Ruthless Read online

  She turned and ran into the water, laughing and looking over her shoulder at me to chase her.

  I growled and yanked off my clothes, splashing after her. For several delicious minutes my wolf reveled in being close to her, our naked bodies dancing together in the water. And then it became too much for me. Her soft, slick body, her laughter, her scent. I captured my mate and swam with her beneath the waterfall, to the ledge behind it. After lifting her to sit on the edge, I gripped her knees. “Open those thighs for me, darlin’. I need to get my mouth on you.”

  “Rand,” she croaked, her head falling back in pleasure. I fucking loved when her voice sounded like that—like thick, sweet honey. I had to figure out how to light her up beyond the sex, but for now, this kept my wolf from going mad, and I loved the taste of her on my tongue.

  I spread her nether lips with my thumbs and flicked over her clit. I swirled the tip of my tongue around her pleasure button in the way I was learning she liked.

  “Rand.”

  I worked a finger into her tight channel at the same time I affixed my lips over her clit and started sucking. This wasn’t meant to tease, to watch her writhe and be at my mercy. No, this was pure pleasure for my mate. If she came so easily for me, it only made my wolf happy to be able to satisfy so thoroughly.

  “Rand!” She yanked at my wet hair.

  “Come for me now, Red. Then I’ll give it to you good on the blanket when we get out.”

  She came. My sweet female always came hard, every damn time I got my hands on her. It was the most satisfying part of my day to hear her breathy cries as she crested that peak.

  When she finished, I carried her back to the center of the pool and floated her in my arms. This… perfection.

  18

  NATALIE

  * * *

  This was happiness.

  I wasn’t sure I ever knew it before. Maybe as a child—the summers I’d spent here with Uncle Adam and learning to play the fiddle. But not like this. Not this warmth swirling in my chest. The sense that all was right in the world.

  I blinked slowly in the last rays of evening light as Rand swirled my body around on the surface of the water and realized…

  This was love.

  I loved Rand.

  Right? Well, I wasn’t sure. Love was abstract and undefined. But this happiness—it was new and foreign and wonderful. He made me happy. Made me feel… special. Whole. I craved to be with him, missed him when we were apart. I thought about him. Ached for him—and not just my pussy.

  I nuzzled against his neck, savoring the moment, the feel of his hands on my ass, the hard prod of his dick against my belly. What was I going to do? This wasn’t supposed to happen. No, he was a danger to my heart. How did he feel about me? I knew how his wolf felt, but what about Rand? Could I trust him with my heart? Could this be more than what my parents ever had? Could this be what Uncle Adam never was offered?

  I had no idea, but there was no going back now. I just had to trust and hope he wouldn’t break my heart.

  After a while, he carried me out of the pool and onto the blanket. His eyes glowed silver.

  “Show me your wolf,” I whispered, the air drying the water from my skin.

  In a blink—and with complete trust—he transformed, joints cracking and popping as he dropped to all fours beside me. He was huge, so much bigger up close than I’d realized. Much larger than an ordinary wolf. I wasn’t afraid, though. I knew him. I’d seen him before. I reached for him, burying my fingers in his fur, stroking his ears and face.

  “Beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

  He walked in a circle on the blanket, the way a dog might before it would lie down, but he stopped by my violin case and gave it a shove in my direction with his nose.

  I laughed. “You want me to play?”

  He dropped to his belly and lay his giant head on his paws.

  “All right, I’ll play.”

  Somehow, playing for a wolf was far less intimidating than playing for my peers or professors. Especially when that wolf was Rand. Especially sitting naked at a secret pool on my land. We were alone, the entire world forgotten except for right here, right now.

  I opened the case. The smell of resin brought back a flood of bad memories—the constant judgment and critiques, the competition.

  But Rand wanted to hear it, so I tightened the bow and rubbed resin over the horsehair. I gave the violin a quick tune and tucked it under my chin.

  That spot in the middle of my back twanged—the protest pain I’d had for the last year and a half.

