Idler (Norseton Wolves Book 3) (3 page)

“What?” He ground his teeth and tried to suppress the growl rumbling up his chest. “You don’t seem interested in anything besides my teeth at the moment, but I assure you, I’m good at everything I set my mind to.”

“So am I. Get out. I’m going to shower.”

He didn’t know why he was goading her—why he had to have that last word—but he leaned in and whispered, “Come on, princess. You can’t shower my scent off, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re stuck with it now.”

No, he knew
exactly
why he was goading her. It wasn’t Colt, but his wolf doing the talking. The wolf wanted her to react.

She grabbed his hair again, yanking his head back. “You’re gonna want to watch how much shit you talk, motherfucker. I’m not the kind of submissive wolf who’ll be cowed by it.”

Good
, his wolf thought
.
The mouthy man part of him said, “I’m sure I’ve fucked
someone
’s mother before, though only once, and I didn’t learn her name.”

Touch me again
.

She met his gaze for a long moment, and did just the opposite of what his inner wolf wanted. She let go of Colt’s hair and pointed to the door. “I’ll be out of here in five minutes. By the time I’m done, it’d be amazing if you got all those clothes cleared off the sofa so that we can sit down and have an adult conversation about our relationship.”

In five minutes, we’ll be fucking. A born alpha just bit you.
He grinned.

“Sure thing. Anything else?”

“Perhaps put them away, if they’re clean.”

“They are.”

“So why are they on the sofa?”

“Why
not
? I think that’s the better question.”

“Do you own a dresser?”

“Two. I imagine you’ll be filling them with negligees and G-strings soon?”

He must have been grinning like an idiot, because she furrowed her brow and pressed her lips into a tight line.

“I don’t exist for your pleasure, wolf.”

Wolf.
His grin fell away. “My name is
Colt
. And no, no, of
course
you don’t. That would be too much like submission, wouldn’t it? And you’re not even a little bit submissive, are you, princess?”

She ground her teeth and sneered at him.

So damn sexy.

“If that’s what you want, hold your breath for a while. I hear some people hallucinate when they’re oxygen deprived. Maybe you’ll get exactly what you want in psychosis.”

“What were you saying before about talking shit? You seem to do more of it than anyone.”

“Because I can back it up with action, and I
will
, baby. Now get out.”

He did. He still wanted to have the last word, but his inner wolf got him moving.

He scooped his pile of jeans and T-shirts off the sofa and carried them to the bedroom. Flinging all of it onto the bed, he scanned his inner sanctum and groaned. If Lisa thought the living room was a disaster, she was likely going to chew his ass out good for how the bedroom looked.

He thought it was comfortable—like a nest. When he stumbled into bed after a late night after work, he didn’t care if he was surrounded by laundry, various unread magazines, and who knew what else. In sleep, none of it bothered him. He suspected she wouldn’t think that was a viable excuse. He’d probably have to clear it off.

Later, though.
First things first
.

He quickly wadded the laundry into random dresser drawers—it didn’t matter where it went, because nothing was sorted, anyway—and turned off the light. He was back in the living room straightening sofa cushions when the water in the bathroom stopped running and the door clicked open.

Soft footsteps sounded down the hall, and his wolf-caliber hearing picked up breathing—heavy breathing—and his nose was flooded with that scent…

Her scent, mingled with his, and…arousal.

She was
so
aroused.

Bingo
.

He turned, letting his gaze track up from the wet feet that left puddles across his tile floor to the long, leanly muscled legs that came together at the apex that her hand now cupped and rubbed.

She was touching herself, and her breathing, well—he looked at her face and found her lips parted and dark gaze intense—her breathing was ragged as hell.

He scanned downward to his bite and found satisfaction in its neatness, in spite of the circumstances in which he’d given it. It’d stopped bleeding, so all that was left was the perfect impression of his teeth and her tempting, smooth flesh.

“Drop—drop your pants,” she ground out through clenched teeth.

“What? I’m not sure I quite heard you.”

“You heard me just fine, wolf. Take off…your fucking…pants.
Now
.”

“My name is
Colt
.”

Growling, she grabbed him by the belt buckle and yanked the strap out of the loops in one easy tug before assaulting his fly.

