Alison Paige - Little Red and the Wolf

Gray snorted, shook his head, looking from one set of eyes to the next. “That’s what you’ve all been thinking? You’re worried some asshole’s going to come in here and fight me for all of you?”

They didn’t answer. Finally Joy spoke up. “You’re family, Gray. I know you and Donna weren’t natural mates, but she truly cared for you. You were so strong. A born leader.” She stepped in front of him, cupped his face, loving, maternal.

“You made your marriage work even when it was clear the bond wasn’t there. But since we lost her, you haven’t even tried to find your true mate. And when you pushed the Hood girl away too, we worried you’d never take a mate.” Her hands dropped to his chest. “We don’t want to lose you. Losing Donna was hard enough.”

“No one is losing anyone.” They’d have to kill him before he let someone separate him from Donna’s family-from his family.

“Right. Thanks to me,” Shelly said. All eyes riveted on her. “I did what you couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Maizie Hood’s your true mate. We all know it. You’re just squeamish about turning her because of some twisted loyalty to Aunt Donna. She shouldn’t have turned you. You weren’t meant for her, but her death led you to the person you were meant for. Now you have her.”

“I don’t have anything.” Rather than admit his guilt, he’d allowed Maizie to believe he blamed her for the accident. Now she was out there alone, her body changing. She was too angry with him to let him help. He didn’t deserve her.

“She’ll be back,” Joy said. “She’s pack now. Pack always finds their way home.”

“Only if they want to.” Gray turned and stormed back to the house, Maizie’s sad, wounded eyes flashing through his thoughts. Jeezus, he’d been an ass to let her leave like that.

He could fix this. He’d grab a quick shower, throw on some fresh clothes and go find her. He could explain why he’d spent the past twenty-one years blaming his loneliness and domestic imprisonment on a child.

Yeah. Then I’ll tell her it was my fault Donna ran off that night . Gray set the water temperature for the shower. Hell, if it weren’t for me her parents would still be alive . And last night never would’ve happened.

No. No matter how hard he tried or how much he thought he should, he couldn’t regret last night. It had been too perfect.

The warning beep sounded. A half second later the front, sides and top showerheads burst with steaming water. He stepped in, bent his head back and let the water cascade over his head and body.

Images of Maizie bombarded his thoughts, those pretty green eyes, the way they wrinkled at the corners when she smiled at him and turned a shade darker when she was angry. He could almost feel the soft touch of her kiss and her cloak of red hair slipping through his fingers.

The feel of her firm round breasts squeezing in his palms, the fast pucker of her nipples. His hand smoothing over her belly, slipping between her thighs to her hot wet sex.

Jeezus, she was amazing in bed. She didn’t just show up, she joined in, giving as good as she got.

His thoughts shifted, purposely remembering her eyes peering up at him with her pink lips wrapped around his cock. Her mouth was so hot and moist, his cock sliding through those soft lips, sucking him back in again and again.

Gray put his hand where her mouth had been, stroking his shaft. He was hard as stone with just the memory of her mouth on him. His balls tight, he brought his free hand to fondle them. A steady thrum of pleasure rippled through his body, his balls rolling through his fingers, muscles pulling the sac tighter. He gripped his shaft harder, pumping over the head and back, rocking his hips.

Thoughts and memories slipped through his mind, coming to the forefront then receding while another image took its place. Maizie, her ripe body pinned beneath him, his hard shaft slamming into her pussy, so tight and wet, rocking up to meet him. The walls of her sex squeezed around him, the sensitive head of his cock pushing through the muscles the same way it pushed through his hand now.

No. Not the same. His imagination wasn’t that good. He looked at his hand gripping his cock, water pattering over his fingers, keeping the taut flesh slick as he stroked. But what he felt was Maizie’s pussy squeezing him, her hot cream wetting his balls, her ass slamming into him as he pumped.

“What the fuck?” He stopped, his hands dropping, leaving his cock to wag in front of him. A heartbeat passed, and when the invisible muscles suddenly squeezed around him, he nearly came.

“Jeezus…” He pushed his hips forward, just as he would if Maizie’s pussy was there to beg him in. Hot moist walls hugged around his cock, stroking him, holding tight as he pulled back. He braced his hands on the shower walls, watching his hard penis as he drove his hips into thin air, but felt the unmistakable sensation of a woman’s pussy-Maizie’s sex-give way.

He pumped again, and then again. He couldn’t help it. The sensation was too good. Waves of pleasure rippled through his body with each thrust, humming over his skin, building in the tightening sac of his balls.

Gray didn’t have a clue how this was happening, what was happening, but then he didn’t really care. He rocked his hips, thrust his cock into nothing, but felt the welcoming squeeze of Maizie’s pussy. He held tight to the showerheads on either wall, braced his feet and let the strange phenomenon take him over.

His head lolled back, the warm water of the shower enveloping him as he fucked his invisible Maizie harder, faster. Thoughts of her supple breasts pressed into his palms filled his mind, her nipples squeezed between his fingers. The feel of her lips on his, the sweet taste of her mouth, her skin, as he drove himself deeper inside her.

“Maizie…”

“Gray…” She wanted him-now. The gentle thrum of shower water was a poor substitute. It massaged along her body, trickling over her nipples and wetting between her thighs, but it was little more than a tease.

Gawd, he’d crushed her earlier with those accusing pale blue eyes and that cold heartless silence. How dare he blame her? Losing his wife was clearly difficult, but she’d lost her parents. Did he have a clue how hard that was for a seven-year-old girl?

She’d blamed that wolf, all wolves, for years. Now she knew it was his wife who’d raced out in front of their car. It was an accident, and she suspected Gray understood that too, but the randomness of it all was so hard to accept. She’d spent so many years pointing a finger, needing to blame someone for the injustice. Would it have been any different for Gray?

The realization left her numb. His cold eyes left her aching. She didn’t want to want him, to feel his warm arms around her, his mouth on her breast, the teasing draw on her nipple. She wanted to stay mad at him, but she’d seen the guilt in his eyes and knew the power of it. She’d felt the same kind of gnawing guilt-that Granny had wasted her golden years raising her. She’d do anything to escape that feeling. Even blame someone else for it if she could.

Gray was caught in the same heartbreaking trap of guilt and blame as she was. But at least in his arms Maizie had found relief. A sense that there was a reason behind it all, a reason her parents died on that forest road-his forest. It linked them forever and always. She wanted that feeling now. She wanted him.

Maizie closed her eyes, imagined his hand tracing over her skin. She mimicked the picture in her mind with her own hand, feathering over her collarbone, down her chest to her breast. She cupped herself, her fingers finding the hard pucker of her nipples, squeezing as she slid her other hand between her thighs.