Chapter 5
GIVE AND TAKE
“You don’t just…” I gesture vaguely between us, heat creeping up my neck as I try to find a way to explain something that feels very obvious to me and apparently not at all obvious to him. “You don’t just do whatever you want because you feel like it.”
His brow furrows, a low sound rumbling in his chest again. “Wolf wants you.”
“I gathered that,” I mutter.
His gaze drops, following the line of my body in a way that makes my stomach flip despite itself, and then he looks back up at me, completely serious. “Red is mine. I found you. I know you are. The forest brought you to me.”
There’s no hesitation to his words. He honestly believes that, because I promised to spend three days in the enchanted woods and he’s the beast that stumbled upon me, that makes me his… and if he wants me, he gets to take me.
Something about that should piss me off.
Something about that should make me push him away, remind him exactly how this works, remind myself that I am not about to get claimed by some half-feral wolf-man in a cabin in the middle of the woods.
Instead, my pulse pounds a little harder.
“That’s not—” How to make him understand? “That’s not how people work.”
“People?” he echoes.
“Humans,” I clarify. “You don’t get to just decide that someone is yours and then… you don’t get to take.”
His golden eyes darken at that, something shifting behind his eyes as he processes it.
“Take,” he repeats slowly.
“Yeah,” I say. “Take.”
He thinks about what I said for a moment, before he runs the back of his fingers along the side of my calf. “Not take,” he says, quieter now. “Give.”
My breath stutters.
Okay, true. He was trying to give me pleasure, but that’s not what I mean.
“That’s not—” I start, but the words falter when he dips his head, his tongue tracing a slow, deliberate path up my shin, past my knee, toward my thigh. The sensation has my back arching before I can stop it even as I say, “What are you doing?”
“Red likes it.”
I’m not Red, I’m Charlotte, but, fuck, I do.
It makes no sense, but my traitorous body is reacting to his every touch.
The heat pooling low in my stomach is impossible to ignore now, a slow, steady burn that builds every time he caresses me, every time his mouth kisses my skin like he’s hungering for my taste in a way different from a wild animal.
That’s the man part of him, I guess. And so is the hard-headed way he’s just not listening to me.
“That doesn’t mean you get to keep going. I didn’t say you could.”
Wolf—and, yeah, I can see how his name is Wolf—goes still. Once again, he climbs up and off of me, resting on his big ol’ paws.
“Red says?”
Hang on… does he finally get it? Well, not the part where I keep correcting him that my name is Charlotte, not Red, but still…
I sit up, resting on my elbows. “Yeah. I say.”
Wolf watches me for a long second, something intense and searching in his expression, and then he nods. His shaggy hair falls forward with one jerk of his head before he throws it back, the strands tangling in the pointed wolf ears that remind me he’s not as human as he appears.
Human-ish. Right.
At least that’s something.
I swallow, suddenly very aware of the way my body feels, of the lingering heat that hasn’t gone away, of the way he’s still looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world that matters…
“I don’t know what you’re used to when it comes to…”
“Mating,” supplies Wolf, leaving no doubt in my mind that we’re currently on the same page—and that he’s more of an animal than he appears. Humans have sex. They fuck. Animals mate, and I’m pretty sure that’s what’s on Wolf’s mind about now.
Oh, lord.
“Right. Mating. You can’t just… jump straight to that,” I say, grabbing the edge of my nightie, making sure I’m covered up at last. “There’s… there’s a lead up to it. Get to know each other first.”
He taps his chest. “I am Wolf,” he repeats. “You are Red. You are mine.”
Yeah. I got that part. “Still, you don’t just go for it. You have to make sure that we’re both ready.”
He makes a display of inhaling deeply. “Red is ready. She needs her Wolf.”
Why me? How the hell do I get myself into these predicaments?
Sure, Char, search for a tiny town in Germany no one’s heard of, sign your life savings away, and go on a three-day camping trip in the forest that has a starring role in every fairy tale ever told…
and when you do, you’ll find out that the big, bad wolf has the hots for you.
And, not only that, but he has a wolf’s nose and he can tell that, despite all your blustering the contrary, you’re really fucking curious about that monster dick.
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
Shit. I meant to say ‘not ever’, didn’t I?
Wolf might refer to himself in the third person, but he’s no idiot. “Later?”
“You don’t get to decide when this happens,” I tell him. “I do. That should be good enough for you.”
And that gives me time to figure out how to escape this cottage before ‘later’ becomes ‘now’.
His eyes narrow slightly. “Red chooses,” he says.
I nod.
He mimics the gesture. “Then Wolf will wait.”
Do I honestly believe that I’ve been able to put a half-man, half-wolf creature off the idea of mating with what might be the first human woman he’s seen?
Not at all. Considering the village of Blackmoor made it clear that only one woman can enter the forest at a time, and that it isn’t often they open the gates to outsiders, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case.
Throw in the fact that he has this strange belief that I belong to him and, yeah…
Wolf wants sex and I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop him if he decides that giving is for the birds and he’ll just take after all.
He’s so much bigger than I am. Impossibly stronger. And yet, as he pads around the cottage, leaving me to find sanctuary in the blankets where he first placed me, I can’t shake the vibe I get that, despite being a wolf, he’s just an overgrown puppy.
He’s constantly moving, but no matter where he goes, his eyes are always on me. He seems eager to please, almost as though he thinks he can perform a trick and, instead of a treat or a pat on his head, I’ll open my legs and invite him in.
And maybe I’m not being fair. For all I know, sex is handled differently in werewolf culture, and it never occurred to me that he couldn’t just go down on an unsuspecting female.
