Wolfe Read online

  Being so closed-in must’ve preserved the smell.

  The fireplace at the back wall was heaped with ashes and the ceiling and walls nearby had been blackened by smoke. Someone had lit a big fire that’d not ventilated well. Maybe they’d thrown on too much? The ashes had lumps that made me wonder if all of it had burned. Pale things, metallic objects too, poked above the general heap of blackness and my heart did an excited pitter pat. That might’ve been done at the last minute. I mean, who fired up this sort of rubbish and let it smother their house in smoke?

  To me, little curiosity cat, this was like a Christmas present. I might find out stuff Wolfe would never say. Though I kneeled before the fireplace for a closer look, I didn’t touch. I grinned. Check out the rest then come back to this.

  Another door, opposite where I’d entered, led into a bedroom. Double bed – a perfectly made bed that had been turned gray by the years and when I plonked my ass on it the dust billowed up.

  Both in here and the library room, there were still-shuttered windows. Apart from a collapsed cupboard, there was a bedside table with three drawers. I pulled one out slowly, praying it wasn’t made of the same inferior materials as the cupboard.

  Inside was a gun. A big, fat revolver. If I picked it up, it didn’t mean I’d have to use it on him. That was my first thought, and it rang in my head like a bell.

  Don’t do anything I wouldn’t like. Those words resonated. He’d said them days ago.

  I was pretty certain he’d pick up a gun, I told myself, very firmly, hammering in that logic.

  Slowly, I reached out and wrapped my fingers around the body of the gun. Dust had sifted in and clung to oil on the surface that’d since turned stiff with all the material clogging it. I could wipe it away with a fingertip to show the metal beneath was clear of rust.

  Was it loaded?

  I blinked and thought that through. I didn’t actually know how to shoot or use a gun. Fuck me though, wish I’d learned.

  Hand shaking because of his words, I carried the gun out of the room and placed it on the floor beside the fireplace. Give myself some time and I might convince my brain to look at the weapon without shutting down.

  I left the flashlight on but set it on the floor too, so it lit up the fireplace.

  I couldn’t shoot him, could I? I’d freeze up. The thing lay there, all fat and useless.

  My sigh was long. No. I couldn’t. Not physically, not morally. It didn’t sit right. Maybe if he went to do something nasty...like beating my ass and back until I screamed?

  Maybe?

  Or not.

  My parents could end up in prison if I couldn’t see a way out of this. If I shot him...there went my leverage with the Russians too.

  My bottom lip turned down and I screwed up my nose, as I tried to wrestle with all the permutations.

  I was so messed up.

  The fireplace poker lay near my knee. Rust dropped away and stained my hand when I picked it up. I broke down the long, solidified mass of ashes and burned papers, looking for anything left intact enough to identify. The air filled with motes of ash and I sneezed a few times then kept looking.

  There was a charred journal and a slim, silver container that might’ve been an antique cigarette case, though the heat had melted the fine catch and the hinges. To get it open, I’d need to use a knife in the seam.

  I found a dusty cloth on one of two small tables and wiped the case and what was left of the book. Half the pages were a mess of black and the rest were stuck together. Then I sifted through some of the rubbish beneath the center of the ashes. I wasn’t plunging my hands in there, so I inserted the poker then dragged it back. The fifth time, a small object came with it.

  I held it square in the light, rotated it. Mostly black but...

  As a nurse, I knew in a half second, I’d found a small bone. Finger sized, in fact. My heart ticked over as my eyes refused to believe what I thought I held. Though crushed at one end, this seemed to be a finger bone. I scratched away ash and polished the surface, and underneath was paleness. Light in weight and the shape of it was a dead giveaway. Bone, for sure.

  Why was there a part of a finger from a human in this fireplace?

  Ancient history, but fascinating.

  I slipped the bone into my shorts pocket, grabbed the book and the case, then rose to my feet. The stone had dug into me and my knees ached, but a question overrode the discomfort.

