Winter Howl (Sanctuary) Read online

  “They may think they’re doing right with you,” he continued. “But they aren’t. They know you too well to give you what you need.”

  God, this was just perfect timing for a panic attack. A cold sweat surfaced on her face and palms, and she could feel her tongue become heavy. Everything around her seemed to slow down.

  “No,” Grant said, getting in close so that his face filled her vision. “You aren’t going to leave. You are not going to lose yourself. Not this way. Do you understand me?”

  “I need…” She needed her Xanax, that was what she needed, but there was only him. With the scents of dirt and sweat and hair and fur, and with his unusually dark blue eyes staring straight into her.

  “Stop thinking.” He tightened his hands even more, sending a stab of pain up and down her arms, which interrupted the progression of the panic attack a little, but she was still on the cusp of falling into something she could not get out of. Why couldn’t anyone hear what was going on? Because everything seemed so loud. And there he was, right in front of her. Right there.

  “Stop thinking. You think too much,” Grant said. “It’s not a bad thing in moderation, but that’s what people like you do. Think entirely too much. Whatever you’re thinking… Just do it. Don’t think. Act. You live your life in your head, why don’t you just live…?”

  She lunged forward, her arms still held tightly at her sides, and kissed him, not even bothering with preliminaries. Just taking him, tasting him, feeling the roughness of the skin around his mouth and the fullness of his lips beneath hers. Then the hot velvet of his tongue on hers as he proceeded to give as good as he got. He was good at what he did, and Renee thought that her legs were going to give way completely as all her blood rushed to the area below her belly in a dizzying wave.

  He loosened his hands on her arms, pulled her against him as he reached one of his hands down to feel her ass through her jeans. He was not slow, not careful, not gentle. His teeth were almost sharp when he bit her lower lip hard, not enough to draw blood but enough to make her cry out into his mouth. Not enough to make her pull away. If kissing Britt or Jake felt like becoming part of a whole, then kissing Grant was like falling, drowning, not being able to breathe with everything rushing above her, and she kept opening her mouth to gasp for air, but she only drowned more.

  He did not have to hold her anymore. She clutched at him herself, pulled on his shirt until she found skin beneath his collar. She slid her hand beneath the clothing and down the stretch of spine as far as she could reach. She combed her other hand through his hair to find purchase, to keep him against her mouth so that she could breathe him in as though he were air. Whimpers tried to escape her throat, but Renee held them back, a small but persistent part of her still self-conscious. Grant had no such reservations. He groaned into her mouth, tasting her and inviting her to taste him in a torrent of tactile sensation hooked into a deeper response than emotion.

  When he finally tore himself away from her mouth, Renee was prepared to pull him back in, but he attacked her neck instead, down to the juncture of collarbone and shoulder, with open-mouthed kisses that were almost bites. He pushed her shirt to the side to bare the rest of a creamy shoulder and the swell of one breast above her bra cup. He laved down until the bra got in the way, then yanked it down so that his mouth closed on the hardening peak of her nipple. She had done this to Britt but had not imagined just how good it could be, each rough suck on her nipple over-stimulating her almost to the point of pain. Her clit seemed engorged and sensitised to every touch of fabric against it. She could feel her cunt softening and opening, minor tremors fluttering through with each press of his teeth against her nipple. Just enough to hurt, just enough to make her skin sing.

  As he moved away, the cool air puckered the skin of the areola even more, but now Grant knelt down and pushed up her shirt to kiss and bite down her stomach, laving each red mark that he left behind so clearly on her milky, pale skin. She felt the muscles right above her legs twitch of their own accord. She did not know exactly how she was still standing, even if Grant had backed her against the wall of the barn so that she had something to lean on.

  Without thinking, Renee brought a hand up to fondle the breast that Grant had just given up, pinching the nipple to try and simulate the feeling of his teeth. Grant watched her for a beat from where he was occupied, nipping and licking around the rim of her navel.

  “That’s right,” he muttered, voice guttural enough that she could feel it all the way to her spine. “Do what feels good. Don’t think. Do it. Do anything.”

  He fumbled with the button of her jeans almost frantically, and as soon as he managed to unbutton it, he yanked the zipper down, then pushed her jeans down so that he could press his nose against the fabric of her panties, inhaling deeply. It all happened before she could even think to stop it, and by the time it was happening, she didn’t want to stop it.

  He pressed his tongue, which seemed impossibly big and impossibly long when she could not see it, against her clit through her panties, and she could feel the wetness seep through. And that was not the only place she was wet. She squirmed against him, although whether she was unconsciously trying to get closer or get away was still in question. With one hand still occupied with her exposed breast, she pressed the other against her mouth, trying to suppress the whimpers that threatened to come out. She barely realised just how hard she was biting down to keep from making a sound, because Grant was pulling her panties down over her ass, brushing his fingers close to the crease between her cheeks, which was surprisingly sensitive.

  Grant pulled back again and stared at her shaved mound, which had only a slight growth near to the lips.

  “Well, that’s…interesting,” Grant said. The statement was almost a hum. “And unexpected.”

  Renee lowered her hand from her mouth, and she was alarmed at the teeth marks she saw there.

