Down & Dirty (Bundle) (17 page)

“
Doesn’t mean you should
have to.” He glared at the onlookers, who scattered immediately.
“He had no right.”

“
Most men don’t,” Hazel
agreed. “Like the ones who ignore you for two weeks and then show
up out of the blue to punch people on your behalf.”

He scowled at her. “I took you at your word.
You know, when you told me to take some time to get my head
straight.”

“
I --” All her righteous
anger disappeared, because it was true. Her chest felt tight as she
turned away. “Yeah. I guess I didn’t think it would take this long
for you to decide if you might be able to love me some
day.”

“
It didn’t.” Oliver shoved
his hand through his hair. “If I hadn’t been pretty damn sure I
could love you someday, I wouldn’t have proposed. What I needed to
get straight -- what I needed to figure out -- was that I already
do.”

Exhilaration rose at the
words, and Hazel stomped it down with vicious ruthlessness. Not
until she knew this time, not until she was sure.
My heart can only take so much.

She sought his gaze. “Are you saying you
fell in love with me during the last two weeks?”

He stepped closer and framed her face with
his hands. “I’m saying I realized why I wanted to hang on to you so
bad. I love you, Hazel. I don’t know how long I have, but I know
it’s true.”

“
How do you not know?” she
whispered, doubts still churning in her stomach. “I know exactly
when I fell in love with you. The day Thomas told me that my mother
had turned up dead. I hadn’t seen her in seven years and she’d
deserted me anyway, but I still cried all morning. And you played
chess with me in the saloon that night for an hour and didn’t say
anything about my puffy face and red eyes, just played and let me
win, though I didn’t figure that part out for another
year.”

He pressed his lips to her cheek. “I don’t
know. There’s always been something in me that belonged to you, but
I didn’t know what that meant or what to call it. I guess I was
scared to call it anything, because then I’d have to worry about
losing you.”

She shivered and pressed her forehead to his
chest. “Is that why you were so pissed off at me at Ginny’s
house?”

“
You didn’t stay down and
you almost got yourself shot, woman.” He folded his arms around her
with a groan. “God, it took me a while to puzzle out why I was so
damned mad about that.”

“
Well, I’m not exactly a
trained gun fighter.” She curled her fingers around his shoulders
and reveled in the warmth of his body. “Take me home, Oliver. We
can get married in the morning. I want you to -- to make love to me
tonight.”

His eyes were dark, gentle. “Are you sure?
You said something about courting, and I don’t want to rush
you.”

“
I said something about
courting because I didn’t want to rush you.” She narrowed her eyes
at him. “Unless you’re not sure you love me. I swear to God, Oliver
Russell, if you’re not being honest, I’m going to murder you in
your sleep.”

He just laughed and rubbed his thumb over
her jaw. “I know better than to try something like that, Hazel
Young. I like all my body parts.”

So do I.
She laughed and caught his thumb between her teeth
with a possessive growl.

“
I brought my fastest
horse,” he informed her with a chuckle. “You can sit in front of me
and wiggle, and I can grope you. How’s that sound?”

It still sounded like an
awful long time to get her hands on him. She slid one hand down and
dug her fingers into his lower back. “Sounds like it had better be
a
lot
of groping,
or I’m going to take you right here.”

He groaned. “Would it be faster to get to
Lottie’s house?”

“
Maybe…” She was struck
with the sudden certainty that she didn’t want to. “But I’ll make
myself behave, because I want to be in your bed, Oliver. I want to
be in it, doing naughty things to you, until it feels like our
bed.”

He stared down at her, hot and sweet. “Then
we’ll ride real fast, but I’d better not grope you too much or
we’ll fall off.”

Hazel snatched his hand up in her own and
all but dragged him toward the street. “Where in hell is your damn
horse?”

Oliver laughed, but the sound was strained.
“In front of the saloon. And I’m about to throw you over my
shoulder, woman.”

“
Well, that would cause a
scandal, wouldn’t it?” She couldn’t help the tiny laugh that
escaped. “Though you know, not as much as you punching men out if
they look at me funny.”

“
The scandal will be when
you disappear for another two days.”

As if anyone would doubt what they were up
to. Hazel imagined even the humans might be able to feel the
overwhelming rush of energy that coursed off Oliver in waves. The
power excited her, made her long to test herself against him. And
to have all that formidable attention focused on her and her
alone…

She shivered as they hit the open street and
tightened her fingers around his hand. “If we’re only at your house
for two days, I’ll be amazed.”

“
Didn’t say that.” He
reached the large, well-muscled roan and helped her up before
untying the horse. “Just said you weren’t coming up for air ’til
then.”

A shiver of anticipation woke the wolf, and
the horse shifted nervously beneath her. Hazel found Oliver’s gaze
and knew what he’d see in her eyes -- the dangerous creature
lurking just below the surface. “You’d best get me home before I’m
so riled not a horse in town’ll get within ten feet of me.”

He climbed up after her and murmured to the
horse, a gentle tug of the reins enough to send the animal toward
the south end of Main Street.

Oliver kept one arm wrapped tightly around
Hazel’s waist until they got out of town. Then he handed her the
reins. “Can you guide him?”

She tightened her fingers on the
well-polished leather and nodded. “Of course. But… why?”

His only answer was to drop his hand to her
upper thigh. “Because.”

“
Oh.” Breathing got a whole
lot harder, and her eyes fluttered shut for a moment as she
imagined the sheer illicit thrills to be had from Oliver’s hands on
her body, and out in the open, no less. “Well, then. You go right
ahead.”

