Down & Dirty (Bundle) (15 page)

At least he thought she was offended instead
of broken-hearted. She clutched her plate and inched past him,
praying she could keep the tears in until she’d found someplace
safe to cry. “Fine. Let’s just not discuss it again.”

“
Well, you -- I --” He
scowled at her. “Fine.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Where
are you going?”

She shuddered and spun away from him. “I
don’t know. I suppose getting in bed with me isn’t very appealing
at the moment, but I have no idea what will happen to me if I
leave.”

He snorted. “Are you so horrified that
running away sounds good?”

Her hands trembled so hard
she had to curl her fingers more tightly around the plate to keep
from dropping it. “If you could look me in the eye and tell me you
loved me, I’d marry you tomorrow. But I deserve someone who loves
me, even if it means I can’t have you.” She wanted to say something
else -- to say something to make him
understand --
but tears closed her
throat.

Heartbroken and humiliated, she fled for the
second time that afternoon.

God damn it all to hell.

Oliver stomped across the room, intent on
going after Hazel, but a knock at the door stopped him. He crossed
and yanked it open to find the Lonely River pack’s beta, Thomas
Crawford, standing there. “What can I do for you?”

Thomas stared at him for several silent
seconds before his nostrils flared. “Noah Hampton showed up in town
with a broken arm and no idea what had happened to Hazel. Jack and
Lottie were concerned.”

“
Don’t really know. I guess
he acted like a jackass, and Hazel thrashed him for it.”

“
Oh.” The beta’s gaze
flicked past him and fixed on the door to the bathroom, where
Hazel’s faint sobs would be audible to anyone with their hearing.
“Do you need some help? She sounds… distressed.”

“
She is,” he shot back, his
voice raw. “I asked her to marry me, and now she hates me.” He
didn’t even know why her refusal bothered him so much.

Thomas cleared his throat rather noisily.
“I… didn’t know you were interested in marrying Hazel.”

“
I like Hazel.” Something
about the beta’s tone put him on the defensive. “I’m not the worst
catch ever. I don’t love her. I don’t
know
her. But I want to. What’s so
wrong with that?”

The older man
actually
winced
.
“And from the fact that she’s crying in the other room, I assume
that’s exactly what you said to her.”

“
What else would I
say?”

“
Oh, for the love of --”
Thomas bit off the word and stepped back, gesturing sharply for
Oliver to follow him. “You can’t have been with her more than five
or six hours. There’s no way the mating fever has passed already. I
need to know if you can handle her until it does.”

Oliver stepped out onto the porch. “Depends
on her, mostly. I haven’t changed my mind about anything.”

“
Hazel’s got a temper,”
Thomas pointed out. “She broke Hampton’s arm in two places and
might have cracked a couple of ribs, too. Can you handle
that
if she decides she’d
rather fight than -- than have sex?”

The thought would have been disturbing if it
hadn’t been so ridiculous. “I can handle it.”

Thomas snorted. “You’re an arrogant
son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you? If I’d just made a woman cry with a
marriage proposal, I’d be a little less cocky about my charm.”

“
Now, that part
was
perplexing,” Oliver
admitted. “But it’s still nothing I can’t handle. See you around,
Crawford.”

Thomas ignored the obvious dismissal and
raised his voice. “Hazel, it’s Thomas. Do you need anything,
sweetheart?”

Oliver heard the bathroom door slam open,
but only her voice drifted out. “Go home, Thomas. I’ll deal with
Oliver fucking Russell on my own.”

The beta rocked back on his heels and gave
Oliver an almost sympathetic look. “Well, then. I suppose it goes
without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. If you hurt her with
anything other than your deep and incurable idiocy on the topic of
women, I’ll come back out here and shoot you myself.”

“
As it stands, I think my
incurable idiocy is the only thing we have to worry about.” Oliver
jerked his head toward the hallway. “I’ll fix it.”

Hazel made a rude, angry noise loud enough
to be heard from the bathroom and slammed the door again. Thomas
winced. “Lottie packed a bag for her, in case it turned out she was
here. Do you want to take it in to her?”

“
I’ll take it.” Oliver
rubbed a hand over his face. “If it turns out she doesn’t want to
stay, I’ll bring her back as soon as it’s safe to.”

“
I know you will.” He moved
to his mare’s side and reached for the bag. “I know you’re a good
man, Oliver, but she’s a woman who’s had strong feelings for you
for a long time. And a few weeks ago…” Thomas hesitated and then
sighed. “Everyone’s been telling her to get over you and move on.
Maybe it wasn’t their place, but Jack and Ginny were worried. If
you and everyone and their cousin’s been telling her you don’t love
her, it’s not surprising she’s feeling a little uncertain about
imminent matrimony.”

“
It’ll work out.” He wasn’t
sure what else to say, because he wasn’t sure
how
it would work out. Not
yet.

Thomas held out the bag. “I hope it does. If
anything happens, bring her out to Jack’s old place. I’m staying
there now.”

“
Will do.” He accepted the
bag with a nod. “Unless she throws something heavy at my head and
leaves me to bleed to death in the kitchen.”

