Lone Wolf (Shifters' World 1) by Ruby Page B

touch of another human, of bare
skin against her own. The intimacy,  and the trust.
    And damn, but he was growing hard as he stood there! As he’d
been talking, that shaft had thickened even more as it filled out, hung longer,
then started to push away from his body. Now, like an animal emerging from its
lair, the swollen purple head started to break free, the skin rolling back to
reveal that most intimate of places.
    Now, the man shrugged, and a shy smile broke across his
face. “I think I need to apologize, ma’am. It’s been a time and I guess my
body’s got a few less manners than the rest of me. If you’d just allow me
to...?” He nodded towards a pile of clothes nearby.
    She caught herself. She had to pull herself together, stop
reacting like this. She was a woman. She was a human. She was in control of
herself and her responses. She wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted by...
    “No,” she snapped.
    How long since she’d spoken aloud? Her voice was dry, little
more than a croak. “You wait there where I can see you,” she went on. “Ain’t no
reason why I should trust you with your things.” Who knew what he might have
concealed there with his clothes?
    He shrugged, and spread his hands briefly, as if to
acknowledge the sense in her caution, and damn, but that thing of his just
cranked itself up a notch or two higher as, finally, she broke free of her
hiding place and came to stand before him.
    §
    Close to, he was younger than she had guessed. No gray to
his hair, no craggy lines to his face. A few scars on his body, but that could
happen any age.
    Now it was his turn for eyes to roam, and suddenly she was
reminded of when she’d checked herself in that shard of mirror earlier on,
remembering how exhausted she had looked and – fainter – a time when that kind
of thing had mattered a whole lot more than it did now.
    “You can shoot me now, if that’s what you want to do,” he
said, his tone still conversational. “But I suggest you don’t want to do
anything that’s going to make so much noise. Never know what you might draw in,
and that’s not meant to be a threat, although it sounded like one. Just common
caution.”
    He moved his hands to cover himself, cupping his manhood but
barely containing it.
    “You could just let me get my things and I’d beat my
retreat. That’d be a sensible thing to do – no point killing off those of us
who may just be ordinary good folk like yourself when some day you may come to
realize just how rare a commodity we are. But then I’d be the first to
acknowledge the inherent risk in that proposition, ma’am. Set me free and how
do you know I’ll be as good as my word and won’t just hang around until I can
take you off guard and do whatever it is I might be wanting to do?”
    As he shrugged, she couldn’t help but notice the movement of
his hands, pulled by the raising of his shoulders, and the slight gasp that
induced in him. Damn, but her guard was low today! She’d never have thought she
would be drawn so much to the physical...
    She lowered her aim until it was pointing at his crotch. “Am
I to take that as a sign of what you ‘might be wanting to do’?” she
asked.
    “No ma’am. That’s just what a man’s body does when he puts
himself naked before...” he stopped. “Hell,” he then started again. “That’s
just a natural response, ma’am. Ain’t much I can do about it, I’m afraid.”
    “So what’s it to be?” she asked him. “Shoot you or set you
free on the promise there’ll never be a hint of you round these parts again?”
    “You asking my advice? Hell, if I were you I’d take the
third option, ma’am.”
    §
    The third option was that they talk. “It’s the one thing
we’re really good at, and the beasts just ain’t,” the man had said, as he
pulled his pants up and tied them secure around his waist. “And it’s a pretty
rare opportunity these days, in my experience at least.”
    Now, they sat on a rocky