Down & Dirty (Bundle) (16 page)

But the tiny part of her that could think
past the mating urge wanted all the things she’d forbidden him --
gentle touches and whispered words and him watching her while she
found ecstasy in his touch.

She thought he might press her for an
answer. Instead, he gathered her up against his chest and nuzzled
his face into the curve of her neck. “This is what I want.” He
stroked up her stomach to cup her breasts. “I want to touch
you.”

“
Why?” It came out as a
moan, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “Why do you want to touch
me?”

“
Because you’re beautiful.”
His thumbs flicked her nipples, and heat shot through her as she
gasped. “Because you fascinate me.”

He was breaking the rules
already, and she didn’t know how to stop him. Truth be told, she
wasn’t even sure she wanted to. It would hurt more, in the long
run, but he was so good at touching her.
And if this is all I’m going to get, I want it
all…

But not the romance. She
lifted her arms above her head and wrapped them around the back of
his neck. “So touch me. Fuck me. Do the growly werewolf thing
and
dominate
me.
Isn’t that what will help the wolf?”

Oliver made a quiet, indecipherable noise.
“Maybe.” He pulled her arms free and picked her up. Then he stalked
around the bed and bent her over the other side of it. “Watch,” he
ordered, one hand in her hair lifting her head. “Watch me fuck
you.”

She opened her eyes and found their
reflection staring back at her from the mirror over his dresser.
She looked flushed and disheveled, tiny compared to the bulk of
Oliver’s body behind her. Her gaze found his in the mirror, and the
naked lust on his face made her whole body tense with
anticipation.

He didn’t take his eyes from the mirror as
he drove into her again, settling into a hard, slow rhythm of
thrusts. “What do you see, Hazel?”

“
I -- I see --” She saw a
desperate woman, rocking back to meet every advance. She saw
flushed cheeks and glazed eyes that held more than a little gold.
And she saw Oliver, his jaw clenched as he drove her toward
release. The scent of sex and the sound of harsh breathing and skin
on skin seemed so much more overwhelming when she could
see
his cock plunging
into her.

“
What do you see?” His
voice was low, harsh. He groaned and sped the movement of his hips,
slamming his hips against hers. “Tell me.”

Climax was so close she had to struggle to
draw breath. “You’re fucking me,” she gasped. “Y-you… you’re taking
me --”

“
Hard. Fast. Nothing
romantic about it.” Except that, even as he spoke, he stroked one
hand down her back, soothing and tender. She trembled under his
hand and closed her eyes as the pressure became too
much.

But release wouldn’t come.
Her body felt tight and heavy and she squirmed against him in an
attempt to push closer. She was so close, so damn
close
to the sort of
ecstasy that would wash away everything and satisfy that hunger
inside her --

He hissed out a curse, and the hand on her
back slipped around and drifted down her belly, finally centering
on her clit. “Give in,” he grated out. “Let it come, baby.”

“
I-I can’t --” Frustration
cut through the pleasure, so sharp she wanted to cry. If it had
been just sex she would have given up, but the painful drive to
mate would be satisfied by nothing short of submission -- and not
submission wrenched from her by forceful thrusts. She had to let
go.

Letting go terrified her.

He stopped, and she whimpered and pressed
her forehead to the comforter as she fought a shuddering wave of
discomfort. “I’m sorry, I can’t -- I’m sorry.”

“
Shh.” He turned Hazel in
his arms and lifted her onto the bed. Moments later, he crawled up
to lean over her. “You just need a minute, that’s all.” He stroked
her damp hair as he spoke.

Oliver was going to break her heart, and she
was going to let him. She knew it even as she twined her arms
around his neck and pushed up against the warm strength of his
body. “Help me,” she whispered, a soft plea for him to break the
rules she’d given him. “Help me let go.”

“
Shh.” Oliver slid his
hands under her hips as he nestled between her legs, urging her to
meet the gentle thrust that brought him inside her again. When he
rocked against her, he braced one hand on the bed and brought her
chest up to his. “Don’t worry so much.”

The intimacy was almost too much. Every
rocking thrust rubbed their bodies together, and the strong hand
splayed against her back kept her pinned against him as if it were
effortless. She shivered and let her head fall back as pleasure
twisted around her again.

This time she didn’t fight it, even if her
longing adoration of Oliver was twisted up in the mating instinct
and rising warmth. For one moment she let her human side -- the
side concerned with marriage and mundane concerns -- slip away. The
man moving against and inside her was her mate, and in this place,
at this time, she belonged to him.

She whispered his name once
before climax took her. She thought she might have screamed, but
the rush of white-hot ecstasy made it hard to focus on anything
else. The wolf howled her triumph inside as Hazel dug her fingers
into his shoulders and bucked up against him, only one word coming
to her lips. “
Yes
.”

She felt the heat of Oliver’s breath on her
neck and the sting of his teeth, and he shook above her. He kept
driving into her, finally shuddering to a stop as he shouted
against her skin.

Floating on a wave of satisfied relief, she
let the careful guard on her tongue slip. “I love you.”

He kissed her and moved, drawing her against
his chest. “Rest, sweetheart.”

She shivered until he curled an arm around
her, surrounding her in the warmth of his body and the power that
burned so brightly inside him. The terror and dread from before had
vanished, washed away by giddy relief as the mating fever eased for
the first time. She slid one hand over his and curled her fingers
around his wrist. “Stay with me?”

He drew away to pull the quilt over them,
then grasped her hand again. “Nowhere I’d rather be.” His lips
brushed her ear. “Now sleep.”

Chapter Five

Oliver cleared his throat as Hazel folded a
shirt and placed it in her saddlebag. “You sure you’ll be all right
riding back into town on your own?”

