Wolver's Gold (The Wolvers) (22 page)

Inside her heaving chest, the she-wolf felt her human’s worry that this was a Challenge
and the Alpha would allow it to end in death.

When the two battling wolves
tore apart, each with bloodied muzzles, it was Challenger who attacked again. Power surged and filled the area around them, an electric charge like lightning striking too close for comfort and several wolves whined nervously.

This time there was no circling for position, no dominant displays from which the loser could limp away with his life, if not his dignity, intact.
The silver wolf that carried Challenger McCall was raging with bloodlust and the hatred in his glowing eyes was proof his feral nature had won the battle of wills. His target was the brown wolf’s throat and if it wasn’t for the interference of another two wolves, he would have succeeded. It was those two others who joined in the fray, using their bodies to check his lunges and their teeth to turn him aside. They fought him not out of anger or against him, but to keep him from achieving his goal.

With one last snarl and shake of his head, the Se
cond stalked off into the night with a great show of bravado, but the stink of his fear mixed with Rachel’s and lingered in the cool night air. He was followed by the Alpha and the three others with him.

Rachelwolf was so shaken by her ordeal
and the fight that followed, she turned with a growl when a friendly nose nuzzled her side. It was Cassiewolf, who smelled of dirt and blood herself. The female licked at the bloody wound on her friend’s neck making whining noises of sympathy while she worked.

Her companion, the smithy, was one of those who pulled the combatants apart.
The other male, Rachel recognized immediately as John Washington. He, too, was black and, but for the coloring, could have been McCall’s twin in build and size. The two males were doing what they could to keep McCall from following after the others.

He finally came away, deciding Rachelwolf was more important than pursuit, and when he came to sniff and nuzzle her from head to tail, she almost purred with pleasure at his attentions. He growled at the wound in her neck, but she
yipped and nipped at him to tell him not to fuss. She was fine now that it was over, though she’d learned a frightening lesson about running alone.

Rachelwolf hung her head and chuffed in disappointment when the black wolf
made the decision to which the others agreed.

“
Home
.”

Chapter 21

It
was not what Rachel had hoped for from her night of the Hunter’s Moon. She was dirty, tired, and still quivering inside with the aftermath of fear, yet the failure of the night was personal. The other women had fared wonderfully well on their first night of freedom and the party returned to a crowd of smiling women. With the exception of Cassie and herself, the run could be considered a success for the women and for the pack.

After a long day’s work and a run that lasted until the wee hours of the morning, Rachel
was surprised at the lively exuberance of the women, but Daisy wasn’t.

“There are going to be a lot of happy wolvers tonight and for the next few
weeks. The flowers are going to be bored. You’re bright ideas are going to cut into my business, Rachel Kincaid,” she said and laughed at Rachel’s questioning look. “Didn’t you know? Going over the moon makes a girl hungry for more than a thick steak.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Don’t you feel it? Aren’t your insides quivering? Aren’t you feeling things that a well-bred and refined lady like yourself shouldn’t feel?” she asked snidely, though she did it with a smile.

Yes, she was, but Rachel thought that was due to the proximity of C
hallenger McCall. She’d been feeling and fighting it for days. “Going over the moon does that?”

Daisy nodded.
“And more. My girls don’t run once a month because the Alpha wants to keep his men happy. They run for themselves, because it keeps them happy.” She looked over her shoulder to where Sheriff McCall was talking to a small group of men. “Take your shot, honey, because you don’t have another year to wait.”

Scrubbing the stench of Barnabas Holt from her body, Rachel thought about not only Daisy’s words, but those of the Mate as well. Things were moving more quickly than McCall anticipated. It had become obvious to her that John Washington was privy to McCall’s ambitions when he voiced his concern that things might be moving too fast.

“The lines are drawn,” McCall said, “
Everybody involved knows it. Tonight just proved it. Our time may be running out, but so is theirs.”

Which meant Rachel’s time was running out, too.
It wasn’t only her feelings for Challenger McCall. It was also the Hunter’s Moon. As it stood, her memory of this night would always be tainted by the brutality of Barnabas Holt which, beyond the terror of it, robbed her of the time she wanted to spend running free with McCall.

If she was going to grab those moments of joy, it had to happen now.
The only question was how. She needed a plan. Her wolf wasn’t worried about time or planning. Her solution was simple.