His teeth scraped the side of her neck as
his fingers tugged at her skirt, gathering it high on her leg. He
soothed the ravaged skin with his tongue and blew on it. “It’s a
good fifteen minute ride out to my place at a faster pace than
this,” he noted lazily.

Her entire body felt tense as she urged the
horse to speed up. “Tell me what we’re going to do when we get
there.”

“
I haven’t shown you the
barn yet.” His fingers pressed hard against her inner thigh for a
moment. “Plenty of soft hay and clean horse blankets.”

Closing her eyes wasn’t the smartest thing
to do, but Hazel figured the horse wasn’t likely to run into
anything. “More. Tell me more.”

“
We need more naked
fucking,” he rasped. “We’re always half-clothed, and I want to be
able to look at you while I make love to you.”

The hand on her inner thigh taunted her. She
fidgeted a little, half trying to rub against his cock and half
hoping he’d inch his fingers just a little higher. “I’ll stay naked
in your bed for the next week. You won’t even have to tie me to it
unless you want to.”

“
Maybe for fun.” His hand
crept closer to the juncture of her thighs. “Maybe you should tie
me to the bed.”

“
I will,” she whispered,
all her concentration fixed on the fingers brushing the sensitive
skin of her leg. “And I’ll make you watch while I get myself off
over and over again.”

Oliver groaned and bit her neck. “You think
that’s a good idea? By the time you untied me, I’d be crazy with
lust.”

She
was almost crazy with lust by now. “Who said I’d untie you at
all? You’re strong enough to rip through anything, if you’re
determined. How many times would I have to come before you tore
free and got your hands on me?”

He half-chuckled, half-growled in her ear.
“Depends on how much you screamed.”

“
Depends on what you do
when you’re crazy with lust.”

His fingers touched her underwear. “Not
fast. Slow. Slow enough to make you crazy, too.”

“
I’m already crazy,
Oliver.” She leaned her head back on his shoulder. “You’d better
take these reins and get us home, or I’m going to drag you off this
horse and take you right here in the open and damned if I care if
anyone catches us.”

He took the leather straps from her and
spoke softly as his arm tightened around her. The horse broke into
a trot, and Oliver went back to murmuring in her ear. “I have a fur
rug I lay out in front of the fireplace in winter.”

It conjured a dozen dirty images, and she
struggled to catch her breath as she wrapped both hands around his
arm. “I don’t know what I want more… your tongue inside me again,
or me on my knees while you fuck me.”

“
No reason you have to
choose.”

Hazel groaned and closed her eyes. “How far
away is your damn house?”

“
Not far now, darlin’. Just
relax and tell me everything else you want to do on that
rug.”

She thought of the fantasies she’d imagined
during the long, lonely nights. She thought of the dark, dangerous
images that filled her head when she touched herself and thought of
Oliver. “Some of them are so dirty, I worry you’ll think I’m a
freak.”

“
Not possible, Hazel.” He
nuzzled her ear with another growl. “There isn’t anything I
wouldn’t do to you if you wanted it.”

The words made her shake even as they let
her admit the one thing she’d always been a little bit ashamed of.
“I always blame it on the wolf, but she’s not the only one who
likes the dominant stuff.”

It took him a while to answer. “It’s… been a
long time since I let myself want that kind of thing.”

She fought a sudden wave of nerves. “You
don’t have to. We don’t -- I don’t care. I mean, I won’t mind
--”

“
Hazel.” His lips pressed
against her cheek. “It doesn’t mean I don’t want to. It just means
I’m used to ignoring the part of me that does. That’s
all.”

It stirred the fear that she’d had all
along, the fear that such things were dirty and wrong, and she’d
been warped by spending her formative years in a brothel. “Why
would you ignore it?”

“
Marissa, my wife --” He
cleared his throat and slowed the horse to a walk again. “She
wasn’t fond of that sort of thing.”

“
Oh.” She didn’t know what
else to say. “I’m sorry. That I brought it up, I mean.”

“
It’s not your fault, and
it’s not a big deal,” he insisted. “It’s only that old habits die
hard, and you -- you have to tell me what you want. So that I can
give it to you.”

Hazel slid her hand down his arm until she
found his fingers. “I don’t know what I want. Not really. It’s all
fantasy and theoretical knowledge and --” She thought about how
quickly he’d punched Kyle and decided to leave off mention of the
human boys she’d experimented with. “Well, that’s pretty much
it.”

“
Then we’ll figure it out.”
He squeezed her fingers.

They crested a small hill, and Hazel stared
at Oliver’s house with a mixture of sharp anticipation and nerves.
She swallowed and clutched at his hand. “I want to start in your
bed.”

When they reached the house, he slid down
and helped her from the horse. “Go on inside while I stable him.
I’ll be just a minute.”

She watched him lead his horse to the barn,
then turned and scurried for the front door of his house.

Our house.
She tried it out in her head, just to see how it
sounded… and wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Maybe because, in
her rash promise to marry him, she’d forgotten one important
detail. They’d never actually gotten around to having sex without
the urge to mate driving them both a little insane.

It was a silly thing to
worry about, but it didn’t stop her from doing so as she avoided
the kitchen and sitting room and, instead, went straight to his
bedroom. The bed looked both enticing and intimidating. She
distracted herself by stripping off her clothes, determined to be
waiting when Oliver returned. They were going to have the hottest
non-mating sex imaginable. And
then
she’d believe in her happily ever
after.