“
My horse seems to feel a
little better about me today,” Hazel replied, her voice so
lighthearted it sounded forced. Certainly the tone didn’t match the
tight look around her eyes. “Thomas swears an afternoon wandering
the prairie without me did wonders for her temper. I’ll be
fine.”

He closed his eyes and remembered her face
the way it had looked night before, tense with pleasure as he slid
his fingers inside her and brought her to orgasm. “You have to be
careful, though. Maybe I should ride with you, just in case.”

She gave a tiny little sigh. “Oliver, I’ve
been riding out to Ginny’s on my own since I was fifteen. And I’m
sure you have things to do around here that you didn’t have time to
deal with over the last few days. You’ve given me enough of your
time.”

His hands tightened around the bedstead.
She’d been fine on her own, but that was before she’d been in his
bed. Before she belonged to him. “Sure,” he muttered. “Sure, I’ve
got things to do.”

The quiet sounds of packing ceased, and she
sighed again. “Look at me, Oliver.”

He did, and he wished he hadn’t as memories
surfaced again. Hazel, her head thrown back in ecstasy. Hazel, her
lips around his cock. “What?”

Her gaze softened. “I love you. Your
instincts are all riled up now, but you don’t love me. If you’re
still interested in marrying me, take some time and get your head
on straight, then maybe you can get to know me. But I’m not going
to sit around and wait, Oliver. I’m not going to go home and stop
living on the off chance that you’ll fall in love with me some
day.”

Pain ripped through him. He wanted to say
something to counter her words, or the gentle certainty in her
gaze. “I still want to marry you. That hasn’t changed, and it isn’t
going to.”

Tears filled those huge brown eyes, and she
looked down at her bag as she tucked a pair of pants into it. “Not
for the right reasons. Maybe the wolf is content with the mating
bond, but I’m human, too. And I’m too young to give up on being
loved.”

There was nothing he could say to change her
mind, and Oliver wouldn’t have even if there had been. She was
right; she deserved more than a convenient, comforting arrangement
from a widowed rancher with more stubbornness than sense. “I
understand, Hazel. And you -- you should be happy.”

The last dress went into her bag, and she
smoothed her fingers over it as if stalling for time. “If you think
-- I mean, if you get settled down and think that you might be able
to fall in love with me… People used to do that before the War, you
know. Date. Take their time. You could come and see me.”

“
Courting, you
mean.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Yeah. I imagine my
circle of panting admirers will have mostly vanished now that I’m
not going to fall into an uncontrolled lust at any moment, so I’ll
have plenty of time.”

Jealousy surged through him, and he fought
to keep his expression neutral. “If that was all they wanted,
you’re better off without them. You’re too good for that.”

“
I know.” She buckled the
pack shut and finally looked up at him again. “So… maybe I’ll see
you, once you’ve had time to think?”

He couldn’t imagine being able to stay away.
“I’ll be around, Hazel.”

She smiled at him, shy and a little nervous,
and hoisted the pack off the bed. “Thank you for taking care of me,
Oliver. I’m sorry I got us both into such a mess.”

He started to take the pack from her, but
drew his hands back. “You’re welcome. And it wasn’t such a
mess.”

For one awkward moment she stared at him,
her eyes alight with longing. Then she turned and cleared her
throat. “Good bye.”

He stood there, not trusting himself to see
her to the door. He’d readied her horse, and all she had to do was
ride away.

Out of his life.

He forced himself to sit on
the edge of the bed as she walked out, and he stared at his
reflection in the vanity mirror. She was right, and he knew it. She
didn’t need to settle for someone who might love her. She deserved
someone who
knew
.

The only thing worse than a broken heart is
feeling it break one day at a time.

Hazel had set herself up for a peculiar sort
of hell, that was for sure. She should have marched out of Oliver
Russell’s life with her head held high and come home to cry over
him for a few days. Maybe it would have been irrational and
immature, but it would have been over. Instead she’d given him some
sort of open-ended invitation to woo her at his convenience.

Apparently wooing her wasn’t very
convenient. Or else he’d never wanted to at all. Maybe he’d taken
her at her word that she’d move on, and this was just a way to
avoid the awkward task of telling her to her face that he could
never love her.

Hazel marked the end of the
second week of waiting with enough Scotch to kill a human man. It
got her mildly drunk, drunk enough to flirt with Kyle Albertson,
who was twice her age and hungry for a wife.
This is moving on,
she told herself
as she stroked her fingers over the back of Kyle’s hand. But the
buzz from the Scotch was already fading when she let him talk her
out the door into the street.

The sun rested low on the horizon, and
Kyle’s hand had migrated down as well, from the small of her back
to the curve of her ass. She snarled -- not at the presumption so
much as the fact that he couldn’t even wait until they were in
private -- but she didn’t get a chance to smack him.

Oliver pulled Kyle away, spinning him
around, and his enraged growl almost drowned out the sound of his
fist hitting Kyle’s jaw.

“
Oliver!” Hazel grabbed his
arm and tried to drag him back. “Jesus Christ, have you lost
your
mind
?”

“
You snarled.” He seemed
bizarrely calm, even as he watched Kyle stagger away. “He was doing
something you didn’t like.”

She opened her mouth to
retort but realized they were drawing a crowd of onlookers, some of
whom had stepped out of the saloon just to watch. So she ground her
teeth together and dragged Oliver into the small alley beside the
saloon. “I can handle Kyle Albertson on my own. As a matter of
fact, I can handle most of the men in this damn town on my
own.”
The one exception, of course, being
the one standing in front of me.