Mated by Moonlight sb-3 Read online

  She didn’t want to stare into his eyes. She hadn’t lured him all the way out here to deal in truths—first, second or any other number.

  She tilted back her head to stare up at the moon and breathed out a long sigh as she shifted. Her bones ached and her skin felt seared by terrible sunburn as she made the change. She reared up onto her back legs—no, her only pair of legs now as she shifted back to her human flesh—so she could stand over him.

  But when her vision cleared, Beck was standing too, big and naked.

  Shocked, she took a faltering step back. Not because he was naked—she’d stolen his T-shirt, after all—but that he had shifted so close to her. The verita luna was a dangerous moment: when a wereling was vulnerable and exposed, the beast might attack, unconstrained by any even vaguely human command.

  Again, she fleetingly wondered about his discipline. She swept him with a glance, wincing as she always did at the sight of the brutal swirl of scars and burns that wrapped the lower half of his torso. If he hadn’t had a wereling’s vigor, the IED would have meant his death, not merely his discharge. But except for that reminder of his time in the army, he seemed to be in satisfactory—okay, exemplary—shape. Certainly he would not have been able to achieve his present upright...um, very upright...state if he’d passed into il-luna.

  He stood balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, as if he thought she might run again and he’d have to keep chasing her in this form.

  His other balls were hard and tight, she could see from here. They knew she was done running.

  She took a step toward him, the grass caressing her bare ankles, and he eased back to his heels.

  “So you’re ready to be caught.” His tone was calm enough she wasn’t sure if he meant it as a question or an idle comment.

  Or a warning.

  She paused. “Consider it payment for the beer.”

  “I said I was done playing.”

  She lifted her chin, letting the night breeze finger the locks of hair around her face and tighten her nipples into almost painful peaks. Showing him what he was missing. “Since when do you give up so easily?”

  “Since I realized you’re never going to let me farther in.”

  Skimming her hands down her hips, she framed the tidy triangle of dark hair, resting her thumbs on the points of her hips. She bit back a triumphant smile as his gold eyes brightened, following the gesture. “This has always been far enough for you, hasn’t it?”

  Slowly, as if with great difficulty, he lifted his gaze. “When I first got back from overseas, yes. Not anymore.”

  A draught of doubt, colder than the night wind, iced her skin. Well, she’d gotten what she wanted from him anyway: some good beer, an itch scratched, a few insights into how a powerful male Alpha handled his pack.

  “Fine.” She spun on her heel.

  And finally he pounced.

  With one hand, much stronger than the breeze and almost as hot as the slumbering sun, he swept the hair from the back of her neck. He leaned down to bite her nape as his free hand came around her to cup her breast. He rolled the peak between his thumb and finger, drawing a moan from her trapped halfway between a sigh and a howl.

  “Ah, hell, babe, you run and I can’t stop myself from chasing.” His murmur against her skin was cool on her dampened flesh as he kissed a line across her carotid, raising a shiver from her.

  “Chase?” Ignoring the endearment—she wasn’t that much younger than he was—she tilted her head to give him more access to her throat. “I had to practically drag you out here by the scruff of your neck.”

  “By the neck of my shirt.”

  “Your scruffy shirt.”

  “It’s a classic.”

  She groaned again, not in pleasure this time. “We should’ve stayed in the verita luna so I wouldn’t have to hear this again.”

  “Let’s,” he quickly agreed.

  But she turned in his arms, deliberately brushing her belly across his rampant cock. They’d never come together under the moon in wereling form. It was...too animalistic.

  Too true, a voice in her head accused.

  She ignored the voice by taking Beck in her hand. He bucked, golden eyes widening at her aggression.

  It always shocked him when she took the initiative so quickly. Which was why they could never be truly together.

  She was Alpha. He was Alpha. Worse than fire and water, they were fire and fire, which was great for the sex, but would burn their respective worlds to the ground.

