Wendy's Wild Wolves [Shy River Pack 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (6 page)

Now they just needed to explain the breach of protocol to the alpha. That was one conversation Sogarn definitely was not looking forward to.

* * * *

Wendy dropped her hand to the wolf beside her, caressing behind his ears as had become her habit when she was thinking. Except that now that she knew the wolf lying on the bed beside her wasn’t actually a wolf, it was probably something she shouldn’t be doing. Her thought was reinforced when the furry liar groaned in wolfy pleasure. She snatched her hand back.

“Change,” she said frantically. Perhaps a little too frantically considering the way the wolf’s ears swiveled toward her a moment before it sort of melted back into the shape of a purple man. Purple…“Why the hell are you purple?”

Donovan laughed softly and reached over to touch her face with the backs of his knuckles. “Just genetics,” he answered with a smile. “Some packs can integrate into human society quite easily. We aren’t one of them.” He laughed softly. “Well, except on Halloween.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, sitting up in bed so that she could see him more clearly. It probably wasn’t the best of ideas. Sitting up made her realize that the huge man lying beside her on the bed was actually naked. She tried not to look, but well, it had been a really long time since she’d seen an actual cock. Her thoughts trailed away when she realized Donovan had followed her line of sight and was apparently pleased by it. Wow, that was one impressive erection.

“We didn’t tell you,” he said calmly, as if he wasn’t lying beside her naked and aroused, “because we weren’t authorized to do so. Technically, we’re still not, but under the circumstances it became necessary. Fighting off snake-shifters is near impossible in wolf form. It’s much easier with a shotgun.”

“Did I kill them?” she asked worriedly.

“No, they’ll recover from the rifle shots and maybe come after us again, but well, you’ve met Polly. We’re not even sure what he did, but it doesn’t seem like something worth killing for. The snakes were probably just doing their jobs the same way we are.”

“But I saw them try to kill you and Sogarn.”

“Yeah, but it was only a halfhearted attempt.” Halfhearted? Was this guy serious? “It’s okay,” Donovan said, apparently misreading her reaction. He reached for her and pulled her down the bed and into his embrace. “We’ll protect you if they return.”

“But who will protect you?”

Donovan laughed softly, his warmth enveloping her, infusing her with a sense of calm that she hadn’t really felt in many years. “We’ve been doing this a long time. You’re in good hands.”

Yes, she was. In fact, a wicked part of her wished those hands would move just a little. The soft touch against her abdomen was very appealing, but she was quickly coming to hope he would caress a little higher or perhaps even a little lower.

She shivered slightly, trying to hide her arousal, and once again Donovan seemed to mistake her reaction as fear. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Get some rest.” He moved them both to a more comfortable position, sighing softly as he pressed his hard cock against the crease of her ass. She was fully clothed with a blanket over her, but she couldn’t help sighing in return. How was it that she felt so comfortable in the arms of a man who was essentially a stranger?

* * * *

Donovan tried not to breathe too deeply. At first he’d worried that she was frightened, but then the sweet smell of her arousal had reached his nose and it had taken all of his strength not to do something inappropriate—like strip her clothes off and bury his cock deep inside her body. He ground his teeth together, trying to will away his poorly timed physical reaction.

“D–Donovan?” she asked in a timid voice as if she wasn’t quite sure how to pronounce his name.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Do you remember everything I said to you in wolf form?”

Of course he did. When he shifted into a wolf he was still conscious of his actions—he figured that was pretty obvious by the way they’d reacted to both her ex’s attack and the snake-shifters’ attempt to abduct Polly—so her question was a little confusing. He moved away slightly so that he could roll her onto her back and see her face.

“What’s this about, Wendy?”

She blushed prettily, and he couldn’t help pressing his lips to hers for a quick kiss. He trailed his fingers over her stomach, absently wishing she wasn’t wearing clothes and hidden under a blanket, and waited for her to answer.

“I just…I’m sorry for, you know, complaining to you all the time. I mean, if I’d known you were men instead of wolves…” Her words trailed off, and she looked at him worriedly. “You are men who turn into wolves, aren’t you? Not wolves who turn into men?”

He smiled at her worried question. “Yes, Wendy. Both forms are natural for us, but we think and behave like men most of the time, even in our wolf shape.”

“Oh, that is such a relief,” she said on a deep exhale. “I was worried that—”

She cut her words off and colored with embarrassment even more.

“You were worried that you were attracted to me?” he asked with a grin, trying to keep the conversation light even as his erection grew heavier.

She nodded warily.

“And Sogarn?” he asked, wanting to get that part out of the way quickly. It wasn’t unusual for werewolves to share a mate, but he knew it wasn’t the norm for humans.

She nodded, her eyes wide as saucers as she waited for his reaction. “Are you mad?”

“Hell no,” he said before leaning in to kiss her, this time lingering much longer as he explored her pretty mouth with his tongue. He gave her another grin as he finally came up for air. “I’m actually relieved. It would have been very awkward if you were only attracted to one of us.”

“Oh,” she said, clearly trying to work through the confusion of the past few hours. It was a lot to take in, and if he’d been in her shoes, chances were he wouldn’t have been nearly as calm. He couldn’t imagine how annoyed he would be at being deceived the way Wendy had been.

“Thank you for not being angry.”

“Oh, I’m plenty angry,” she said with a tone of voice that sounded more like her usual confident self. “I’m just trying to assign blame to whom it belongs. Who gives you your orders?”

“That would be our alpha,” Donovan said, “but I wouldn’t suggest blaming him, either. Apart from the fact that he’s going to be pissed that we got you involved in this, his rules are made to protect the pack and other shifters from exposure. There’s no telling what humans might do if they learned shifters were real.”

