Hunger of the Wolf (22 page)

* * * *

It wasn't until Shilo was in the middle of brushing her teeth that she abruptly remembered what Dante had told her the night before when she'd been drugged with the aftermath of his lovemaking.

The horror she'd been shielded from by her exhaustion flooded through her in a cold wave. They'd
threatened
Federal agents!
Dante
had threatened them!

She would almost have felt better if he'd told her he'd killed them all. At least then she wouldn't have to worry about them coming after the pack.

She knew she shouldn't have felt that way, but she couldn't help it. They'd hounded her her entire life. She couldn't
feel
pity for them. Fear, she could feel. It was like letting a damned rattlesnake go in the garden. The next time you stepped into the garden unwarily the damned thing would strike—without any appreciation for the fact that you'd let it live when you could've killed it.

She'd already brought disaster down on the lycan community, she realized, feeling sick to her stomach. Even if she fled, now, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to draw them away.

Julie had said he'd done it because he was crazy in love with her.

She felt like crying when she remembered that, remembered how happy it had made her to know he loved her, but it didn't help her feelings at all to know it was her fault.

She tried to calm herself down and think as she left the bathroom and dressed, but all she could think about was the Feds descending on the lycan community and turning it into a war zone.

Would
it do any good to run now, she wondered? Would she still be a far more appealing target?

She was still trying to sort it in her mind when she went downstairs.

The smell of coffee drew her into the kitchen.

When she went in, she discovered that Kane was burning bacon, toast, and eggs.

He was scowling as he glanced at her. He shrugged. “I thought I'd fix breakfast for you, but I'm thinkin’ I'll have to go out for more of everythin’ and start over."

Despite her anxieties, Shilo couldn't help but smile at him. “I'm used to eating slightly overdone,” she said, trying to make him feel better.

He threw her a wry grin. “Slightly?"

She pulled the toast from the toaster and used a knife to scrape the darkest areas before she buttered it. “See! Now it isn't burned."

Shrugging, he performed a similar dissection on the bacon and eggs, removing the worst of the ‘overdone’ before he scooped it onto a plate and settled on the counter for her.

She looked at it in surprise. “You aren't eating?"

He shook his head. “I never eat my own cookin'. It's bad,
chère
, really bad."

Shilo stared at his serious expression for a long moment before she noticed the teasing gleam in his eyes. She laughed. “It looks delicious. You're sure you don't want some?"

He grinned at her. “I ate already. You doan have to eat it."

She gave him a look and settled at the counter. “You're going to keep me company?"

Nodding, he poured a cup of coffee for her and one for himself and settled across from her.

It was a struggle to pretend she had an appetite.

He studied her for several moments and frowned. “You doan have to eat it,
chère,
only because I burned it for you."

She couldn't help but smile, but she shook her head at him. “This is good. It's just that I don't usually eat breakfast,” she said after a moment. She frowned as she nibbled at the food. “Dante told me he'd ... uh ... talked to the Feds,” she said tentatively.

Something flickered in his eyes, wariness, she thought, but he nodded. “They had words."

She frowned. “I don't want you to think that I don't appreciate all y'all have done for me, Kane, but ... I hate to think they might come after y'all because of me."

Amusement lit his eyes. “Then doan. They ain't gonna,
chère.
Take my word for it. They doan want no more of us."

She looked at him doubtfully. “I wish I really believed that,” she said with a sigh. “But they've been after me forever."

"They ain't gonna be botherin’ you no more, neither. We took care of that little problem.” His gaze flickered over her face. “You're one of us, now,
chère,
and we take care of our own."

It was so tempting to believe that. She wasn't certain she did, though. In fact, she was pretty sure she didn't.

On the other hand, she didn't think there was anything in the world scarier than lycan when they shifted into their manbeast forms. Dante had been shot and he'd still fought them. That would've been terrifying right there, shooting them and discovering it didn't stop them.

That still didn't mean the Feds would give up on her, though.