  She pulled herself up to her tiptoes and still had to drag him down to her kiss with one hand fisted in his unruly curls. What was a thick ruff in his wereling form was almost as wild now and a perfect hand hold. Their tongues tangled, and the flames in her imagination licked higher with each kiss deep as the night sky.

  He growled into her mouth. “You taste like my brew. Like me.”

  She growled back, wordlessly, a caution at his presumption. Then she stroked him, a deft circling of his cock and a delicate caress of his tight sac that brought him to his knees.

  For a moment, she admired him there, with his shaggy head at her navel. He tongued her, dipping his fingers into his mouth before brushing over her slit. With a gasp, she followed him down. Dominance was all well and good, but it had been a long week in New York.

  He tried to spread the T-shirt behind her, but she rolled him so that he was underneath her and sat up straddling his thighs. Okay, so maybe dominance was good.

  His cock surged between them, a pearl of fluid glinting in the moonlight. She took him in her hand and gave him another stroke. He bowed his hips up, lifting her easily, the long muscles of his thighs flexing under her. To stop herself from falling, she flattened her other hand across his broad chest, sifting her fingers through the patch of fur that was only a reminder of his wereling self. Under the scars, his abs tightened as his breath caught, and he stared up at her with darkening eyes.

  “What do you want?” she murmured, one word for each stroke.

  “You.”

  He always made it sound so simple. Alarmingly so.

  This once, she wanted it to be that. “Then have me.”

  When he rolled her, somehow he managed to center her perfectly—terrifyingly perfectly—right on the T-shirt to protect her from the prickling grass. He loomed above her, silhouetted against the bright moon for a moment before he dipped his head to kiss her.

  “You make this so hard,” he said.

  “I make you hard.”

  “That too.”

  “Now.” She raised her hips toward his.

  “No.” He kissed his way down her throat, as leisurely as the moon tracking across the sky to the swell of her breast. She clutched at him impatiently and he chuckled. “You’re not in the city anymore. You’re on country time now. We do things the old-fashioned way.”

  “Damn the old ways,” she muttered.

  He chuckled again, his breath gusting over the nipple he’d toyed with earlier. He tilted his head and flicked his tongue across the swell. With a moan of frustration, she used her hands to plump her breasts and flicked her own fingers over the aching tips. Deep in her belly, she felt the answering pull and an echoing well of moisture at her core.

  His growl was lower this time as he finally sucked her hard, pulling her flesh into his wide mouth, tonguing her nipple against the roof of his mouth. Later she’d want to be eaten by the big bad wolf, but for now...

  She abandoned her teasing self-play and squared herself under him. “I’m only going to ask once.”

  He drove into her.

  Big as he was, all over, she took him, thrusting up to meet him with another moan, this time of delight.

  He slicked himself deep into her and withdrew and thrust again before her cry faded. He set the pace like a midnight run, relentless and unfaltering. She knew he could go forever.

  No, she didn’t want to think of forever, just of right now.

  She clutched at his wide shoulders, digging her fingers
into the hard mounds of pure muscle. She’d seen him sling full kegs of beer like they were nothing more than empty aluminum cans. He slung unruly drunks—and uppity wolf-kind—with the same power. But of course, that’s how an Alpha handled everything: easily.

  Even her.

  The thought was infuriating, and she met his thrusts with her own. His eyes widened and he anchored one hand under her hips to control the moment.

  She’d have none of that. She slipped her hand past his to cup his sac and pull down hard, to pleasure him, to warn him. He bucked once, breaking the stride, and she laughed.

  He tilted her hips just a little deeper to touch her core, and then she wasn’t laughing anymore.

  With every stroke, he pushed her higher, making her muscles clench throughout her body, even her heart pounding, pounding. Her skin tingled like the coming of the verita luna, but it wasn’t that—she was just coming. The moon seemed to shatter, but that was just the stars behind her closed eyelids as she climaxed in a rush.

  He threw back his head and roared, the triumph of an apex predator that silenced the night, and then he too came.

