Page 67 of Ravaged Wolf
“Will you, uh, not go too far?” she asks one of the mushrooms by the toe of her sneaker. “It’s just, um, I’m pretty sure I know my way back, but uh—”
Even if she didn’t, her wolf would, but she doesn’t need to give me an excuse for me to stay close. I don’t want to leave her, either. Not even to go five feet.
“I’ll just go on the other side of that tree.” I nod toward a tulip poplar with a thick trunk.
“Okay. Thanks.”
“You’re okay?” I ask for no good reason.
“I’m okay.” She darts a glance at me, forcing the smallest smile.
I nod, and muzzling my wolf who howls in protest, I walk to the other side of the poplar, lean against its trunk, and stare sightlessly into the woods. I am all ears.
I hear the whisper as she pulls her night shirt over her head. The ghost of elastic stretch as she slips off her panties. The dunk and swish of the washcloth in the bucket, and then the whoosh and drip as she wrings it out.
My heartrate picks up. A buzzing tension wakes up every nerve in my body. My cock is instantly hard.
My wolf stands at the ready, motionless, his ears perked straight up in the air.
Izzy drags the washcloth along her arms. Over her breasts. Across her belly. I close my eyes and try to breathe quieter, but it’s hopeless. If I can hear terry cloth rub against her skin, she can hear my lungs struggling for air.
She rinses out the cloth and scrubs her neck. Her legs. Her underarms. She’s saving her pussy and ass for last.
Dunk, swish, whoosh, drip. My cock throbs. Aches. My ears strain.
The cloth rasps against her bush. The scent of blood mixes with the calendula and shea from the soap. My fingers curl, gripping the rough trunk.
And then, from one second to the next, it’s six years ago, and it’s not my fingertips pressed into poplar, it’s my claws digging into oak bark, gouging through moss, as I fight the horrible thing rising inside me with every fiber of my being while my sweet mate traces the throbbing vein that runs down my neck. The moon shines down, cold and distant,casting shadows on Izzy’s gray, sickly face while she stares up at me, hurting, looking to me to make it better.
That night, in the minute before I chased her down like an animal, she smiled at me. She petted my chest to soothe my wolf.
Shame detonates inside me, ripping through me like shrapnel, and I’m instantly soaked in sweat as I gasp for air, for mercy, for rescue from the unbearable, crushing weight of my failure.
“Trevor?” she calls from the clearing. Even with my head ringing and the past skirmishing in my veins and nerves and guts, I still register that she’s not calling my name in alarm, like she’s sensing my meltdown, but like she needs something.
That’s probably the only thing that could allow me to beat back the noise. “Yes,” I answer immediately before my brain has even caught up.
“Um. I don’t know what to do.”
I step from behind the tree and go to her, eyes sweeping the clearing even though I don’t scent or hear any threats. She’s hiding her breasts with her forearms and smashing her thighs together.
She’s trembling.
She’s clutching her bloody night shirt in one of the hands pressed to her chest. Her face is crumpled. Over the scent of blood, I can smell her chagrin.
“I forgot to bring a change of clothes,” she tells me softly, not like she’s confessing a mistake, but like she needs something, so naturally, she’s telling me. In an instant, my heart lifts, washing away the wreckage from the flashback as her big eyes steadily hold mine.
I reach behind my back and peel off my T-shirt. “Here,” I say, taking the bloody night shirt and tossing it into the bucket. I don’t think it’s salvageable, but I’ll give it a go.
I ease my shirt over her head and tug it down as she works her arms into the sleeves.
“Thanks,” she says, blushing.
“Time for berries?” I ask, pretending I don’t notice as she sniffs the collar of my shirt and her wolf rumbles happily.
“Okay.”
I set the bucket by the poplar to come back for later. The bears who settled here when the Old Den was abandoned by Broderick Moore have learned to give the pack a wide berth, but no need to bait them.