  Rand watched me with his wolf eyes.

  “What do you want to hear?” It felt ridiculous to play the violin naked, to ask a wolf what to play, but it also helped me let go of the seriousness with which I always approached the violin.

  Rand crept forward on his belly with a soft whine. I reached out and stroked the thick, gray fur.

  “You don’t care?”

  His tail waved.

  “Fine.” I started playing a Sonata in C that had been part of my master’s concert, but the bad memories made me abandon it a few notes through. Instead, I started muddling through a string version of Coldplay’s Yellow.

  Rand’s tail waved faster. His ears stood up. Those intense silver-blue eyes never left my face.

  I played the whole song through, restarting every time I messed up and finding it didn’t matter if I did. Rand wasn’t judging. There was no one out here to mind if I forgot the next note.

  When I finished, I struck up one of the first songs Uncle Adam had taught me—”Camptown Races.” I picked up speed playing it, a smile tugging my lips, remembering how comical Uncle Adam would get playing his fiddle as fast as his fingers could fly.

  How could I have forgotten how much fun it was to fiddle? I tried another old folk song and then another. When I laid the violin back in its case, I was smiling, happier, even than I’d been after the orgasm Rand gave me. Maybe, and I wouldn’t say that to Rand.

  The pain between my shoulder blades had disappeared—which seemed nothing short of a miracle.

  I turned back to Rand and found he’d shifted back—and he was all man lying on his side on the blanket—his giant erection bobbing in my direction.

  “Red, that was incredible,” he said, leaning up on one elbow.

  The one compliment filled a well I’d thought had been dry. His simple words made me feel good, validated my playing, all the time I’d worked. The struggle. With him just watching me, I’d been able to find the happiness in my violin again.

  “So were you.” I straddled him and reached off the blanket for his jeans where he kept a seemingly endless supply of condoms for us.

  With a growl, he took charge in the way I loved, reversing our positions in a smooth roll and taking the foil packet from my fingers. “Get ready to lose your mind, Red,” he warned.

  “Show me what you’ve got, wolf,” I dared.

  19

  RAND

  * * *

  It seemed almost domestic, finishing my day and driving to the Sheffield ranch. I could see the old house, and I put the blinker on to turn down the driveway. I wanted a cold beer and my mate tucked beside me on the back porch swing. While my grandparents had left the cabin to me and I’d fixed it up to make it mine, it didn’t feel like home. Not like Natalie’s place.

  I knew it had all to do with the woman herself and not the property. I drove by it every day and hadn’t once considered it my Home Sweet Home until I’d found my mate. Natalie Sheffield was my home.

  My wolf practically howled at the sight of our mate at the mailbox. I couldn’t miss her long legs in those cutoff jean shorts or the way her small breasts were outlined in the snug t-shirt. She wasn’t high maintenance, and I liked that. She was natural. True to herself and fucking perfect.

  I turned my truck onto the driveway but put it in park beside the mailbox. Natalie flipped the little door closed and strolled over, a few envelopes in her hand. She squinted against the bright
sun. “Hey handsome, you lost?”

  My wolf wasn’t going to let me keep my ass in the truck, so I climbed out, approached her. She stepped back, and I pivoted, so she was pressed into the side of my truck. I liked her there, but with her facing this way, the sun wasn’t in her eyes. Mine were shielded by my Stetson. “I’m right where I want to be.”

  Her pupils dilated, and she swallowed. “I was going to go through Uncle Adam’s things, donate some clothes. There’s stuff in the basement that could be cleared out. But the idea of spiders had me procrastinate, and I got the mail instead.”

  “I’ll move whatever you need out of the basement,” I told her. Her fear of spiders was extremely irrational, but I was smart enough not to tell her that. I also thought it cute, that I could be her white knight when it came to anything in her basement.

  “Thanks. It’ll still take time to go through even if it’s all piled in the living room. I can do it this weekend.”