  She clenched around his pulsing shaft as he spent himself. Of course he would roar before he came; just announcing to the world that he’d made her come first. She drummed her fingers on his biceps as he held himself above her, stiffly trembling in the aftermath.

  She realized her impatient drumming had turned to petting, her fingertips playing over the tight ridges of musculature. He had very nice, strong arms.

  The better to hold her with...

  She wriggled up, and he grunted as his cock popped free with a wet sound. When she scooted out from under him, he collapsed. His arms—his very nice, strong arms—splayed out to either side.

  “I’m getting too old for this shit,” he muttered into the grass.

  She stood and gave herself a little shake. “You’ve always been an old soul.”

  He angled his face to stare at her, so she tilted one hip toward him and reached up to fluff her hair, knowing it would do nice things for her figure.

  He grunted again and turned his face the other way. “You don’t mean that kindly.”

  She scowled at him, thinking she should shift just so she could bite him on his moon-white ass. He had a very nice, strong ass...

  Of course, she could bite him there with her current teeth, but somehow that seemed a little too forward.

  “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” she reminded him.

  “Babe, once I’m inside you, nothing could stop me.”

  Heat touched her cheeks, and she was glad of the bleaching moonlight. “I meant, you didn’t have to come running with me if you really didn’t want to.” She cursed the note of wistfulness—not quite a whine—that crept into her voice.

  “Of course I had to. That lone wolf is still out here somewhere.”

  She let her hand drift down from her hair. “That’s why you followed me? Because you thought I couldn’t take care of myself?”

  He turned his head to face her again, his golden eyes shadowed and wary. “That wasn’t the only reason, obviously.” He pushed himself upright, one leg bent under him as if ready to ward off an attack.

  He was arrogant, but he wasn’t stupid.

  She forced herself to exhale slowly, as if she could force out the scent of him lingering in her chest. If the stock tank had been nearby, she might have voluntarily jumped in to wash herself clean.

  She shifted, letting the verita luna cover her bare skin. When her momentary blindness cleared, Beck was standing, watching her, the wariness still in his eyes. He did not shift, wisely, since in her present state she might have struck.

  Instead, she ran.

  Chapter 3

  Beck watched her flee. Although she would no doubt object to the word flee. Her tail was flagged high with fury. But he’d only spoken the truth.

  He just couldn’t seem to keep his mouth closed—not any more than he could keep his jeans buttoned—around Merrilee Delemont.

  Trudging back down the mountain with his damp T-shirt in his hand, he listened for the soft thud of paws in the forest around him. But he heard nothing beyond the usual night rustlings. She had probably continued up the mountain. Her pack’s small village of log cabins, A-frame cottages, and a tiny restaurant with incongruously fine dining was clustered near a picturesque high lake that was a popular destination for hikers, anglers, photographers and horseback riders up for a daytrip from town. There were no formal guest accommodations, of course; Merrilee didn’t encourage sleepovers.

  He made a low noise in the back of his throat, his indignation keeping him warm despite the cool night breeze.

  At the line of trees behind the bar, he paused in the shadows to make sure no one was hanging around—he was still naked since he had no interest in donning the muddy, spit-slimed shirt—and he finally heard an out-of-place noise back near the Dumpster and his Harley where he’d shifted.

  If Merrilee was messing with his favorite pair of comfortable, old, button-fly jeans...

  He raced toward the disturbance, thinking only as he rounded the corner that Merrilee on the prowl never made noise unless she wanted to be heard.

  And he came face to—face to eyeball?—with a keg-sized, three-legged spider thing perched on the Dumpster. Like no shifting creature he’d ever seen before, its body was roughly oblong and dotted with long, stiff hairs. One of its skinny, barbed legs was thrust through a limp cabbage he’d thrown out.

  The impaled cabbage looked far too much like a head. Creepy.

  Almost as creepy as the single palm-width eyeball atop its body. The sclera glistened white as a broken bone in the moonlight.

