Awakened By The Wolf. Kristal Hollis

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СКАЧАТЬ shoved his side of the comforter at her.

      She tensed, waiting for him to move closer to sniff her. He lay so still, so quiet, Cassie decided he’d fallen asleep until she heard the soft catch in his breathing.

      “What’s wrong?”

      “My leg hurts,” he snapped, and then groaned. “It’s nothing. Go to sleep.”

      She reached to turn on the nightstand lamp and remembered that she had smashed it on the floor.

      “Where are you going?” The brush of Brice’s fingers down her back caused an electric current to course through her body. Cassie wished she wouldn’t react to him the way she did. She prided herself on keeping her emotions in check, particularly around men.

      Then again, Brice was a different breed altogether.

      “Don’t worry. I’m not running away.” She flipped on the overhead light.

      Brice’s right leg stuck out from beneath the sheet. The calf had swollen to almost twice the normal size, the skin a reddish-purple, the scar almost black. He crooked an arm over his eyes.

      “How did it get this bad?” she shrieked.

      “Well, let’s see.” He ticked the count on his fingers as he recapped the night’s adventures. “Now that I think about it, the last half hour standing and debating you is what did me in.” The acerbic bite in his voice bounced off Cassie’s thick skin.

      “Don’t blame me for your pigheadedness. If you had let me sleep in the living room, you’d be fast asleep by now.”

      “I doubt it.” He moved his arm away from his face. Pain, sadness and a certain wistfulness that Cassie recognized as loneliness churned in his gaze.

      Alienated from his family and his pack, and worried about his grandmother, Brice sought companionship. That’s why he’d forced her to go to the hospital. Why he insisted they share a bed. He didn’t want to be alone.

      Cassie empathized, though sleeping together was going a bit overboard.

      “Come back to bed.” Brice started to get up. “I’ll watch TV in the living room.”

      “Stay put.” She used a pillow to elevate his leg. “I’ll get some aspirin.”

      “I took some before we went to the hospital. They didn’t help.”

      “I’ll fix you something,” she said, leaving the room.

      “Nothing ever works,” he moaned.

      Cassie grabbed three clean bath towels and headed to the kitchen. Heating a large stockpot of water until it boiled, she added a healthy dose of dried rosemary, then turned off the burner. Next she swirled a towel in the hot water, placed a lid on the pot and left it to steep.

      Brice opened one eye when she lifted his leg to place one of the two remaining clean towels over the pillow. She poured a little olive oil into her hands and drizzled some over his leg.

      “Closet cannibal or kinky fetishist?” The lackluster gleam in his eyes muted his cocky grin.

      “This might hurt at first, but you’ll feel better when I’m done.” At least, she hoped he would. She could almost feel his agony throbbing in her own body as she kneaded the muscles above his knee.

      “Ooh, S and M.” Brice’s fingers touched his lips. “Miss Albright, I’m shocked.”

      Cassie was, too, as heat flooded her body. Ignoring his tease would’ve been easier if Brice wasn’t flat on his back with a thin sheet accentuating every angle and line of his naked body. Her attention gravitated to the tent over his groin, and just that quickly, her common sense evaporated, leaving her defenseless and vulnerable.

      She need to proceed carefully. Brice Walker had the power to turn her stupid. To make her want things she couldn’t have. Things that would wreck her life if she stopped to pursue them.

      His keen, smoldering gaze caressed her face and feathered down her chest to cup her breasts. If she hadn’t seen his hands—one stashed behind his head, the other draped across his stomach—she would’ve sworn on her mother’s urn that his fingers pinched her nipples. Exquisitely sensitive, the tight buds stung from straining against her shirt.

      His charged gaze continued its downward journey and settled at the juncture between her legs. Cassie wore a T-shirt and jersey shorts, so he couldn’t see anything. Still, a wicked smile shaped his mouth, and she knew he was picturing her naked.

      He’d be disappointed. She wasn’t generously endowed or overly curvy. Her breasts were small and slightly flared hips gave her a feminine silhouette, but she’d never be the willowy ingenue men seemed to crave. She was simply too short, too pale, and her tangled mop of red hair had earned her the nickname Raggedy Cassie in kindergarten. She doubted grown men thought any differently. After all, didn’t they all prefer blondes?

      Brice’s eyes lifted to the spiral curls that had fallen over her shoulder. His gaze slid leisurely along the strands and landed back on her crotch. His brow lowered a little in a contemplative stare.

      If she were a betting woman, she’d wager that Brice wondered if the carpet matched the curtains.

      It did, to the exact shade, and Cassie pondered if he also speculated if the carpet was silky or coarse. Not that it mattered. Just because she saw his didn’t mean she’d show him hers.

      Because if she did, she’d want him to do more than look. For starters, if he stroked her nub with the thumb he’d brushed across her cheek...well, she wasn’t quite sure what it might do to her, but thinking about it caused heat to flash in her core and dangerous thoughts to cross her mind.

      A naked man lay in her bed. A man she was inexplicably attracted to, against all reason. She would be a fool to fling herself at her employers’ son and her landlady’s grandson. She would be out of her mind to have sex with a man who wasn’t human.

      Somehow, that last part wasn’t the deterrent it should’ve been.

      She didn’t know much about wolves, but if they were anything like dogs, the males would jump any female in heat in order to impregnate her.

      Cassie wanted to avoid that scenario at all costs. She wasn’t on birth control because, frankly, she had no intention of having sexual relations with a man for a long time. She had goals to meet and dreams to achieve before she could give herself to a man.

      Celibacy had been a no-brainer choice until he showed up, naked!

      And touched her, and held her, and inspired all sorts of wicked ideas about things she shouldn’t think about but her body now insisted on investigating.

      “Damn. That feels good.” Brice’s voice yanked Cassie out of her reverie. His eyes closed in near-sleep, his body relaxed. Hers, however, had become a frazzle of nerves and need. Evidenced by damp panties and the urge to crawl up Brice’s body and hump him to oblivion.

      She scowled at him. After all, her predicament was all his fault.

      She waited until her irritation and horniness mellowed before working her fingers over his СКАЧАТЬ