Ellie's Wolf (18 page)

“Quill!” she screamed as his tongue and finger pushed her over the edge into a convulsing orgasm.

She had never screamed during lovemaking before. After she regained her breath, she found herself lying properly on the bed with her head on the pillow and Quill beside her with his head propped up on one hand.

“Did I faint?”

His mouth quirked. “I believe so. I think that means I did it right.”

“It was wonderful. How did you know how to do that?”

“It’s something I learned in Omaha. They don’t call it Sin City for nothing.”

She thought about that for a moment. “We’re married. Nothing we do with each other is a sin.” That lightened her mind. “I thought you were a virgin.”

“I am, for another two minutes or so.” The sun was setting now, shooting a golden glare over his face, making his grin a devilish gleam of white. “I’ll tell you all about Omaha later, but not right now. Right now I’m much more interested in losing my virginity. Would you care to help me with that?”

For answer she opened her legs and reached for his penis. “Come here, husband.”

“I’ll come soon, mate,” he chuckled, positioning himself over her, “but not until I’m inside you.”

At last she felt his penis pushing inside her. She had been anticipating this moment for days, and it was gloriously well worth the wait. He was so thick he stretched her wide. Her moan was matched by his throaty growl when he seated himself fully inside her.

“I’m going to move now,” he growled in her ear. “Ready?”

“Yes!”

The glide and surge of him inside her was astonishingly good. It took him a minute to settle on a rhythm he liked, but once he did, she flung her arm over her eyes and met him thrust for thrust.

“Why are you hiding your eyes from me, mate?” he growled in time with his thrusts.

“Because I can feel everything so much better with my eyes closed,” she said, panting.

“Okay then. Keep them closed. Can you feel me moving inside you? This is where I belong.”

She agreed. He was her husband now, and making love with him wasn’t just allowed by the laws of God and man, it was required. It was a welcome duty she’d be happy to perform anytime with Quill. His movements were becoming jerky now, faster and wilder. He must be close to his release. So was she. His penis rubbed over that one perfect spot, but it wasn’t quite enough for her to reach orgasm.

“Harder, Quill! Please, please, harder.”

He slammed into her, and on his third thrust, she convulsed into another screaming, shuddering orgasm. It seemed to go on forever, kept alive by his frenzied drive in and out of her body. A growling groan exploded from him. His upper body arched away from her, every tightly drawn muscle gleaming with a light dew of sweat as his pleasure pumped his seed into her. Ellie looked up at him and thought he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She hoped she would have his baby. Another little boy with curly brown hair.

He collapsed in a boneless heap over her, burying his face against her shoulder. His breath shuddered hard over her shoulder, and she felt water drop on her skin. His sweat? No. Tears. She had cried on her wedding night with Neal. Neither of them had known exactly what they were doing, and after some fumbling, her hymen had been broken in a push of burning pain. It had taken several more nights before she’d found pleasure in the act. But she’d never experienced as much pleasure as she had just now with Quill.

“Quill, are you all right? Are you…crying?”

*

A wave of joy mixed with immense pleasure and wonder crashed over Quill as he lay cradled by his mate’s slender body. He had waited six years for his mate. He never thought he’d have the right to make love to her. The ecstasy of being inside her right now drove tears in a stinging rush to his eyes.

“I’m fine, Ellie. The tears are from happiness. And wonder. I never knew it would be this good.”

“It was wonderful for me too. Awesome. That’s what Rose would say.”

Her voice held an echo of the same wonder he felt. Awe was foremost in his mind. Yes, it was awesome to lay here with her. He loved feeling her fingers on his cheeks brushing the tears away. Moving away from her to lie on his side was hard. Love overwhelmed him. He curled his body around her, not willing to let her go.

“Thank you, Ellie,” he whispered.

A giggle jostled his arm where it lay just under her breasts. “I should thank you.” It was nearly dark now, but his wolf’s sight allowed him to see her face turn serious. “You were going to tell me about Omaha.”

“Omaha.” He rolled to lie on his back beside her, tucking the arm he’d had around her under his head. “Omaha was hell for me, like your Christian place of torment. I don’t know where to start.”