  He skidded to a halt, nonplussed. The spider thing, disturbed from its snacking, flung the cabbage at him.

  He dodged easily, glad Merrilee had gotten his blood pumping earlier, and the old produce flapped past. The spider thing scuttled off the Dumpster, its hard-tipped claws clattering loudly in the still night. It sprang away, tipping over the Harley.

  Okay, now he was creeped out and pissed. And a little worried. The Fat Boy was a big machine, and the spider thing had dumped it like it was some girl-friendly crotch rocket.

  The creature scrambled toward the street, Beck in pursuit.

  Creepy things were not allowed to creep around his territory.

  So late at night, the town was quiet, slumbering, only a few porch lights still glowing. Good thing. He didn’t want the unsuspecting human population to see this obviously unnatural thing.

  Plus, he wished he’d stopped to put on his pants.

  The spider ran straight down the middle of the road. For a three-legged thing, it was fast, preternaturally so.

  But then, so was he. He realized, when it rotated as it ran to eyeball him again and then put on a fresh burst of speed, that it was at least semi-sentient.

  He’d lose the creature if he shifted. In the blurred time he needed to cross into the verita luna, it could dart any direction and be gone. But he wasn’t sure he could keep up.

  He needed to hasten the shift and hold his focus for those crucial moments. He just needed a concentration point... He thought of Merrilee, stumbling unaware upon this creature as she sneaked back to steal his jeans.

  Between one footfall and the next, he shifted.

  The pain and dazzle of the verita luna almost made him stumble. Only blind stubbornness kept him on the pavement.

  As his vision cleared, sure enough, the spider thing was veering toward an alley.

  Beck lunged, right behind it, with all four paws digging into the gravel.

  The thing squealed, a shrill and livid sound, like sheet metal tearing. From the next alley over, a dog barked.

  Obviously, the creature had thought it could escape when he shifted. Despite his insta-fur coat, he felt chilled. It knew what he was. Worse, it had thought it knew a wereling’s weakness during the change.

  It scuttled for a wooden fence, vaulting with blurre
d speed over the edge.

  Beck launched himself behind it and managed to catch its trailing third claw in his teeth.

  The thing slashed backward at him with another leg, but that left only one leg for it to catch itself.

  They fell and rolled across the backyard in a flurry of fur and slashing barbed legs. In a noisy clatter, they bashed through a set of folding chairs and a grill. The puff of charcoal ash made Beck’s nose itch with a terrible sneeze, but he held on grimly.

  The backyard deck light flashed on, halogen bright.

  “What the h—?” The last word was lost in a rising bellow.

  Beck dug his feet into the lawn, struggling to hold back the squealing spider that nevertheless managed to drag his two-twenty weight several yards.

  Until the grizzly—clad in shreds of striped pajamas—reared up and came smashing down with both front feet, monstrous claws curving wickedly.

  The spider made one urk sound and greenish goo sprayed from the eyeball.

  Beck leapt back, pawing at his muzzle to get rid of the foul taste.

  When he looked around, Orson, the barbershop bear, had shifted back and stood in the remnants of his nightclothes with a pair of grill tongs hefted like a spear over his gray head. He plunged the tongs into the splattered spider, pinning it to the earth.

  A spiral of oily smoke twisted up from the creature.

  This time, Beck sneezed.

  Orson planted his hands on his scrawny hips. “Well, hell. Look what the dog dragged in.”

  * * *

  By the time Orson had gone inside to fetch a robe and an extra pair of pajama bottoms, Beck had shifted and was rinsing out his mouth from the garden hose.

  “Imp tastes like ass,” the old man said.

  “More like acid,” Beck corrected as he took the offered cotton pants.

  The pants were far too small since they fit Orson in his human incarnation, not his verita luna shape. Where the old man packed away all the pounds he added to his grizzly form was one of the mysteries discussed at length—in the proper company—over beers at the bar. Most of the townsfolk werelings had decided he kept it in his voice.