Wolf Born by Ann Gimpel Page A

the city streets and told the computer to take them home. “Not sure I like that.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You won’t appreciate this, but hear me out, anyway. It seems she can shift when she shouldn’t be able to. And now she’s leaving town right after a couple of attempts on your life. Do you suppose she’s working for whoever’s out to get you?”
    “Not possible,” Max blustered.
    “Oh, but it is. I knew you wouldn’t take it well. When you’re a little calmer and not so aroused, you can roll it around in your head.”
    “If she’s working with any of the shifter groups, they want me alive.”
    “Not all of them. Some blame you and the underground for the increased surveillance and those elite tracker task forces that have been rounding us up and killing us. This is a relatively new development and one of the things we’ll be talking about tonight.”
    Max inhaled and blew the breath out sharply. Audrey couldn’t be working for the enemy. She just couldn’t. He turned an ear inward, expecting to hear a protest, but his wolf was silent.
    *
    Audrey barricaded herself behind her phalanx of deadbolts. Her heart was light, her body delightfully provoked. She could still feel the pressure of Max’s mouth on hers. Her lips tingled from the aftermath of their kiss. Maybe we could make love before I have to leave.
    “Yes. Call him. Get that other shifter to turn the car around and leave Max here.”
    Audrey laughed as she pulled pins and clips from her hair. It cascaded around her body. “You’re incorrigible.”
    “No. I just know what I want. We need him. He’s our soul mate. Our mated one.”
    Audrey moved into the bedroom and got out of her clothes. After washing her face and brushing her teeth, she snugged a soft, synthetic robe around herself and brought the vid feed to life, intent on continuing the research she’d begun the previous night. After she’d gotten credits ready to transition to black market cash tomorrow and checked a few more sources for the location of the underground’s headquarters in Berkeley, she crawled into bed.
    Her body still vibrated with need from Max’s kiss and his hands as they’d stroked her back and shoulders. His touch had been electric and full of promise. In an odd way, she felt he’d branded her as his. Her fingers slipped between her legs and found her swollen clit. She’d barely touched herself when one of the most intense climaxes she’d ever experienced rocked her. The spasms traveled all the way to her toes. Her back arched, and she cried out in delight.
    Audrey wanted more. She wanted Max’s hands and mouth on her, wanted his cock buried deep inside. Her fingers worked her clit. It stiffened under her fingers like the miniature penis it was. She imagined Max’s mouth on hers again and then a string of lush kisses trailing to her breasts. He tongued them and sucked just the way she liked. The way that made her womb contract in delight.
    Her other hand found a breast and rolled the hard nipple between thumb and forefinger. She rubbed her clit harder. In her fantasy, Max moved lower on her body and positioned himself between her legs. When he closed his mouth over her sensitive nub, she exploded again, writhing against her hand.
    “Holy crap,” she moaned. “How am I going to get through two weeks working next to him without dragging him into a broom closet and fucking his brains out?”
    “If you’re smart, you won’t.” The wolf sounded smug.
    Embarrassment flooded her. She’d forgotten all about her new sidekick who, apparently, missed nothing. “I guess you were, uh, watching me?”
    A whuffling sound that might have been lupine laughter sounded inside her mind. “Better than that. When one of us comes, both of us do. Just wait until you’re inside me, and we have sex with his wolf. You’ll be amazed.”
    “Stop it. We probably won’t even have sex with him as a human. I’m sure he’s not a shifter. Christ! He’s the California