Base Nature Read online

  He was at the top of the steps when the doorbell rang. Garrett froze, forepaw in the air, snout back, ears perked. He heard the scuff of slippers or soft shoes on his broad-planked front porch. The wind tossed the oak tree out the side window and it brought to him the scent of her. Wood and blood and lavender. He closed his eyes, picturing the moonlight, falling backward into it again. When he opened his eyes, his feet were white against the old Oriental runner on the steps. He grabbed sweats from the banister and pulled them on and went to answer the door.

  Garrett took two deep breaths at the door. He could see her outline through the thick leaded glass. The pebbled, opaque window distorted her and threw the color of her red robe around like a strobe light. But she’s still beautiful. He willed his body to calm and right itself. Not the wolf part, the man part. The smell of her had given him a belly full of butterflies and an erection that would be difficult to hide. He pulled the door open but kept it in front of his body like a shield. “Hi, Liv. Everything okay?”

  The wind chose that moment in time to blow viciously. A skittering chaotic parade of dead leaves marched across his porch and billowed her robe around her bare legs. Under the thick red covering she was wearing only a nightgown. Liv let out a whoop of surprise that quickly dissolved in a self-deprecating laugh. “Fine, it’s all fine. I wanted to come and say—” Another whoop and more wind.

  Garrett could smell a storm coming. One with electricity and wind. The threat of lightning made his nose and throat tickle like a mild shock. He grabbed her wrist but kept his touch gentle and tugged her inside. “Get out of the wind, Liv. No reason you can’t stand in my…um…”

  Her eyes had gone right to his bare belly, his navy sweats and his still pretty obvious hard-on. She breathed out and it almost sounded like a word but not quite.

  “Sorry,” Garrett said, “I was sleeping.” As if that explained his hard cock. As if he owed her an apology.

  A warm rush of lust washed over him a split second before she reached out. His mind clouded white and red. Moonlight and blood. The opposing forces of pure and savage swirled in his head and made his heart race. She touched his belly and the muscles spasmed like she had burned him. “Liv…” he started, his voice holding a warning.

  “I came to say I was sorry for kissing you. For being inappropriate. But now, I…”

  Her fingers tucked themselves, long and cool and delicate, under his waistband. He tried to bite his tongue to focus his attention. He tried to count in his head to divert himself. But all he could smell or feel or think was her and her fingers on his bare skin and her pulse pounding like some big primal force in his ears.

  He attempted to pull back but she curled those long, elegant fingers into his sweats and held him. Oh, Garrett could have broken her hold easily. Even as he pulled in another breath, saturated with the addictive smell of her, he thought about doing just that. But the feel of the back of her knuckles pushed flush to the pulse that pounded low in his belly was stronger than his resolve. When she stepped to him, he didn’t pull back.

  She didn’t kiss him but the feel of her breath on his face was more intimate than any kiss had ever been. “You should be home safe in bed,” he said. Trying to be a gentleman, polite. Trying so hard to do the right thing.

  “I want to be safe in bed,” she said. She watched him, looking just as shocked as he felt. But also flushed and gorgeous. The smile on her lips showed some of the warrior he could feel hidden inside her.

  Something broken inside him healed just seeing that look on her face. Garrett smiled, watching now to see what would happen. A spectator in his own life. It was up to Liv.

  When she pushed her lips to his, for one split second he held his breath. Waiting for Liv to freak out or change her mind. She did neither. Instead, she pushed her soft, wet tongue past his lips and that’s when his resolve broke. He hauled her forward as gently as was humanly possible at the moment. The wolf was not gentle, nor was its human and that part of him wanted to throw her down right there. The urge to peel her out of her ridiculous big, puffy red robe and push her thighs wide so he could enter her was nearly overwhelming.

  Garrett settled for gripping tightly to her hips and pushing his cock to the warm yet concealed V between her legs. His body screamed to be hasty and get inside her. He knew she would be perfect and warm and welcoming.