  “Did you get a call from Willow? I gave her your number. She wanted to invite you personally to a barbecue at the big house. More procrastination for you.”

  She nodded, her curls bobbing, then catching on the breeze. I couldn’t resist reaching up and tucking it behind her ear. “She did.”

  “I think she feels bad that she hasn’t stopped by. I know you saw Audrey and Becky at Cody’s, but no one’s come over to make you welcome.”

  “You’ve made me very welcome,” she replied with a sly grin.

  Just like that, I was hard.

  “You haven’t met anyone else in the pack besides Nash. I want you to meet the whole gang.”

  “I did meet one other pack member. At least, I assume he’s a member based on where he said he lived. An older man came by to introduce himself and offer to buy the place.”

  I stilled, set my hands on the top edge of the truck bed. What the fuck? “What do you mean?”

  “A guy from the pack came over. The day you and Nash first came over. Said he’d give me a fair price if I wanted to sell.”

  I had a guess who it was, but I had to be sure.

  “How do you know he was from the pack?”

  She rolled her eyes but thankfully wasn’t picking up on my change in mood. “He said he lived above Wolf Ranch. So I figured he must be. I know it hasn’t been long since you found out that I know about shifters, but I’ve known for most of my life. It’s pretty obvious now to me.”

  I wanted to ask her how it was obvious because if it was clear to her, I wondered if it was to anyone else. But that wasn’t what I wanted to deal with now.

  “Did he introduce himself?”

  “Yeah, Nathan Brown. Older guy. Big gut.”

  I nodded stiffly. “I know him.”

  She studied me. “You don’t seem happy.”

  Shit, I couldn’t hide my feelings from her. It would be impossible. Nathan Brown had shown up at my mate’s home. “I don’t like him coming by here. He’s not dangerous, but he’s kind of a dick.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…” I rubbed my face. “I don’t like that he was making a grab for this place. It feels like he was trying to move in on Rob Wolf’s territory, you know? And—” I stopped myself. I didn’t want to infect Natalie with pack relation toxicity.

  “And what?”

  “Nah, nevermind. It’s probably not that big a deal.”

  To me, it felt like a threat. Not outright but in a shifter way. Showing up and asking to buy the place. That was before he even knew she planned to turn it into a bed and breakfast. So he’d been interested in this property all along. His beef wasn’t about Natalie. It wasn’t even about me. It was about Rob, as alpha.

  Natalie peered at me, brows lowered.

  I sighed. “It’s complicated. He’s an old timer, and I don’t mean in age. He’s set in his ways, in the old ways of the pack. He probably doesn’t like that a human owns property that adjoins our hunting grounds. I know he doesn’t stand for stuff Rob’s doing as alpha.”

  She frowned. “Like what?”

  “Like mixing with humans.”

  She stared at me, then ducked under my arm and walked back to the mailbox, then spun back around. “You mean mating humans.” Her face was flushed. Shit. I should not have told her about the division in the pack. “I knew it.” She tossed up her hands, the mail in her hand forgotten. “I told you this!”

  “Nathan Brown is an asshole who likes to stir up shit. This has nothing to do with you, of course. His interest here was in your property. But he’s the type who’s pissed that almost every shifter match in the past two years or so has all been to humans. Guys like Nathan say that mix-mating means a diluted pack.”

  “You mean kids?”

  “Yes. Audrey and Becky have both had pups.”

  “Pups?”

  I ignored her question and kept going. “I’d think Marina will have one sometime soon. Maybe even Charlie. It’s just a trend in a direction Nathan doesn’t want the pack to go.”

  I didn’t mention the fact that he was anti-B&B. It didn’t matter. Natalie didn’t want to run one. I didn’t need to have ESP to know it wasn’t her personality. It was a way to make money, but she was smart and resourceful enough to find an alternative. One that made her eager to get up in the morning. That fulfilled her. It wasn’t waiting on tourists, that was for fucking sure. Just like it wasn’t slinging drinks at Cody’s.