“
Go. Find mate. Now
!”

*****

Rachel drew in her breath, held it, and knocked. It was hardly a forceful knock, but it sounded loud in the stillness of the night. She knocked again, her fraying nerves giving more force than she intended to her knuckles rapping against the wood. This was foolish. He would see her now for what she was, a ridiculous woman, reaching too late for something she should have found years ago. She should turn and run back to the safety of her room in the back of the hotel.

Her wolf was howling inside, clawing at her
. This, too, was pure foolishness. Why, oh why, had she listened to her wolf? The animal made decisions based on the feelings of the moment with no thought to consequences. She’d allowed it to rule tonight and look what happened. She was caught alone and defenseless. Her wolf was still young, wild and free…

As if her hand had a mind of its own, the force of her blows increased as she pounded the side of her fist against the door.

She only stopped when she heard the scuffling inside. Without the constant thumping of her fist, she could hear the dog whine. Something fell over, followed by a sharp curse, followed by stomping and thumping. He was putting on his boots. Panic gripped her. This was her last chance to run.

The door was opening and she couldn't think of a reasonable excuse to be calling on the town sheriff at
two thirty in the morning wearing her nightgown and shawl. It was too late to turn back now.

“Miss Kincaid? What’s wrong?”

Hand frozen in position to knock, heart beating with sheer panic, Rachel was confronted with the naked chest of the wolver she had come to see. She couldn’t look away. It was a magnificent chest, broad and powerful, with a sprinkling of hair forming a vee at its center, the point tapering to a fine line as it dropped down and down and…

S
he blurted out her true reason for being there.

"I want to have sex with you."

Looking like she'd disturbed his sleep, he stared at her as if she were some apparition come to haunt him. Wiping the sleep from his lashes, he frowned, closed his eyes, opened them again, and said, "What?"

"I-I want to have sex with you."

He ran his fingers through his hair and muttered, "Fuck me."

"I-I'd rather you didn't refer to it in those words, but yes, Mr. McCall, I-I suppose that's true."

McCall stared at her a moment more and then started to laugh, but stopped as other laughter, magnified by the silence of the night, carried down the street from where two happy customers where saying good night to a couple of the flowers in Daisy's Bouquet.

Rachel clutched her dark shawl between her breasts. If they came this way, and there was no reason to think they wouldn't, her long, white, billowy nightgown would stand
out like a beacon in the night.

The sheriff grabbed the hand that was still raised from her knock on the door and pulled her inside. He had to pull twice to get her to move. Her feet were rooted to their spot outside his door, so the second tug was a bit more forceful than the first. She stumbled as her feet became unglued and she fell into him, so he wrapped a steadying arm around her and used the other to close the door. She stepped back and he went with her, sealing her body against the door with his.

Her hand had released the shawl, leaving it hanging over her bent elbows since she'd placed her hands on his shoulders for balance when she stumbled. He slid his hand from behind her and placed it against the door, a mirror twin to the one by her other shoulder. Her body went rigid as she pulled in her breath.

He leaned into her, his nose nuzzling the hair over her ear.

"You're not wearing shoes," he whispered.

"Excuse me?"

"You scolded me for my bare feet in your kitchen, yet here you are in a public office in the middle of the night, and those cute little toes are as naked as the day you were born." He took a half step back and looked down the length of her long white gown.

Made of heavy cotton, i
t had long sleeves with tight cuffs and was buttoned up to her neck. There was nothing the least revealing about it and yet, conscious of how little she wore beneath the voluminous folds, Rachel blushed. She curled her toes in an effort to hide them.

McCall
chuckled, “You’re a cute little thing, Miss Kincaid, and tempting.” He touched his forehead to hers. “But you can’t do this. I can’t give you what you want, what you deserve. I can’t give you something lasting.”

No one else would call her a cute little thing. She was tall and sturdily built. ‘A fine figure of a woman’ was the best she could get. His calling her that made it seem special and
might have made her smile shyly. It was the rest of what he said that made her look up into his eyes. Her snarling inner wolf gave her courage.

“I am tired of people tell
ing me what I can and cannot do; how I must or must not act. I know what I want and believe you return the sentiment,” she said because his eyes told her this was true. “I am a spinster by choice. I expect nothing lasting nor do I wish it,” she lied, “but for what little time we have, I want this. I want the memory of it.” This moment of joy.

