Arielle and the Three Wolves (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (5 page)

“If I take this off, you’re not going to bite me, are you, guy?”

He held her eyes. She felt she had her answer from him.

“I trust you,” she told him and reached for the tie of the muzzle at the back of his head. As soon as she had removed the muzzle, he left her and went to lie back down on his bed on the floor. He looked back over his shoulder at her. She wondered what it was he thought about. With those deep-brown eyes, this animal definitely thought something.

“Are you hungry?” she asked him. He merely stared at her. “Okay, wait there, and I’ll bring you some food.”

She got off the bed and went out to the kitchen. She kept a couple cans of dog food tucked away at the back of the bottom cabinet next to the sink. She crawled into the big space and rummaged between sacks of flour and salt until she found the pet food. She took down a cereal bowl from one of the top cabinets. This dog food might not be exactly right for the huge wolf. To compensate, she scooped up a double portion for him. She would have to buy something more appropriate when she was in town tomorrow.

The wolf waited patiently for her when she stepped back into the bedroom on bare feet, the cereal bowl full of dog food held in front of her. She wanted to move carefully now. Once an animal smelled food, they might become more aggressive. With the utmost caution, she set the bowl down on top of the blankets the wolf used to sleep on and then moved quickly away from him.

She scooted back across the carpet and sat down on the bed again. The wolf hadn’t paid any attention to the food. He was too intent on her form as it moved across the room. She crawled back on the bed and brought her knees up in front of her, and covered them with her arms as she hugged herself against his stare. Why in the world would a wild animal make her feel embarrassed like this?

“You better go ahead and eat,” she told him. She felt slightly angry with the wolf. She knew that emotion made no sense when applied to an animal. “Go on and eat. That’s all I have, and that’s all you’re getting until I can bring you some more home tomorrow night.”

He looked down at the food she had presented to him in the cereal bowl. He cocked his ears and then resumed his stare at her again.

“Stop that!” She raised her voice slightly too loud. She knew she had better be careful. The wolf might only have three good legs at the moment, but still it wouldn’t be a good idea to make him upset. “I’m sorry, but it isn’t polite to keep staring at someone like that. Now eat your food.”

The wolf gave a low growl. She sat back farther on the bed. It didn’t seem like it was angry, only as if it had put her in her place. She stared back at it with frightened eyes. The wolf was in charge here, she realized.

She looked away from it and down to her toenails. She tried to clear her mind. It had been too crazy of a day. When she was brave enough to glance back up at him, he had already eaten his food and neatly shoved the cereal bowl away from his blanket on the floor.

“Oh, so that’s how it is,” she said to the wolf in a quiet voice. “You can watch me take a shower but I can’t even look at you when you eat.”

The wolf growled at her again, and she crawled to the far side of her bed. She still made sure to modestly cover herself. “I’ve always laughed at people who talked to animals,” she told herself. “Now I’m doing it myself. Oh, God, I have been living alone for too long.”

She reached down to the blankets on her bed and brought them up. She covered her body and reached behind her to fluff her pillows. Vaguely she knew she wasn’t too safe to fall asleep in a room with a wolf at the side of her bed. She didn’t really care. If it wanted to eat her in the night, it would just have to do so.

She was too tired to even watch TV. The bedside table was only a few inches away, and she reached over and turned off the light. She curled into a fetal position and turned her back on the wolf. This didn’t help stop the sensation of its eyes on her in the dark, but she was too tired to be afraid anymore. Soon she fell asleep.

* * * *

The odd dreams returned to her that night. They were erotic. This was strange because never before did she have sleep-induced fantasies of this nature. The handsome naked man was back. This time he touched her. Her body tensed under him. She tried to fight against it, last out under his ministration. Then she gave up. An orgasm went through her body, and she woke up. Her knees were clenched to her chest and every muscle in her body felt sore. It was a surprise that this was actually a good sensation. She felt refreshed from the orgasm.

She opened her eyes and saw the dark bedroom. The digital clock on the table read 3:25 a.m. Her breath came hard, but more relaxed now that the muscle spasm had passed. For a long while she didn’t move. Nothing like this had happened to her before. She just allowed the comfortable impression to hang over her for a while.

Totally relaxed and at peace with the world, she rolled over onto her back. That was when she became aware that something was wrong. It was dark and she couldn’t see well, but she could feel a weight in bed with her. When she reached across, she felt something lying next to her. She wasn’t alone in the bed.

The wolf lay next to her. It had laid its head across her body. When she rolled over it adjusted its position. It was awake and stared at her. With supreme embarrassment, she brought her hands out from under her T-shirt. They had been between her thighs.

“Oh, shit,” she whispered in the dark.

The wolf laid its head back down on top of her. This time when it rested, it lay against her breasts beneath the thin fabric of the T-shirt. Out of the corner of its eye, it gave her one last smart look as if it told her to go back to sleep. Then it closed its eyes. She could hardly move with the great weight on her and was too afraid to even breathe.

Slowly she reached out a hand to the wolf. She stroked its soft fur and felt the hard muscles underneath. She couldn’t believe it. She was actually sleeping with a wolf. A beam of moonlight shined inside the bedroom window and threw sparse illumination across the room, along with the shadow of the dresser and nightstand.

Arielle yawned, too tired to argue with this wild animal anymore. After a while she drifted off to sleep. For once she didn’t feel alone and felt totally safe.

The next week passed in a blur, as it usually did. Arielle kept busy with her clinic and spent ten to twelve hours a day in Wolf Creek and away from her house. The rest of the time she spent at home with the wolf. There was no longer any question of whether she should be afraid of the animal. He meant her no harm. Of course he was an animal and couldn’t speak, but he seemed smarter than most people she knew and far better company.