  Her lips tasted like peppermint and her tongue was hot against his. “I want you, Garrett.” He heard that gentle tremor in her voice that signaled these kinds of words were foreign to her and he smiled.

  “I think it’s clear what I want right about now.” He ran his palms over the swell of her ass, feeling the hard but soft lines of her muscles. She bit his bottom lip gently and he stifled a dark sound that threatened to rise up in him.

  She had no idea what she was doing here.

  Liv pulled at his hair and kissed him deeper, rolling her full hips to his pelvis until he thought he might just drop dead in the entryway. “Liv…”

  “Please?” The way she said it broke his heart a little. Like she feared he’d actually turn her down.

  “This is not a please situation,” he said. Garrett traced the dip of her small waist with his fingertips. Pulled the belt of her robe until it submitted and parted the sides like crimson curtains. “Jesus.”

  She looked like she wanted to shrink. The full rise of her breasts under the partially translucent white nightgown shut down the more refined parts of his brain. The barely visible blush of nipples to fabric had him counting in his head again. He bent his knees and picked her up. She gave a little cry and her cheeks bloomed rose red with embarrassment. She probably thought she was heavy. If he wasn’t so damn turned-on he’d laugh.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  Garrett kicked the door shut and hit the steps. He took them two at a time and that was only because he forced himself to not do them in threes.

  “I’m taking you upstairs. Giving you time to change your mind,” he growled. All the while his fingers stroked the warm, fuzzy robe that barely covered her perfect ass. He was a dead man.

  “Why would I do that?” She pushed her lips to his throat, licking the skin just above his pulse. He slammed his eyes shut for a second, to steady himself.

  “You might not like my true nature.” He had to be honest with her. She was special. Different.

  “I think you’re wrong,” Liv said.

  He rounded the door and laid her on his bed, being careful not to throw her down in his hurry. “I hope so but I think you might be wrong,” he said and let himself tip backward into the moonlight and shift.

  Chapter Five

  True Nature

  Liv thought it was the kind of thing that would make her scream. She had been terrified making the decision to come here. Downright shaking as she’d locked up her house and hurried across the silent street to his house. So his secret should make her scream, she thought. Lord knew she’d had enough to scream at during her life. This did not make her scream. This stilled her breath in her lungs so that all she could hear was the pounding of her heart and the panting of the big smoke-gray wolf at her feet. He cocked his head, tongue pink and moist and seemed to wait for her reaction.

  “Garrett?” The word was more of a sigh than speech and she tentatively reached out a hand to his muzzle. Her hand was shaking but not from fear, Liv realized. From adrenaline and excitement and amazement. “Is that really you?”

  The great beast appeared to nod, giving a small chuff that wasn’t a whine and wasn’t a whimper. When her hand survived the brief stroke of his nose, she plunged her hands into his thick fur without thinking.

  The wolf rested his head on her bare thigh, his hot, heavy breath blowing back the red fold of her robe. She rubbed and stroked and remained silent as the heat of his fur seemed to wrap around her thigh, her fingers, her hand. “You don’t scare me,” she said. “Not one bit. So if this was a test…” She bent her head and some small part of her sat back in amazement. She
kissed the wet, black tip of his nose and stared into ice-blue eyes. The eyes of a passionate animal and at the right time, she was sure, the eyes of a perfect hunter. A killer. And yet, no fear. “So if you can change back, I wouldn’t mind picking up where we left off.” She pushed the tips of her toes into his warm gray fur along his haunches and he made a soft sound in his barrel chest. It happened almost too fast for her eyes to take note, the shift from beast to man. And there he stood, sweats at his feet, cock jutting out hard and his mouth hanging open just a little in surprise.

  “You didn’t run.”

  “Nope. Not one step. It was the least frightening thing I’ve ever seen.” She put her hand on him, stroking him, wanting him about a thousand times more than she had five minutes before. Which was saying something as she’d wanted him with everything in her then. “Will you take me now? Now? Have I passed?”

  He opened the bedside drawer and withdrew a packet. The silver glinted in the splash of white moonlight and when he removed the condom she held out her hand palm up.

