A Howl for a Highlander (25 page)

She laughed. “I doubt you worry about anything with regard to facing another wolf or man.”

He was very serious when he said, “I worry about your happiness, Shelley. If this causes problems with your family and it upsets you, it upsets me.”

She gave him a rueful smile. “I wanted this as much as you did, and I’m
not
changing my mind, no matter what any of my uncles say.”

With her body rubbing against him, he couldn’t concentrate on the conversation any longer. “I think I picked the wrong-sized swimsuit. This feels like I’m about to burst out of it at any minute.”

She grinned up at him. “That makes me think it’s just the right size.”

They’d barely made it into the surf where the water rose to Duncan’s waist when his fingers were sliding her bikini top down, exposing her breasts to his mouth and tongue as she wound her legs around his thighs to hold on while he tortured her exquisitely.

She tried to reach for his Speedo, to free his straining cock, but he wouldn’t let her. “Wait,” he said, so raggedly that she knew he was ready to erupt.

Whether it was the warm sea, the friction between their bodies as the gently rolling waves moved her against him, or their scanty clothes that turned her on so much, she was ready to climax with barely any help from him.

She leaned away from him as he yanked her thong down, dipped his fingers deep inside her, and stroked her nub until she was ready to jump backward into the waves. Oh God, this was a fantasy come true.

He growled her name and jerked his Speedo down only enough to release his cock. Before she knew it, he was inside her. She was riding him up and down, the buoyancy of the water making this one sexual encounter she wanted to repeat over and over again until they left the island.

“Tell me you have an indoor swimming pool with doors that lock where we can spend every night before we retire to your room in the castle, Duncan,” she huskily said.

He moaned something under his breath—something Gaelic, she thought—that sounded beautiful to her ears, even if he was only cursing again. She rode him as he held her hips and brought her down on him as forcefully as he could, considering the way the water contradicted the motion. Their mouths kissed, and their tongues tasted and tantalized, licking the salty spray from each other’s skin.

She knew she’d never experience sex like this again, not anywhere but with him here. She vowed that if they got the money back from Sal, she and Duncan would come here at least once a year to relive the heady experience of sex in the warm waters of the Caribbean. They would take leisurely walks in the forest with colorful parrots chattering in the foliage, swim with the rays and schools of brightly colored fish, fight pirates on sailing excursions, sail on catamaran dinner cruises designed to celebrate a sunset at sea, and just enjoy each other in a bed built for two.

She dug her fingers into his back and bit his lower lip with a gentle nip as she felt her blood heating, her climax nearing. She felt his impatience as he drove into her, his own body surging close to completion. Just a little higher, just another thrust, his pelvis rubbing hers until she clenched so hard, the intensity of pleasure driving her to the swell of the peak. She felt she was going to implode if she couldn’t reach the top soon.

He quickened his thrusts, deepening as he licked her chin, one hand shifting, slipping around her bare buttock, touching her between her legs where his cock was thrusting inside her. He suddenly growled out her name as she crested the wave, shooting his hot seed inside her. She shattered in his arms, her muscles clamping down on him with heady contractions. Her body limp and sated, she clung to him, head against his chest, tongue licking salty drops of the sea collecting on his skin.

“Hmm, lassie, you keep that up, and I’ll have to start all over again.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” she said, her voice thready, raspy, tired.

He chuckled darkly. She hoped he hadn’t planned for her to walk through the sand to get back to the villa, not as boneless as she felt. Nor that he expected her to tackle him as a wolf now. She was ready to snuggle and cuddle with him for several hours before she did anything else.

He held her for a moment, letting her ride him for a few more seconds, then slipped out of her, yanked up his Speedo, and tried to retie her string bikini top, without much success. She laughed. “Just hold me while I do it.”

If she’d tried to stand on her own two feet and tie her bikini with the waves pushing against her, she would have been swept away, as unsteady as she was. As it was, she had a difficult enough time retying the top. Having him eye her with predatory interest didn’t help. She swore he was ready to make her come all over again, with very little rest in between.

“Do you still want to play wolf to wolf?” he asked, his eyes smoldering with lust.

She was too limp to play well and couldn’t believe he’d be raring to go. She wondered just what would happen if they did play wolf to wolf, because from his hungry expression, she didn’t think he meant just to play.

“Maybe later,” she said, smiling up at him.

“Later?”

“Yeah, after I’ve had time to sleep a little. Then I’ll be ready for you.”

“Hmm, all right. It’s a date.”

After they returned to the villa and took quick showers, they went back to bed to snuggle and nap. When she woke later to find he was no longer in bed with her, she peered around the room and saw Duncan sitting on his wolf haunches near the door, watching her, panting, and waiting to play.

He was a large, sturdy alpha male with his brown eyes observing her and his ears perking up as his gaze met hers. He was ready to frolic with her as wolves would.

She laughed, loving that he was willing to give in to her wishes. “Are you ready to get beat?”

He smiled.

Naked, she climbed out of bed and stretched her arms, his gaze taking in every inch of her. The way he was observing her, she figured that if he hadn’t been in his wolf form, he’d have dragged her back to bed.

Her muscles heated, and she felt gloriously exquisite as every fiber in her body stretched to accommodate the swift change and the freedom it gave her for a brief couple of seconds before she shifted into the wolf.

She dropped to her pads to face Duncan on all four paws. He was standing now, preparing for her, tail wagging, mouth closed, the slightest smile in his expression, but he didn’t attack. Gentleman that he was.