She learned that the wolf had altered her lifestyle in certain ways. She had to keep the bathroom door closed whenever she showered. The wolf liked to come and watch her with those big lusty eyes, and it freaked her out to see that look come from an animal. She also did not watch TV or read as much. Instead she talked with the wolf. He seemed to listen, and what was more, in her imagination, she thought he understood every word she told him.

At first she had tried to get him off the bed with her. But there was only so much one could do to stop a two-hundred-pound wolf. It was the boss and got its own way with her. Whenever it didn’t get what it wanted, it would growl at her. At first the deep, angry growls had scared her. Then they had made her mad, but in the end, no matter what her mood, she always yielded. This wolf was the strongest animal she had ever seen. So after the first couple of nights, she gave up and let him share the bed with her. Every night she ended by petting him until she fell asleep and surprisingly seemed to sleep better with the wolf in bed with her.

When Sunday rolled around, her one day off from the clinic, she found she actually looked forward to it. In the past it had been just another day. She had little to do unless the weather was nice and she could work in her garden out back. Now when this Sunday came up, she found she anticipated with relish a day she would not have to leave home and could just have her freedom.

“What do you want to do today, guy?” she asked her wolf on Sunday morning. She sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, and he had limped out to check on her. As always, he stared at her with a smart look on his face. She had halfway started to expect him to speak to her. “It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day out. I was thinking of taking a walk in the woods today. If you feel like it, I’ll let you come along with me.”

The wolf raised its head. She took this as a sign of assent. She would never have told anyone else how she talked to this animal. It was embarrassing, and it probably said more about her condition in life than it did about the wolf. But she really believed it could understand her.

The wolf limped down the back steps of her house, and they started across the yard on the way to the trail behind the lot that led for miles off into the woods. Briefly she considered if this was a good idea. He was still in no condition to return to the wild. If he bolted from her at the scent of a rabbit or squirrel and ran off, he might still die alone in the wilderness. When he was better, she fully intended to return him back to where he had come from, but that time was not here yet.

The wolf looked across the yard at her as if he tried to determine what she thought. She decided she didn’t have to worry. This wolf was too smart to run off before it got better. Anyway, she felt there was a connection between the two of them, and she didn’t think he would leave her.

The day was gorgeous. The sun shined down on them as they walked under the cathedral of the open forest. The walk was rough in a couple of spots where lightning had felled a great pine across the path. In another location a brook overflowed in front of them. They had to get their feet wet as they crossed.

Everything was quiet and peaceful. Arielle didn’t remember ever enjoying nature as much as she had that day. The weather was perfect. An occasional breeze ruffled the overhead branches, and the wild canopy of pine and fir trees provided plenty of shade.

At one point a startled chipmunk ran out across their path. It was not five feet from the huge jaws of the wolf. The wolf only looked at it. He had no interest. Then he returned his stare to Arielle.

“You are really a strange creature,” she told him. “Any other wolf, or even a dog, would have gone for that little guy. Yet here you are still at my side. What’s wrong with you?”

The wolf gave a low growl. She had learned to ignore these.

They continued their walk. “You know I think I like talking to you so well because you don’t have any opinions and you can’t talk back. But I suppose that’s just another sign I’m becoming a full-fledged hermit like my kid sister is always telling me.”

The wolf looked at her. It growled again. She imagined that it had something it wanted to say to her. It limped along at her side and kept the pace. Overhead the sound of the branches rustling in the breeze soothed her.

“You remember those two guys who came to see me last week?” she asked the wolf. “Somehow I keep thinking about them. It’s too bad they were such jerks. Otherwise they would have definitely been cute. Now that’s something I couldn’t admit to anyone but you because I know you’re not going to tell anyone.” She laughed at her own banter with the animal. “I guess maybe they were just so worried about finding their brother that they weren’t on their best behavior. They seemed to really care about him. At least that’s what I’d like to think. Then again maybe they were crazy psychopaths that had escaped from somewhere. In this time we’re living in, it’s hard to say about people.”

She stepped off the trail and motioned to the wolf. “Come on, this way. I know a really good spot back here, and I’ve never shared it with anyone before. You’re going to be the first.”

The wolf hopped over a log on three legs. Never one to follow her, he led the way ahead into the dark forest. She had to swipe numerous branches out of her way as she walked across the undulating ground. After about a ten-minute walk, they emerged from out of the overhang of the woods.

Before them was a drop into a canyon about a hundred feet down. From here one could see for miles. The mountains and the big sky in the distance towered above the roof of the forest beneath. If one raised their voice here, it would cause an echo. Arielle had often come to this spot over the past eighteen months since she had lived here. She thought it was the most beautiful spot in the world. She had always hoped to share it with someone, but never trusted anyone enough to bring them up here with her. What if they ruined the moment or sullied the majesty of the spot by some inane comment? No, this was her spot to be alone.

She never thought a wolf would be the first she would share this with.

He hobbled over and stood quietly at her side. She reached down and petted his fur. He licked her hand.

Their eyes met. No longer was she afraid to look the wild animal directly in the eye. “You know something, you crazy wolf. I think I love you.” Her voice was hushed. She had known many people to fall in love with their dogs before and treat them like a member of the family, but loving a wolf was just insane.

But Arielle loved this wolf.

Three additional weeks passed. Arielle and the wolf settled into a routine. She saw no more of the two large men. She doubted she would ever see them again. Her life was normal, except that she no longer thought about a move from Wolf Creek back to St. Louis. When she thought about it, another year spent out in the wild didn’t seem so terrible.