  “Oh, you want to do it?” He smiled at her and everything in her felt warm. All of her body wanted to trust him. So she did.

  “I’d like to,” Liv said, trying so hard to sound sure of herself. She swore she could still feel his coarse fur under her fingers, in between her toes. She felt safe with Garrett. Like some of his power might rub off on her. “If you’re okay with it, that is.” She met his gaze for one breath and then dropped her eyes to stare at her thighs. They felt tingly and disconnected. Like they didn’t even belong to her at all. The silver-white moonlight threw a crescent pattern on the floor.

  She felt the condom hit her palm and Liv looked up.

  “No funny business though,” he said, leaning in so they were face-to-face. “I won’t be happy if I come before it’s all said and done. A hand job isn’t what I’m after.” He kissed her so lightly it felt almost as if nothing more than air had touched her skin. Liv laughed, she couldn’t help it.

  “That would never happen.” She rolled the condom on, loving the hot hard feel of him in her hand.

  Garrett’s voice was busted glass and barbed wire. Beyond gruff with what she hoped was urgency. “Apparently, you have no idea how badly I’m hanging onto my control right now.”

  Liv touched the dark hair that curled at his lower belly, sifted her fingers through it like it was water at the ocean. “No. I don’t.”

  Garrett pushed her back to the bed. Her panties offered no resistance to his hands. Her nightie surged up as he pressed himself between her thighs. He was big and warm and more imposing up close than he had ever seemed. She caught the glint of his teeth and the shine of his blue eyes in the low light. “Barely. I am barely holding on, Liv.”

  “How barely?” She licked his lower lip and he grew tense against her.

  “So barely that I’m scaring myself. I haven’t…” He stopped.

  God, dare she hope it? Was it even possible? She didn’t say a word though. Liv ran her hands down between them. Feeling his body against her hands, firm and strong, closer than she usually could stand. But if she could, she’d get Garrett closer to her. She pulled him to her, lips against his throat as he pushed his cock to her wet entry.

  She would not ask.

  But he finished. “I haven’t been with anyone in a very, very long time.” And he slipped into her perfectly. Filling her and stretching her, his cock pressing the places in her that needed it the most. Liv felt the orgasm rush at her almost instantly. She had some magical place in her that Garrett found with ease. Everything in her rose to the surface, a blur of emotion. Anger, pain, happiness, sadness. A huge surge of all the emotional debris she carried in her. And he wiped it out with an unnatural sense of peace and safety. He would protect her. Garrett would protect her, even from himself it seemed.

  He moved in her so that she lost herself. The pleasure too big for her to track. Liv held her breath, clung to him.

  “I’m going to come,” she said almost conversationally and laughed. Liv arched up to feel as much of him against her as she could get. His heartbeat slammed against her chest and she felt the sympathetic pounding in her body. His heartbeat and hers. Her pussy clenched up around him and she held onto him. If she didn’t hold on tight, she just might fly away, or he might disappear.

  “Jesus. That’s…well, that’s perfect,” he said against her neck. His teeth scraped her skin and for an instant she wished he would bite. Hard enough to make her come again, hard enough to leave a bruise.

  “Garrett, I’m not afraid of you.” Liv wasn’t sure who she was telling, Garrett or herself.

  He nodded, scraping his teeth lower, slamming into her. His fingers finding her nipples, stroking and pinching as he thrust. More pleasure bloomed high in her womb, low in her belly and all the places in between. “I’m glad, because this would be a bad place to be if you were.”

  He shoved his big hands under her bottom and tilted her just so. Liv watched his face, watching for flashes of his wolf there inside the man. He grew closer to orgasm, pushing into her, kissing her until she thought she would die. A flutter and flash of the animal in him here and there. It thrilled her. Coursed up her spine like a shiver. “Come for me. Come in me. Please. I want you to.” It all tumbled off her lips without a single thought. Things she would never normally say spilled from her mouth for him. “Fuck me, Garrett. Harder. Please.”

