Chapter 15

Rafe loped into Ruby’s yard a couple hours later, his muscles aching from the long run, but his lungs filled with fresh piney air. He’d almost completely shaken off the bullshit with his brother when Ruby’s cottage came into view.

Rafe stopped dead in his tracks. The yard reeked of another wolf. More than one. And still nobody he knew. Rafe sniffed the grass around him, the trail leading straight to Ruby’s back door.

Ruby.

He was shifting as he ran, tugging on the gym shorts he’d left on the back deck. He ran a hand over the claw marks on the door and his heart stopped. Shit. He never should have left her. Oh, God what had he done?

He nearly tripped head-first into the house, his shorts still not fully covering his ass, his pulse pounding in his ears, to find Ruby and Lena at the kitchen table playing cards.

Their heads snapped up, wide-eyed, when he stumbled into the room.

“Uh, hi. Welcome back,” Ruby said, a small smile playing around her lips. She’d painted them bright red. Blood red. Goddamn this woman.

“Come with me.” He grabbed her arm, tugging her up from the table and nearly dragging her from the room. He was being an asshole. He was being a barbaric asshole. But all he could imagine when he smelled those other wolves and found those claw marks was Ruby’s body torn to pieces, her blood staining the floorboards. The memories of another woman’s blood staining his hands flooded his thoughts. His throat tightened, strangling him.

Ruby tugged her arm back when they made it to the living room. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she hissed.

“I…” Rafe squeezed his eyes shut, willing the image of Ruby’s bloody flesh from his mind. “I just…” He couldn’t breathe. His lungs forgot how. What if they’d gotten to her? What would they have done?

Then Ruby’s hand was on his arm. “Okay, big guy. Take a seat.” She guided him to the couch and sat beside him. Her hand was cool on the back of his neck as she gently pushed his head between his knees.

“Just breathe,” she whispered and slowly, slowly his throat loosened and his lungs took up their job again.

When he finally managed to look up at her again, there was so much damn concern in her eyes it nearly sent him into a tailspin all over again. He pressed his fingers into his thighs, digging in until the pain distracted him from the soft look on Ruby’s face. He did not deserve that soft look.

“What happened?” she asked, sitting back on the cushions, her legs crossed beneath her.

“Did you go anywhere?”

“No. You said not to, so I didn’t—”

“Good.” His voice was rough. Too rough. Everything he said sounded like he was angry with her. But it wasn’t her. It was everything else.

Her hand was on his arm again, her fingers tracing his muscles. He hadn’t bothered with a shirt.

“What happened?” she asked again and he remembered he’d promised her honesty.

He let out a long sigh and glanced toward the kitchen. They could hear Lena shuffling around, cleaning up.

“Come with me.” Ruby tugged him up from the couch and led him upstairs to her room, resettling on her bed. He sank down beside her, his feet on the floor, forearms resting on his thighs, his gaze on the floorboards.

“There were more wolves here. Today. I could smell them in the yard.”

“Oh.” Ruby’s voice was quiet. At some point it had started to rain. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“I wasn’t here—” He lifted his face to look at her and found her big dark eyes staring at him. “You could have been hurt.” He couldn’t help it; he had to touch her. He cupped her face in his hands and swept a thumb across her cheek bone. She softened under his touch. So soft, so willing. Her lips parted and he suddenly wanted that red lipstick smeared across his body.

Goddamn it. He nearly growled, pressing his forehead to hers, and her lashes fluttered closed.

Chase her through the woods, tackle her in the dirt, hold her down…

Theo’s words ran through his head. It was all too easy to picture: Ruby beneath him, her breath coming fast and needy, her whimpers and moans, her lush thighs wrapped around him…

Shit.

He pulled away, running his hands roughly through his own hair. Ruby blinked her eyes open and raised a dark brow, but she didn’t push him. Didn’t comment on the raging erection that was so obvious in these damn shorts.

“Did you find out anything from your brother?” Her question was casual but the throaty quality to her voice told him she was just as affected as she was.

