It had been a long time since I’d been intimate with anyone. My last romantic interlude had consisted of an ill-conceived tryst with a young bartender at the local bar in Leadville. It had been a quick, awkward, and unsatisfying experience that I had gone out of my way not to repeat. Needless to say, my sex life over the last couple of years had consisted of a box of AA batteries and a neon pink monstrosity I had ordered online in a moment of weakness.
My hands shook with excitement and nervousness when they slid across his chest, his heart thumping beneath my fingers. I was as giddy as a teenager sneaking her first kiss in a darkened corner of the auditorium, and at the same time was all but vibrating with the desire to ride him like a pony.
Yee haw!
Relishing the tingling sensation of his lips pressing against mine, I grasped the front of his shirt and pulled him tight against me, the warmth of him almost painful next to my chilled skin. And yet I couldn’t pull away, didn’t want to.
“What’s going on in there?” Johnson asked on the other side of the door, his voice as gruff as ever.
Good to know some things never change.
For a moment Holbrook looked like he was going to pull away, but after a long pause he replied, “Everything’s fine. We’ll be out in a few minutes.”
I thought I heard Johnson snort, but he just said, “Take your time. I’m going to my room to make some calls.” A moment later I caught the muffled thud of the door closing.
Confident in the knowledge that we were alone, I let a low growl bloom in the back of my throat, the wolf rising close to the surface. In that moment her needs were the same as mine. We needed to feel muscles moving beneath bare skin, hands roaming our body, stroking the fire of our shared desire. We knew—as surely as we knew that the sky is blue—that only his touch could chase away the ghosts of our memories and fears.
My hands slid up to the firm muscles of his shoulders, skimming along them until I found the naked skin of his neck, the flutter of his heartbeat dancing beneath my fingertips. Resisting the wolf’s urge to sink my teeth into that fluttering pulse, I instead swept the flat of my tongue across it in a single broad stroke before peppering the column of his throat with kisses.
A mischievous smile curved my lips at the feeling of his hands sliding down my back to cup my ass, lifting me off my feet as he kicked the door open and took several awkward steps backwards into the room. Wrapping my legs around his waist I tangled my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and steered him towards the bed.
Although Johnson was gone, the pervasive cigarette stink of him lingered in the room, but even that couldn’t douse the heat building between Holbrook and me. Disentangling my legs from around his waist, I stepped back to regard him with my hands on my hips. His face was flushed, the deep red in his cheeks emphasizing the forest green of his eyes that shone with the same need burning inside of me. I felt powerful and sexy as his gaze tracked the motion of my breasts, the last traces of my fear drifting away, forgotten.
“Like what you see?” I asked, titling one hip towards him.
Instead of answering he extended a hand towards me, his fingers barely brushing against my arm as I laughed and danced back out of his reach, daring him to chase me. His rich and melodic laughter joined mine as he reached for me again, missing by a mile.
“You’ll have to be faster than that, Agent,” I teased, easily eluding him as I jumped onto the bed.
“Troublesome woman,” he said, shaking his head though his eyes still sparkled with laughter and heat.
With a playful growl I launched myself at him, twisting him around to ride him down to the mattress, straddling his hips. I finally let myself succumb to the urge to have the hot, fragrant skin of his neck between my teeth, and latched onto him, reveling in his sharp gasp. Sliding my hand down between us, I grinned against his throat, his hissing exhalation flowing hot and moist against my ear, but I cared little for his pleas for more. I wanted to mark him, stake my claim, and show the world that he belonged to me.
Chapter 6
THE COMFORTING SCENTS of the forest surrounded me in a heady mix of pine and damp earth. These woods were familiar to me—I had run through the Rio Grande National Forest as a young wolf with the pack. That was before that asshole Jonathan Stone ousted me, saying I was too unstable to be around his “family.”
What the hell did he know?
The darkness was soothing, lulling me with its quiet breath. I could hear it in the sleepy rustlings of the forest’s inhabitants curling up for the night. Come morning, the trees would be filled with the endless chatter of birds, but for now the air remained still. My steps were slow and silent as I moved through the trees, drawn towards some unknown point as if on an invisible thread. It wasn’t until I caught the scent of cheap soap and gun oil that I realized what had called out to me.
Footsteps crunched on the packed snow and gravel in the small clearing as three middle-aged men in an absurd amount of camouflage clothing hauled their gear out of the back of a silver pick-up truck.
“Did you remember the beer this time, Dale?” the eldest of the group called to one of the other men.