  “Bad?” she asked.

  “No. I just didn’t think you would be someone to do it,” Grant said. “I like a woman’s pussy either way. Any way.”

  It was around that time that Renee finally realised that anyone could come across them at any minute. And someone might have already done so without her even noticing, so lost in the sheer carnal experience she was. She hurriedly straightened her bra and shirt, then reached for her underwear and jeans.

  “There you go, thinking again,” Grant said, and before she could clothe herself, he buried his face between her legs, inhaling her scent and swirling air against the engorged flesh. “Mmm… There you are, love.” And he slid his hands behind her thighs and dove in, licking and suckling and nibbling as though she were some kind of delicious fruit.

  She grasped at the wall but could not find purchase, so she clenched her hands in his hair as best she could as wave after wave of pleasure moved through her from the things his mouth was doing to her. She could feel herself dripping down her inner thighs as he brought her to the brink of orgasm before pulling back just enough to keep her from attaining it. He licked the moisture from her quivering skin before returning to his feast. She did not know how he was even able to breathe when his nose pressed just on that place where she usually used her vibrator because it was so sensitive, or when he thrust his tongue into her. All the while, he made a noise that was better than any vibration from a toy—something between a groan, growl, and purr that could not be human, that seemed to come from deep within him and rattled her foundation from her head to the curling of her toes.

  “Please,” she gasped, finally just needing to come, needing him to bring her off with his mouth before she went completely out of her head. “Please. I need…just…”

  “What?” he murmured into her clit. “What do you need, love?”

  “Let me… I need to come. Please, Grant, just let me…”

  “Do you really think you’re ready? You seem awfully coherent.”

  “I can’t keep going like this,” Renee breathed. “It can’t just keep going.”

 
; Grant grinned. “I think you’d be surprised how long it can keep going. But since you asked so nicely.”

  He renewed his onslaught with even more fervour, which Renee could not have begun to imagine just minutes before. There it was—a mewl of pleasure, and her teeth broke the skin on her hand. Under his steady pressure, she was coming, forcing his mouth closer until she finally crested through the pleasure and relaxed against the wall.

  As Grant finally stood, his chin smeared with her juices, Renee wordlessly pulled up her jeans and panties, and fastened the jeans before pulling her jacket closer around her. There was nowhere for her to back away as he bent to kiss her again, and she was somewhat mortified to taste herself on his mouth. It did not, however, taste bad to her, although she could not say that it tasted good. A little bitter and a little salty, but mostly tasteless. She surprised herself by licking him as clean of her taste as she could, the feel of his trimmed facial hair on her tongue strange but not off-putting.

  “See,” he whispered, a hair’s breadth from her lips. “That wasn’t so difficult.” His nostrils flared, and he followed the scent to her hand, which showed dots of welling blood where Renee had bitten through her hand from the force of her climax. His hand and mouth trembled as he brought her hand to his lips. He flicked out his tongue to taste the deep red liquid. It was only a little blood, but he groaned and wrenched himself away from the taste.

  “Not hard at all,” he continued, a little breathlessly. “Although one of us is. And unless you want that to be fixed right here and now, I suggest you leave.”

  Renee ducked under his arm but was somehow compelled to pull herself back to kiss him, pressing her hips against the hardness of his erection. He smiled into the kiss, and that was when she pulled away. She almost didn’t, but with the release of all the pre-orgasmic tension, she was back inside her own mind and cognisant of the fact that she could see people walking by the shapeshifter and dog barns. No one seemed to have noticed the two of them because they were in shadows—although certainly not in darkness—and because the passersby were otherwise occupied, but there was no guarantee that they had not been noticed or that they were not going to be noticed soon.

  “This doesn’t have to be the last time this happens,” Grant said, backing away. “Think about that. Or better yet, don’t think about it. When you feel the itch for what you really need, I’m the one. Not the puppies.”

  “Fuck off,” Renee said, without the venom there would have been before he’d performed a staggering act of cunnilingus without real protest from her. Even though she probably should have protested.

  “Gladly.” He tipped an imaginary hat and headed around the shifters’ barn, leaving her to back out from the other direction.

  “Renee!” Britt called, pulling on a coat as she came out of the log home. “Hey, girl, is it getting cold or what?”

  “I think I’m going to duck out for the rest of the unloading. I’ve hidden what needs to be hidden,” she said. What she did not say was that she really needed to take a shower before one of the shapeshifters smelt Grant on her. Before Britt smelt him on her.

  “Sure,” Britt replied. “I’ll let Jake and Malcolm know. But you’re still doing pizza with us tonight, right?”

  “Of course,” she said, looking at her feet as she hurried into the house. She felt reasonably hopeful that Britt would believe she was being her eccentric self—at least, if she hadn’t already smelt something.

  She ran up to the bathroom and shed her clothes, prepared to wash all of them after she’d showered. It felt as if she was showering so often lately. She poured an extra amount of soap onto her loofah and scrubbed herself pink, trying to rub every part of him from her skin. Renee made sure to clean between her legs several times over.