Rafe huffed. “Nothing. It was a wasted trip. Just reminded me how much he pisses me off.”

She laughed a little at that and shifted next to him. Lightning flashed and lit the dim room, thunder louder than before.

“What time do you need to be at work?”

“We don’t have to leave for another hour.”

Rafe nodded. The storm should pass by then. He glanced down at his lap. Not sure he could say the same for his current problem.

Ruby moved closer, her breath skating across the skin of his arm. “What should we do to pass the time?”

* * *

Rafe jumped up from the bed as though Ruby had bitten him. She actually didn”t hate that idea. All that exposed skin, all those muscles.

“I should go check the area. Make sure they’re gone.”

“It’s pouring outside.” Ruby glanced toward the window and then back to the enormous man in her bedroom. His eyes were wild, like he wanted to run. His cock still strained against the front of his shorts. Ruby might have been insulted at his hasty retreat if it weren’t for the physical evidence that he wanted her too.

“Still, I should check.” Rafe ran a shaky hand through his hair. He had been so worried about her when he stumbled into the house. She’d seen the fear gripping his face.

“Rafe, just wait—”

He turned and rushed from the room before she had a chance to stop him. Ruby let out a long sigh and flopped back on the pillows, trying to ignore the ache between her legs.

What was up with this guy? Their conversation from this morning ran back through her head. All that bullshit about being a monster. Like she was some perfect flower that he didn’t want to sully with his dirt. She didn’t know what was floating around in Rafe’s past that made him believe he wasn’t good enough for her, but in the last week she’d learned everything she needed to know about her wolf-man.

And she knew that she wanted him. Not just because he was the sexiest person to ever grace her bedroom, or because that make-out session from this morning was still causing aftershocks. But because Rafe was the first person who made Ruby feel cared for. And as it turned out, that was super sexy.

Ruby ran her hands over her stomach, over the soft T-shirt she’d worn to bed. Her nipples peaked beneath the thin fabric. She hadn’t bothered changing after Rafe left this morning. She could still smell him on her, pine and sawdust. She remembered the feel of his hands on her skin, rough and gentle at the same time as he pinned her against the wall. The taste of his mouth, the searing heat of him as he pressed himself against her.

She could not go to work like this. She was too keyed up.

She slipped a hand beneath the waistband of her shorts, imagining it was Rafe’s hand, feeling the rough calluses on his fingertips and his breath across her neck. Ruby’s fingers dipped between her legs as she pictured Rafe bracing himself above her.

She knew how it would go. Gentle at first, so slow and soft, Rafe trembling with the effort to hold back until they were both so strung out with desire that they snapped. And then he would fuck her into the mattress until she screamed, those huge hands digging into her hips, her thighs, holding her open for him.

Ruby’s soft moan filled the room as her fingers sped up and slowed down, bringing herself closer and closer to the edge. She was so wet and so close. Her fantasy of Rafe pounding her into the bed was so real she could smell him even stronger now, like he was here, like his cock really was sliding in and out of her when it was only her own fingers.

A low growl and a muttered curse pulled Ruby out of her daydream. She cracked open her eyes to find Rafe standing in the doorway, his hair wet, drops of rainwater following the dips and valleys of his chest and abs.

Dear Lord.

Ruby froze, her hand still between her legs, her breath coming in rapid gasps.

“Don’t stop.” Rafe’s voice sounded like it was scraped from his throat. His eyes never left her face. His hand gripped the door jamb so tight, a part of Ruby’s brain wondered if he might crack it.

But the other part of her brain screamed at her to finish what she’d started. She circled her fingers faster and harder but with Rafe’s dark gaze on her, it didn’t take long. Her back bowed off the bed, her heels digging into the mattress. Pleasure shot through her, lighting up stars behind her eyelids. She squeezed her eyes shut, letting wave after wave of release wash over her.

She sighed. Her body felt heavy, sated. A small smile played over her lips, but when she opened her eyes, the doorway was empty.

Rafe was gone.