  Nathan’s problem with the B&B really was about Rob’s leadership, not even the actual bed and breakfast, if that ever happened. He was always looking for a way to challenge Rob on his decisions.

  Still, Nathan had approached my mate. She wasn’t going to be a pawn in his pack issues. I didn’t like it. Not one fucking bit.

  “Look, Nathan Brown is not the welcome committee I or the alpha wanted you to have. If he comes by here again, I want you to let me know, okay? I don’t like the idea of him stopping by here whenever the hell he feels like it.”

  “Okay,” Natalie said.

  “We’ll go to the barbecue, and you’ll see what everyone’s like. Everyone who is important.”

  Natalie nodded. “All right.”

  “Good girl. Hop in the truck. I’ll drive you back to the house where I want a beer and kisses from my woman.”

  When she turned to go around to the passenger side, I gave her ass a little smack. She gasped and looked over her shoulder. She wasn’t pissed any longer but surprised. And turned on.

  I grinned. “Actually, the beer can wait. I want my woman.”

  20

  NATALIE

  * * *

  A few days later, I was covered in plaster dust from helping Rand with the electrical. I had to wonder if the project was ever going to end, and I was definitely second guessing making any other upgrades to the house. I wasn’t a do-it-yourselfer, and I knew nothing about wiring a house other than the fact that when I turned something on, it had power.

  But I felt bad that Rand was doing it all on his downtime, which wasn’t tons. He worked hard with Nash at their construction business. The last thing I’d want to do in my off hours was wire an old house, but he was determined to see the house safe. At least from a wiring standpoint. And spiders. He was relocating any he found.

  “You are going to have to take my money one of these days.” I leaned against the wall. Rand had poked five holes along it, so he could pull the wire across the room from the switch to the plug.

  He was squatting by the outlet and looked up at me. “You’re mine, Red. That means I support your needs.”

  Despite the kindling warmth his words produced, I refused to allow it in. I pushed off, set my hands on my hips and glared down at him. “I can take care of my own needs, thank you,” I snapped. “And this house isn’t something you are required to take on. Splurge for a dinner and a movie. That’s what a date does, not rewire a woman’s entire house.”

  He grinned and slowly stood then came over to me. “A date? I’m much more than that, darlin’.”

 
“Lover, then.”

  He leaned down and tucked his nose into my neck. “That, definitely.”

  I shivered at the way his warm breath fanned over my delicate skin.

  “I’m your mate. I take care of you.”

  I tilted my head to the side, not sure about giving him more room or leaning away. “Do you want to beat your chest while you say that too?”

  He laughed and stood. “You’ve been in my bed every night for well over a week. I’ve told you what you are to me. What it means. I’ve even backed off and tried to be more… human and less wolf.”

  I made a non-committal sound halfway between a snort and a grunt.

  “I love this house. I’m gonna work on it, not only because it’s yours and you’re mine but because it deserves to be brought back to life. To shine. Your uncle would want that. Hell, I’d even think he wanted this. Us to work on it together.”

  I stared at him, my mouth open, not sure how to respond. That actually kind of made sense. Had Uncle Adam known we’d get together like this? Had he given me this house to… to what?

  Sound like an idiot?

  I sighed. “How about this? Your time is your own, but I pay for supplies. All right?”

  “You can pay me, too. I’ve got some ideas on how you can do that.”

  I couldn’t help grin at his playfulness. “Oh? What are they?”

  His cell rang, and he sighed, pulled it from his pocket with dusty fingers.

  “Hey Marina. Yeah, she’s here with me.” He glanced at me. “Yeah, hang on.” He passed me the phone.

  I looked to Rand confused. “Hello?”

  “Natalie, hi, this is Marina. I’m Audrey’s sister and mated to Colton. I’m sorry we haven’t met yet.”

  “That’s okay,” I replied.

  “I need to get your number because it’s weird to have to track you down through Rand.” She took a deep breath. “Audrey told me you play the violin, and you met the Barn Cats the other night.”