Her Wicked Wolf

Frustrated, Alistair forced the unwanted thoughts away. He had good reasons for staying a solitary wolf, and he had no intention of endangering anyone...no matter how mouthwatering she might be.

“I’m just headed to the grocery store, actually,” Brienne said, blissfully unaware of the heated images cascading through his thoughts. “You?”

“I have a few last-minute things to pick up. Nothing more,” he replied. Such a casual way to put it, Alistair thought, smirking at the dark humor in the moment. Brienne was talking about buying milk and bread to weather a storm. He was talking about making final preparations to take on an enemy that had been snapping at his heels for years.

It wouldn’t be long now. He could scent trouble on the wind, pressing in all around him. Owain was close by, searching. This time, he would allow his brother to find him...and somehow, he knew that the end of their long battle would come during this storm. It didn’t just provide convenient cover to avoid human attention, it was dramatic in a way that would suit Owain—howling wind, blinding snow, and a bloody crescendo.

Alistair often wished his brother had decided to channel his impulses differently and just become an actor instead of a psychopath. In the meantime, he would rather not give Owain another weapon to use against him. Enough people had been punished for earning his affection.

Alistair drew in a deep breath and opened the front door for Brienne, catching the scent that had slowly been driving him mad for months now—vanilla and apricot, a breath of summer on a blustery winter day.

“Thanks,” Brienne said, the look she gave him bemused. It would be, he supposed. Chivalry was basically dead these days, but old habits died hard. And his were very old indeed. Old enough to terrify a beautiful young thing like her.

“Of course,” Alistair said, hoping his voice sounded steadier than he felt as he stepped out after her.

“My first real nor’easter,” Brienne said, her tone as warm as it always was when she tried to speak to him. “I’m not sure whether to be excited or worried.”

She seemed to be both, which didn’t surprise him. Their longest encounter to date, shortly after she’d moved in, had involved Brienne chattering happily about the “adventure” of moving to this small Northern town from the sunny Florida coast where she’d been raised. She seemed to carry that sunlight with her, he thought. The woman was so damnably inviting. What puzzled Alistair was why she continued to try and initiate contact with him when he was anything but. He was an unsociable creature who’d spent too long focused on honor, duty, and nothing else. He was under no illusions about his meager appeal to someone like her. Most women seemed to sense his otherness and steered clear.

And yet here she was again.

Fascinated despite himself, Alistair fell into step beside her, letting his eyes rake her from head to toe when she looked away. Brienne’s beauty was striking each time he saw her. She’d twisted up the loose curls of her honey-blond hair into a bun, though a few obstinate tendrils had already escaped to frame the perfect oval of her face. Alistair’s gaze lingered on the pretty pink rosebud lips, the pert little nose, and the eyes, wide and an arresting shade of forest-green that quickly returned to him. He already knew the body that was hidden beneath her winter coat was perfect, small-waisted and amply curved in all the right places. He’d admired it often enough from afar.

Not to mention imagined it enough in his unoccupied moments.

Alistair didn’t realize he hadn’t responded to her until she tried again, her voice taking on a nervous edge that he knew he’d caused. Good, he thought. She ought to be nervous around him.

“So do you think it’ll be bad? The storm, I mean? The weather people seem to think we’re going to get dumped on, but they’re wrong at least half the time.”

“I think they’re right this time,” Alistair said. He could feel the approach of the storm deep in his bones, could smell it on the cold breeze. They would indeed get hit. One storm among hundreds he’d experienced, and one more he would spend without the warmth of his pack to surround him. He let himself wonder, just for a moment, how they were before pushing the thoughts aside. They were safe, according to his last conversation with Edwin. His nephew was doing a good job acting as Alpha in his stead, but lately, he’d begun pressing Alistair to come back. Edwin was increasingly insistent that with Alistair now healed, they could fight off whatever army Owain could muster. He was almost tempted...until he looked at his scars. And remembered the bodies—the friends—they’d had to burn.

Alistair’s guess had been right—his brother hated him even more than he wanted control of the pack. As long as that stayed true, he would stay in this self-imposed exile and keep this the way it always should have stayed.

Between the two of them.

“Well, hopefully the power will stay on,” Brienne said, drawing his attention back to her. “I’m not sure the landlord has a generator to lug over, even if he could.”

He frowned. “One never knows. Surely you have friends locally who’ve done this before.”

She shrugged, flushing a little. “I’ve had some pretty tight deadlines since I’ve been here. And, you know, it’s kind of harder to make good friends when you don’t work outside your house. Not that I don’t have friends,” she added hurriedly. “They’re just mostly not, you know, here.”

It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment that the woman wouldn’t have a backup plan that involved leaving. Or that she wouldn’t have dozens of friends lined up waiting to help her, even though he’d never actually seen any of them. It was a shock to realize they had something in common.

“But you seem so”—delicious, beautiful, irresistibly lickable—”friendly,” Alistair finally managed, nearly choking on the word.

Now she looked amused. “Oh. Well...thanks?”

“You may want to think about visiting your family Miss Fox, or at least getting out of town if you don’t want to go that far. There’s still time to pack a few things and start driving. It’s likely to get very bad. Have you looked at the news? This is nothing like the hurricanes I expect you’ve seen. When the storm moves out, we could be snowed in for days.” And I’d hate to see you caught up in anything that might happen, he silently added. Surely Brienne had safer places to go, places she wouldn’t be alone without heat or light. Places where she wouldn’t be compelled to ask to share an unfriendly werewolf’s fireplace.

