Wild Love (Wilding Pack Wolves 2) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (2 page)

Her eyes grew a little wider. “I know,” she whispered. “Shifters are extremely protective of their mates, and even women and children they don’t know but need their help. In fact, it’s been widely shown that they rarely attack anyone without provocation, much less someone weaker or more vulnerable than them, which is really pretty much any human. Their whole pack culture is wrapped up in family and caring and a tight magical bond of love.” She stopped suddenly, the look of terror scuttling back to her face, like she hadn’t meant to blurt all that out at once.

Noah just stared. She certainly talked like a librarian. But it was more than a little weird to have that kind of encyclopedic knowledge of shifters—and it was just the kind of research someone obsessed might do. Obsessed enough to kill.

“You seem to know a lot about shifters,” he said carefully.

Her cheeks flushed. She dropped her gaze to the floor, then the bed, then the wall… anywhere but looking at him. “I just… I just think shifters are…” Her gaze finally came back to him, fixing on his chest. “Amazing,” she breathed out. Then she slowly dragged her gaze up to meet his. Her lips parted, and she seemed to be laboring to breathe.

Noah knew women reacted to the alpha-ness inside him. His shifter body, the muscles that turned women on, the military bearing he carried from his time in the Army—all of it had an effect. He’d seen it in action too many times not to be aware of it. But this… this girl’s wide-eyed breathlessness… maybe it wasn’t just her first time with a shifter.

Maybe it was her first time
ever.

That set his nerves on end. Partly because he hadn’t been with a virgin since he was one himself, and that was years ago. Partly because that blue-eyed innocence was working some kind of magic on his cock. His head and body were in a war with one another, one wanting to dive right into tasting her while the other wanted to hold back. Plus, this could still be a setup. She wasn’t a casual human looking for a casual fuck. Which pointed to obsession. Which might mean the hate group he was trying to trap.

The whole thing felt like rocky ground, but there was nothing to do but walk over it and test it out. “So that’s why you’re here—you want to know what it’s like to be with one of us.”

“Yes.” She let out a breath that was maybe relief.

He pulled her even closer.

Her eyes dilated, and her breathing picked up. The scent of her arousal surged over the fresh-washed clean-skin smell, no perfume but the lovely scent of
her,
that was also drawing him in. That finally convinced him to shove aside his suspicions and go for his original purpose—which was to take the delicious human bait of whoever was attempting to murder shifters by planting bombs in their cars.

Noah ran a finger slowly across Emily’s cheek. She closed her eyes with his touch and shuddered a little. He cupped her face with his hand and leaned in, close enough to kiss, but still not touching.

“You’re new to this, right?” he whispered.

She blinked open her eyes and nodded, quickly.

He pulled back a little to look in her eyes. “I’m going to say this straight out because there’s really not another way to ask.”

“Okay,” she breathed. It struck him that she actually
was
brave, in spite of the quaking. After all, she was alone in a room with a shifter. Compared to her, he was a dangerous thing. And that was without her even knowing the truth about his abilities or how fucked up he really was.

“You haven’t done this before,” he said softly.

“Right.” Her eyes were wide.

He paused for a second, then added, “I mean, you haven’t done this
having sex
thing before.”

Her eyes went even more wide, then she dropped her gaze to the floor. “No, I have.”

That wasn’t the answer he expected. “So you’re not a virgin?” At twenty-one or so, it wasn’t like it was impossible. Or unheard of.

She looked up, but just barely, almost like she couldn’t look him in the eye. “No.” Then nothing more.

The awkward silence was shoved aside by laughter from the guys in the surveillance van. Of course, Emily couldn’t hear it, but it still make him cringe.

Suddenly, her gaze was demanding. “Does that matter?”

He frowned. “No, I just wanted to make sure—”

She pulled back and wrapped her arms tight around her chest. “How do I know you’re even a wolf?” she demanded.

The question knocked him back. None of the others had asked—they were more than happy to climb up on his cock without proof he was a shifter, much less which kind. It wasn’t like they were looking to settle down and have half-breed shifter pups. Humans and shifters got it on, but they didn’t mate—at least, not often. And now, with the hate flames being fanned even more, the few intermarrying couples definitely kept that in the closet
.
He wasn’t mate material anyway, for shifters or humans. Female shifters were in short supply, and they usually went for the strongest alpha they could find, not genetic freaks like him. Besides, his own family proved that mating could be a curse as much as a blessing.

Noah struggled for something to say. “I guess… I could
show
you I’m a wolf.”

He fully expected that to drive her away completely.

Instead, her eyes lit up. “Really? You’d shift for me?”

He grimaced. This seemed… really unwise. Especially given the unusual nature of his wolf form these days. But her arousal scent was through the roof. He was definitely turning her on. And he needed to draw this thing out to give whoever might be planting a bomb time to do so.

“Sure,” he said, against his better judgment. He nearly turned the mic back on but decided against it. After all, this girl wasn’t capable of hurting him directly, even if she was setting him up. So, he held her gaze for a moment and then quickly shifted.

She gasped and both hands flew to her mouth, but she didn’t back away. He knew what she saw—a white, shaggy wolf with oversized fangs and crystal-blue eyes. He kept his claws sheathed because she didn’t need that nightmare in her head. This wasn’t the wolf he was born with… it was the result of experiments the government had done on him, bringing out something that had been buried in his genetic code.
The family secret.
He hadn’t shifted for anyone since he’d taken that medical leave and gotten the hell out of Afghanistan. His cover story was that he came home to protect his family, the sprawling Wilding pack… but the truth was much more complicated.

Emily dropped her hands from her mouth and edged toward him, hand extended. “Can I touch you?” she asked, voice full of breathy excitement.