* * * *

Feeling fresh from her bath, anticipation already threading her veins, Shilo was humming under her breath as she left the bathroom headed for bed. She hadn't even bothered to wrap herself in a towel, confident she wouldn't be wearing anything very long. She halted in her tracks, however, when she reached the bedroom. Maurice and Dante were focused on making pallets on the floor.

Kane and Jessie, wearing almost identical expressions of tense sexual need, stark naked, and already nursing impressive erections, were sprawled on the bed, Kane sitting with his back against the headboard, Jessie lying on his side with his head propped in his hand. Shilo's heart, brain, and lungs seemed to stop when she did, then trip over themselves as they jump started again. Her belly tightened with a mixture of nerves, sudden shyness, and anticipation as she stared at them.

Kane was as dark as Dante, but broader, more heavily muscular and not as tall or long limbed. A thick pelt of black hair covered most of his torso, his arms, and his legs, but did nothing to mask the powerful muscles all over him.

Of all the men, Jessie was more wiry than bulky with muscle. Like Maurice, he was fair, but more of a strawberry blond. The light pelt on his chest was closer to brown than blond but had the same reddish highlights.

All in all, they were as stimulating to her senses as Maurice and Dante and she felt a little dizzy as she studied them.

Kane took up the side of the bed nearest her and she had a strong feeling he'd won the ‘toss'.

Sucking in a shaky breath, trying not to appear as self-conscious as she was, she moved to the bed. She stopped when she reached it, her gaze locked with Kane's for a long space of painful heartbeats. Instead of standing up or moving out of the way, he shifted his hips slightly in invitation. She placed a knee on the bed beside him. He settled a hand on her waist to steady her as she did so, and, as she lifted a knee to climb over him, caged her with his other so that she was straddling his hips.

Surprise flickered through her. Her jangling nerves sent tremors of weakness through her as she settled on his hard thighs, studying his face as he explored her body with his gaze. His hands reversed the path his eyes had taken, settling on her thighs and skimming lightly upward as if he was learning the contours of her body. His face grew more taut as he followed the curve of her hips to the dip of her waist and continued upward. Pleasure gleamed in his eyes, removing the last twinge of doubt from her mind that he might find her far from perfect body disappointing or unappealing.

He paused when he'd skimmed over her ribcage, cupping a breast in either hand, testing the weight of them with his palms, the texture of her skin with his fingertips, and then massaging them gently to test their resilience. His hands slipped to the tips after a moment and he plucked at her nipples, pinching them lightly and rolling them between his thumbs and forefingers until blood surged into them and with it a keener, more pronounced perception of his touch. Heat curled downward through her breasts and into her belly, coiling there and drawing moisture from the trembling walls of her sex.

Shilo eyes slid half closed as the heat fused with her blood and nerve endings, bringing a flush to her skin and heightening her awareness everywhere at once. He flicked a glance at her face after a moment and slipped his hands upward to cup her face. Leaning toward her even as he drew her to him, he fitted his mouth to hers with the same care that he'd used as he'd explored her body. Their lips met, clung briefly, parted, and met again. He released a ragged breath, lifted his head slightly to meet her gaze.

His harsh features appealed to something primal in her. His taste and scent pleased her. Despite the doubt that still threaded her at their intimacy when they were virtually strangers to one another, desire blossomed and she made no attempt to hide it.

He saw what he was looking for in her eyes. The heat in his flamed higher and he drew her closer to settle his mouth firmly over hers, this time to explore it with a restless caress than began with boldness and intensified swiftly to a ravenous possession of her senses.

Dizziness wafted through her with the rising heat. She lifted her hands to steady herself, gripping the hard mound of muscle on his upper arms.

He shifted his hands from her cheeks as he deepened the kiss. Spearing the fingers of one hand through the hair at the base of her skull, he wrapped his other arm around her and pressed his palm between her shoulder blades to draw her closer still. Her breasts pressed against his chest and each ragged breath they dragged into their lungs brushed the tight, sensitive nubs along his hair roughened chest, stirring the caldron of desire inside of her.