“
For all of our sakes,
please dodge.” Thomas swung up onto his horse. “Take care of her,
Oliver.”

He waved as Thomas rode away and then walked
inside. He took Hazel’s bag straight to the bedroom, placed it at
the end of the bed and sat down to wait for her.

She took her sweet time. He was starting to
worry when he finally heard her footsteps in the hall and the
floorboards just outside his bedroom creak. She stared at him from
the doorway, her brown hair hanging in damp strands around her face
and wearing only a large towel.

Though her eyes were red, she didn’t look
sad anymore. She looked angry. “Did you and Thomas have a nice chat
about what a stupid little girl I am?”

“
No.” He rested his hands
on his knees. “We had a nice chat about what an idiotic jackass I
am.”

Her expression turned wary for a second
before she resumed the annoyed, determined look. “We need ground
rules. And the first one is no more talking about marriage while
I’m out of my mind with mating fever. It’s not fair and it won’t do
any good anyway.”

“
All right.” He wasn’t
going to mention it again, anyway. Not if it got him yelled at and
made her cry. “That seems reasonable.”

His agreement seemed to throw her off her
stride. Something vulnerable flashed in her eyes before she jerked
her gaze away from his. “Okay. Um, second rule. No doing anything
that’s meant to make me fall more in love with you. That’s not
fair, either.”

His hands clenched involuntarily. “I’m not
sure I can agree to that, seeing as how I wasn’t aware I was doing
anything to make you fall in love with me in the first place. But
maybe, if you tell me what those things are, I can avoid them.”

Color flooded her cheeks, but she refused to
meet his eyes. “I don’t need sweet, gentle sex and tender touches.
I just need whatever will shut the wolf up fastest, if you’re
willing to do it.”

Her words startled him, mostly because he
didn’t remember making an effort to be especially tender with her.
“I can do that.”

“
Okay.” She swallowed
audibly as she loosened her grip on the towel. It slithered down
her body to pool on the floor, leaving her naked and standing just
a few feet away. “I don’t know if you can still stand the idea of
helping me, but if you can… I need it. I need
something
.”

He reached down and tugged off one boot,
then the other. He could do whatever she needed, except listen to
her talk like touching her was a hardship. He’d give her what she
wanted, what she needed, and he’d fix everything he could
later.

There was always later.

It wasn’t fair that she could be furious and
hurt and still so turned on she had to struggle for every breath.
As upset as the woman was, the wolf was already hungry for the
press of Oliver’s power wrapping around her.

She watched, heart pounding, as he rose
without taking his eyes from hers. The intensity of his gaze raised
the hair on the back of her neck, but she couldn’t look away, not
even when he reached down and slowly unfastened his pants.

He took his time. Once he was naked, he
circled her once, not touching. Then he stopped in front of her and
took a deep breath. “Don’t move.”

For some reason, the words made her shiver.
“You just want me to stand here?”

“
Yes.” He knelt in front of
her and rubbed his thumb over the swell of her hip. “Just don’t
move.”

She tried to obey, but he kept staring at
her. His dark eyes studied her face and body so intently she wanted
to squirm. She’d had plenty of men stare at her -- whenever her
power flared every man in the saloon tended to gawk a little -- but
those men had stared at a strong young wolf who might be ready to
mate soon.

Oliver just stared at the woman, at Hazel,
and it was too much. She closed her eyes and lifted her arms in an
attempt to shield her body. “You’re making me self-conscious.”

He caught her arms and skimmed his lips and
tongue up the front of her body as he stood. The hard length of his
erect cock nudged her belly, and he turned her toward the bed.
“Bend over.”

Her breath caught, and she struggled against
a soft whimper as she curled her fingers around the rumpled quilt.
He barely touched her except to grasp her hips and hold her still
while he eased his cock into her, a slow, deliberate invasion that
left her gasping for breath.

Somehow it felt all the more overpowering
for being so careful and calculated. She felt every inch of him as
he pushed into her body, a stark reminder of his size and strength.
She groaned and tried to push back, to put an end to his slow
taunting, but he held her tightly. “No. Feel me, right now, because
I’m about to fuck you six ways from Sunday, Hazel. That’s what you
wanted, right?”

She panted for breath and
tried to convince herself it
wasn’t
what she wanted, but there was no point in lying.
Not to herself, and not to him. “Yes.”

“
Then that’s what I’m going
to do.” He began to move, driving into her with sharp, sudden
thrusts that were impossible to anticipate and seemed to hit every
place inside her that was desperate for him. He pulled her hips
back to meet every advance, heightening the sensation until her
knees weakened and it was only his firm grip on her hips that kept
her from collapsing to the bed.

It was hard and intense and showed a level
of skill that made Hazel wonder about all sorts of things she
shouldn’t have. Her arms trembled, and his next thrust drove her to
her elbows, sharpening the angle even more.

Oliver bent over her, his
breath blowing warm against her back. “This is what you
want?
Really
what
you want?”

The wolf wanted it. That wild need inside
her would have been happy with more, and harder. She wanted
dominance and strength, to be pinned under Oliver’s weight as he
drove her into exhaustion.