She curled on her side and put her small hand over his heart. “Start at the beginning. You went there in November of 2064, right?”

“Right.” He removed his hand from behind his neck and covered hers. “I had found my mate and couldn’t have her. Sky found his mate, and she rejected him. Taye and the Lupa wouldn’t allow him to try to change her mind until she was eighteen, so he decided to go to Omaha. I went with him. It was getting close to winter, and we found out the railroad wouldn’t be started until spring. We had to find some other work for the winter. We didn’t find work right away. We tried everywhere. No one was hiring a pair of boys with no experience. We sometimes found odd jobs, and we’d have enough to buy some food. Other times we left the city and hunted in wolf form.”

“What’s it like? I’ve never seen a city. Is it beautiful?”

“It’s crowded and dirty.” He felt her disappointment and tried to think of something nice for her. “Some of the rich men have electricity in their houses. It looks amazing at night to see windows glowing in the dark.”

“That sounds pretty. But you think it’s a bad place.”

“Yeah. I knew it was bad even when we first got there, before we knew how evil it was. The mayor keeps tight control of his city. No loiterers or beggars are allowed. The city guard chased us more than once.” A remembered pride flared up in him. “But they never caught us. Humans have no sense of smell to speak of, and they’re slow. We spent some of the time in our wolf forms. At least we could hunt that way and feed ourselves. Once when we nosed our way into a stable to shelter for the night the stable master shot us with buckshot. That stung! After that we never let our wolves out in the city. We heal pretty fast so we were back looking for work the next day.”

“You must have found work. You were in Omaha for years.”

Nerves snaked under his skin. She might not like this part. “One day, while we were looking for work downtown, we saw a lady being hassled by some men. She was brave, standing her ground and using her words to try and shame them, but they didn’t leave her alone. Made us mad, seeing a woman treated like that. We chased the men off, and the lady took us home with her.”

“She was alone? On the street?”

He smiled at the note of disapproval. “In Omaha, women can go anywhere alone. The city guard patrol to keep strict order on the streets.”

“They weren’t there to keep order that day?”

His smile died. “Actually, they were, but not to keep order. The men harassing Ms. Mary were members of the city guard, off duty and out of uniform. Like I said, Ms. Mary took us home with her, fed us, and gave us jobs.”

Her hand rubbed over his heart. “What work did you do for her?”

He steeled himself. “We kept order in her house. It was a whorehouse.”

Her hand stopped rubbing. “I’ve heard about Omaha. Is it true that all women over eighteen have to be married or work as prostitutes?”

“Pretty much.” He wished she’d go back to stroking him. “Ms. Mary’s house was a little different. She took girls in even if they didn’t want to be whores and gave them jobs in the kitchen instead of the bedroom, but the mayor still expected his money. One third of what the girls make goes to the mayor,” he added. “One third goes to the house, and the girls get to keep the last third.”

“Generous,” she said with a sniff, “to allow them to keep a percentage of their earnings.”

“The mayor wasn’t pleased that he got so little from Ms. Mary’s house. The men who were harassing her that day on the street? He’d sent them to rough her up and teach her a lesson. Our jobs there were to keep the women safe from any customers who weren’t well behaved.”

“I bet you were good at that.”

He sighed with relief when her fingers went back to stroking his chest. “Some of the customers were actually men the mayor sent to hurt the women on purpose. He thought it would be a warning to Ms. Mary. Sky and I put a stop to that.”

“Well, that’s a good thing.” Her voice was a little dubious. “But in the spring, did you get jobs on the railroad?”

“No. The mayor did everything he could to force Ms. Mary out of business. Sky’s an Alpha. He needs to be in charge. He needs a pack to lead and protect. The house became his pack, and I was his beta. We couldn’t abandon the ladies and Ms. Mary. It’s not right to force a woman to be a prostitute. We took care of them.”

His mate curled a little closer. “So you were guards for this whorehouse, and that’s where you learned to…um, lick women down there?”

“I learned a lot about what men and women do together. Some of the customers needed someone to watch.” He barely suppressed his disgust. “We let the customers do what they wanted, as long as the lady was okay with it. Except for whipping. Even if the girl liked it, our wolves couldn’t take hearing a whip whistle and strike. I hated to watch, too, but at least then we knew the men wouldn’t be able to hurt our ladies.”