Rachel tilted her head and brushed her lips against his and knew she’d done it right when she felt his sharp intake of breath
and returned the kiss. She closed her eyes and the room, with its two iron barred cells and the beat up wooden desk in the corner, disappeared. All that was left was the magic of the kiss.

McCall groaned softly and, unsatisfied with
the depth of the kiss, pulled her to him, pressing his body into hers and slanting his mouth over hers and kissing her as he had in the front hall of the hotel. She felt his tongue question her lips, asking permission to enter and when she opened, just a little, he took full advantage of the breach.

With her hesitant assent, McCall took control of the kiss, and Rachel was greatly relieved, because she had no idea what to do next.
As before, his tongue danced with hers, circling, withdrawing and plunging again, exploring her mouth in a way that made her want to explore his, too. Encouraged by another soft groan, she entered into the contest, for a contest it was, each demanding more from the other.

Warmth rose through her body, a fever of desire
that thrilled her and frightened her. She was a candle put to the flame, melting into him and reforming into someone else, someone who needed to hang on because her whole body was softening under the onslaught of his tongue.

“Please don’t tell me no,” she whispered when he left her mouth to kiss her neck.

With one last little kiss to her neck, McCall cupped the sides of her head with his hands and forced her to look into his eyes again. “I’ll ask you one more time. Are you sure?”

“More sure of it than anything I’ve ever done,” she said and meant it.

He pressed his lips to her forehead and took her hand in his, leading her to the small room in the back of the jail.

“It’s not much,”
he told her, “but it will have to do.”

Not much was right. Small as her bedroom was, it was spacious compared to his. A double bed took up most of the room. The rest of the furnishings consisted of several cardboard boxes lined up against the wall and one more beside the bed
, turned upside down to serve as a stand for an alarm clock and a small battery powered camp lamp. He left the hotel for this?

McCall chuckled at her look, and the next thing she knew, she was twirled under his arm and seated on his knee
, the mattress bouncing beneath their combined weight.

“Don’t look so worried. The sheets are clean
. And see? The springs don’t squeak. Lowly as it is, it beats hell out of living in a tent.”

She rather liked her new seat, with her body balance
d on her toes between his long legs. The arm supporting her back felt quite comfortable, too. “You’ve lived in a tent?”

He chuckled again. “I told
you, my folks are survivalists. We camped, a lot, though for most of it, a tent would have been a luxury. Wouldn’t want to get too soft, you know? And I’ve had jobs where living in a tent was preferable to living with the pack.”

Rachel thought it a strange thing to say. Why wouldn’
t he want to live with the pack? She was going to ask, but he was working the tiny pearl buttons at her neck, popping them through the button holes one by one.

“
I love unwrapping presents. All tied up with buttons and bows.” He chuckled at her worried frown and pushed the cloth aside to reveal the indentation at the base of her throat. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?” He kissed the spot just revealed and then blew on the damp spot he’d left behind.

His breath on her neck made her shiver, and not in a bad way.
“Oh, I do,… oh, goodness,… I like it very much,” she finished as another button popped and he followed the opening downward with his lips.

Button after button poppe
d, each followed with a series of kisses and nibbles back up to her chin. Her head fell back to further enjoy the tiny pulses of sensation that were rippling through her body. Her hands, no longer content to stay demurely folded in her lap, began to explore his chest, running her fingers through the fine hairs and along his collar bone. Eyes closed, memorizing the line of muscle and bone along his neck and shoulder, she vaguely wondered if all men were constructed so marvelously well, when the hand at her buttons suddenly moved downward to her belly.

The heat of it startled her as did the warm and wonderful pleasure it sent coursing through her body.
McCall bent his head and kissed her again. This time, he didn’t need to ask. She opened to him immediately and this time, it was she who whimpered with pleasure when the hand at her belly slid up her body to cup her breast.

As his tongue
played with hers, his hand played with her breast, kneading it through the heavy cotton of her gown and running his thumb over her tightened nipple. The heat of desire gave her courage and her hands began to move more confidently over his body, and when his lips left hers, she boldly took over the kissing, attacking his neck and chest with her lips. Scent and taste came together as her tongue moved over his body. He was salty earth and fragrant grasses. He was wind and sun. He was freedom. She was lost in the flavor of him and heard his words, but didn’t quite understand when he stood her on her feet between his legs and whispered.