Fair Game (24 page)

His mouth closed over hers, hot and hungry, warming her mouth as his body warmed her body.

“Me,” Charles said, his voice dark and gravelly as if it had traveled up from the bottom of the earth, his eyes a bright gold. “You need me.”

He kissed her again, his hands roaming from her jaw down her neck and shoulders. His hips pressed forward, and he released her mouth as he slid his body up until his sex pressed, hard and full, against hers. She jerked involuntarily, and he laughed in the same deep way that he had spoken. She growled at him, wolf to wolf.

“There you are, there you are,” he said. “Are you just going to let me do this alone?”

He was talking too much when he should be feeling. She curled one leg up until the angle of their hips was better, climbing his body until she could bite down on his collarbone. He drew in his breath at the pain and she released him. Now his attention was on her instead of on making words, so she could be gentler. She licked the wound she’d made, feeling it heal under her tongue as she cleaned the iron-rich blood from his skin. She lunged upward and this time she caught the tendon in his neck gently, and his gasp had nothing to do pain.

She wiggled her hips, rubbing the seam of her jeans on him as she absorbed the heady smell that was her mate when he was aroused. She wanted to smell it better so she slipped down and rested her open
mouth against his hardness, letting her hot breath caress him through his jeans. It had been so long since they’d touched.

His scent grew stronger: musk and forest, salt and bitter, with an indescribably delicious edge of sweetness.

“Anna,” he said, a little desperately. “Isaac, Malcolm, and probably that damned fae can hear us.”

She opened her mouth and bit—not hard, just enough to shut him up and to let him know that pushing her away was not an option.

Charles made a noise that might have been a laugh, but all she heard was the surrender in it, and then he let her knock him onto his back in the damp soil of the island and unzip his jeans until she could get to him. Once she had his bare skin in her hands, the frantic need lessened, partly assuaged by the clear evidence that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

His skin was so soft to sheathe something so hard. She licked him delicately, loving the taste of him now seasoned by the ocean’s salt. She loved him in all of his flavors, loved the noises he made as she pleasured him, loved the catch in his breath and the jerkiness of his movements—he who was always graceful.

She swallowed him down, claiming him, man and wolf, in the most basic way possible.

“I am yours,” he said, a finger under her chin dislodging her claim. “And you”—he moved his hands under her shoulders and pulled until she was all the way on top—“are mine.”

Her jeans were in the way so he rolled her to the side and stripped her shoes, pants, and underwear off in three quick motions. He pulled her back on top with hands that were more urgent than gentle and slid inside her.

She closed her eyes and absorbed the feel of the slow burn, the slick pressure and warm friction that meant he was hers. Then he grabbed her hips and asked, so she moved—and quit thinking altogether.

Limp and well loved, Anna panted on top of Charles. As the last tingles died down, she started to think again instead of just feel.

“Did we,” she whispered, feeling the blush start at her toes and travel all the way out to her ears. “Did we really make love while everyone was listening? Right out in the open? When there might be a bad guy we can’t see or hear watching?” She might have squeaked the last word.

Underneath her, Charles laughed, his belly bouncing her up and down. He felt resilient and relaxed, like a cat bathing in the sun. “All I was trying to do was get you to call up your wolf so she could fight off the black magic that was making you doubt yourself.” He paused and the relaxation faded. “Making you doubt me.” He rubbed her back. “I made you doubt me.”

Anna tucked her head in the hollow of his shoulder and closed her eyes, but hiding didn’t work. After a minute, she laughed helplessly. “There is no saving it, is there? We might as well go face the music.”

Anna sat up and lifted her head to scent the air. All she smelled was green growing things, Charles, sex, and the ocean air. “The wrongness is gone,” she told him.

He frowned and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. “From here,” he said. “Not from the whole island. That’s interesting.” Then he looked up at her and smiled. “I think we’d better pull ourselves back together. They’re waiting for us.”

Anna stood up and he handed her his T-shirt. She cleaned up as best she could, handed him back his shirt, and then climbed back into her clothes. He was faster, since he had only to zip his jeans. She was brushing the dirt off one of her socks when he took the shirt and pressed it against a tree.

She watched him as she put on a shoe and started dusting off another shoe.

Charles murmured to the tree in what she was pretty sure was his native speech—
which he very seldom used. He and Bran were the only ones left who spoke it as his mother’s band of people had used it, a variant of the Flathead tongue. It made him feel sad and alone to use it, he told her once, and he and his father communicated quite nicely in English, Welsh, or any number of other languages.

Clothed and shod, she ran her fingers through her hair to dislodge leaves, grass, mud, and whatever creepy crawlies might have come to rest there. Charles went down to one knee and pressed the shirt into the ground…which ate it.

He murmured one more phrase and came back to his feet. He saw her watching him and smiled, his face more open than she’d seen it in a long time. “I wasn’t going to put it back on,” he explained. “And leaving something like that lying around when we’re traveling with a witch is just not smart. The apple tree will absorb it eventually and guard it until she does.”

“Are you done yet?” called Isaac.

Charles tilted his head and called back, “I suppose that’s why they call you the five-minute wonder.”

Anna could feel her eyes round and her mouth drop open. “I can’t believe you just said that.” She paused and reconsidered. “I am so telling Samuel you said that.”

Charles smiled, kissed her gently, and said, “Samuel won’t believe you.” Then he took her by the hand and started off in the others’ wake.

As they climbed, scrambling over broken cement, rocks, and bits of assorted underbrush, Anna had too much time to think about the show they’d just put on.

It had been her fault.