“I suppose you have a point,” she said with a shrug. “It’s just annoying to be angry and have no one to blame.”

“You could blame Polly,” Donovan said with a laugh.

“How so?”

“He’s the one who insisted on moving off pack land. He flew onto your grandmother’s shoulder forty-four years ago and made certain she looked after him. We had no choice but to protect him from afar.”

“But without him I never would have met you,” she said, this time leaning up to kiss him. Hell, if she didn’t stop being such delicious company, his self-control was going to suffer. “Hey, wait a minute.” She moved back, and for a moment he worried that he’d upset her. “How long have you been protecting Polly?”

“Forty-four years.”

“But…but you don’t look a day over thirty.”

“Wolf-shifters age differently. I’m eighty-four.”

“You’re old enough to be my grandfather,” she said with a mischievous smile.

“If I were still human that would be true,” he said, trying to stay serious. “But year for year, you and I are about the same age.”

“Oh, so you’re not too old to…you know…” It took a moment to realize she was teasing him.

“Nope, sweetheart, I don’t know. Haven’t got a clue. How about you explain it to me in intimate detail?”

She laughed but shook her head quickly.

“How about you just show me, then?” he said, trailing his hand higher up her stomach to glide over her breasts. She pushed the blanket down herself, letting his hand roam over her sweatshirt as her nipples beaded underneath. Wendy moaned softly as he pinched the hard peak, her eyes darkening with arousal as he leaned over and kissed her again and again.

“It’s been a long time,” Donovan said, not really sure if he was referring to her sexual encounters or his own. He knew for a fact she’d been celibate for at least the past year, not counting the infrequent times they’d overheard the soft hum of her vibrator.

He and Sogarn got very little time away from protection detail and in the last decade or so hadn’t even bothered to head back to the pack. Lately, staying close to Wendy seemed more important than pretending to chase females back home. They had each other. For a long time it had seemed enough.

But that thought made him realize this was a very bad idea. Wendy couldn’t possibly feel the same for them as they felt for her. She’d spent the past three months having one-sided conversations with a couple of wolves, not men. Donovan’s wolf half growled its annoyance in his mind as he pulled away, but he knew it was the right thing to do.

Fucking her now would be just that—fucking.

“Sorry, Wendy,” he mumbled as he pulled away. “The timing is all wrong.”

“Oh,” she said, looking worried. “I forgot you’re supposed to be protecting Polly.”

“Actually, I’m off duty and supposed to be getting some sleep, but it’s not why I’m pulling away.”

“Why then?”

“Because it’s been a long and weird day for you, and I want to be certain you won’t regret things in the morning.”

“I won’t regret anything,” she said quickly. But then she took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and gave him a soft smile. “But I suppose there is no harm in being sure.”

“That’s my girl,” Donovan said, lifting the blanket back up over her chest and arranging her against him once more. “Get some rest, sweetheart. We’ll talk more later.”

Dinner was unusual to say the least. She wasn’t really certain what she’d been expecting, but vegetable lasagna wasn’t it.

“You don’t eat meat?” She blurted out the question before she truly thought the concept through. Vegetarian wolves? Probably not. Donovan laughed softly and reached for her hand, but it was Sogarn who explained.

“In our wolf forms we tend to eat a lot of protein, so in human form we try to catch up on other nutrients. I’m happy to add some meat to your plate if you like.”

“No, no, I’m fine. Just surprised. This is delicious.”

“Better than those microwave meals you seem to favor.” It was obvious that Donovan was teasing her, but she blushed nevertheless. Cooking for just one was annoying, and microwave meals were so simple, but if she’d known her wolves actually came in man form, too, she would have cooked up a storm every single night in the hopes that they’d join her.

Hell, she probably would have invited them into her home to stay. Not only were they great company, but she could just imagine curling up to at least one of them each night. One? Considering how yummy they both were, it would have been a difficult decision. Both in her bed each night sounded like a far more appealing idea. In fact, all of her girlie parts started to tingle just imagining what two delicious, purple-hued men could do to her—especially when they seemed comfortable walking around naked.

But her thoughts were derailed when Donovan and Sogarn both took deep breaths and groaned softly.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, wondering if there was some problem with the food.

“Who are you thinking about?” Sogarn asked in a neutral tone. The strange, out-of-the-blue question caught her off guard.

“Who?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sogarn said in that same unbiased tone. “Who are you thinking about to be that turned on?”

“Turned on?” she asked anxiously. “I don’t understand.”

Donovan gave Sogarn an annoyed look and pulled Wendy out of her seat and onto his lap. “What my jealous lover wants to know is which one of us you’re thinking about. We can smell your arousal.”

“You can?” she asked again. Good grief, for someone who used words to make a living, her vocabulary was definitely suffering at the moment.

Donovan leaned in and pressed a playful kiss to her nose. “It’s okay, sweetheart, just tell Sogarn what you told me earlier.”

“Earlier?” Sogarn asked, sounding annoyed. Hell, maybe they’d all spent too much time around the cockatoo. It seemed Wendy wasn’t the only one “parroting” words now.

“Go on, sweetheart, tell him.” Donovan lifted a hand to caress softly over her breast. “He needs to hear you say it out loud.”

Wendy dragged in a deep breath, uncertain how this conversation had gotten out of control so quickly. She’d always been a fairly truthful person, so despite her wild imagination she was unable to formulate a lie fast enough to explain away her arousal. In the end the truth fell from her mouth without her really being ready to share it. “Both of you. I was just imagining. I mean”—she gasped as Donovan found her peaked nipple with his fingers and squeezed gently—“it was just…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Sogarn smiled and seemed to relax. “No offense taken,” he said with a wink, “but you might be more comfortable without the clothes.”