He dipped his head.

She ran one hand through the fur at the top of his head, then brought the other up as well. He leaned into her a little—her gentle massage actually felt pretty good.

“A white wolf,” she breathed. “So rare as to be almost legend. I can’t believe… of all the luck… wolves like you are said to be almost magical. Not the normal shifter magic, but more so. Like a cross with witches, perhaps in ancient times, before the paranormal creatures split up into different—”

He cut her off by nuzzling her arm, gently but enough to stop the history report. It was starting to freak him out.

She pulled back and looked directly into his eyes, her face only inches away. “You are
so
beautiful.”

Okay, that was enough. He shifted quickly, capturing her in his arms before she could back away. It took less than a fraction of a second and wrenched a gasp out of her, but by the time it was done, he was holding her in his arms and pulling her against his naked body.

“We usually prefer the term
handsome,”
he said with a smirk.

Then he kissed her.

Damn,
she was soft—the dress, her silky blonde hair spilling over his hands, her lips melting under his. It took her a second, but then she was all over him in return—small hands clawing at his shoulders, tongue eager in his mouth, her skirt hiking up as she hitched one of those luscious legs over his bare hip, bringing her body even closer. He slipped a hand inside the soft silk of her dress and cupped her breast, moaning as he found her nipple already hard for him. His cock sat up and pressed into the infinite softness that was her body—and he was instantly aching to bury it in her for real.

He pulled back from the kiss to lower his mouth to her neck.

She moaned and tipped her head back.

“You have too many clothes on,” he whispered between wet nips at her skin.

“Yes,” she breathed.

He backed her toward the bed, slowly. They’d gone zero-to-sixty in less than five seconds—there was something about her obsession with shifters that was sending his wolf into overdrive—and he seriously hoped she was telling the truth about not being a virgin. Because he was suddenly dying to take her hard, slamming the flimsy motel bed against the wall and hearing her scream out his name.

If she liked wolves before, he aimed to make her a permanent fan.

He had her nearly to the bed—and her dress inched up past her waist—when voices suddenly exploded in his ear.

“Ten o’clock!”

“I see him!”

“What the fuck—”

“Jimmy, stay here. Murphy, Simpson, take the far flank. Ashton, you’re with me. Go, go, go!”

Noah yanked back from kissing Emily. Something was going
down
outside
,
and he was standing in the motel room, naked with a hard-on.
Shit.

He abruptly left Emily teetering at the bedside and raced back to where his clothes lay in a heap on the musty carpet. As he hurriedly pulled them on, she was sputtering out something while wrapping her arms tightly around herself again.

“I have to go,” he said, roughly, yanking his shirt over his head. The shouts were growing louder and more frantic in his ear.

“I… did I… do something wrong?” She was shaking.

Fuck.
He didn’t know if she was involved in this, whatever it was, or if she was just an innocent bystander, but he didn’t have time to explain.

“I just have to go.” He shoved on his shoes and raced to the door. Right before he reached it, he heard a series of pops that had to be gunfire.
Shit!
He flung it open, lurched outside, and remembered to turn on his mic. “What the hell’s going on?” he shouted over the growls and grunts coming through his earbud. He raced to the end of the balcony where he could to get a good look at his car and the van parked below. His pack had swarmed over a guy, taking him down hard against the pavement. One of them had shifted, but he was lying prone on the ground while the others held the perp down.

Noah pounded down the stairs and hauled ass toward the downed wolf.

No, no, no…
its relatively slender body, short-cut brown fur… it had to be Jimmy.

Noah reached Jace’s side, where he was bent over Jimmy. Jace had been a medic in the Army, and he was already probing Jimmy’s wound, which was somewhere on his head—it was covered in blood. Noah couldn’t tell how bad it was, but he’d seen plenty of head wounds overseas, and they were bad news. Jimmy’s eyes were closed, his face slack.

“Jace?” Noah held back, chest tight, not wanting to get in Jace’s way.

His hands were all over Jimmy’s head, feeling through the mess of fur and blood. “I think he’s just knocked out,” he said quickly. “Bullet only grazed him. But I need to get him in the van and stitch him up fast. Head wounds bleed like crazy.”

Relief trickled through Noah. Jace wouldn’t give that kind of hope if it weren’t real. Noah and three others quickly lifted Jimmy and carried him back to the van. The rest stayed behind to cuff the asshole who shot him. Noah wanted to tear the man apart, but they needed him alive to figure out if he was acting alone. As they were climbing in the van, a movement caught Noah’s eye—the girl, Emily, was staring at them from atop the balcony. He thought her expression was filled with horror, but he couldn’t be sure from this distance. Then she quickly turned and fled.

He let her go. If she were involved, they could track her down. If not, there was no reason for her to become part of this. He climbed into the van with the rest of his pack, hoping like crazy Jace could keep Jimmy alive.

All Emily had wanted was
one night.

One night with a shifter would have changed everything for her. She would have finally been able to put her past behind her and live her life again. She had tried with other men, but she could never get through a first date without having a panic attack. She knew, she just
knew,
it would be different with a wolf. Shifters were no ordinary men—they were all about pack and family and love—and she was certain she would be
safe
with one of them.

Only it had all gone wrong. And a shifter had been
shot.

Emily dropped her head into her hands, gripping her hair and shaking her head. She’d been sitting at her desk and staring at her screen for an hour, trying to figure out how last night had gone from the most exciting night of her life to the most horrifying in an instant. It had also been the most electrifying and the most embarrassing… it was like all the things her life had never been, for better and worse, all wrapped up in a single, intense night at a dingy motel. Not even a whole night, as she had planned… just a few heart-stopping minutes.