I woke up through a nightmare, bolting up in bed, hand slapping down over my mouth. I closed my eyes, taking in slow, deep breaths, trying to push the memories back before they took root. Trying to forget the eyes, the hands, the edge of the knife, the sadistic laughter.
I opened my eyes in the dark room and felt the panic flood away in a whoosh, replaced instantly with the anger I had gone to sleep with. Because there was Wolf, leaning back in his recliner, fast-a-freaking sleep.
Alright, it could be said that I have rather poor impulse control. As in, I have none. I flew up off the bed, grabbing a handful of his magazines and hurling them, one by one, at his sleeping form. The first collided with a satisfying smack to the side of his face, making his eyes snap open as his body lurched upward as if fully awake. I didn't pause, just curled back my arm and sent another magazine flying.
"The fuck..." he said, awake enough to snatch it out of the air, but he let it hit him in the chest instead.
"The. Fucking. Dogs!" I yelled, throwing another magazine before turning back to the bed to grab more. "You leave me here with fucking hell beasts as my jailers without so much as telling me how long you're going to be gone or if they might, I don't know, fucking maul me! And and you have nothing to read!" I yelled, letting the last magazine fly, the spine hitting him in the jaw.
"Feel better?" he asked, calm as could be, like I hadn't just thrown a years' worth of magazines at him.
"No I don't feel fucking better," I said, folding my arms across my chest and glaring at him.
At that, he just nodded at me and slowly stood up, his long form unfolding like a panther before he moved toward me. It took everything in me not to flinch away, not to retreat. But he didn't stop when he was in front of me, he brushed past me, his arm touching my shoulder as he did so as he made his way to the front door. I felt my brows drawing together as he pulled the door open and whistled.
Then I was scrambling back across the floor as his hell beasts charged into the room. I remembered to stand still and froze with the backs of my thighs against the bed.
Wolf closed the door and slowly moved across the room toward me, sitting down at the foot of the bed. Then I was tagged around the waist and pulled downward. No, not just downward. I was pulled onto his lap. I was sitting on Wolf's lap. His strong arm was around my lower back, his hand settled at the upper most part of my thigh. I was still trying to adjust to the fact that I was on his lap in just a t-shirt, meaning no panties, and that said t-shirt had ridden up almost indecently high when I heard him snap his fingers. Not more than two seconds later, I felt cold, wet dog noses touching my leg.
Instinctively, I flinched and stiffened. Around my back, Wolf's arm tightened for a second, almost like a hug. "Relax," he instructed and I felt his breath at the top of my head.
"Relax?" I asked, trying to sound outraged, but my voice came out kind of breathy. "They snarled at me all day."
"Tried to leave."
"Um yeah. I tried to leave. You can't fucking kidnap people, Wolf!" I felt his shoulder lift and fall. "No you can't just shrug about that. This is completely unaccept..." I trailed off on a squeal as one of the dog's tongues licked the underside of my foot.
I might have been a badass bitch from Hailstorm who could handle my dark past and the crazy shit that happened in my life on the daily, but everyone had their weaknesses. Me, I couldn't sleep. I was easy to rile. And I was ridiculously, obnoxiously, annoyingly ticklish. My body moved of its own mind, my legs pulling upward, my head moving to the side until it found itself tucked into the side of Wolf's neck. The dog, seemingly spurred on by my reaction, continued his innocent torment as I squirmed and laughed into Wolf's neck. If I had been paying any attention at all, I would have noticed how tight his arm was around me and how his other hand had moved to encircle my upper body as well. "Call. Off. Your. Hound," I gasp/giggled, trying to suck in a breath through my laugh-achy chest.
If I wasn't mistaken, I felt his chest jump underneath me like he was silently laughing too. "Off," he said gruffly and the licking immediately stopped. My laughing, however, did not. And I continued to do said laughing into the mountain man's neck. It was around then that I realized how tightly he was holding me. It was also then that I realized kidnappers didn't hold their hostages like that. No, lovers held each other like that. On that completely horrifyingly sobering thought, I jerked in his arms.
"Why am I in your lap?" I found myself asking, never one to mince words.
The rumbling in his chest stopped suddenly and his arms slackened slightly. "Dogs."
"What about the dogs?"
"Needed to know you're mine."
His? His? I was not his!
"I'm not yours!" I yelped, trying to fly back away from him, but he was still holding me still, keeping me where I was.
"No," he agreed. "They needed to think so."
Okay. So maybe I was buying that. They were obviously really well trained dogs. They responded to verbal and non-verbal commands. They didn't so much as step away from their post while he was gone. Maybe for them to not want to attack me, they needed to see that their pack leader 'claimed' me. That made sense. I couldn't even be angry about that.
"So they won't keep me trapped in here anymore," I said, tilting my head up to look at his face.