She shifted on his lap restlessly, undulating her body to increase the delicious friction of skin to skin, stroking her hands along his sides and exploring as much of his back as she could reach.

He broke the kiss, shifting his focus from her mouth to her throat, moving his hands downward along her back until he was cupping and massaging her buttocks as he had her breasts. Slipping his hands beneath her, he urged her upward on her knees as he finished exploring her throat and wound downward.

As she surged upward onto her knees at his insistent demand, looping her arms around his shoulders, she brought her breasts to his mouth. He caught one turgid tip between his teeth, baring down just hard enough to send an electric current of white hot heat through her. She sucked in a sharp breath as it jolted through her, moaned as he followed by covering the tip with his mouth and sucking on it. And all the while he tugged at first one nipple and then other, sending sharp jolts and shivers of delight through her that made her belly quake for his possession, he stroked her buttocks, traced her cleft and finally slipped a hand around to her belly and found her clit.

Tremors ran along her inner thighs as he stroked and teased her clit in sync to the torment of his mouth and tongue on her breast. Mindlessly, she tightened her arms around his shoulders, sucking in harsh, panting breaths as she felt her body coiling tighter and tighter. She shuddered as he slipped his finger from her clit to her opening, pushing inside of her, rubbing her clit with the heel of his palm as he stroked her channel.

She was going to come if he didn't stop she thought a little wildly, wanting to, but wanting him inside of her when she did more than she wanted gratification in that moment. She dropped her head forward. “Now, Kane, please?” she whispered near his ear.

A tremor went through him. He withdrew his finger, lifted his head to lock his gaze with hers as he drew her downward and she felt the rounded head of his cock spearing into the mouth of her sex, spreading her, stretching her flesh to the verge of discomfort. The faint ache only made her more desperate to engulf his flesh within hers, however. She bit her lip as he sank deeper, watching his expression go from taut to pained as if she was torturing his flesh as he was hers. She closed her eyes at the exquisiteness of feeling him all the way inside of her, stretching her to her limits, when he at last sank to her depths.

Kane coiled his arms tightly around her when he'd sank as deeply inside of her as he could go and held her still, savoring the joining, fighting the driving need to move as pleasure inundated him from the feel of her hot, moist channel wrapped tightly around him. Dragging in a ragged breath, he sought her mouth, thrust his tongue past the fragile barrier of her lips and tasted her, enjoying the sense of being inside her, surrounded by her softness, her scent, her taste, her heat. The throat of her sex closed more tightly around him as he stroked his tongue along hers, shredding his effort to hold on a little longer, relish his possession a little longer.

Groaning into her mouth, he tensed all over, shaking with the effort to fight his need to move and then, abruptly, lost the battle. Tearing his mouth from hers with a ragged intake of breath, he grasped her hips and lifted her, bearing down, and then lifting again until she caught the rhythm he needed and began to move with him, rising and falling more and more rapidly as she began to race for her own completion.

When she tensed in his arms and let out a cry of satisfaction, when he felt her channel quaking around him, coaxing his seed from him, he caught her tightly against him, rose on his knees and tipped her onto her back, thrusting into her hard and fast as his body demanded. A choked groan was squeezed from his chest as his belly tightened and his cock began to pump his seed into her in a hot fountain as hard paroxysms ripped through him and seemed to tighten around his heart and lungs.

He shuddered as the convulsions tearing through his gut finally subsided and allowed him to drag a deep breath into his lungs. Dragging in a second sustaining breath, he eased away from her to look down at her. Her face was a picture of expended bliss and relief flooded him. He hadn't failed her, hadn't deserted her in her needs.

He nuzzled his face against hers, soaking up her scent appreciatively, expressing his infinite gratitude for the pleasure she'd given him so generously.
Mine
, he thought as he lifted his head to study her face again, stroked her soft cheek with his fingers. Satisfaction settled weightily inside of him, drugging weakness in the aftermath of his release. Slipping his arms around her, he righted them on the bed and lay back with her draped limply over his chest. Reaching blindly for the covers, he dragged them over the two of them and fell asleep stroking his hand lazily along her back.