  Should I ask Wolfe about this when he returned? Some terrible accident might’ve occurred in the past. He might not have been here though, or heard of it. No crime that came to the attention of the police, where someone lost a finger, would leave the remains of the finger here. Even if not a crime, you just wouldn’t do it, surely? It had to be unknown, a secret.

  I’d still ask him.

  The book, though, and the case? I wanted to hide those. I went to and fro on that. They could be innocent things, so it’d be perfectly okay to put them away somewhere. And the gun? My coerced conscience prompted. Would Wolfe be okay with me hiding that?

  Crap. I swallowed. No. I couldn’t logic away that one.

  I walked back out to the kitchen and tucked the book and the case into a bottom drawer at the counter, the lowest one of four drawers and next to the floor. I shut it with my foot then weighed the gun in my hand. The temptation was strong and still I couldn’t make myself hide it.

  The front door banged open and Wolfe strode in – wild look in his eyes, a pack dangling from one fist, the keys from the car jangling in the other.

  That distant rumbling my mind had barely noticed, had been the SUV returning.

  “What is that?”

  Panicked already, I looked at the revolver then at him. I thrust it at him, trigger guard presented first. “I found it. I was going to give it to you. I swear. Here.” Again, I gestured with the gun.

  Pack and keys were dropped at his feet, then he took one long stride and engulfed my gun-holding hand with his.

  The gun was wrenched from my hand and tossed backward, skidding on stone.

  Not good gun safety.

  Flustered, I backed up. The drug must be dangerously low in his blood.

  “I’ll get you some food.”

  “You don’t touch that gun again.”

  “I won’t.” My throat tightened.

  “Good. First, you. Then food.”

  Oh fuck.

  “Me? I mean –”

  His hand arrived at my throat then slowly clamped in. “You.”

  The thrill of recognition of his beast-man state was disconcerting. I managed to swallow.

  I should protest some more.

  Should.

  But he spun me around, yanked down my shorts, and tore off the snap fastener, sending it rattling across the floor.

  My only thought as he pushed aside my underwear, stuck himself inside me, and made my eyes glaze – I have no way to sew that back on.

  “You don’t.” He fucked me for a few strokes, lifting me off my toes. “Touch gun.”

  Cheek sliding on the dusty countertop, I barely understood his words.

  “Yes?”

  He wanted an answer? I grappled uselessly with the timber under my face, rousing myself from the fog of desire. At the increased force of his last ram up inside, his cock had thickened, pulsed. “Fuck,” I whispered, eyelids flicking open and shut. “I...yes.”

  “No touch?”

  God, that deep growl at my neck and the painful scrape of his stubble.

  I went up on tip toes, begging for more but he stayed deep and still. “Yes! No touch.”

  “Good.” His chuckle made me open my eyes and try to shift to look back at him. He grabbed a big chunk of my hair and forced my cheek back down on the countertop. “Your cunt tries to suck me in?”

  Eh. He was right. Stretched deliciously by cock, it was dilating then clamping down in that reflexive response.

  “You want me to fuck you, hey?”

  That question had to be rhetorical, bes
ides...besides, he felt so good. I only grunted, waited.

  “No. You come outside.”

  Cursing quietly, I felt him withdraw, leaving me empty and needy. I straightened then twisted. My hands were still propped on the counter – guess I was hoping he’d change his mind, whatever mind Mister Primitive had left at this moment.

  Outside? Why there? The tablets were in the car inside my handbag, in the hidden zip pocket, and difficult to get to.

  What did he mean to do? Unease travelled through me, cold and worming, making my nipples hard.

  “Off.” Then he pulled my sweater over my head.

  With my T-shirt and sweater pulled off and dropped to the floor, he moved to grab my hand and tow me out the door, but I realized there had never been a command. Sometimes I felt the waning of his power, or just the absence, and this was one of those times. I skipped away, both appalled at my action and excited.

  His lip raised in a snarl and around his eyes wrinkled as anger spread.

  It was an oops moment that made my heart kick into panic time – shuddering then knocking out hammer beats.

  Run? Stay to let god knew what happen? I feared. I ran. In this small room I ducked away then managed to flee out the door, almost going under his arm, feeling the scrape of his nails on my skin.

