Linda O. Johnston - Loyal Wolf

She couldn’t quite read the expression that passed quickly over his face before disappearing. Smugness? Anger?

“You think I want you to join us in danger? Forget it.” The movement of his chest as he spoke bumped against her, causing her breasts to tense along his muscular body. Oh, that heat within her. She’d better get off. Quickly.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”

“So I’ve just learned.” She appreciated the irony in his tone. “In this kind of situation. But even so, Kathlene, you have to realize that what we’re likely to be up against, if you’re right about those guys being anarchists, is—”

She had to shut him up. She bent her head forward—and covered those still-moving lips of his with her own.

He responded. Oh, did he ever. His voice stopped immediately, but the movement of his lips didn’t. He fastened them on her as he thrust his tongue into her mouth, hot and moving as enticingly as his body below suggested by its pressure against her, imitating the dance of sensuality that she had already imagined going on between them.

“Kathlene,” he murmured against her. She responded by drawing his tongue even farther into her mouth, teasing it with hers as suggestively as he played with her.

She couldn’t think. Couldn’t react with the sanity of a deputy sheriff in danger. For this was danger, maybe even a kind Jock had been warning her about.

Danger that would be magnified by her joining his team. Working with him. Seeing him often while he was here, till they had accomplished—

“Hell.” A familiar male voice from the doorway interrupted her thoughts that were already disjointed, thanks to Jock’s continuing to drive her nuts with the movement of his body. She turned her head to see Ralf standing there. He’d come back. “Didn’t mean to interrupt anything like...I’ll go take another walk.”

Jock’s body heaved slightly from beneath her. He grabbed her with his hands and lowered her gently to the floor as he stood. “Not what it looks like,” he told his fellow Alpha Force member. “We were just demonstrating some fighting moves we’d each learned.”

“Right,” Ralf said. His deep complexion had grown ruddy with embarrassment.

“It’s true.” Jock was standing now. He bent to offer his hand to help her to her feet.

She accepted, still looking at the floor. Kathlene didn’t dare glance toward Ralf. Not just yet.

“Kathlene and I have reached an agreement of sorts,” Jock said. “She wants to work with us. Be part of our team as we investigate those potential anarchists. She’d wanted to show me some of her fighting skills to prove that she could hold her own, and I now agree with her. Kathlene is now definitely a part of our team.”

* * *

Had he let her win? Jock didn’t think so, but he had allowed her to distract him enough with her so-sexy body in motion that the result had been inevitable.

Besides, he’d felt reluctant to fight a female at all. Could that have been his wolf side reacting? Unlikely. That part of him illustrated his wildness, not holding back when it was in his best interests. Even so...well, it was over now.

She had stayed for just a short while as they planned their next meet-up—lunch the next day. Meantime, Ralf and he would do a little recon on their own before getting together with her, studying the layout of Cliffordsville and its environs even more, maybe even doing an initial check of the area containing the anarchists’ habitat tonight.

Little did she know how he would check it.

And that was one of the biggest problems of her working with them as a team. That, and the potential danger.

He could protect her. Would protect her.

But what would she think if she knew what he was, and why he, rather than a member of any other military unit, had been sent here?

Now, after their brief discussion inside the cabin, he walked her to her car. She said goodbye to them—for now. It was getting late, darkness was falling and she said she was heading home.

She used her key to unlock the driver’s door of her SUV, and he opened it for her.

“Sorry I embarrassed you in front of your partner,” she said as she faced him before getting inside. Her lovely face was flushed a bit, too. Her smile seemed ironic, drawing her full lips up just a bit at the corners.

He couldn’t help it. He bent and gave her another kiss.

Oh, not as sensual as last time. It was, in comparison, just a peck. But it still managed to evoke the feelings he had captured before—feelings of her firm but curvaceous body against him.

She pulled away first. “Bye, Jock. I’ll be thinking about you tonight.” Before he could react, she said, “About our team. And how best to investigate the anarchists together.” She ducked into the car and pulled the door shut. She turned the key in the ignition and waved to him as she drove off.

“You’ve got an interesting way of sealing the deal, making her part of the team.” Ralf and Click had come up to Jock as Kathlene’s car vanished around a curve. “And I thought the last thing you wanted was for her to help us—and potentially learn what Alpha Force is all about.”

Jock turned and motioned for Ralf to follow him back toward the cabin. “I don’t know yet what kind of help she might be, but she does know people around here as well as locations. Plus, she was the one who revealed that there was a potential issue here and was credible enough for those in charge to follow up. Maybe she can help, and maybe not. But as far as her learning about Alpha Force—and me—we’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t. At least not unless we decide it’s to our advantage for her to know—which I doubt. Speaking of which, now that she’s gone, I think it’ll be time soon for some very special reconnaissance.”

* * *

The drive back to her home was a short distance along narrow streets now illuminated by artificial light, but Kathlene considered it a huge way from where she had left Jock. What had she been thinking?

Apparently, she hadn’t been thinking. A hand-to-hand combat battle to convince him to let her help in finding out what was up with those anarchists?

Well, he was military, she was in law enforcement, and engaging in that kind of confrontation may have made sense...may being the operative word.

At least it had worked out. He had acknowledged that she would be part of his team.

Kathlene reached the cottage-style redbrick house on the residential street that she called home. She pulled into the driveway and pushed the button for the garage door to open.

She knew she wouldn’t sleep much that night. She would be thinking too much about Jock Larabey, their workout together...and the feel of his body, and lips, against hers.

She made herself rehash their final conversation—and realized it felt too easy. They were going to look around. Preliminarily check out the town and the anarchists’ site that she had pointed out to them. Tomorrow morning?

Maybe. But she had a feeling that these men would not wait. She turned the key in the ignition, closed her garage door and backed out of her driveway again.

They might be checking out the anarchists’ location that night. If not, she’d just return here, no harm, no foul.

But if they were checking it out—well, she’d be checking them out.

* * *

“This should do it.” Jock had allowed Ralf to drive him back along the route they had taken when Kathlene pointed out the turnoff toward where she’d indicated the possible anarchists were living. Then they had cruised a bit longer until they had found what appeared to be a nearby solitary and abandoned home, at least from what they could tell in the near absolute darkness of this forested area. The place had been built of wood in a style that looked like some bygone era’s, and that wood was rotting.