Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

I n the icy morning air, around the deserted streets of the old city, Max ran.

He was grateful for the freezing temperature, for the uneven cobbled streets that kept him focused, and the fact that the high stone buildings and narrow thoroughfares barely let him glimpse the sky as it lightened.

Because up there somewhere, the pale moon still shone.

The full moon.

Max jogged faster, until his breath was like a sharp knife in his chest. He kept checking in on his body, kept glancing down to confirm that he was still reassuringly human. Two legs, two arms, two feet in his Badedas runners. The bandage was still on his ankle, but he’d checked it before he left, and the wound was almost completely healed.

Miraculous.

In fact, the last twenty-four hours had been miraculous on so many levels. He had a lot to process.

And frankly, he could do that better when he ran.

After fleeing from Charlie last night, he’d tried to get some rest on the couch in the snug, tossing and turning under a musty old blanket. Of course, he knew sleep would likely evade him (it did), but at least he’d found some clean running gear in the laundry, his runners on the doorstep, so he could pound out the confusion, try to make sense of what was happening to him.

Not just the rampant desire to mark her as his, but the raft of other emotions she inspired in him. The longing to be in her presence, to just sit and talk to her for hours, the protectiveness he felt toward her, and the sense that she cared about his welfare too…

A part of him wanted to fall into it, to just stop fighting these feelings, but the other, sensible, logical part of him had no explanation for any of it.

He kept asking himself how the hell last night could have happened. Okay, so it was a full moon—fuck, what a cliché that was—but he’d never behaved remotely like this during a full moon before.

The words that had blasted through his head that she was in danger, the scent of her terror on the wind.

Surely that was why his wolf had manifested?

He’d never got close to shifting into his wolf before. Admittedly, there had been moments in adolescence when he’d gotten horny and he’d noticed more hair—okay, fur—in certain places. And he’d sometimes had the sense that claws were flexing inside his hands when he got angry or anxious.

But there was one aspect of his anatomy that had never been human.

His knot.

In his teens, he’d jammed his body into a corner of the communal shower cubicle after sport, turning away from the other kids to hide the swelling at the base of his cock, the meaty thickness above his balls, but of course he’d been unable to ignore the fucking thing. It would swell to the size of a freakin’ tennis ball when he got turned on. Which, obviously, as a teen had been quite regularly.

His mom, guessing his pubescent angst, had left a book about the birds and bees on his bedside table. They’d never spoken about it, but it had been a relief knowing he wasn’t a freak. That this was one by-product of male werewolf development that was normal. Unavoidable.

After that, Max had secretly allowed himself to enjoy cupping his knot in his hand while he jerked off, feeling it hot and pulsing in his palm as he spilled his seed. Amazed at how it remained swollen for a good half hour after, and wondering if he ever had a mate, how it might feel to be coupled this way. He’d had his fair share of romantic notions back then, of one day feeling so intensely about a woman that he’d want to stay inside her for hours.

But neither of his long-term girlfriends—and certainly not the casual hook-ups he’d had—however much they pleaded with him, had tempted him to knot them.

He’d given up on romantic notions… or so he thought.

Until Charlie.

Hell, he couldn’t stop fantasizing about making love to her…. and yeah, he’d admit it, knotting her. Right up to the hilt.

Hence why he was pounding the cobbled streets. The throb in his knot just wouldn’t go away, even with his quads burning from the exertion.

Finally, he returned to the house. All was quiet. Max sniffed the air in the hallway but couldn’t detect Charlie’s sweet scent. She was probably still asleep. She’d been through a lot, and it was early still, the sun not yet risen. He couldn’t risk going to his room—if he saw her splayed out in his bed with her dark curls on his pillow, he could say goodbye to behaving in a civilized fashion.

But he was sweating and in need of a shower. He remembered there was an outdoor shower next to the pool in the backyard.

He grabbed a towel from the linen cupboard in the hallway then padded through the kitchen and out into the yard. There was no sign that Charlie had been in the kitchen, no dishes drying by the sink, the espresso machine unused. He relaxed a little, stripped off, and loosely looped the towel around his waist before striding across the patio to the pool area. Turning the tap, after a moment, glory be, the icy water turned hot. Steam rose in the air around him.

Max scrubbed himself from head to toe, rubbing liberally, enjoying the feel of the water, holding his face up to the streaming heat. But then as he mellowed out, he made the mistake of recalling Charlie’s breast falling from her dress last night like a beautiful ripe peach. Remembered how he’d got so close to lowering his head and sucking it into his mouth, and his cock obligingly stood to attention.

Max glared at it like an alien had landed between his thighs. How was he going to be in the same house as Charlie today without this beast rearing its head?

Maybe he should jerk off.

His logical mind rejected the idea immediately. His wolf, however, whined its approval. It needed sweet relief.

His wolf won out.

Max glanced around. It was private here. The shower admittedly wasn’t screened, but it was against a high, ivy-clad high wall, not visible to the neighbors.

He let his hand stroke down his washboard abs and flex around his swollen member.

Slowly, tentatively at first, he worked up and down his cock, using his pre-cum as lubricant.

Oh fuck, this felt gooooooood.

Eyes closed, he let himself imagine kissing Charlie. Her soft lips, her tongue tangling around his, her beautiful full tits filling his hands. But then… suddenly his imaginary Charlie took the helm. Sinking onto her knees in front of him, she placed her lips around the head of his cock, licking, sucking, mewling. He watched his cock sliding in and out of her mouth, loving the little noises she made… and then, oh, sweet goddess, just as the pleasure was about to crest, Charlie took it up another notch. She lay back on his bed, spreading her thighs wide for him and begging him to enter her. With a groan, Max imagined himself nudging inside her, then drawing out slowly, his cock gleaming with her juices as she begged him to knot her. He refused, she begged some more… fuck, could anything be more of a turn-on? Finally, oh gods, as she squirmed below him, he eased his knot into her and her pussy locked around his cock…

And all the gods in heaven, now he was fucking Charlie like the big bad wolf he was… holding her thighs wide with his big paws. And she was begging for more.

