Wolf's Return (Black Hills Wolves Book 1) (7 page)

With a nod, he pulled out and abruptly pushed back inside of her. She raised her hips to meet him thrust for thrust. Soon, they were moving in a rhythm she hadn’t created and was pretty sure Drew hadn’t either. It was the dance of their lovemaking—no, she amended, of their
fucking
—and had always been.

Every movement of his body brought her closer to shattering into a thousand pieces. She gasped, holding her breath after she did. Her mind warred with her body. The former cautioned against letting it all end too quickly—who knew when she’d ever have him above her again? The latter wanted release, right then, without another moment delayed.

Drew let out a loud growl and flipped her over. She had a moment to grasp onto the headboard before he was behind her and thrusting into her again. “Like this. I’ll have you this way.”

Whatever he wanted. She’d do it upside down and dangling from her feet if only he would give her release. She threw her head back, leaning on his shoulder while she tilted her head toward the ceiling. There was something inherently right about him taking her from behind. They were part wolves. She did want her mate to dominate her, even if she would never tell him outside the bedroom.

The sounds of sex slapped between them, and she grew even hotter. If this continued, she’d explode from the sheer temperature alone. The friction between them drove her farther toward the edge. “Yes, Drew, please. More. Give me more.”

“Always, baby, always.” His words were said right in her ear. “Come for me, B. I want to feel you explode around me.”

She shouldn’t need his permission to reach orgasm, but that night she did. She shattered around his hard cock, her womb clenching and unclenching while she shouted his name, over and over. Or maybe she only thought she did. Coherent thought had become a thing of the past.

Drew gave one more hard thrust before he came, long and hard, inside of her. There was no chance of either pregnancy or disease. She could only get pregnant under very specific moon cycles, and they weren’t in them. Their kind didn’t carry sexual diseases like the humans they sometimes resembled. She reveled in the feel of her mate’s explosion. It had been so long.

She closed her eyes and let herself just feel. He didn’t fall on top of her but instead lifted her close against his chest while he rolled both of them over onto his chest. It would be so easy to curl into him, to bask in the post-climax glow of being this close to Drew.

Betty lifted her lids and stared out into the room. How many nights like this had they shared together? Hundreds of them. And then he’d decided to just take matters into his own hands and leave? Screw his intentions, that wasn’t okay.

She bit down on her lip, trying to keep her anger down, before she realized the effort fruitless. Another woman might be able to get over this without another thought. But, she’d never been that girl. Drew had hurt her. Not even extraordinary sex would fix it for her.

“B….”

Yeah, he’d be able to smell the shift in her scent. He’d know she felt less than happy at that moment.

“I want you to go.”

Drew sighed loudly. “Listen—”

“No, you
listen
.” She sat up. “I get that I may have just given you the impression this was going to change something. I rolled over. I practically begged you to spank me. Thanks, really. It was great.” Drew had accused her of going for the throat earlier. Yes, that’s exactly what she did. Years with Magnum had taught her nothing else. And screw Drew. Everyone else might be willing to fall their knees over his return, but not her. He’d hurt her. Not them.
Abandoned
. “Get out.”

“You know what? This hasn’t exactly been a picnic for me either. I got banished. I got shot.” She winced. He limped. But, still it didn’t change what he had done even if she didn’t like the thought of his pain. “I did that for you. Do you think ten years ago I would have done that for anyone else? Just you. You, my mate, who I would die for. I took ten years of utter and total loneliness and isolation. You could at least speak to your family. You had people you care about around you. I’ll go, but maybe if you could get your head out of your ass long enough to see something other than your own pain, there might be a chance for us. Think about whether or not you want to be alone another fucking decade.”

It took him a few seconds to get up, grab his clothes, and get out of the room. She refused to look at him. His words thundered in her chest. She scrunched up in a ball under the sheets, which still smelled like him.

Tears she hadn’t shed in ten years flew freely down her face. How was it possible to be so sad and so angry at the same time?

