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.
He let go, and the sudden release of her throat from captivity had Alex spinning from back to front—the instinct of an animal to protect its soft side—where she met him face-to-face as he hunkered shoulders low, tail end high, wiggling in anticipation of play.
He feinted; she parried; then he was running, she was chasing. They went skidding across the ice. She felt like a kid again, until she remembered that she’d never been a kid.
Had he?
The distant howl of a wolf had them both pausing mid-wiggle. Alex knew with an instinct she hadn’t realized she possessed that the howl had been that of an actual wolf. But the call reminded them both of why they were here and sent them trotting briskly in the direction of where they needed to be. Clouds danced over the moon; then snow began to tumble down.
Barlow had taken a quick trip to Awanitok that afternoon and had an equally quick chat with George. The young man was supposed to wait until he heard Barlow’s howl before walking about in the night like the foolish boy he wasn’t.
The Inuit settlement was quiet and dark as they approached, until something moved on the outskirts.
The ruff on Alex’s neck went up. She lifted her nose.
George.
The kid had heard the call of the wolf, but, unlike them, he’d been unable to distinguish wolf from werewolf, so he’d exited his home and begun his stroll. He was already leaving the boundaries of the village.
Barlow jerked his head, indicating Alex should go in one direction; he would go in the other. They needed to be closer to George, and they needed to stay downwind.