She bounced around him first, excited to play as he grinned at her. She lunged, jumping on top of him. He fell back as she bit into his neck with a playful bite. He growled and snapped at her in a mock fight. She jumped away from him, then dove again, impacting with his body. He stood his ground, letting her tackle him, allowing her to bite him. He grabbed at her nuzzle, more in a love bite than real battle. She wanted to throw back her head and laugh, but she growled instead, wanting him to give her real competition.

His tail was wagging, his ears perked, his tongue lolling to the side. She jumped to tackle his neck and hung her forelegs over his back. With high spirits, Duncan dislodged her, tackled her, and brought her down, licking and chewing on her neck and muzzle. She loved it, loved that he was pinning her down and forcing her to fight him, but still in a sweet way. She doubted he would be half as gentle or loving with his brothers or male cousins. She wanted to see him play with his male siblings, to see how vigorously they fought in mock battle.

Growling and snapping, she kicked at him with her feet until he lay crosswise on top of her and licked her muzzle, and she gave in. As soon as she shifted into human form underneath his furry body, he licked her nipple and she laughed. Then he shifted also, still on top of her, only skin to skin as humans. “Lass, you are no beta female, if that’s what you’re worried about. Are you ready to retire for what’s left of the night?”

She lay on her back on the carpet smiling up at him. “You have to fight harder next time.”

“Aye, I will,” he promised with a sparkle in his eyes, but she presumed he wouldn’t really. Not like he would with his brothers, in any case. Maybe that was just as well.

He pulled her up from the floor and kissed her lips, his hands roaming down her back and buttocks. “When you crawled out of bed before you shape-shifted, I nearly returned to human form and carried you back to bed.”

She laughed and squeezed his ass. “I’m glad you didn’t and played with me as a wolf instead.”

She retrieved her phone and turned it back on.

“Put it on vibration, in case we get frisky and someone wants to call and annoy us in the middle of the night,” Duncan warned. He slipped into bed with her, spooning her and intending to wait until her breathing was soft and slow—like that of a sleeper who was dead to the world— before he left her.

He couldn’t tell her what he intended to do, because knowing her, she’d want to go with him. He wasn’t having any of it. This business with Silverman was his job, not hers. He wanted her safe and sound and sleeping until the next time they made love.

Forty-five minutes later, Duncan was finally able to slip out of bed, believing she was asleep. He watched Shelley for what seemed an eternity, waiting to see if she woke and noticed he’d left the bed. She didn’t stir, too tired from all their love bouts. He breathed in her fragrance one last time—the feminine, musky, sweet scent of her—and damn if his libido didn’t ratchet up a couple of notches.

Before he changed his mind and began to make love with her again, he headed naked for the back door of the villa, opened and closed it, then shifted. He hadn’t thought he’d be scent-marking his territory on the island, nor would he have if he’d actually had a room at a hotel like he’d first planned. Everything had changed when he had gotten involved with a sizzling hot she-wolf. He was playing for keeps.

As he loped around the perimeter of the villa, he only thought to show Sal that Shelley was his—as well as the villa, the territory surrounding it, and even the beach and the sea that caressed it. That any wolf who crossed that line was in serious trouble. Wolves killed other wolves that were not of their pack and invaded their territory. The need to do so was just as strong with a werewolf who was protecting his own.

Instinctively, the wolf half of him had to do his bit to ensure Sal knew it beyond a doubt. Sal hadn’t done so around his own property, which had surprised Duncan. He wondered if that was because Sal didn’t often release the wolf side of his nature. Or maybe Sal didn’t feel the right to claim territorial possession because the money that had undoubtedly paid for it all wasn’t his. Or maybe Sal just didn’t feel he needed to prove anything to anyone.

Duncan left a few calling cards around Sal’s estate also. With a smile.

After all, with all the money Sal had stolen, this could very well have been Duncan’s pack’s estate. Marking it as his own enforced the claim that it was theirs, not Sal’s.

What Duncan hadn’t expected when he returned to the villa—with his she-wolf sleeping soundly inside—was to discover two men snooping around the perimeter.

Two men who were wolves.

Chapter 14

As soon as Duncan smelled the two male wolves in human form near the villa, the fur on the nape of his neck stood on end. Truth be told, his whole wolf coat fluffed with aggression, making him appear even larger than he was.

If the men had seen him, they would have known he was a hair’s breadth short of attacking them. However, he was afraid that as soon as he attacked, his growling and snapping jaws and their frantic cries would awaken Shelley. He didn’t doubt she’d come out to help him. Somehow, he needed to draw them away from the villa before he showed them what he was made of.

They had to smell his scent markings and realize he was damned serious that any wolf in the vicinity should know to keep his distance. These men probably assumed that Duncan was snuggled in bed with the she-wolf, not standing out here in the dark and sensing them while they observed the villa.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” the first man groused. “I know you said he’s got to be inside with her, but, hell, I swear he’s just remarked the area with his scent, as fresh as it smells. If that’s so, he might very well be out here still…
with
us
.”

The other man didn’t say anything, just crept toward the house, his eyes glued on the villa. Either he wasn’t afraid of meeting Duncan out here, so he wasn’t looking out for him, or he was like Sal might also be, not used to being a wolf. That would make him more wary and cautious, constantly on the alert when faced with the danger of a wolf fight. The other man’s head kept swiveling around like an owl’s, peering into the darkness and watching for any signs of Duncan.

Two male wolves to one were not good odds in wolf-to-wolf combat. In his wolf form, Duncan could handle a couple of humans, but only if neither was armed with knives or guns. He could manage one of these wolves before the other responded, though.

Still, he waited, listening, anticipating their next move and trying to determine what they were about. If they thought he and Shelley were in bed together, what did they hope to accomplish?

They came into view around a stand of palms, both men slightly bent in a crouch to be inconspicuous. Were they armed?