Shit.

His pants were around his ankles and his ass on the sofa before he could even think of putting up a struggle—not that he intended to.

She pushed his spine against the sofa back and put her face very close to his, as if she were holding herself back from kissing him. Her breathing was so fast and unregulated, she had to be moments from hyperventilating. It wasn’t a time for teasing.

She was
so wet
, she was fucking dripping.

And then he was in her, and it felt amazing.

Fuck.
He ground his back teeth and growled as she settled onto him. There was nothing better than a mate’s touch. He’d heard that time and time and again, but he didn’t know what it really meant until now.

She threw her head back and murmured something in Spanish at the ceiling while digging her fingers into his tense shoulders.

His Spanish was pretty rusty, but he managed to catch something about
el diablo
. Whether she was speaking in general terms about the supernatural being, Colt’s cock, or Colt himself, he couldn’t guess from context. Didn’t matter, though. Knowing the meaning wouldn’t change what he wanted to do.

He rocked his hips again and tried to push more of him into her tight, wet channel, and she put her hands around his neck and squeezed, cocking her head in a daring way.

He let out a slow breath through parted lips as his belly spasmed and tingles danced down his spine and settled into his loins. His nuts drew up tighter as she grazed her thumbs up the column of his neck.

“I didn’t tell you to move,” she whispered and gave his neck another little squeeze. It didn’t quite cut off his air, but still managed to amp up his anticipation all the more.

His head was in a pretty fucked up place at the moment, with his inner wolf urging him to let her have her way, and Colt not really wanting to put up much of a fight.

Do want you want, princess.

He nodded, slowly, so as not to rile up her inner wolf’s aggression any further. He was guessing that’s what he was dealing with. Usually after a woman received her bite, her DNA would start to shuffle immediately, so the part of her that was wolf came out of slumber. Depending on her innate tolerance, the process might take a few minutes to start, or a few hours. Colt was the son of an alpha, and a born alpha himself, so he imagined that his bite wouldn’t be of the garden-variety sort.

Just do what you want
.

Sighing, she started riding him, using her strong thighs to slide her pussy up and down his cock, and his breath came out in a growl.

She clapped a hand over his mouth and bared her new fangs at him. Her first shift was starting, and she probably didn’t even know it. “Don’t. Talk. Shit.”

He nodded slowly again.

She squeezed around him tightly, and he held his breath so as not to let out the moan.

“Good.” She stood quickly and turned, only to straddle him backward with her knees pressed to his thighs and her hands gripping his knees.

Gods, please don’t…

At that angle, he was going to come fast, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. There was no mind over matter treatment for being ridden reverse cowgirl.

She bounced. And then again. A double, this time, as if she were checking him for durability, judging by the way she looked back at him and assessed his condition before going on.

He put his hands on the delectable swells of her ass and parted her cheeks.

What he wouldn’t give to run his tongue along her cleft and make her squirm.

“You’re going to get yourself into trouble,” she said breathily.

“You said I couldn’t have fun. I’m not having fun. I’m being tortured. You could at least give me something to hold on to.”

“Maybe you need to be tied up so you won’t have to.”

“Tie me up, then.”

“Next time.”

Next time
.

Gods.

He squeezed his eyelids shut as she bounced and clamped down hard enough on his bottom lip to draw blood as he hit the end of her channel against and again, and
fuck
, he wasn’t even allowed to like it.

His fingers curled into the sofa fabric and he heard the rip—the ruination of expensive material that was supposedly designed to survive even the most rambunctious of families. Apparently, that furniture designer hadn’t had werewolves in mind when sourcing the polyester blend.

His thighs shook and belly shuddered with each aggressive rise and fall, and he had to look. Had to see that gorgeous ass rippling as she rode him up and down.

Her nails dug into the flesh of his thighs and she let out an ear-rending shout, full of what he was pretty sure were Spanish expletives as she clamped so fucking hard on him, milking him. But she hadn’t said he could come yet.

“Can I—”

Abruptly, she stood and yanked him up by the collar of his shirt. “It’ll have to wait. Oh, gods.” Her fangs dropped even more and her eyes darkened. Her skin rippled with the beginnings of her shift.