One look in those intelligent green eyes and he knew that was exactly what she expected to do. That, and perhaps more. There was no ignoring the desire he saw simmering just beneath the surface...though the gods knew he’d been trying for months now. This would be so much easier if everything in him didn’t want to respond to her need by revealing his own. Alistair swallowed hard.

“Please call me Brie,” she said. “And thanks for the advice, but I’m sure I’ll manage. You’re staying put too, right? If things get sticky, I’m sure we can figure something out.”

It was spoken innocently enough, but Alistair found himself suddenly inundated with visions of how it might be if he drizzled honey all over her body and licked it off. Sticky, indeed. He fought back a shudder, glad he was wearing a coat that covered the hard, throbbing evidence of his thoughts about her. It was time to end this before he did something foolish. Fortunately, they’d arrived at the garage. Alistair opened the side door for her, and she stepped inside. He followed, but she startled him by stopping short and turning to look at him, a determined look on her face.

He only narrowly avoided crashing into her. As it was, they were less than an inch from being pressed up against each other—and Brienne stood her ground. Pride had him standing his own. Surely he could manage to be so close just this once without tucking his tail between his legs and running.

He’d always been supremely self-controlled. And yet with Brienne, and her alone, things had gotten infinitely more difficult all at once.

She tipped her head back to look up at him in the dim light, the steam from her breath mingling with his. Alistair could feel her warmth, enticing him to get even closer.

She knows I want her, damn it. She must. I should have stayed away.

“Is there something wrong, Miss Fox?” he asked softly, and then, when her brows drew together, remembered what she had just instructed him to call her. “Brie?”

The intimacy of being asked to use her nickname affected him more than he’d expected. Much like the woman herself.

“No,” she said, still frowning a little, as though he were a puzzle she was attempting to work out. “I just...I wondered...if you might want to get dinner sometime.”

“Did you,” he murmured, enchanted as much by the way her eyes went soft and hazy as he was by the innocence of the question itself. Before Alistair could think better of it, he’d lifted his hand, tracing the contour of her cheek with the back of his knuckles. She sighed, turning into his touch as he marveled at how very soft her skin was. Alistair’s breath caught in his throat. It was just a simple touch. But from the way it affected him, she might as well have pressed her entire body against his.

He brushed his fingertips along the path he’d just traced, then across the temptation of her lips, which parted at his touch. Alistair gave a strangled moan when her tongue darted out to flick over his finger before she sucked it into her mouth, hot, wet, impossibly sweet. Her eyes slipped shut on a soft, breathy sound of pleasure. He hadn’t expected it, and the light suction on his sensitive fingertip nearly buckled his legs beneath him. The rush of desire carried with it visions of her using that mouth on him in ways he’d only dreamed of.

Licking. Sucking. Biting. Every instinct roared to life, sending heat racing over his skin. The scent of her, each delicate pull of her lips around his oversensitive flesh, was suddenly overwhelming. The ancient beast that slumbered within him was awakened all at once, and when he groaned again, it sounded like the guttural growl of a wolf. A snippet of a rhyme from his youth drifted through his mind, just an ominous whisper.

The mating bond, when true and real, is soft as velvet, strong as steel.

Alistair didn’t know how he found the strength to pull away from her. As it was, it was a clumsy, frightened stumble, but there was nothing to be done for it. He could barely breathe. All he could do was feel, one sensation crashing into another until every inch of his body vibrated with need. All for her.

Even in the shadows, he could see Brie’s furious blush, bright pink on peaches and cream. She didn’t understand. And he didn’t have time to explain.

“I...I’m sorry,” she stammered, sounding as shaken as he felt.

“No, that’s...I have to go,” Alistair said, hoping his rough voice sounded more human than he thought it did. He fumbled his way into his car, hitting the garage door opener with such force he was worried he’d broken it. A claw, long and black and only halfway retracted, punctured his visor as he pulled his hand away. He backed out too quickly, unable to get his breathing under control...or his arousal, which coursed through his blood like wildfire. His final glance at the garage before he sped off showed Brie bracing herself against the side of her car, head down.

Alistair tried to regret touching her. How could he not have realized what she was, when he’d barely been able to get her out of his head all this time? But some part of him had known. It was why Brie kept trying to engage him, why he’d stayed here much longer than any other place he’d hidden in the past five years. He needed to stay safe, stay alone. But as he left Brie standing there, all he could think of was the release he knew he would find buried deep within her, tangled in her arms. Because no need on earth was stronger than that of a wolf for his mate.

THREE

By the time Brie got home, the snow was falling.

By dinnertime, the wind was howling, and the homes across the street had vanished behind an impenetrable curtain of white.

Brie huddled in her overstuffed armchair by the window, watching it come down. She had her knees tucked into her chest, comfortable in baggy jeans, a thick cable-knit sweater, and slipper socks. A cup of hot cider cooled on the end table beside her.

She was brooding. And mentally kicking herself, repeatedly and very, very hard.

Alistair’s car had been back when she’d gotten home. She wasn’t exactly sure how she was ever going to see him again without running in the other direction. Asking him out had been a brief instant of bravery, or maybe just insanity. That would have been embarrassing on its own, but she would have managed to get over it after his inevitable rejection. Things had gotten weird fast, though. He’d seemed so sweet and concerned and actually kind of...shy, almost. So she’d decided to take the plunge and get it over with, carpe diem and all that. In the garage, though, with him so close to her, her body had overridden her brain in a way she hadn’t realized was possible. Had she really sucked on his finger? Really?