He softly chuffed.
Her boss had bought a huge bag of dog food for the Lab and sent it home with her. When she tried to give Den some, he turned his nose up at it and stared at the remaining bag of beef jerky on the counter.
She laughed and fed him the whole bag. “You earned it. I should feed you filet mignon, you big stud.”
He softly chuffed in agreement.
She tried to call Scudder and reached his voice mail. She left a brief and hopefully not too worrisome message before curling up in bed with Den. It was still daylight out, but she was exhausted.
Wrapping her fingers in his thick fur, she held on to his collar and buried her face against his neck. “I love you. God, I should have listened to Scudder. He was right.” She gently nudged the dog. “You’re not allowed to growl at him, hear me? You’re named after him, and I love him. Got it?”
His tail thumped.
She awoke sometime after two o’clock in the morning. Den had rolled over in bed, but she still had her fingers around his collar. She opened her eyes and realized she was face-to-face with him, his huge, golden-brown eyes staring into hers.
Just like Scudder’s, she thought, then froze.
The dog watched her with awareness, his eyes narrowing slightly.
What she thought she heard before she passed out, that was her imagination, right?
“No.”
She gasped.
Den’s eyes followed hers, locked in an intense gaze, her fingers still tangled through his jet-black fur…
She sat up. Den didn’t move, just watched her with those huge, golden-brown eyes.
“Oh. My. God.”
He slowly sat up, his eyes never leaving hers.
She ran her hands over his fur then cupped his face again. Okay, she was going to blame this on a bad side effect of what Ron had doped her with.
Den softly chuffed and gently pushed his nose against her hand.
Full moon.
She scrambled across the bed away from him, staring.
“Tess, please.” His eyes pleaded with her.
“They said a man called 911.”
The dog nodded. She drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them to her. “So this is what it feels like when you lose your mind?”
The dog chuffed again and lay down, belly crawling across the bed to her, softly whining.
“You’re not crazy, Tess.”
“Oh my God!”
Those huge, golden-brown eyes. How could she have missed it? She’d never seen anyone or anything with eyes like that before, and then to have a dog show up with Scudder’s eyes and hair…
“If you’re really him, then change back!”
The dog jumped off the bed and went to the window, his front paws up on the sill, nosing through the blinds. Apparently satisfied, he returned to the bed and sat in front of her and nuzzled her hand. Once she had her hand on his collar, he looked her in the eye.
His face shifted, changed. Suddenly, Scudder was crouched on the bed in front of her, and she had her fingers tightly hooked through the collar around his neck.
Tessa’s eyes widened in shock. She finally sat back, releasing the collar. Then she realized he was naked.
Shock took a momentary backseat to desire, because he was extremely well endowed. Then back to shock.
“You…what…no…”
He nodded, not speaking, fixing her with those sweet, golden-brown eyes. After a few minutes, he unfastened the collar and dropped it to the bed. “I’m sorry, Tess,” he whispered. “It’s not like I could just tell you.”
She stared.
After another silent minute, he carefully shifted position so he sat cross-legged on the bed and made no attempt to cover himself. “I couldn’t very well order you not to go to the party. I damn sure didn’t want you there alone with Ron,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
None of the words she tried to form would come out as anything other than a random, jumbled series of vowels and consonants that made no sense.
He slowly reached out and took her hand. She stared at it, but didn’t pull away. “Please, Tess,” he whispered.
After an agonizingly long time, she met his gaze again.
He leaned forward and kissed her, and as if a spell was broken, she fell into his arms, greedily kissing him back.
There was no way he could resist her now, not after what happened and what she knew. He took his time making slow, sweet love to her, enjoying her scent on his skin, making her moan with pleasure.
He’d waited so long for this, to make love to her, and he’d damn sure make it last. He worked his way down her body with his lips and tongue, pausing at her breasts and licking her nipples, gently biting at them. The responding moan he received from her made his cock throb even more, but he refused to rush.
Her fingers plunged into his hair, her nails digging into his scalp and adding a pleasant bite of pain to his pleasure. When he finally reached the juncture between her thighs she moaned even more loudly and held on tight to his head.
With his hands wrapped around her thighs, he slowly laved his tongue through her pussy lips, closing his eyes at his first sweet taste of her. He lapped at her clit, not letting her escape his grasp until he knew he’d gotten three orgasms out of her and she begged for mercy.
He stalked up her body, his cock painfully hard and dying to be embedded inside her sweet hole. “I want you to be mine. Forever.”
She looked dazed from the last echoes of her climaxes bouncing around inside her, but she eagerly nodded. “Please take me!”
He crushed her lips with his and thrust, hard and deep, inside her. With every ounce of his will, he held still, wanting to regain a little of his control. Following the line of her jaw, he traced her flesh with his tongue, down her neck, to her shoulder, where he grazed her flesh with his teeth.
She grabbed another fistful of his hair and held on tight. At this rate, he might end up with bald spots, but he realized he didn’t care. He sank his teeth into her shoulder as he started fucking her again, enjoying the feel of her body engulfing him as she screamed out in pleasure from another climax. He didn’t let go, holding on, marking her inside and out as his own release ripped out of his balls and pumped deep inside her.
They collapsed onto the bed, sweaty and spent, his arms protectively cradling her to him.
As they lay entwined on her bed, she whispered, “You called 911 from my car.”
“Yes. I shifted back long enough to do it. That’s why I couldn’t leave your boss’s house once they took me back there, because I had witnesses around all the time. From what I heard, you were doing okay. I figured it was best to wait for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be at your side.”
“So, am I going to turn into one, too?”
He laughed and rolled over on top of her. “It doesn’t work like that. I was born this way.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You called me your mate!” She playfully shoved him.
“Yeah, well you called me your boyfriend. You said you loved me.”
She blushed. “I thought I was talking to a dog.”
“You were talking about me.” He nuzzled her nose with his. “I love you, too, Tess. I was afraid to tell you. I’m sorry you had to find out like this. I’m sorry I couldn’t—”
She kissed him hard. “I should have listened to you about Ron. You saved me.”
He stroked her cheek. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “This is going to take some getting used to.”
His golden-brown eyes never left hers. “I know. This is the other reason I wanted to take it slow.”
“I thought people like you turned into vicious werewolves.”