  I pelted outside, underwear clad only, and found the SUV sitting there, purring, engine still going, and the driver’s door open. He’d forgotten, or meant to back it around to unload, I didn’t care.

  I could leave.

  Fuck. It made no sense in some ways. I knew he was close behind but I reasoned in my panic that I could pile in the driver’s side and once I locked the door, I could go, just go.

  Seconds before I’d been dying for him to fuck me. That wasn’t sane.

  None of this was.

  I ran, I reached the car and leaped in, with him pounding along behind me, silent. No commands. He must know they weren’t working.

  The door. I scrabbled, shifting my ass, and found the handle, hooked my hand in, and slammed the door shut, locked it. The quiet in here was astounding. I was under the sea, floundering, flailing, my heartbeat winding down, my ears hurting from the silence, and there was the stare of the man leaning over the hood, hands planted wide, and he was only a yard away. Then it was inches away, just across the glass – his blue eyes potent and piercing, nailing me to the seat. My lips parted, relaxing. My mind filled with fuzziness.

  He knew my buttons.

  “Out.” The muffled word bounced about then seated in my mind. Click. Solid as stone.

  I opened the door and slipped from the seat, only to be observed until I went to my knees, trembling.

  Wolfe. This was my god, for this day at least.

  “You don’t run. You don’t touch guns. You’re mine and you stay.” The words were ground out then he turned back to the house.

  He walked inside then around the outside, searching maybe. Stunned to within an inch of total blankness, I waited, my lower lip pinched in teeth. He emerged with a rusted chain over his shoulder and took a loop of rope from the back of the SUV before he returned to me.

  His hand settled on my neck, half-circled the front, and he dragged me backward toward one of the few large white pines growing near the cabin.

  Roughly, he surrounded my neck with the inch-wide chain, using rope to join one end to the rest of the chain and forming a collar. The rope he took to the tree trunk, wrapping it around and tying it in place. I could feel the weight of the excess chain pulling and rust smeared my palms when I picked up the trailing end.

  “Leave it be.”

  Blinking, I dropped it and he tsked at the rust on my hands then went to one knee. Wolfe pulled me forward until I had to go to hands and knees or end up face first in the grass. I felt him unclasp my bra and he sat me up to slide it down my arms. The sun was out in force but the mountain coolness drew goosebumps along my arms and shriveled my nipples to perky buttons.

  “Show hands.”

  Kneeling pertly, I held out my hands, palm up. They were covered with dirt and grass, as well as rust.

  “Dirty. Such a dirty, naughty girl.”

  His statement oozed a combination of menace and amusement and was said while he wiped off most of the dirt using my bra as a rag.

  “Mmm,” was my one audible comment.

  The hard, grinding kiss he next bestowed on me rattled me even more.

  Lust and control were imbued in Wolfe’s every word and movement, in the way he handled me, even in how he took over my thoughts and actions. I had little chance to think.

  When he bent me backward using a grip on my jaw, with my legs still in the kneeling position, I had to prop myself on my arms.

  “Open.” He slapped my thighs until I spread them. Then I swallowed, pulse already leaping, mind already centered, as he rolled aside my flimsy underwear. They were already soaked from when he’d half-fucked me before. I strained forward as the thickness of two fingers scissored my entrance open and thrust inside, far enough in to make me groan. My clit swelled at the immense pleasure that simple act unleashed on me.

  “I do what I like. Hmmm?” He shook my throat. “I chain you to tree. I fuck you. I not fuck you.”

  To speak, I first needed to swallow and rearrange my mind. Words. What the fuck were those when this man was inside me? “Yes.” I opened my eyes and found his molten gaze upon me.

  “Good. Stay there while I bite you.”

  My legs were doubled over, my feet felt crushed and locked beneath me, and his hand on my throat kept me leaning backward as if a wind had blown me over.

  Blinking became impossible. Pain was coming. Letting out tiny screams at each new bite, I felt him leave teeth marks all up and down my thighs. The last was above my clit, barely a half-inch above. His fingers had kept on fucking me. As the last bite continued and the force increased, I held my breath for at most another second before I screamed a string of frantic curses.