He pushed her toward the back door, kicking his pants off his ankles as he went.

Time to run
. Nothing killed an erection like an impromptu shifting to one’s wolf.

She screamed, writhed, and clawed at herself as the moon compelled her to shift, and he shifted right alongside her, although he didn’t have to. His variant of werewolf wasn’t affected by the moon, though most others were.

He had to shift right then to make sure that she didn’t get confused and lost in her new form. It would probably take her brain a few shifts for the wolf part to connect with the human one, and until then, she needed to be supervised.

He could tell her what to do when they were wolves, and she’d have no choice but to listen.
It would probably be the only time she’d listen to me.

Again, he wasn’t so sure he minded.

That scared him even more than that time he’d had a madman swing a machete at him in a tight hallway. Colt had known what to do then, and had managed to put the guy down without any bloodshed. Fighting was easy. Relationships?
Not so much
.

It wasn’t his fault, though. He’d had training in fighting. Alpha had made sure Colt was as dangerous on two legs as he was on four. When he was fighting, he didn’t second-guess himself. Alpha couldn’t train Colt on how to be in a relationship, though. His parents were supposed to do that, and…

Well, they failed
.

All of his relationships were fucked up, so what was one more?

Lisa yanked open the screen door, and spotting her so-called husband on the sofa with a game controller in his hands, tossed her purse at his head.

He easily dodged it and didn’t even have to take his gaze off the television screen. Of course he didn’t. His reflexes in both his forms were stunning.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“You seem upset, dearest.” He let out a volley of rapid gunfire on the baddie on the screen, and growling, she put her body in front of the massive display. She wouldn’t be able to cover all of it, but she could definitely annoy him. She wanted him annoyed—at
least
as annoyed as she was at the moment. After that first night when she’d lost control and let out her unleashed bitch, she’d been trying to rein herself in, but he made it so fucking hard. If anything, he seemed to be goading her on purpose, but she decided that couldn’t be true. A wolf like him couldn’t possibly want to be bossed around by his mate. He was a born alpha, after all. It had been evident to her after her wolf came out.

He groaned and tossed the game controller onto the sofa. “What did I do wrong this time?”

She sighed and batted a hair though her ponytail. “Oh, you know what you did. Seems like you healed okay, though.”

He gave her that long, apathetic blue stare she was becoming so familiar with and let his hands dangle between his legs.

She tapped her right foot against the floor and willed herself to stay focused. Pretty much nonstop for the three days since she’d gotten her bite, she’d been thinking
dick
,
dick
,
dick
—and not the word as an insult, either. Colt may have been batting zero in certain aspects of his personality, but his cock had certainly been worth the price of admission.

Fuck
, the man was going to drive her insane.

She closed her eyes and balled her hands into fists at her sides. She could be calm and composed. “I heard Christina clawed you up.”

Sweet little Christina—the prayerful one from the day of the matches. She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t hurt a fly. During a grocery outing with Mrs. Carbone and the other mates, Lisa had observed Christina to be the kind of woman who’d go out of her way to not step on a worm on a wet sidewalk. But apparently, even an unassertive wolf like her had limits.

He shrugged. “Just a little swipe. I shifted soon after, so the cuts went away.”

“What’d you do to earn it? Keep in mind that I already know.”

“So why bother asking?”

“Because I want to hear your side of the story. Perhaps I’m missing something. Maybe you’re not actually that big of a jerk, and people just overstate things because you’re large and imposing.”

He scoffed. “Imposing, huh? Doesn’t seem to affect you one way or the other.”

“I’m immune to that bullshit and so much worse, let me tell you. Now you tell
me
, what did you do?”

“Usual shit. I was yanking Beast’s chain a little. He’s used to it.”

“Anton, you mean.”

“
Beast
. We all have nicknames.”

“Really? What’s yours? I haven’t heard it yet.”

Again, he shrugged.

“I see.” She tapped her foot impatiently. “Well, let me tell you what I heard. I heard that you were talking shit to Anton, and Christina didn’t like it, so she gave you a swipe.”

“Sounds about right. I’m sure you would have done the same thing.”

“For you?”

“Yeah.” He leaned sideways a bit as if to see the television around her body.

