Chapter 8 - Layla

Wh…where am I?

That was the first thing that came to mind when Layla finally managed to reclaim consciousness. She had been in and out of it for what felt like hours, glimpsing the canopy of trees overhead, Zander's concentrated face close to hers as he carried her through the woods.

She remembered all too well the pain in her knee. It still throbbed now, and she used her consciousness to zero in on that feeling, using it to fight the exhaustion that still plagued her.

It took all she had in her to shuffle into a sitting position and run her fingers through her loose hair, trying her hardest to recall the events of the last day.

Pine Valley. The enemy wolves. The attack. Running. Twisting her knee. The familiar squeaking of that top step on the cabin porch.

Slowly, it all came back to her. And then—Zander!

Her eyes flew open with a start. The dusty scent of the cabin was familiar. The fire crackling in the hearth was familiar, too. They did not set her teeth on edge or her heart hammering in her chest.

The sound of the old shower in the bathroom beyond the main room drew her attention. He was still here. He hadn't left her. Somehow, she had believed he would.

The bathroom door creaked open and he appeared in the doorway. A towel wrapped loosely around his waist, hanging low to show off the sloping v-shape where his muscular torso met his legs, he ran a second, smaller towel through his luscious wet hair. The drenched dark blonde locks that adorned his head were dark brown in the near-darkness.

In the doorway, illuminated by the candlelight in the bathroom behind him, he was a large and imposing figure. Broad shouldered, muscular, and all too naked, he made the cabin room feel even smaller than it ever had before.

"The lights aren't working, and the stove is toast, but the shower seems to be okay," he told her, apparently unsurprised by the fact she was awake. "I found some ration packets in the trunk at the end of the bed and cooked them on the hearth. Help yourself."

He gestured to the tray on the table beside the bed, and Layla almost gaped. For someone like Zander, that was like bringing her a three-course meal. Rice and beans had never looked so good in all her life.

In an attempt to remain calm, Layla pulled the far-too-thin blanket up to cover her own nakedness and asked, "How long was I out?"

Zander, as if not wanting to make her uncomfortable, went about grabbing some clothes from another trunk across the room as he said, "All night, more or less."

Layla gulped. "Are we safe?"

Zander followed her eyes to the door. "For now. It's been quiet out there."

Layla twisted to drop her legs over the side of the cot. "We should get back to town while we can."

Wearing nothing but a pair of shorts now, Zander darted across the room and dropped down onto the bed beside her. He laid a hand on her shoulder, making her shiver as he said, "You aren't going anywhere just yet. Not until I have taken a look at that knee of yours."

"What are you—" she exclaimed when he started to pull back the blanket.

"Relax, I just want to take a look at your knee," he repeated softly, and Layla was astonished by his tone. He had never sounded so calm and caring before.

Instinctively, she leaned back, surprised when he pulled back the blanket to reveal that her knee was bandaged.

"Did…did you do that?" she asked.

"You were in no fit state to do it yourself," Zander grumbled back as he unwrapped the bandage from her leg.

He was so gentle that it took Layla's breath away. She watched him with fascination as he examined the blackened, swollen ruin of her knee.

"I was hoping compression might help it heal quicker," he said, sighing in a way a that made her certain he was displeased with her healing.

Layla shrugged. "I'm no beta. I may be higher in pack rank than poor Darwin, but I'm still only a messenger wolf. I heal slower than you and your guys."

She half expected him to bite her head off for pointing out the obvious, but instead, she was surprised when he smiled at her sadly and laid his warm palm over her knee.

"I guess that means we will just have to stay a little while longer," he said, his thumb gently stroking her knee.

His touch was warm. His skin, though calloused, was much softer than she had anticipated. And his gentleness sent a shiver up her leg and through her spine.

Instinctively, painfully aware of his closeness, Layla bounced off the bed. "No! I'm fine!"

But the second the foot of her injured leg touched the floor, pain lanced through her, and she squealed as she reeled forward.

Up like a shot, Zander caught her. His muscular arms carried her swiftly back to the bed, and in one graceful motion he had pulled the blanket back up around her chest, holding her there as he whispered in her ear, "You aren't going anywhere."

His tone was instructional, yet somehow also seductive.

Layla was terrified and, oddly, turned on.

This wasn't happening. She hated Zander. He clearly hated her.

But the man sitting with her now wasn't the same man she had argued with at the bonfire.

This man was kind and caring, giving off a protective vibe that made her heart race.

The way he rubbed her knee felt good, so good she couldn't even attempt to move away. The warmth of his touch felt as if it were drawing the pain right away from her joint.

"Maybe a massage will stimulate blood flow and help you heal faster so we can get back on the move," he suggested, and suddenly Layla was less inclined to want to leave.

His said it straightforwardly, but the glint in his eye spoke of much more as his hands traveled down her leg and over her calf to pick up her foot.

Layla leaned back against the wall, breathing a sigh as she whispered, "I think it"s working."

In the near-darkness, Zander's deep blue eyes blazed with something Layla had never seen in his gaze before. Deep down she knew it should have frightened her, but in that moment all she could think of was how good his touch felt.