Ellie shivered. “I don’t understand why the women allowed themselves to be made into prostitutes. Can’t their families protect them?”

How could he explain Omaha? “The city guard is like an army, and the mayor is its commander. People don’t have much choice. If they are wealthy, they can pay the tax to keep their daughters at home or to find them a husband and pay the marriage fee. But if they are poor and try to resist, their homes are broken into or even burned. Since that’s done by the city guard at the mayor’s orders, they can’t complain to the sheriff.”

“Oh, dear lord.” Pity was almost tangible in Ellie’s voice. “Those poor girls.”

“Yes. Some of them. Believe it or not, a lot of women like the life. They have independence from a man’s control, money of their own, and a lot of them like having sex.”

“Ew.” Ellie shuddered.

Horrified, he lifted his head to stare at her. “Don’t you like sex?”

“With
you,
it’s wonderful. But not with just any stranger off the street.”

That laid a sheet of soothing warmth over his heart. “Well, some of the women do. The ones who don’t want to work as prostitutes try to come to Ms. Mary’s house. We arranged domestic work for them and paid their city tax out of the house’s cut.”

Ellie leaned up on one elbow, trying to see him in the scant moonlight. “If you paid so much, how can the house make a profit?”

“It doesn’t. Ms. Mary made Sky her partner, and all they want is enough to keep things going until they…” He trailed off, debating whether or not to tell her the whole truth. He tugged her face to his and sank his voice to the barest whisper in her ear. “Until they are able to get rid of the mayor. Don’t tell anyone. If the mayor somehow heard that, he would have Sky killed.”

“Sky should come home!”

“But then who would take care of the ladies at Ms. Mary’s house?”

Her small fist thumped lightly on his shoulder. “I don’t advocate violence, but why doesn’t he just kill the mayor?”

The thought of the chaos that would erupt as various factions fought for power in Omaha made him cringe. “The city would be a war zone, and too many innocent people would get hurt unless there was someone strong enough to take control.”

“Is that what Sky wants? To be the next mayor?”

“No.” He and Sky had talked that over several times. Sky didn’t want to stay in Omaha; he wanted the plains and the hills and his mate. “He’ll be back when he’s sure Omaha is under the hand of a mayor who will be fair to all its citizens. He can’t leave his Pack until he knows they’ll be safe. It’s hard on him, being away from his mate, but he can’t abandon Ms. Mary.”
Like I did
, he finished silently to himself. But with his mate naked at his side, the guilt didn’t swallow him like it usually did. Maybe Paint or some of the other wolves would like to go to Omaha to be part of Sky’s Pack.

She gave a lady-like grunt. “He could bring Rose to Omaha.”

“No.” That was definite. “Omaha is an evil place. I wouldn’t want my mate there.”

“Aren’t you lucky? I don’t want to go to Omaha.” A shadow of a laugh whispered in her voice. “Why don’t you show me what else you learned while you were guarding ladies in Omaha?”

Relief shook him. She didn’t hold his days in an Omaha whorehouse against him. She was so proper he’d been afraid she would. Instead, she asked him to use his knowledge to please her sexually. Nothing would make him happier than pleasing her in bed. He grinned as he dragged her on top of him.

“Yes, ma’am. Let me show you how to ride me.”

And he did, among other things, all night long.

Ellie woke the next morning slightly sore and utterly relaxed. She patted the mattress beside her in a search for Quill, but the mattress was cold; he was gone. Considering how little sleep they’d managed, she felt amazingly refreshed.
That was what good lovemaking did for a woman
, she mused.

A brisk knock rattled the door before it was flung open, and Connor ran into the room and launched himself on the bed. “Mama!”

Awareness of her nudity—Quill hadn’t let go of her long enough last night for her to put her nightgown on—made her hold the sheet modestly over her breasts with one arm, but she tightly embraced Connor’s wiggling little body with the other. Glancing over his head, she saw Quill enter and close the door quietly behind him. The warmth of a blush surged into her cheeks when she returned his smile. After what they had done together last night, it was ridiculous to feel shy, but she did.