She turned and pressed the game console’s power button with her foot.

“Goddammit.”

“I don’t know if I’d do it for you, to be honest. I might have thought you deserved the insult. You just can’t keep your mouth shut, can you? Not everything in life is a pissing contest.”

He put his booted feet up onto the coffee table and crossed his legs at the ankles. “Oh, but it is. It’s just one big pissing contest. That’s what happens when you have the makings of five alphas in one confined area. Some of us handle it differently than others. Beast somehow manages to compartmentalize that shit. Loner keeps himself separate from everyone. Scion just puts his head down and tries to find shit to distract himself from all of the compulsions. Me?” Once more, he shrugged. “I crack jokes.”

“You’re trying to start fights.”

“No, no, no, princess. I’m not
trying
to. Wolves try to assert their dominance whenever possible, and I often do it with words.”

She was going to break him out of calling her “princess” somehow and some way, but at the moment, it was the least of her problems. “How’s that dominance thing working out for you?”

He turned his hands over. “It is what it is. Doesn’t seem to be working so well on you, huh?”

“Like I said, I’m immune to that shit. I’m an alpha’s worst nightmare.”

“I’ll say. You won’t consider me dominant in my own house?”

“Well, you do seem to think you’re the one running it.”

“You haven’t even been here a week yet.”

“That’s right. When I commit to something, I commit one hundred percent. I said I’d stay and be your mate, but I’m not the complacent sort of girl who’s going to coast on the status quo. You’re thirty-four years old. You need to do better.”

He scoffed. “You throwing my age into this, princess? You’re no spring chicken. You and those pretty tits of yours are twenty-eight, and as far as I can see, you haven’t solved any major world crises yet. What, precisely, should I be aspiring to? I’ve got a roof over my head, a pretty good job, and scheduled downtime. That’s far more than we had before we settled here. I’d like to enjoy it.”

“You’ve been here for more than six months.”

“Yep. I think it’ll take a little while longer to make up for a lifetime of
shit-tastic
situations. I’ve lived out of vehicles for the better part of my adult life, and left my birthpack when I was sixteen. That’s when my father got challenged. He lost. He was perfectly willing to stick around and be some guy’s ass-sniffing lieutenant, but I didn’t get to choose. I got sent away. Adam collected me after my mother sent him out to find me, and here I am. So, yeah, I’m enjoying this sofa and my television and my free time very much.”

She sighed and closed her eyes.
Goddammit.
He just had to go and have a sob story. Still, that doesn’t excuse bad behavior.
She
had a fucking sob story. Thanks to her ex-alpha’s mishandling of pack funds, her family had nearly been homeless more times than she cared to recount. They’d always had to dig themselves out. The odds were stacked against them, and she hadn’t let that stop her. She sighed. “You should want more.”

“Okay, maybe I’m an asshole. I freely and under no duress—beyond the blue balls you inflicted me with—can admit that. But that doesn’t mean I’m lazy.”

“I never said you were lazy.”

“You were getting there, I’m sure. My nickname is
Idler,
by the way, because I don’t volunteer for extra. I don’t do the
above and beyond
thing.”

“Because you don’t care?”

He gave his head a slow shake and let out a bark of laughter. “I care plenty. I just don’t think this is going to last, so I’m enjoying it while I can.”

“You don’t think
what’s
going to last?”

He swept his arm at the room. “This—
domesticity
thing. We’re not used to it. We’re the castoff wolves that our old packs couldn’t trust to let stay, but that’s our culture, isn’t it? No one can get too comfortable. Little boys with any power at all get sent away before they grow into it. Girls answer mate calls hoping to find something better than the shit puddle they’re living in.”

Lisa groaned and rubbed her eyes. She couldn’t really debate that. She’d done it, after all.
Twice
.

“Alphas get overthrown,” Colt continued, “and there’s chaos. So much fucking chaos. There’s no stability.”

“And you don’t think it’s possible here, is what you’re saying?”

He shrugged. “Maybe it’s possible. Alpha sure hopes it is. He’s so damned optimistic that he’s already got our hosts partitioning off lots for newcomers. He wants to make us a legitimate pack, I guess. Not just a roving band of mercenary nomads.”

