

She closed her eyes, desperate to stop the world spinning and her stomach gurgling.

In that instant, she knew she was going to be sick. Again.

Afternoon sickness!
Her brain finally began working again.

“Oh shit.”

Jumping up, her woolen sock-clad feet slipping slightly on her floorboards, she raced towards the bathroom.

Flinging the door open, she barely made it to the toilet in time. Retching helplessly, she emptied her stomach.

She could feel Artemais behind her, hear him wringing out another washcloth, much like he had yesterday. Without even being told she held out her hand to accept it. Wiping her face, she sat down on the tiles.

“You really shouldn’t be here, watching this. It is
so
humiliating.”

“Hey, I helped get you here, the least I can do is suffer with you. Anyway, surely I deserve some punishment for taking all the pleasure and none of the pain?”

Sophie opened one eye a crack.

“Damn straight,” she instantly agreed, “You can cop one for mankind. But for now, I think I’m going to be sick again.”

Sophie turned back to hug the porcelain, feeling wretched as her stomach tried vainly to wring out whatever was offending it so.

Minutes later, she sat back, shivering. She hated throwing up. Artemais gently released his hold on her, wiped her face and started the shower running.

“No more pizza for lunch, my sweet. I think soup and toast, maybe some noodles or something will be the order of the day until your sickness has passed. We can pig out during our dinners. I don’t like seeing you hurt like this. Okay?”

Too wrung out to argue for the moment, Sophie nodded and let Artemais strip her down. She was grateful he didn’t caress her, or act the seductive lover in any manner. She felt like shit and felt certain she looked worse. As if she were a child, he helped her into the shower, then called out his intentions of getting her a change of clothes.

Sounded just fine to her.

After a long, hot, steamy shower, she felt refreshed, but exhausted. She was grateful when Artemais helped her pack a rucksack full of clothes, adding in a number of her pregnancy books from her satchel. She thought wistfully of doing a search online for a book titled
101 Ways to Avoid Morning Sickness
and chuckled when the only helpful advice she could think of revolved around “Rule #1: DON’T GET PREGNANT”.

Less than an hour later they were packed into her little Suzuki and on their way.

Chapter Eleven

Artemais could barely breathe. He had been driving for nearly an hour with Sophie lying sleepily next to him, both of them crammed into her small Suzuki. Her scent and the nearness of her soft body gave him a massive hard-on that nothing seemed to be relieving.

The mental picture of their tiny baby seemed etched into his memory, lay over his heart. But superimposed over all this were the many facets of Sophie. Sophie laughing at his horror stories, Sophie guzzling milk, Sophie looking worried, maybe even scared, at all the instruments near the ultrasound. She had so many different sides, so many different faces that she wore, he found the more he uncovered the more he wanted to see of her, learn of her.

He had been entertaining thoughts of seducing her after lunch, had been directing the conversation gently towards their chemistry, the intensity of their reaction to each other when she had become sick. He felt awful about his selfish, horny thoughts, yet he just couldn’t help himself.

Her scent—that light, flowery, mossy scent that reminded him of freedom and the outdoors—it was slowly driving him mad.

He had been wearing his hard-on for at least an hour and a half, since leaving the doctor’s, after seeing his son’s picture. He cringed when he thought of how long previous to that he had been aroused for. And if he counted the previous six weeks where he had been slowly driving himself mental over his erotic dream-sharing with her…if he didn’t get to release himself inside her soon he was a doomed man.

To make him feel worse, it seemed obvious to him his mate needed a nap, a decent sleep, and here he was, lewdly thinking of all the ways and positions he wanted to take her, both inside the small car, outside leaning up against the trunk or door, or even outside on the lush forest floor. Guilt made him feel a thousand times worse than his aching cock ever could.

He had fallen silent some time ago, as Sophie’s eyes struggled to remain open. Gently, he had told her it would be a decent drive and she should try to get some rest. Mumbling incoherently she had resisted until the lulling of the car had let her fall into a light sleep.

Leaving Artemais with his lusty thoughts and super-hardened cock.

Left to his own thoughts and musings, each and every thought had come back to this woman next to him, about how much he desired her, how desperately he wished to plunge himself deep into her soft body. And more. He wanted to talk to her forever, share his amusing stories and hear about her life, hear her thoughts and opinions on a million small matters.

He wanted to spend his life with her, both physically and mentally.

As they wound their way up the dirt track that eventually led to his driveway, Sophie’s eyes fluttered.

He could see her trying to focus on the passing greenery, the leafy, heavy foliage of the forest. Even through the car he could smell the scent of the wildness outside, surrounding them. A totally different wildness to the one building inside him.

“Good afternoon, Sunshine. Feeling better?”

Artemais tried his best not to chuckle at the way she blearily rubbed her eyes, like an infant waking from a nap.

“Are we there yet?”

Artemais could no longer hold his chuckle inside.

“Fifteen, twenty minutes tops. I haven’t been driving overly fast as I didn’t want to wake you up. I figured pregnant women needed all the sleep they could manage. I must have read that somewhere.”

“Why are you laughing?”

“Sorry, love. You just made me think of a little kid, waking after its nap. It was an amusing thought.”

Artemais laughed even harder when she stuck her tongue out at him and looked out the window. Before he could tease her further, she changed the topic.

“Where exactly are we?”

Artemais swallowed his laughter, enjoying their play.