  Liv welcomed the orgasm as it tugged her gently at first, then harder. It slammed through her pelvis as he tossed back his head and made a wild sound. Part groan, part howl, it filled the small, chilly room as she came harder than the first time. Harder than she could imagine. Liv pressed her breasts to his broad chest and locked her legs behind his back as he jerked against her, still lost in his release. Anything in the world to keep him close.

  She bit him above his collarbone, smoothing her tongue over the small violence. He tasted like salt and sex and wildness. He growled, literally growled and then pulled back, pushing her flush and kissing her harder than the first time.

  ———

  He came back from the bathroom with an extra blanket. The man had a sheet on his bed—in October. He draped it over her and tucked her in like she was something small and precious. Liv closed her eyes for a moment feeling looked after, a wholly foreign feeling since childhood when her mother would tuck her in at night. “I guess you don’t get cold much?”

  The bed sagged under his weight. He didn’t look that heavy but the old springs protested as if he weighed a ton. “Not so much. It’s a wolf thing.” Garrett blew out a sigh and even sex-drunk and exhausted, Liv could see that he was worried.

  “Why’d you tell me? Why show me that? I would think that the fewer people who know the better. At least from your standpoint.” Then she felt stupid and wished she could suck the words back in. Why put worries in his head if they weren’t there to begin with?

  “Don’t worry about it,” Garrett said, curling himself around her. She basked in his heat, her body still throwing off little blips of pleasure like a car engine ticking and popping as it cools. “I was fretting and I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what?” Liv turned on her side to face him. Tucking her head under his chin to get closer to him and also so she wouldn’t have to look at him. Her heart was floundering right about now at the whole unearned trust thing. She trusted Ellen, her mother, her boss, a few select friends. Kevin had been the straw that broke the fragile girl’s back and now she trusted this man for no apparent reason.

  “I don’t know why I told you. I just did.” He tugged her closer and Liv let him. She pressed her ear to his heartbeat and listened to him breathe. Her eyelids fluttered, wanting to shut, but she wanted to talk to him. Figure this out.

  “There has to be a reason,” she laughed. Even as she laughed she turned the question on herself. There had to be a reason why she trusted him. Was it simply his rough-and-tumble entry into her house to boot Kevin out? The alpha hero role that went on to show comp
assion. No anger or rage when she stabbed him with the tweezers. “Wait! I stabbed you with silver!” She sat up then, the blanket fell away, her robe flying open. The chilly air embraced her and her skin pebbled with goose bumps in an instant.

  Garrett grinned, chuckling. “You did. My God, it’s a miracle, why aren’t I dead!” He clutched his chest, rolling from side to side like a bad actor in a worse movie. She swatted him on the chest, snorting. Liv rolled her eyes but he went on. “Oh the horror. The dread. I’m…” He gasped, rolled to face her still grinning. “I’m not going to make it, Liv. Go on without me. Tell the children…”

  His face went from humor to dread in a second. Liv shook her head, confused. “What? What did I do?”

  “Why do you always think it’s you, Olivia?” He kissed her and then stood. “Be right back. Gonna grab a beer. You want one? Wine? Tea, coffee, me?” He smiled but the smile didn’t touch his icy blue eyes.

  “I’ll have a beer too. Thanks.” She frowned and he bent, fast but silent and kissed her again.

  “You didn’t do anything. At all. Other than rock my world, sister.”

  Then she laughed out loud, forgetting the hurt. Rock my world was not something one would expect big, imposing Garrett to say. And he knew it. He had made her laugh on purpose. The trust grew deeper still, though Liv didn’t think that was entirely possible. And then completely out of character for her but going with the flow, she reached out and traced the line of his cock with a fingertip. “If you come back soon, I’ll do it again,” she whispered.

  Garrett rumbled like some big machine and the sound made her body react in a visceral way that no sound ever had. That no person ever had.

  ———

  Worries

  Garrett pawed to the back of the fridge for the good beers. He’d tucked a few Oktoberfest brews in the back. He pulled out two Marzens and popped the caps. What he was trying to do with beer and rifling was distract himself.