Drew slammed his hammer onto the nail so hard his elbow ached from the vibration. He’d been up since dawn, having slept on the floor of his mother’s -dilapidated home. Maybe slept was the wrong word. Stared at the ceiling in abject horror might be a better description.

Was this his life with B now? Would they fight all the time? Would she hate him for making what he’d thought was the best decision at the time for the rest of her life? If the joining they’d had the night before couldn’t begin to repair things, nothing would.

With the afternoon sun in the sky, he stepped back to see how his repairs were going. Most of what was left of the pack worked on the barn. It had always been a meeting place until Magnum had usurped it as his hangout with his cronies. Drew hadn’t told anyone what to repair, but it seemed the consensus had been to start with that first.

He had chosen, by contrast, to work on what had been, at one time, a convenience store. Who knew what it would be if anyone ever came back to resettle and work the place? But he couldn’t ask members of the pack to return home and not have anywhere for them to make a livelihood. The ones who had been gone had been living in the human world. They’d want more amenities and having such things around appealed to him as well. If they were going to rebuild the place, they needed to make it a modern Los Lobos.

The whole place had become a disaster. When he’d left, the town had been small but it had a diner, Gee’s bar, a small department store where basic clothing necessities could be met, and boutique shops for people with more eclectic tastes to feed their needs in addition to the convenience store he pounded on. Now? There was Gee’s bar, which smelled like it served food, and that was about it.

Wood panels were strewn about the street. and windows had been smashed in, leaving glass everywhere. A good layer of dust told him none of this had been a new development. How soon after he left had Magnum destroyed everything? It might be better to simply knock it all down and start over. But that thought made Drew want to growl. This had been his home. He needed to put it back together for all of them.

Having a little time to himself also appealed to him. He needed to think. How would he survive here without B? In all the time he’d been away, it had never occurred to him if the truth came out, she wouldn’t understand. Would she have preferred to have her sister molested by his father? Other than killing Magnum then, a task he had not been ready to take on, had there been a third option he’d missed? Should he have risked his father’s threat and contacted her? He’d been trying to keep them all safe.

Damn it, he could play the what-ifs until forever. It would never fix any of this.

He smelled Ryker’s approach only seconds before he saw the man. Truth was, the Enforcer could make himself vanish from detection if he wanted to. That ability, coupled with his absolute relentless belief in rule following, made him a hell of an intimidating wolf. At least, he helped Drew not Magnum. Drew would always consider himself fortunate.

Ryker stared at the job Drew had been doing without saying a word. Drew waited a second to see if the other man would remark.

When he didn’t—and really how could Drew be surprised, silence surrounded the Enforcer as one of his weapons—Drew finally filled the quiet himself. “Been doing this all morning.”

Ryker nodded. “You seem to have gotten a lot done.”

“Well, what else am I going to do?” He realized he sounded kind of off. His voice had hitched up a bit, and probably, it wasn’t appropriate for an Alpha to talk to his Enforcer this way. But who else would listen to him at this point? “B threw me out last night. She’s not going to forgive me. Probably ever. Did I make a bad judgment call ten years ago? Yes. Clearly, I did. But it was the only option I could see at the time.”

Ryker didn’t respond, staring at him like he waited for him to continue. Either that or he was bored out of his mind.

“She can’t understand. Hates me. Threw me out of her bed. What am I supposed to do?” The fact he asked Ryker advice on women showed his level of frustration. With what little he knew about Ryker, he had no idea if the other man dated. Had he ever been mated? Like Gee, Ryker kept his personal life very close to his chest. At least with Gee, he knew the man had a daughter. At some point, he had a lover. But Drew knew next to nothing about Ryker’s sexual experience. And actually kind of preferred not knowing….

Ryker shrugged. “Let her do to you what you’re doing to that board.”

Drew wasn’t sure what to say. He looked at the project he’d been pounding on for the better part of the morning.

Ryker sighed. “You walked away. You must prove you will not walk away. No matter how hard she hits you or hates you. You must weather the blows. You’re her mate. Prove you’re worth it.”

