Vivian Arend - Wolf Tracks

He rolled his eyes. “What is it with you chicks and that guy? No, not quite the same thing. More like—what would you do if you met him in person?”

She laughed. “Probably freeze.”

“Right, and when we met, you wanted to…?”

She thought back to before the wedding. To the almost overwhelming desire to get to know him more intimately. “So we like how each other smells. I don’t know if that’s enough to prove anything to me.”

TJ sat back and sipped his juice. “As long as you agree there is something—magnetic—between us.”

She nodded slowly. That much she would confess to. It would also explain why no matter what insane thing he did, she responded the wrong way.

TJ tugged the notepad from her fingers. “Eat, the day is wasting. That’s not the item on our agenda for today anyway.”

Pam blinked in surprise. “It’s not?”

“Nope.” He topped up her coffee and raised his mug in a toast. “To working our way through the mate list.”

Hide and go seek. She was playing hide and go seek in the Yukon bush with a werewolf. Pam tucked her legs a little closer to her body and made sure nothing was sticking out.

They’d spent the morning hiking to an abandoned miner’s cabin and poking around for artifacts. After lunch he’d casually proposed this game, and now she sat in the branches of a tree, her body pressed against the trunk. TJ walked straight toward her like she’d left a trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow. He grinned at her and held out a hand.

“You need to work harder at this or I’m going to think you’re not trying.”

“You’re cheating. You’ve got lupine senses, don’t you, even in your human form?” There had to be a reason he’d found her so quickly. The last five times she’d hidden.

TJ shook his head. “Well, I can smell you, but I can also feel where you are. It’s like I told you, there’s a mental link between us, and I’m following that.” She pushed off the branch and he caught her, her body settling against his, warm and comfortable as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Fine. You can find me in a snowstorm. That’s a cool trick.”

“Hey, don’t think this is a one-way street. I think you’ll be able to do it as well.”

He placed her on the grassy area outside the cabin yet refused to let her out of his arms.

“You planning on proving the physical connection right now?”

He flashed a grin. “No, but you wait. When we get kinky in bed, I’ll know what you want. How hard, how fast.” One hand skimmed her shoulder and down her spine, coming to rest on the small of her back. Intimate. The airy touch of his caress sent a tingling sensation racing up her body and her nipples tightened involuntarily. TJ spoke, his voice deep and husky. “Of course that means I can totally tease you.”

Oh my God, do it now. The need to offer herself up on a silver platter was instinctive, and somewhat frightening. Time to retreat. She pressed her hands to his chest to separate them enough she could think. “Two-way street, bud? Be careful there, I might have to write you out a ticket.”

He cupped her chin with his free hand. His grasp firmed until she lifted her gaze to meet his. “Don’t. Don’t hide behind jokes right now.”

Pam closed her eyes and waited. His warm breath caressed her cheek as he brought their bodies back in contact.

“You look beautiful in the sunlight.”

She opened her eyes just as he brushed his lips against hers. His dark lashes fluttered against her skin. She stroked her tongue into his mouth, no longer fighting the delightful sensations that streaked through her body.

They stood there, kissing slowly, hands gently exploring each other’s bodies—Pam lost all track of time and slipped into a dreamy place where there were no issues hanging over her head. No need to discover if fairytales really could come true.

When they pulled apart, his smile warmed her through and through. “Well, that’s not what I had planned, but I’ll certainly take it. Stop distracting me. Your turn to hunt. No peeking while I hide.”

Pam not only closed her eyes, she covered her face with her hands, like a child afraid they would be tempted to cheat. She didn’t want to have any clue which direction he was headed. No chance she could pretend this was a fair test when it wasn’t. She hummed quietly to cover any accidental sounds he might make that would give her a direction to head. Inspiration hit and she counted out loud.

“…ten, eleven, twelve…I hope you’re hiding well because if I find you standing out in the open somewhere you have to buy me a crab dinner or something….seventeen, eighteen…or a case of beer, I could really go for a cold drink…twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five…ready or not, you must be caught.”

She opened her eyes and took a long look around. The sun sparkled on the surface of the lake across from her, the tiny ripples from the whispering breeze creating a kaleidoscope of colour and light. Out by the cabin, the porch swing shifted slowly and she watched for a moment, but it sped up, didn’t slow. The wind again, not TJ brushing it. She examined the bush, but other than natural shaking and trembling in the leaves she could see no clear hint of where TJ was hiding.

“Okay, I’ll give you this much, you’ve hidden well. Now…”

The usual procedure would be to divide the area into sectors and methodically work her way through them. She paused. This wasn’t supposed to be like a usual search, right? If they were mates, she should be able to sense him. She sniffed the air then laughed. No, she wasn’t the one with the wolf nose.

She was still chuckling when she felt it. Almost a…lightness in the air, a sense of emotion brushing past her. TJ was pleased. Admiring her? She pressed a hand to her chest. It wasn’t just her imagination. She closed her eyes once more and covered her ears. The wind in the trees faded away and all sound stilled, but the sensation increased. Oh my God, she could feel something. She twirled and ran for the cabin. The pounding of her footfalls as she raced up the stairs echoed off the low roof and she jerked open the door.

Disappointment hit her hard. She’d fully expected to find TJ on the couch. She’d felt sure he was there. Sitting comfortably, waiting for her.

Again, a tug. Like strings attached inside her heart.

She paced the cabin in confusion. He was supposed to be here.

“TJ, where are you?”

The sensation refused to go away. She checked under the bed, in the shower stall. Stepping outside, she kicked a rock in frustration before a flash of inspiration made her curse.

“You turkey.” She raced around the back of the cabin to where the woodpile was stacked into a rough façade of a staircase. She scrambled to the top where it was level with the lightly inclined roof of the attached storage lean-to, and stared at TJ. He lay flat on his back on a thick blanket, grinning at her.

“Hey.”

Deep satisfaction stole over her as she cautiously made her way to his side. “Hey, yourself. You got up here pretty damn quick.”

His shit-eating grin grew larger. “And it took you oh-so-long to find me, didn’t it?”

Holy crap, he was right. In the midst of the hunt, she’d lost grasp of the fact she had found him. Had known where he was. “Wow.”

TJ patted the blanket. “How did you do it?”

Pam settled next to him, nestling into his arms. “I’m not completely sure. It’s like I knew. But, it’s not possible…”

He nuzzled at her temple. “Hmm, you just proved it is.” His lips descended slowly to press, warm and soft, against her jawbone. He snuck his fingers into her hair and brought their mouths together, and she couldn’t be bothered to try to figure out why she’d known where he was. She’d known. Score one for the mating list. Bring on the sex.