Awakened By The Wolf. Kristal Hollis

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СКАЧАТЬ him. Totally inappropriate and ill-timed considering the circumstances.

      His wolf nature didn’t care. This woman wore his clothes, slept in his bed and wrestled him with the strength of a she-wolf in heat. To a Wahya male, her behavior was an open invitation.

      However, fear marked her scent, not desire. Brice needed to tamp down the carnal thoughts before his primal instinct overruled his intellect and he gave her a real reason to be frightened.

      Finally he flipped her onto her back.

      “Get off me!” She landed a solid punch against his nose.

      Brice’s head jerked.

      “Damn, that hurt.” Hurt like hell.

      Before she could do further damage, he latched onto her hands, pinning them over her head. She kicked his shin. Thankfully it wasn’t his bad leg or his instinct would have been to retaliate rather than to restrain.

      “Calm down before you get hurt,” he snarled, using his body to flatten her to the porch.

      He gave in to the instinct to snuffle her hair. In one long, indulgent breath, he inhaled without expectation, though he desperately wanted to smell something. Anything. Even dirty dandruff was preferable to nothing.

      To his utter disbelief, a soft, feminine fragrance teased his nose. Convinced he imagined the scent, he sniffed a second time to be sure, moving from her provocative red curls to the dimpled spot just behind her ear. As he breathed in, her sweet, luscious musk filtered through his body, warming him like beams of sunshine.

      “God, you smell good,” he gushed like an eager pubescent boy trying to get to second base.

      “Get away from me.” The woman bucked, and the rub of her pelvis against his crotch ignited a craving that would culminate in an all-out home run if she didn’t stop.

      “Be still,” he rasped. “I only want to smell you. But if you continue thrusting your hips at me, I’ll lose what control I have and do more than scent you.”

      She went limp, although the daggers in her eyes remained unsheathed.

      Tired, horny and more than a little confused, Brice appreciated the reprieve. He wanted to gorge on her intoxicating scent without battling her and his super-charged libido. “Don’t be frightened, Sunshine. I won’t hurt you.”

      He rubbed against her. She was soft, spirited, with a mouth-watering scent—a combo like that could bring a wolfan to his knees. “You have no idea how happy I am to smell you.”

      A droning thud in his head joined the possessive thump in his chest. Resonating one beat, one word. Over and over and over again. Mine. Mine. Mine.

      Oh, no. No, no, no. Fuck no.

      “This isn’t happening,” he mumbled.

      “You got that right.” She jammed her knee against his crotch.

      Excruciating pain screamed through Brice’s groin. The air swooshed out of his lungs. His body curled into a fetal ball.

      The house was dark. His vision grew darker. Still, he saw the triumphant gleam in her eyes a second before she escaped.

      * * *

      Brice Walker, my ass!

      Cassidy Albright jumped down the front porch steps. She had no idea who that dirt-streaked hobo was, but he certainly wasn’t the Brice Walker she knew.

      Well, had known from a distance.

      She sailed past her car. The old clunker wouldn’t have started on the first crank anyway, and she’d have been a sitting duck if the naked imposter turned out to be a dangerous intruder instead of a drunken resort guest.

      Shoes crunching the gravel driveway, she sprinted toward the Walker’s Run Resort a mile and a half down the mountain. An easy stretch for Cassie, who’d earned medals in track. Each time she ran, she simply imagined herself running until the layers of her mother’s bad luck and bad reputation peeled away, leaving Cassie free and clear.

      She had a way to go before that happened. Only one more semester of college and Cassie could start over. In a town where Imogene Struthers’s past wouldn’t wreck her daughter’s future.

      She rounded the first curve of a hairpin turn. A creepy vibe spiderwebbed across Cassie’s skin. She glanced back at where she’d been. The waning three-quarter moon provided enough light to see a man wasn’t behind her, but a very large, very hungry-looking wolf.

      Cassie’s heart slammed against her chest before spiraling to her feet. She could outrun a man on a dirt road. Outrunning an animal presented an entirely different race.

      She veered into the woods. Zigzagged through the trees. Zipped around bushes. Leaped over a fallen pine. Sweat coated her skin. Her breaths grew hard, laborious. A stitch gnawed at her side. Her leg muscles began to burn.

      Another downed tree lay ahead. Slightly larger than the last, though not so big that Cassie couldn’t clear it. She sailed over it with ease.

      The landing was harder.

      Her foot slipped on a patch of moss. The belly flop to the ground unleashed an explosion of pain in her chest. Her lungs, shriveling into two tight balls, squeezed out every molecule of air and then some. She couldn’t catch her breath, cough or even wheeze.

      Cassie didn’t want to die, not with a new life finally within her meager grasp. She forced her chest to expand. The muscle beneath her breastbone gave one final spasm and relaxed. Whereas she’d had no breaths before, they now came in rapid-fire succession. In zero to five, she went from starving for oxygen to drowning in it.

      Wolf drool on the back of her neck was imminent if she didn’t get moving. She swallowed two giant mouthfuls of air, the way she did when plagued by hiccups, and locked her elbows to push up. All the adrenaline that helped her run had tanked.

      “No, no, no.” Frantic, she patted the ground, searching for a rock, a branch. Anything.

      Out of luck and out of time, Cassie faced the wolf with the only weapons she had. Her hands and sheer grit.

      He approached, head hunched lower than his shoulders. His thin black lips mocked her with a menacing grin.

      “Nice wolfy,” Cassie panted over her heart’s rampant beat.

      His ears perked up and he tilted his head, taking his sweet-ass time to assess the most delectable spot to munch first.

      A low rumble rolled through the woods. His hungry gaze lifted and a snarl drew back his snout, revealing very large, very pointy teeth.

      Cassie had no hope of winning an outright wrestling match with an animal of his size and bulk. Gouging his eyes might give her a slim chance of survival, and slim was much preferable to none.

      Before his nerve-numbing growl chased all her bravado into the pit of her stomach, Cassie steeled her thumbs.

      The wolf sprang.

      Cassie screamed. She didn’t mean to, but some invisible СКАЧАТЬ