“You think that’s a bad thing?”

He pursed his lips and made a waffling hand gesture. “Nice thing if you can get it, but it’s just going to be more of the same. The pack will get too big, and have too many little boys, and we’ll start sending them away because we’re afraid of them.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. There are ways for people to lead without them being the alpha in charge. I’ve seen it in other groups. If you structure the pack the right way at the beginning, align people’s expectations, you can give people a chance to do it a new way. A democratic way.”

“If I had a little flag, I’d wave it at you right now. Nice speech, princess.”

“I told you not to call me princess.” She stalked across the room, slammed her hand between his thighs, and grabbed his nuts.

The sound he made was as much moan as it was a hiss. His eyes rolled behind fluttering eyelids, and she pushed up an eyebrow, in awe.

“You like that, don’t you?”

He swallowed audibly and pushed up his heavy-looking eyelids. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You do. You’re prodding me, just like you do with your packmates. But from me, you’re not expecting a cranky retort. You want me to put you in your place, don’t you?”

He dragged his tongue across his lips. “As if you could. No one can. Not even Alpha.”

“That’s a lie.” She released his balls and drew out her hand. Giving him a little space to move, she hissed, “Stand up.”

He did, but only after staring at her for a few seconds first.

She put her hands on her hips and met his skeptical gaze. He couldn’t hold it and looked away, down at his crossed arms.

No way.

“Look at me.”

His gaze flitted up briefly, then back down again.

No freakin’ way
.

She knew men with attitudes like his who always played so nicely with her once they knew it was the best thing for them, but they weren’t wolves. Submissive alpha wolves didn’t exist.

Or do they?

There were a few ways to find out. “Listen, I need to get some work done. You’re possibly the most pessimistic wolf I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something, coming from a realist. I
have
to be optimistic. I came to this place to find somewhere better for my sisters, because they’re not doing so great back in that
shit puddle
—as you called it—where I came from. I’m going to make this a good place for them. I want to see them living on a couple of those unclaimed plots, do you understand me? Nod if you understand me.”

He nodded and licked his lips again.

“And you may not be particularly ambitious, but I am. I earn my way, and I like to have money in the bank to cover my ass. I’ve got work to do—clients to do taxes for. I need some room to do it. There’s a desk in your guest bedroom that needs to be assembled. You can have the couch and your game controller back when you’re done.”

He waited a few seconds before moving, but he did move. Not a single retort passed his lips.

Interesting
.

“Tools are already in there.”

“Okay.”

“Oh. And Colt?”

He turned. “Yeah?”

“Going above and beyond doesn’t have to be a fruitless endeavor. We’re not just talking about sowing seeds for the future. There’s something so—” Lisa slipped her hand inside her waistband and gave her clit a tender rub. “
Mmm
. So
arousing
about a hardworking man. Makes me want to corner him. To sit on his face and let him tongue me off. And if I’m still raring to go after that…” She strode to him, pulled her hand free, and tucked her fingers between his lips. “Well, you know.”

“You’re killing me,” he said around them, and sucked them hard.

“Not killing you.
Motivating
you. Ready to work?”

He groaned and let her fingers fall from his lips. “Shit, I’m pretty sure there’s some rule about bribing one’s husband with sexual acts.”

“You complaining?”

“You’d probably say that’s all I do.” He continued to the bedroom, and Lisa stood, watching him walk away.

So fucking weird.

Her natural assumption had been that he wouldn’t want to be told what to do, because no strong wolf really did. But letting someone else do the steering wasn’t always a sign of weakness. Sometimes, it was the smartest thing a person could do, if the person doing the steering was trustworthy enough.

Lisa liked to think she was, but she hadn’t earned his trust yet. She’d arrived at Norseton expecting its wolfpack to be like so many others—expecting its
wolves
to be like all the others. She thought she was taking one for the team—paving the way for her sisters. She’d given more thought to how she’d work the system than she did to figuring out a way to connect with her mate. She’d assumed he wouldn’t be worth her energy.

Maybe he wasn’t. But if he was, then the trip to Norseton might turn out to be even more life changing than she’d hoped. She owed it to herself to at least try to see the man as a partner, and not just a mate.

Perhaps she owed it to him, too.