How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf (Naked Werewolf 1)

Nearly boneless, I slid onto Cooper’s lap. The denim of his jeans raked deliciously against my oversensitized flesh . . . which was good, because my shaking hands couldn’t seem to master his belt buckle. Through the postorgasm fog, it struck me as funny that this was the first time Cooper’s clothing was an obstacle. But I didn’t laugh, I didn’t have time to get past the initial thought. Cooper was moving too fast.

I heard the faint slide of a zipper as my head lolled on his shoulder. I gasped as he pulled me close. By now, I was so wet, so ready for him, that I slid onto him easily, right to the hilt, until I was fully seated on him. His hands stayed on my hips, guiding me up and down, setting a furious pace. And when that wasn’t enough, he edged forward on the seat, arching up and wedging me against the steering wheel as he slammed his hips into mine.

There was no tenderness, no gentle touches, nothing to make the moment last. He was pouring all of his grief and heartache into my body, and I absorbed it. He ran his lips down the line of my neck, stopping to graze my throat with his teeth.

He reached between us, his fingers tracing the lines of our joined flesh. His thumb circled my clit, bringing me with him as he growled and bucked under me. I threw my head back again, whacking my head against the windshield. He took my chin in his hands and turned my head away. His teeth brushed along my neck to my shoulder and struck deep. I yelped as his canines broke the skin, marking me.

When Cooper stilled, I leaned my forehead against his, breathing heavily. He seemed to come back to himself, taking in the flush in my cheeks, the disheveled clothes. He pressed his ear to my chest, breathed in my scent, and listened to the beat of my heart.

When I leaned back, he traced the bite mark with his fingertips. His eyes focused, and his lip trembled.

“I should run.”

I cocked my head, sure that I’d heard him wrong. “I’m sorry?”

He gently pulled me out of his lap and fastened my jeans. “I need to run. Clear my head a little. There are some things I need to work through, and I don’t want to be around you when I do it.” He helped me out of the truck, carrying me to the front door, as I seemed to have lost my boots in the cab somewhere.

“You don’t have to go,” I told him as he shrugged out of his shirt.

He kissed my cheek. “I’ll be home soon.”

I heard his clothes fall to the porch and the soft thump of his paws hitting the ground after he leaped off the porch. I rolled my eyes at the ceiling.

Werewolves could be so melodramatic.

I WALKED INTO the bedroom and peeled off my clothes, which were now suspiciously stained and smelled of raw steak and sautéed onions. The house seemed so empty, even with the turtlenecked Oscar yipping and yapping at my heels. I’d become accustomed all too quickly to midnight snacks, communal showering (for water conservation, of course), and going to bed together. As tired as I was, the idea of crawling under cold sheets alone was depressing.

I slipped into one of Cooper’s T-shirts, pulled Oscar into my lap, and fired up my computer. I’d been dealing with this werewolf issue from the wrong angle, trying to apply stuff I’d learned from movies and myths or Mutual of Omaha specials. I was dealing with real people. Cooper said there were packs all over the world. There had to be other bewildered were-girlfriends out there. I just had to find them.

Unfortunately, you get a lot of weird results when you Google “werewolf girlfriend.”

Gingerly touching my spanking-new bite mark, I waded through pages of results before finding a Web site for some occult book shop in Kentucky called Specialty Books. It was the only online store I could find that carried relationship-advice books for people dating were-creatures. It’s not as if they carry this stuff on Amazon.com. I bought four hundred dollars’ worth of books and agreed to the outrageous shipping prices.

I continued to surf, trying to distinguish the “could be factual” from the “total crap.” A lot of stuff I already knew from experience. For instance, according to WerewolvesDebunked.com, werewolves were far more in touch with their natural instincts than most humanoid supernatural creatures, which also made them impulsive, temperamental, fiercely territorial, and intensely physical. Sound like anyone I know?

And I learned why Cooper ate so much and never gained a damn ounce. Shifting from human to wolf requires huge amounts of energy. Younger werewolves have to scarf down calories all day to keep their bodies fueled and ready to change. There’s also a bit of instinctual hard-wiring to keep fed, because real wolves never really know when their next meal will be.

I didn’t know, however, that there was no “magic bullet” solution—silver or otherwise—to kill a werewolf. While they do have increased healing abilities to cope with their rough-and-tumble lifestyle, wolves are as vulnerable as any creature. So if it will kill a real person or wolf, it will kill a werewolf. I couldn’t explain why, but that made me feel both more and less safe.

I was surprised to find that there were many kinds of were-creatures. Bears, horses, lions, skunks, cats, dogs. Name any animal, and there is likely a person out there who can change into it.

At this point, I eyed Oscar suspiciously. “If you turn out to be a potbellied, middle-aged accountant, I will be supremely annoyed.”

Oscar huffed, as if the very idea offended him.

16

Moroseville, Population: Me

FOR THE NEXT FEW days, my face felt as if I’d been head-butted by a cement truck and didn’t look much better. I spent most of the next day in the kitchen to avoid questioning looks from customers. The last thing I needed was domestic-abuse rumors running rampant in Grundy. Alan might clamp a bear trap on Cooper intentionally.

Cooper was reverting to his previous “grumpy bastard” persona to everyone but me. He seemed to want to pretend we’d never gone to the valley. Other than giving me updates on Pops and occasionally inspecting my injured eye, he didn’t comment on his family. He was, however, snapping at the general population and being overprotective to the point of annoying me.

It didn’t help that he was leaving town for the next few days to escort a group of Tennessee lawyers interested in hunting caribou about seventy miles south of Grundy. I wasn’t anxious. I knew he had to work. He’d taken fewer guide jobs since we’d “taken up together,” as Abner called it. But he seemed afraid to leave me alone, unwilling to be away from me. It was sweet, but knowing I had that sort of pull over someone was strangely uncomfortable. I was used to my parents’ overbearing attention, but it was something I’d worked to avoid. The emotional growing pains were starting to freak me out.

“I want you to promise me that you won’t take Oscar out at night by yourself,” he said in a voice that sounded so dangerously close to a command I considered threatening several of his orifices with a spatula. He was keeping pace with me as I crossed from the stove to the pass, back and forth, more like a caged animal than I’d ever seen him. I didn’t think provoking him with kitchen utensils was a great idea at this juncture. “Don’t get out of sight of the cabin. Lock up tight at night.”

“OK, but you’re ruining my plans. Evie and I were going to order pizza, raid the liquor cabinet, and invite some boys over to play Spin the Bottle.”