Charles had been trying to raise her wolf—because apparently the black magic had been affecting her. She cringed away from the self-pitying stupidity she’d allowed herself to wallow in. Talking hadn’t worked to pull her out of it, so he’d kissed her, and her wolf had risen up to shrug off the effects of the magic, just like he’d thought she would. And then her wolf had changed the game.

Anna remembered distinctly that he’d warned her that they had an audience—and she’d totally ignored him. That was bad enough. To do it when there was a distinct chance that they were going to run into the bad guys was the height of stupidity.

“Anna,” said Charles. “Stop brooding.”

“That was really dumb,” she said without looking at him. “My fault. I’m sorry.
We could have been attacked by the killers.” She threw up her hands. “We might as well have set up cameras and invited everyone to watch. And now we’re going to have to go meet up with our audience and explain ourselves.”

He stopped abruptly and jerked her to a halt beside him with a hand on her wrist. It startled her with its hint of violence—Charles was never out of control.

“If you think that it was dumb, unnecessary, and your fault,” he said in a husky voice, “then you weren’t paying attention.” He kissed her again, his mouth demanding her response, his body hot against hers.

Charles smelled like home, warm and right. She knew she should pull back, knew that this was more distraction they couldn’t afford, but she was so hungry for him—not just for sex, but for the simple touches, the absolute certainty of knowing she was welcome to pet and tease and laugh. Anna sank into him and gave as good as she got.

They were both breathless when he pulled back.

“When we get back tonight, we will talk,” he told her. “I just learned something.”

“That my wolf is shameless,” she muttered, though she couldn’t pull away.

He laughed, damn him. More of a huff than a chuckle, but she knew amusement when she heard it.

She’d thrown him down in the middle of a hunt when there were a herd of people listening in. All the werewolves, he’d reminded her—and Beauclaire, who was here to find his daughter, not to listen to her make out in the woods. And now, to show that she hadn’t learned her lesson, all she wanted to do was take up that last kiss where it had left off.

“No help for it,” Anna muttered. “Time to face the music.”

“Shame is…not a very productive emotion,” Charles told her. There
was a funny little pause when he tilted his head to look at her face and then away. “Brother Wolf liked claiming you in front of the others so that there will be no question who you belong to. While I…
I
regret your embarrassment but otherwise agree with Brother Wolf.”

Anna stared at him incredulously. If there was a more private man in the world than her husband, she hadn’t met him.

“As for the other…” Charles grinned rather fiercely at her and raised his voice. “Isaac, go on ahead; we’ll follow.”

“You’re the man,” Isaac called back.

“We’ll trail them closely,” Charles said. “If something happens, we’ll be right there—but if we wait until there are more interesting things about than we are, they won’t give you a hard time.” He didn’t need to say that no one would give him a hard time.

“Thanks,” Anna said, not knowing how else to respond.

He put his hand on her shoulder as they started back up the trail. While they hiked, there was none of the reluctance to touch her that had characterized him for the past few months. He kept a hand on whatever part of her was closest to him.

CHARLES HAD TRIED
to open their bond and call up her wolf to defeat the black magic and hadn’t been able to. Brother Wolf had panicked because Charles had somehow messed up their bond—and then Anna threatened to leave them and Charles had panicked, too. If she hadn’t allowed them to make love to her, to reestablish their claim, things might have gotten…interesting, in the same way that a grizzly attack is interesting. Because neither he nor Brother Wolf was capable of letting her go.

It had been something of a revelation.

The bottom line was that he was a selfish creature, Charles decided more cheerfully than he’d been about anything in a long time. He
guided Anna around a hole in the ground with a subtle push of his hand on her hip. She probably had seen the hole, but it pleased him to take care of her in such a small way. He was willing to pay any price to keep her safe…any price except for losing her.

When they got back to the condo he would tell her about the ghosts who threatened to kill all that he loved unless he could find the key to releasing them. It was a risk—but quite clearly, he had damaged their mate bond by trying to do this alone—and that was worth any risk to fix. He’d see if, between the two of them, they could mend what he’d broken—and if not, he’d call his da.

If this trip had done nothing else, it had given him distance from the unrelenting grimness that his life had become since the werewolves had revealed themselves to the public. He’d been so focused on duty, on need, and on just getting the job done that he’d lost perspective.

Honor, duty, and love. He would not sacrifice Anna for his father and all the other werewolves in existence. Given a choice, he chose love.

That meant he had to find a way to deal with the ghosts—or quit being his father’s hatchet man. It wasn’t the result his father had been hoping for from this trip, but Charles couldn’t help that. He would not lose Anna even if it meant they went to war with the human population.

The decision left him feeling oddly peaceful, if more than a little selfish.

“We found it,” Isaac called.

Charles started jogging and Anna stayed by his side—just where she belonged.

The place where the others awaited them had once been a yard with a small house or storage shed, maybe ten feet by fifteen, in the center. The wooden part of the structure was long gone, but the granite foundation
blocks were still in situ. The eyebolt that was driven into one of the blocks might have been original, but the chain and cuffs attached to it were bright and shiny new.

Beauclaire was standing in the center of the foundation, his eyes closed and his lips moving. Charles was pretty sure he was working some magic, but with the feel of the blood magic that had already been done here clogging his senses, he couldn’t tell.

Along the perimeter of the clearing, Malcolm trailed after the FBI agents, who were busily using their flashlights to examine the ground for clues or a trail.

“We’ll have to come back in daylight with a team,” Goldstein said, and there was a hard edge to his voice. “We shouldn’t be tromping around here at night; we’re going to miss or destroy clues.”