  Part of her was not ashamed of what she had done—was, in fact, pleased that there was an actual impulsive bone in her body that had somehow passed every brick-wall inhibition. The other part wanted to hide the fact that she had done anything with a man she knew was dangerous and not to be trifled with. ‘Trifled with’ including—but not limited to—‘fucked with’.

  She could not let Britt or Jake or any of the other core pack know. Especially not Britt and Jake. At least, not yet. On an intellectual level, she knew it was all such a mistake. But already, when she was making her skin sting with the effort of scrubbing Grant from her, she wanted that drowning feeling again. Because it made her feel free. And at the first taste of freedom, however dangerous or unknown, it would be hard to go back to being her self-confined, impossible self.

  However understanding Britt could be, she would take it personally that Renee had been with Grant. If she had been with Malcolm or Leslie, Britt wouldn’t have cared at all. But Grant… That was a different story altogether.

  Renee thought that she might not just love Britt—she could be in love with her, too, which was just as important to her at this point. She didn’t want to compromise that with a questionable decision, an uncharacteristically impulsive decision…to do something that she never, ever did, or at least had never done before.

  Renee wished she could understand why she had done what she had, how she had done what she had, and whether she could trust herself around Grant. The same part of her that had chosen to let him do those things to her made her think she could not trust herself at all. Not with him. Especially not with him.

  Maybe her time with her pack, that night and every evening after, would bring her feet back to the ground. Maybe kissing Britt again would remind her of how good it was, how complete she felt when she was with Britt, how safe she felt when Britt and Jake were around. Maybe she would forget what Grant had done to her, the memories fading with the passage of time as if she had woken from a dream—or woken from that dream. She shivered at the few memories she had from her dream of Grant fucking her hard, which could never really fade, not when they were imprinted on her memory as though they’d been branded.

  She could only hope that she could forget. But she didn’t want to forget feeling free. And that just led her straight back to where she’d started. Confused, hot, raw, ashamed…and exhilarated even at the memory.

  * * * *

  While the core pack and other unloading participants ate their pizza—which had been graciously warmed up by Jake and Ki—Grant finally came in to join them. Renee watched everyone tense up and knew that she was doing the same. And that her cunt seemed to remember exactly what Grant had done to it. Quite against her will, she felt the whole area between her legs get a little aroused just by the way he looked as he sat down between Leslie and Lotus. It took a few minutes to jumpstart the conversation again.

  “Looks like the shipments came at just the right time,” Grant said after a while, chewing on a piece of pepperoni and sausage pizza. “It’s really starting to snow.”

  Several of them, including Renee, stood up and went to the window. Grant was right. The snow was coming down in dense, swirling flurries, and it wasn’t melting. The first real snow of the season, foretelling the snowstorms to come.

  “I never get tired of this kind of thing,” Britt murmured. When Renee looked at her, it was as if she’d shivered her malamute fur over her human body, a partial shift that sank back into her skin. “Perfect for the dog. I think I’ll go out after this. You want to come?” she asked Jake.

  “No, thanks,” Jake said with a grin. “I think I’ll stay in tonight.”

  “Wait for me upstairs?” she asked. She elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Do you even have to ask?” Jake pushed himself from the window sill and headed back to the couch area to return to his meal. Renee followed him, sitting across from Grant, who was leaning back on his own sofa cushion and watching her with a ghost of a grin on his face. The combination of her traitorous sexual side and the nausea churning in her stomach made her finish her pizza quickly, then leave to hide in the computer room. She was joined later by a very uncomfortable-looking Leslie.

  “You okay?” she asked.


  He shrugged. “I don’t like him at all. And somehow, he always ends up sitting next to me.”

  “It’s nothing personal,” Renee said.

  “Still…very off-putting to have him next to me.”

  “I can understand that. Have much work to do tonight?”

  “Always,” Leslie said. “It’s very exciting.”

  Renee smiled. “Good.”

  “What about you? You escaped in here fast enough,” Leslie said.

  “Just felt like the room was closing in. Needed to lose myself in cyberspace,” she answered.

  Leslie nodded. “I can understand that,” he said, echoing her. “Well, good luck.”

  “You, too,” she said, and turned back to her own computer to start an online chat with a man who was interested in adopting of one of their older dogs.

  Britt came in to say when she was going out, then Jake came in to kiss her on the head and ask if it was all right if he stayed up in the loft that night. Renee nodded, knowing how much Britt liked the first snow and how eager she would be to celebrate its arrival. She hoped she could convince herself to go upstairs and join them in one capacity or another. Or maybe she would just stay in the computer room until four in the morning, in case she had not scrubbed herself hard enough before. Surely another day or so would make whatever scent that lingered dissipate. She figured that if there was any smell of Grant left, it was faint, because the entire pack had been in the living room, and they had not smelt a thing. But she could not help but be a little paranoid.

  Six hours later, having updated several profiles and her blog, then having done some early Christmas gift-wrapping, she was finally beginning to wear down. She thought that Britt had come in. A check from the living room confirmed that she had come back and was working off some excess energy with Jake. Because it was so late, they did not have to put so much effort into keeping quiet. The insulation between logs was pretty good, and sound did not carry so well to the other rooms. With the computer room door almost closed, she could not hear a thing.