Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

“Only you.”

“I’m the only one who defies you, or I’m the only one you manhandle?”

“Yes,” he answered.

Did she even realize that her fingertips had crept beneath the collar of his flannel shirt and were running lightly across his collarbone? Probably not since he’d just discovered that his hands had reached out to steady her hips and stayed there.

“Anyone watching?” she murmured as he continued to crowd her and she continued to retreat.

“Anyone not?” he answered, his mouth a breath from hers.

The plan was simple. The two of them would make a huge show of arguing in the village square. He would drag her bodily to his house, where they would stand in plain sight, kiss, then turn off the lights.

Once the entire village believed they were doing the horizontal mambo—again—they’d sneak out a window, shape-shift, and hie away to Awanitok. There, George would be out strolling, seemingly clueless and just waiting to be eaten.

However, the plan went slightly awry when Alex’s shoulders met the window with a muffled thud. Instead of hitting the lights, Julian captured her mouth with his.

She’d told him to make it believable.

Her lips parted—on a sigh or a curse, he wasn’t sure. With Alex sometimes they were the same. Her fingers clutched at his shirt even as his hands tightened on her hips. They were plastered together, her back against the window, as their tongues met and did the dance of the ages.

Then she was sliding downward, drawing him down as well. They hit the floor, their mouths still melded, their bodies, too. He braced himself, hands on either side of her. He was so much bigger than she was. Not that he could hurt her—not permanently. But he didn’t want this to end. Not yet.

She nipped his lip; he sucked on hers. The combination of sharp teeth and soft tongue was, as always, seductive. He lowered his body, the erection he’d gotten the instant he’d tossed her over his shoulder landing safe in the cradle of her thighs.

She gasped, arched, the movement pressing them together in both new and familiar ways. Her neck, so long and slim and white, slid along his mouth, and he remembered taking her skin, marking her, and he wanted to do it again. Since he’d never been one to deny himself— Viking —he did.

She tasted like fury—heat and blood—everything that had made him what he was, everything he both loved and loathed in this world.

Her hands beneath his shirt were cool. They felt like heaven against his flushed skin. Her hair brushed his cheek, sending her scent—lemon ice—across his face. The flavor of her mouth made him desperate to plunge within.

Their clothes fell away—boots, shirts, jeans—and in moments they lay naked on his living room floor.

He lifted his head, shifted his body, and she put her palm against his chest, staying him. Confused, he glanced into her eyes. “This is supposed to be pretend,” she said.

He froze as reality tumbled in. The argument. The stake-out. The rogue. Damn.

“I’ve never been very good at it.” He rolled off her, his erection dying in an instant.

She came up on one elbow. “Don’t sell yourself short,” she said. “You’re very good at it.”

The twist she put on the final word left no doubt the it she was talking about. The mark on her neck was already fading, and he wanted to put it there again. He wanted to mark her in such a way that everyone in this town and every other would know that she was his.

He sighed and laid his arm over his face. What was wrong with him?

She wasn’t his. He didn’t want her to be. But tell that to his treacherous body.

“You think we’ve been down here long enough for everyone to believe we’re…you know?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure everyone believes we’re you knowing our brains out.”

She laughed, and he was so surprised, he dropped his arm and got an eyeful of her bare-naked ass as she crawled away from him.

“Hey!” He wrapped his fingers around her ankle.

She paused and glanced back. The sight of her on her knees, her hair swaying in time with the light sway of her breasts, made his penis consider a repeat erection.

“We need to get to the village before the rogue really does eat George,” she said.

He let go of her ankle, rolling onto his feet.

She tackled him before he could stand, throwing her body atop his. “We’re supposed to be doing the horizontal bop, Barlow. Don’t stand up and show everyone that we’re not.”

He really was no good at pretending. Which was proved when his semi-erect penis poked her in the belly.

“Maybe later.” She leaned down and kissed him, quick and hard, before she came again to her knees and crawled out of the living room, smacking her hand against the light switch, plunging the room into darkness as she stood.

Julian continued to lie on the floor, willing his erection to wither—hey, there was a first time for everything— and not having much luck.

Maybe later?

How on earth did she expect him to function with those words echoing in his ears?

The sound of a window being opened at the back of the house was followed by a series of moans and grunts that did nothing to aid in his withering.

Shape-shifting wasn’t easy. Unless you were him.

Julian closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out, and eventually managed to stop imagining Alex naked on her knees. By the time he made his way to the bedroom, she was a wolf—sleek and soft, her green eyes shining from her tawny wolf face. She leaped onto the sill and disappeared through the opening, the crunch of her paws on the snow outside a siren call to the wolf awakening within him.

Then he was running, springing from the floor as a man, going through the window as a wolf, landing next to her mid-lope as together they welcomed the night.

Alex felt the pull of the moon, a shimmer like lust deep within. She wanted to tilt her muzzle to the sky and howl. She wanted to roll in the snow; she wanted to tumble, snout-over-paws, across the ground. She wanted to get all tangled up.

With him.

She could no longer deny that something in Julian Barlow called to something in her—and not just when they were wolves.

The silver orb seemed to whisper her name. The moon knew her, and she knew it. When the moon called, Alex would answer. It had marked her as one of the children of the night.

Running beneath the shimmery glow both soothed and energized. She was wolf and woman, strength and intelligence in perfect form.

The dark side beckoned. She knew she should resist, but she was helpless against it. She couldn’t leave until she had what she’d come here for. But the longer she remained, the more she became one with the moon, with this other half of herself, the less chance she had of finding the woman she’d been before he had changed her. When she was like this she didn’t want to.

Barlow ran at her side, his golden fur spiked by the shimmering sheen. Their claws clicked against the ice-soaked land in perfect syncopation. She could swear his heart and hers beat in the rhythm of time.

Then he swerved, bumping into her, sending her tumbling across the ground. Before she could right herself, he pounced and together they frolicked, like puppies, cubs, kittens—something young and furry— beneath the smiling, brilliant moon.

They wrestled and rolled, striving for dominance—a game and a gamble she lost. He pinned her to the ground, her underside exposed, his mouth at her neck, teeth just pricking the skin beneath her fur. And as before, his penis pressed against her belly—hard and pulsing—calling to the lust that lived within her for both him and the night.

They stayed like that, him above and in control, her on her back barely breathing, and she began to imagine his mounting her, her letting him. He’d ride her from behind, perhaps even bite her as he came, then she did.