Max’s fist pumped his cock faster, his thumb pad flicking across the sensitive frenulum as he teetered on the edge of release, sucking hard on his lower lip to stop Charlie’s name flying from his mouth as he imagined her gorgeous little cunt squeezing his cock, sucking him in right up to his knot… ah gods, now she was coming… her pussy pulsing around him.

Pressure raced up his cock, drawing his balls tight.

And then… Oh fuck… yesssssssss… blessed release slammed through him. From his scalp to his toes, every nerve lit up, and with a shout Max watched the long pearlescent spumes of his cum arc out in front of him and splatter onto the tiled wall.

His knees almost buckled from the sheer force of his orgasm.

Spent and gasping, he pressed his palm into the wall to support himself, his cock still twitching in his fist and his knot engorged.

When he’d finally gotten his breath back, he couldn’t help a sheepish smirk at his own predicament.

Here he was, the erudite and sophisticated professor, reduced to jerking off in the shower like a hormonal teenager. But hell, at least he felt less like a ball of frustrated angst. Less likely to do something inappropriate, like pin Charlie to the desk when he saw her this morning. That, at least, was a blessing.

Carefully, Max washed down his still fluffed-up cock, then rinsed the tiled walls down. Getting out of the shower, he wrapped the towel tightly around his middle.

As he walked back to the house, his skin tingling in the icy the cold air, his knot still swollen and heavy between his thighs, he glanced up at the house.

Fuck. His bedroom window was visible from here.

He breathed a little easier when he saw the curtains were pulled closed. Charlie must still be asleep, and oblivious to him jacking off to a fantasy of her spread out before him like a feast.

But holy hell, just supposing she’d spied him doing it.

Max shuddered.

Ye gods, it didn’t bear thinking about.

Charlie woke to the delicious smell of… Max.

She turned her head and reached out, but it was, she realized, just his pillow, with the faint aroma of his aftershave. She squirmed, remembering how she’d come to be in his bed, and the events of last night.

The way he’d rescued her in his wolf form.

The way he’d carried her on his back, so strong and powerful. How she’d clung to his thick pelt, her fingers woven into his fur, her knees dug deep into his hard flanks.

The comfort they’d shared, that felt so intimate, so precious, as she bathed his wound and he checked over hers with such gentle hands.

The way he’d left her when she’d practically been offering herself on a plate to him, her breast falling heavy from her dress and her pussy clenching with need—then clenching on emptiness as she watched him stride to the door.

He’d felt it, just as much as she had. She knew that. And he’d chosen to walk away.

With a sigh, Charlie sat up and winced at her throbbing head. Glancing down at her body, she could already see several bruises forming. Gods, those ferals didn’t care if they messed up a woman. She shuddered, wondering what would have happened if Max hadn’t arrived.

Yawning, she got out of bed and padded to the window. The light crept between the curtains, but she guessed it was still early. She tweaked them open and looked down into the yard, the pool cover adorned with dead leaves, and the covers on the loungers proclaiming winter was very much here.

The sun hadn’t risen yet; the sky was a cold gray stained with blood-red edges. It was going to be a clear day.

And then she saw a figure. And froze.

Max, circumnavigating the pool. Naked except for a towel around his waist.

Charlie’s breath snagged. His skin was pale, luminescent almost, the muscles of his pecs and abs rock hard, with just a swirl of dark hair visible in the center of his chest. Poetry in motion. She watched, mesmerized, as he dropped the towel, her gaze drinking in his muscled thighs. When he turned, she craned her neck and caught sight of his cock, more than at half-mast and bobbing in the dark thatch of hair between his legs.

Charlie let out a little moan.

When he started to move his hands down his body under the stream of water, her body goosebumped with anticipation.

Was he?

Oh goddess, was he really…?

Yes, he was…

Somehow, she knew this had to be about last night. The desire that had ignited between them. Oh gods, Max needed this. Because of her .

And she needed it just as much…

Unblinking, she watched the play of muscles in his arm as he moved it languorously lower. She strained to see more, to catch sight of his hand binding his cock, but his back was turned and the steam, damn it, also obscured her view. But there was no mistaking the action he was undertaking, the rhythmic bunching of his bicep as his arm pistoned back and forth, the way his buttocks tensed in thrall to a primal dance.

Never taking her eyes off Max, Charlie’s hand sank between her legs, and she squeezed against her fingers to relieve the growing ache.

Max braced himself against the wall with one arm now, the other pumping frenziedly at the cock she couldn’t quite catch sight of…

That didn’t stop Charlie’s body joining in.

Spreading her folds with her fingertips, she rubbed the little swollen nub, matching her rhythm to his, chasing a mutual pleasure that was as old as time.

And even though she couldn’t see the whole glorious show, she knew the moment when his orgasm hit from the violent snap of his hips, the corded muscles of his neck as he threw back his head and bared his beautiful teeth.

Charlie keened, her fingers taking flight over her clit as she broke a split second later, stuffing two fingers deep inside herself, imagining it was Max, filling her, sating the thirst that only he could quench.

As Charlie slumped against the window frame, trying to catch her breath, she saw Max bracing against the wall, regaining his breath before washing himself down. Then he turned, and as he walked back to the house, he glanced up toward the window.

Charlie flicked the curtain across the windowpane and scampered back to the bed. There, she grabbed the pillow, the one Max slept on, the one that smelled so deliciously of him, and with a little growl that a she wolf would be proud of, she stuffed it between her legs.