  He released my skin and I stopped screaming.

  Above my gasping, all I could hear were the wet sounds coming from where he penetrated me with his fingers. When he licked me that one swipe of tongue across clit slammed me into a thigh-trembling state, seconds from coming.

  Then he released me, let me be, and stood.

  I heard the metallic rasp of a zipper. My legs and arms shook from the nearness of a climax almost, but not quite, extracted.

  Weak, I was such a weak person. Tears trailed down the sides of my face.

  A moment later, I was pinned with my back to the tree while he opened my mouth with his thumbs and fucked it. Confusion built and spread, erasing thought while he invaded my mouth, scraping past teeth and tongue. When he came, his cum spilled from my mouth. I could barely recall how to close it as I gulped for air.

  “You want to come too?” he whispered, his palm pressing on my pussy. “Let me kiss that dirty mouth then tell me.”

  Kissing stripped the last of my thoughts away. I’m sure I sat there unspeaking for a long time before he awoke me with a light slap.

  “You want to come, Kiara?”

  I coughed and licked my lips, tasting him. Cleaning off the rest of the residue my tongue could reach gave me some respite, some quiet time. I knew what I wanted to say, but what did he expect?

  “Mmm? I do?”

  “I might let you. Later.” Then he strode away, leaving me sprawled against the tree.

  Disappointment almost made me plead.

  I closed my eyes, thought about closing my legs but didn’t bother.

  Recovery, resetting my brain, must’ve taken a while.

  The world shouldn’t revolve around fucking.

  If only the ache between my legs would go away.

  When next I saw Wolfe, he was eating a leg of roast chicken, ripping flesh off bone. Where that had come from I didn’t know. I grieved that he wasn’t eating any Keppra. If I wasn’t loose, how could I medicate him? My own stomach rumbled and I wondered if it were close to lunchtim
e already.

  I had to get free.

  Soon.

  Soon never arrived.

  After that, he kept coming back and half-fucking me, getting me all tuned in and turned on for climaxing before leaving me unfulfilled. The throb in my pussy intensified to a maddening amount, until I wondered why I hadn’t come when he’d done so much.

  The last time, when he stopped and walked away, I found myself rocking in place. Awful.

  He could give and he could take away.

  After he fucked me and came, twice, I awakened to myself writhing on the ground, making strange, pitiful sounds. Levering myself off the ground took much of the last of my strength. On hands and knees, through a fringe of sweat-soaked hair, I eyed the SUV where he’d parked it, three yards away.

  I’d had no water or food, though I was under shade, and dusk was coming. If he left me out here overnight, anything might happen, even death. It wasn’t that cold, if you had clothes on, but dehydrated and exhausted?

  Maybe I could dig a hole in the earth like a husky in snow?

  Or, better, cut him open, like Luke Skywalker did that hairy tauntaun creature, and use him as cave.

  If only.

  I wouldn’t though. I needed him.

  Pouting, I lay down and curled into a ball, shivering. Frustrating, so frustrating.

  When I awoke, he was fucking me again, from behind and he’d pulled me onto hands and knees. I was sticky and dirty but that didn’t worry him. This time, the tension had me crying out with each thrust. The unfulfilled craving compelled me to bite when he slapped his hand over my mouth. Rocked forward, my body caving so that only my ass was raised, dirt and grass filled my mouth as he crammed himself in so far up inside that I ceased to breathe, to think. I’m sure my heart stilled as an orgasm stormed through me, shook me, and spat me out a desultory, drooling mess.

  Trembling, I clutched the earth, aware that he was biting me. Hot pain lanced into my shoulder as he spilled inside me.

  The rumble of secondary pleasure, from him to me, blew away my knowledge of existence.

  I tumbled.

  My brain short-circuited.

  I was getting used to this. I found myself gathering up the threads I’d lost and surfacing, bobbing slowly. Wolfe was still here, still inside, licking blood off my shoulder. Knew it was blood. The hurt was sharp and made me wince with every rasp of his tongue. Though I wriggled, he held me to him.