There, in that cabin, they were far away from the real world. She was not the Layla who hated his guts, and he was not the wolf that made her blood boil with anger.

They weren't rivals or opponents or whatever else she might have considered him. They just were.

And Layla suddenly realized that simply existing had never felt so good in all her life.

He smelled so good. Why did he have to smell so good? The scent of him was intoxicating, wrapping around her as if it were the steam that had followed him out of the bathroom, though that had dissipated long ago.

Against her better judgment, Layla didn't tell Zander to stop massaging. Instead, she allowed herself to enjoy it, closing her eyes to really feel his hands at work as he massaged her foot, calf, and just above her knee.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she leaned back against the wall, concentrating on the warmth of his hands as they caressed her flesh. She couldn't remember the last time she had been touched like that. In fact, she wasn't sure she had ever been massaged before, especially not like this.

And before she knew it, Zander's hands were traveling. They slipped up her thigh, snaking their way under the blanket that still draped loosely over her body. He squeezed gently, dangerously close to her womanhood.

She didn't dare to open her eyes. She didn't even dare to breathe. Instead, she held her breath as one hand slipped between her thighs, his fingertips stroking ever so gently against her clit.

Her head tilted back further against the hard wood of the wall and she bit her lip, still holding her breath. Why did his touch have to feel so good? Especially there!

It was impossible for her to resist. It had been so damn long. She couldn't remember the last time she came. And even then, that had been alone. She was tired of being alone, tired of being frustrated. Maybe it was time to give in.

And so, she did, opening her legs ever so slightly. She felt Zander adjust himself on the bed, and her heart raced as she sensed him dropping off it completely.

Still, she didn't dare to open her eyes. Her other senses took over entirely as Zander's hands gripped her knees and pushed them open. The blanket was lifted from her slightly, and then she felt his breath. It was warm and moist upon her thighs as he delicately brushed his lips over her flesh. He grazed first one and then the other, from knee to the crevice of her thigh, just shy of her sex.

And the teasing, tingling sensation of it was absolutely infuriating.

She clutched tightly to the blanket to stop herself from grabbing hold of his head instead. The way he was teasing her made her want to clamp her hands down on the back of his skull and wrap her legs around his shoulders.

But she knew Zander better than that. It had only been a couple of months since his arrival in Nightstar, but she knew him well enough to know he was a real dominant wolf. The power and energy dripping off him and often made her defensive against him.

Not now. Now, she opened herself entirely to him, spreading her thighs even further as finally, he laid his mouth upon her, his tongue caressing her clit with slow and deliberate strokes.

She could barely breathe from panting with pleasure as his finger teased the entrance of her sex. The tip played joyously for several moments before he slipped it in to the first knuckle, removed it and slipped it in to the second knuckle. Again, he removed it, and finally slipped all the way in, adding pressure before he stroked her with a come-hither motion, teasing the most sensitive parts of her insides as his tongue did all of the work outside.

For only a second, she thought of their confrontation at the full moon bonfire. Maybe his comments about her being shit in bed weren't entirely unwarranted. He most definitely appeared to know exactly what he was doing.

"Fuck," she breathed out, unable to handle the growing pressure inside her as she grew more and more frustrated, more and more needy, desperate to cum.

"Shit, sorry, did I hurt you?"

Layla's eyes flew open, her heart hammering and face hot as hell as she realized that Zander wasn't on his knees between her thighs, but still sitting on the bed beside her, his hands still wrapped around her foot.

She stared at him, unable to believe that her imagination had been quite so vivid. Were his hands that good, that she had been able to imagine them elsewhere? It appeared so.

And she was desperately embarrassed, as she had clearly spoken out loud while daydreaming about him going down on her.

What the hell is wrong with me? She asked herself, wondering if maybe she might have hit her head at the same time as she had hurt her knee. She didn't remember having done so, but anything was possible.

After all, she was sitting in a cabin with a man whose guts she hated, daydreaming about things that were entirely unmentionable.

"No, no," Layla said, shaking her head. "You didn't hurt me."

She tried her hardest to regain control of her hammering heart, sure that he could most definitely hear it pounding in her chest. Would he know why she was suddenly so embarrassed? Could he smell her arousal?

Shit! She cursed, silently almost certain that he would be able to. Christian always had been able to. He'd told her so in the early days, back before he had turned out to be the biggest asshole she knew. Even bigger than Zander, and that was saying something.

All she could hope for was that Zander wouldn't recognize the scent.

Though he cocked his brow at her and examined her face closely, he didn't say anything. And Layla silently prayed that she wasn't so easy to read as some of her friends told her she was.

He's not Darwin, she reminded herself. Her younger cousin had almost always been able to tell what was on her mind or if something was troubling her, but Zander wasn't him. And she was hopeful.

Yet she wasn't sure she had ever been more turned on in her life. Whether it was his touch or her own stupid imagination, she didn't know, but it took everything she had in her not to act on the horridly strong emotions she was currently feeling.

The lingering pain in her knee might well have been the only thing that truly stopped her from seeing what might happen if she were to try and jump him. That, and the fact that, she reminded herself, she absolutely hated Zander Mallox's guts.