Hell, maybe I should be grateful he didn’t shift to his skin and decide to fuck me while I was unconscious.
Even more unnerving, what if he does the deed as a wolf?
While I’m definitely curious about the mechanics of banging a seven-foot-tall wolf-man, I draw the line at bestiality.
Huh. Good to know I still have some limits…
There’s something wrong with me. I should be freaking out, not wondering if I could take Wolf.
He’s not the biggest dick I’ve ever been with, though it’s close, and his supernatural strength would definitely be a first for me.
I’ll admit, with two days to go until I can leave Blackmoor, the idea that it might come down to sleeping with Wolf before I go isn’t as horrifying as it was when I realized he might have had an ulterior motive to bringing me to his cottage, though that has everything to do with him.
Him, and the monster dick he’s swinging around as though it never occurred to him to put any clothes on.
Finally, I can’t take it any longer. Sitting in the dip created in the middle of his nest, my knees tucked to my chest to hide how I’m basically naked myself without my cloak, I gesture at his lower half.
“Can you do something about that? I keep thinking you’re going to poke out my eye or something.”
Without any shame at all, he grabs his erection. “Red wants me to hide my cock? How will Wolf mount her if he is covered?”
“Easy. You pull pants up. You pull pants down. But until Charlotte says let’s go, I’d be a lot happier if you, uh, covered up.”
He doesn’t hesitate. I guess, when it comes to someone like Wolf, you just have to be very clear with what you want. I want him covered, and now that I’ve explained myself, he stalks over to the dresser with the single drawer and tugs it open.
Wolf pulls out a basic pair of wide-legged, cream-colored linen pants. They slip over his wolfish paws pretty easily, the band snug on his waist. He doesn’t do much to hide his hard-on, but at least I’m not confronted with it every time I look around.
Once he’s dressed, he turns to me eagerly. “What else does Red need?”
For him to stop calling me by my old nickname would be nice, but since I’ve given up on that… “My cloak. I was wearing a red cloak when I walked into Blackmoor. I’d like to have it back.”
It’s not like I’m cold or anything. Heat pours off of Wolf, and that’s not counting the small fire burning in the grate on the other side of the cottage.
I still don’t understand why it’s so chilly in Blackmoor when the village held the August heat, but though I’m comfortable indoors, I’d be a whole lot more comfortable if I wasn’t half naked.
Besides, it’s best to be prepared. From the look he gave me when I asked if it was okay if I head on out, I know that he has every intention of keeping me here. I’ll need to take the first opportunity I get to feel the cottage, and I’ll feel a lot better if I have my cloak at least.
For a second, I think that Wolf is about to refuse. But then he nods. “Red’s riding hood. Yes. Wolf kept it safe.”
Again, he stalks over to the dresser. I could’ve sworn from my spot on the floor that the only thing inside the dresser was a single pair of pants that look like they’ve never been worn before which would make sense if Wolf spent most of his time in his fur.
Surprisingly, he yanks open the drawer, pulling out my cloak.
He gestures for me to rise. I do, and he inches close to me before draping the cloak carefully over my shoulders.
Wolf backs away immediately, watching me out of the corner of his eye as though checking to make sure I noticed how careful he was to give me my space after he returned my cloak to me.
Smart Wolf, I think, plopping back down on the blankets. Very smart Wolf.
He stays on the other side of the room, though his constant stare means he misses nothing at all. That’s why, when I spread the cloak out behind me so that I’m comfortable, I reach for my bare foot.
Shit. I felt a sharp pain when I stood up. I guess they’re still tender, and I purposely avoid Wolf’s stare so that I can focus on rubbing the arch of my foot.
A soft rumble fills the room. “Is Red hurt? Is she in pain?”
“I’m fine,” I lie, partly touched that he seems to give a shift, and a little worried because he picked up on the slight injuries I got while I was running in the woods last night. “It’s just that I’m used to wearing shoes on my feet. I don’t have any.”
He moves again. I’m not entirely surprised when he heads back to the same dresser drawer, though my mouth does drop open when he pulls out—I shit you not—a pair of sturdy black boots that look like they’re just my size.
Crouching down, he sets them beside me. “For Red.”
Dropping my foot, I reach for one of the shoes. “Whose are they?” I ask. My gaze darts to the left, going to the empty bed. “Do they belong to the woman who sleeps in that bed?”
There’s that confused look on Wolf’s face again. Damn it, it shouldn’t soften his features the way it does, making him almost adorable as he says in a puzzled voice, “Wolf sleeps in his lair.” He hooks one of the blankets with his claw. “And now Red sleeps with Wolf here, too.”
“Lair? You mean, this nest?”
“Yes.”
“But what about the bed?”
He follows my point to the untouched bed. “There’s always been a bed.”
What the hell does that mean? “Yeah, but whose is it?”
He shows me the blanket again. “Wolf and Red.”
Okay. Let’s try again.
He showed me the blanket. I show him the boot. “Who do these belong to, Wolf?”
Wolf eases my right foot off of the blanket it’s resting on, propping it up on his hard, muscular thigh. Using the pad of his thumb, he begins massaging the arch with such a forceful yet gentle push, I nearly moan out loud.
Then, just when I think he’s smart enough to distract me with a foot rub so he doesn't have to explain why he keeps a store of human women-sized boots, he rumbles, “Red’s shoes for Red’s feet.
Wolf asks and Blackmoor gives.” He lifts my foot, nuzzling my big toe with his cheek.
“And, when Red chooses, Wolf will take.”
Yeah. I’m not getting out of here without fucking him, am I?