“Prove I’m worth it.”

He guessed the man had a point. Killing Magnum had proven his worth as an Alpha to the rest of the pack. But that had nothing to do with his personal relationship with B. She’d follow him as a pack member, but mating was different. Had he even told her he would stay? That she could count on him to never, ever, make such a unilateral decision again? Or had he assumed she would guess from the fact he took Alpha?

Damn it
. This had all been simpler when they were younger.

“If you’re talking to Ryker for relationship advice, you must be in real dire straits.” B walked slowly toward him, her hands on her hips. Spirits save him, even after being kicked out of her bed moments after coming deep inside of her, he still loved the way his she-wolf moved.

“Well, I have to talk to someone. It’s either that or beat the shit out of a board that never did anything to me. Good job staying downwind by the way. I didn’t scent you until you were practically here.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re so weird. How much did those humans change you out there? The old Drew would never have made a joke.”

“And the old B would not have pushed me out the door last night as soon as I came in her body.”
Damn it
. Why couldn’t he manage to not screw it up every time he spoke to her?

“Do you really want to discuss this in front of Ryker?”

Unable to resist, he grinned. “Have things changed so completely here the entire pack won’t know what we talk about even if we have a private conversation and tell no one? Ryker’s the least likely to gossip out of anyone. But if it makes you feel more comfortable, Ryker, would you mind taking off?” His Enforcer nodded before disappearing into the woods. Drew waited until he smelled him a distance away before he spoke. He cleared his throat and took a step toward her. “The old Drew made lots of mistakes. He didn’t tell his mate he was leaving when he should have or confided in her when he knew something could happen to her family. The new Drew would never do that.”

She swallowed. He could see the muscles in her neck clench. Was she really listening to what he said this time? Maybe it would help if he kept talking. “The new Drew wants you to give him a chance to prove it. Don’t throw me from your life, B. Rebuild this place with me.”

His mate opened her mouth but never got to say whatever she would have said. Right then , he scented Cam. B must have as well because she went on high alert. And, of course, he’d just sent his Enforcer away, which left B totally exposed when, not if, this became a fight.

An enemy he had thrown off his land had dared approach them. If there had been any self- doubt about his being the Alpha of the pack, it flew away instantly. Every instinct he had roared to life. This was his place. How dare the son of a bitch come back?

Drew’s pack.
His
land.
His
people. And whether she wanted it or not, his woman. Danger would not be permitted anywhere near what belonged to him.

Cam had once shot Drew. He wouldn’t be getting a second chance to do it.

The man himself walked into the clearing, wielding his gun. The acrid scent of gunpowder filled Drew’s nose. The damn thing had been fired and not too long ago. It better not have been at any of his people.

“Andrew Tao, I challenge—”

“No, you don’t.” Drew laughed, and Cam’s eyes widened. Good. Let the son of a bitch think he was crazy. They’d loved Magnum for it. “You don’t get to challenge me. Not now. Not ever.”

Cam raised his gun, and this time he didn’t have it pointed at Drew but at B instead. Drew roared to the heavens. There were a lot of things in life he could tolerate, but a threat to B would never be one of them. He launched his hammer right at Cam’s head. The stupid man never even saw it coming. He hit the ground hard.

Without a second thought, Drew shifted into his wolf form. He launched at the unmoving Cam, knocking his gun out of the way when he did—not that Cam was in any position to lift a weapon ever again. Drew had probably given Cam a death hit, but he didn’t intend to give the guy a second to recover, if such a thing happened to be possible.

Cam had lived as Drew’s father’s sidekick. He’d done the other man’s dirty work, and then the moron had threatened B. There was some poetic justice to the fact that kid who had once been tormented by the evil man got to tear his torturer to pieces. Small, chewable chunks.

He didn’t know how long he destroyed the other man, but he let his wolf side take over, relishing in the fact that, for once, he felt completely sure of his actions.