“Currently we’re running along the outside edge of Glacier National Park. Our house is on the other side, backing in to it. As you can see, it’s a truly beautiful, densely populated Park. There’s a small village a couple of miles down the other side, away from the Parkland. That’s where we do most of our grocery shopping. It’s a small village, maybe fifty or so residents. Everyone knows everyone, so it’s nice and safe.”

Artemais described many of the residents, all of whom had a hand somehow raising him and his brothers. A few new men and women had come and gone over the years, but he told her of their antics as youths to make her chuckle.

For the most part, he had little idea of what he said. Sophie’s sparkling gray eyes rested on him, drinking him in. Her soft curls fluffed around her features in a just-got-out-of-bed manner that drove him wild. With the weak sun shining down through the windshield, he felt his temperature rise until he feared he would explode. He wanted Sophie and he wanted her now.

From the small smile her face cocked into, and the wicked glint reflected in her eyes, he
knew
she knew what he thought about, what he desperately craved. She winked cheekily at him as he explained how one of the residents had chased Dominic from a window with a broom for trying to “seduce” his pretty twenty-year-old cousin on leave from college. He stumbled to a halt, completely enchanted. Sophie giggled at him.

“Sounds to me like everyone knows what deliciously horny young men you all are.”

He raised an eyebrow to that comment, daring her to elaborate on the sparks they both knew were flying.

“Well, seriously! What women can resist such beefcake spread before her? Even cut short, your hair is soft and a divine color, your eyes fairly scream sex and soft pillow talk, and secrets shared. Your body…”

Artemais grinned as she trailed off, flushing slightly.

“Well, suffice to say I understand why women the world over would find it hard to resist any one of you.”

“Any one of us?” he pressed.

Sophie merely glared at him, and he chuckled.

“I refuse to feed your ego even more.”

“Sophie, love, it’s not my ego I want you to feed.”

He laughed harder when Sophie looked down to the huge tent his jeans were straining to become. Wearing a hard-on in jeans was the most uncomfortable thing he had ever experienced.

“Well, true enough. But I don’t relish the thought of bedroom gymnastics in this little car. One of us would end up in hospital. I suppose you’re going to have to be a little patient, aren’t you?”

Artemais took his eyes from the road and stared at her. The sensual promise in her eyes, the wicked,
knowing
glint rocked him to his very core. She knew how desperately he craved her, and she simply smiled over it, accepting of it.

Artemais pressed his foot on the accelerator, feeling pleasure as the little Suzuki responded and lurched forward faster, no doubt about it—the small car had guts and determination. He ignored Sophie’s tinkling laugh, as the scent of her, that delicious scent emanating from her core, surrounded him and drove his lust higher.

The quicker he got Sophie home, the quicker he could kiss her. And the quicker he could kiss her, the quicker he could drag her into his part of the house, lock the door and…cursing his heating blood and hugely straining cock, he took the turns in the road faster than he should have. Finally he saw the dirt entrance to his driveway.

With dirt spewing from under the tires of the small car, he made the last turn into their driveway.

It would be five minutes, ten tops, ‘til he could drag her out of the car and into his house. As long as his brothers didn’t get in the way, he was finally home.

Chapter Twelve

Artemais pulled the handbrake on the little Suzuki, relieved to finally be home with his woman, but frustrated beyond belief that she could so easily destroy his control. Even as she sat next to him in the passenger seat, half turned towards him, he could see the laughter lighting her beautiful gray eyes.

“In a rush? Are we being chased by demons from hell? Or maybe vampires?”

Artemais growled, a low rumble through his chest. Sophie might be laughing at him, and deep inside he also laughed at himself, but at this moment, he felt very harshly done by. It was taking every iota of his legendary control to not pull her on top of him, tear her jeans away from her body and release himself, plunging his huge rock-hard cock into her wetness.

Sophie must have seen some indication of his level of lust in his eyes, or maybe his growl of need reached her at some level. She removed her seat belt and laid a cool hand on his arm.

“Hey, don’t worry. Your presence has been driving me nuts too. This…thing we have between us—it’s strange isn’t it?”

“Not that strange. Not to my people. We need to talk Sophie; I need to tell you some stuff. But first, we have to go inside and I have to be with you or I think I’ll lose my mind.”

“I thought it was the woman who struck fear into the man’s heart by saying those words, ‘We have to talk’. They really do sound ominous. Do you mind very much if we have mind-blowing sex first, and talk seriously afterwards, when we both might be able to concentrate for any length of time? I’m sure it’ll be much easier for us both that way.”

Artemais nodded and opened the car door, coming around the other side for Sophie.

He took her hand and started purposefully towards the front door of the house—the closest entrance to his part of the large house. Sophie was staring at his house, but he briefly apologized and pulled her up to the porch, too eager to get her inside to show his pride for his ancestral home.

Just as he was about to climb onto the large front porch, his eyes fell onto the front windows of his office. A large, sunny room, his office always stood open to all of his siblings, any time they required to use the space. All his laptops, surveillance prototypes and other bits and pieces from work were kept in the large room. He used it as his headquarters when he was home. The company offices themselves were back in the main city.

This afternoon, all three of his brothers appeared to be having a powwow, and all three were now pressed up against the window, looking at him and Sophie like kids at a candy store.

The knowledge that his brothers would jump on them the instant they entered the house, commandeer Sophie to chat and charm her, washed over him. His fantasies of having a few quiet hours with her, relearning her body, her scent, wallowing in their mutual explorations flew away in a puff of smoke.