Читать книгу Loyal Wolf - Linda Johnston O. - Страница 9

Chapter 3

Jock Larabey’s body felt just as muscular as it looked. Kathlene wasn’t surprised by that. In fact, she’d felt it before, when they’d hugged.

She’d only hoped to take him by surprise, here in the middle of the cabin’s main room on its polished wood floor, between the beds and sitting area she had checked out previously. She had to get him to take her seriously, and defeating him like one of the guys should help.

“Hey!” Ralf shouted, and out of the corner of her eye Kathlene saw him approaching, his hands out, too, as if he intended to pull her away.

She wouldn’t let him. But fighting two muscular men at once?

That could be a problem.

She was gratified, therefore, to hear Jock snap out, “Stay back, Ralf. In fact, get out of here. I’ve got this covered.”

He didn’t, of course, but fortunately Ralf backed off and stormed out of the cabin. Good.

But why had Jock done that? So Ralf wouldn’t see his humiliation? Doubtful. He had to believe he would win.

She’d inhaled as she moved and, now even more aware of her breathing and what was around her, she smelled the sweet combo of aromas of whatever had been used to clean this space for the next occupants.

But she quickly threw all of that out of her consciousness. She had to focus on what she was doing.

At the same time as she had grabbed Jock, she’d twisted her body, her legs around his, to trip him and take him down.

It was like trying to pull down a sturdy steel pipe.

“Hey!” he yelled, but he didn’t fall. That was okay. She’d conducted a lot of hand-to-hand combat training with men as well as women, and some were not only muscular but big-bellied, too, unlike Jock. She’d always managed to defeat even them.

She knew her best moves.

She turned and rose at once, putting herself out of Jock’s arms’ reach temporarily. Or so she thought.

One of his hands was suddenly on her middle, the other grasping for her neck. Was he going to strangle her? Maybe the military was trained to do their worst, act harshly as if prepared to kill even its own, presuming that the other guy was as well trained and could get out of it.

Well, she could, too.

“No!” she yelled, another kind of distraction as she twisted away from him, then quickly turned and attempted to swing her arm and aim at his face while her leg again moved around his.

This time, he apparently let her. No resistance. At first. But before she could trip him, he moved once more and had one of his arms about her chest while the other moved farther below.

Interesting, to have him touching her there. All over. Apparently, he thought so, too, since she heard a whoosh from him that sounded like what she had heard sometimes in her training sessions with men—surprise, maybe. And interest.

His hand on her breasts moved. Squeezing just a little. Damn, but it felt good. She couldn’t allow it to distract her, though—even if it distracted him.

She pretended to start going limp, then straightened, leaped back and turned, facing him again.

And noticing the thick bulge in his jeans as he, too, faced her once more, bent slightly forward, his arms at his sides, clenching and unclenching his fists.

This was definitely more heated, in many ways, than the hug they had previously shared.

Why did that position look so sexy? Or was it just her touching him—and seeing how his body appeared to be reacting?

“Enough?” he asked. He was breathing hard, even though what they’d done so far wasn’t especially active.

“Not unless you give in and agree I’m part of your team.”

She anticipated his rush forward. She turned sideways to make it harder for him to grab her in crucially vulnerable spots to bring her down.

That ended with her hip pressed right against that bulge she had noticed before. She drew in her breath.

Lord, how she wanted him just then. Which was crazy. She didn’t know him. And she needed him to do a job here that could protect her friends, her fellow Clifford County residents and maybe even more citizens of the United States.

Would her seducing Jock cause him to do a better job? Hardly.

Even if it did, that didn’t mean he would let her help.

And she was going to help, no matter what he thought.

“Okay, then, yes,” he said. “You’re part of the team.” Was it over that quickly? “The part of it that I say you are. And that means staying out of danger.” As if he believed he had distracted her, he rushed forward, upper part of his body bent, and attempted to tackle her.

She quickly moved away, grabbing at his head and smelling his musky scent as she let herself fall, pulling him down with her.

Amazingly, he fell, too. Onto the floor. Beside where she now knelt. She flipped over, heaving her entire being on top of him. Using every ounce of her weight to press him down.

Feeling his thick muscles everywhere tense beneath her. His chest. His legs.

And the protrusion at his core that thrust up at her as she refused to move.

“You’re busted!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “I win. I’m a part of your team—the way I say I am.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. Not for several heartbeats—and she believed hers was somehow synced with his.

His hips moved, and his erection was thrust up against her gut, making her own insides heat and churn and ache with a desire that would not, could not, be fulfilled. Not now or ever. Not with this man.

She continued to watch his face, which, as handsome as it was, somehow remained blank, as if all thoughts, all emotions, all desires, had been erased from within him by her victory.

Even if he rocked her off him now, she still had won, so his pretending to ignore her wouldn’t work. Or at least it wouldn’t gain him a win over her.

And then a horrible thought struck her. “Did you let me win, Larabey?” she demanded. Well, even if he had, she was still on top—in more ways than one.

She couldn’t quite read the expression that passed quickly over his face before disappearing. Smugness? Anger?

“You think I want you to join us in danger? Forget it.” The movement of his chest as he spoke bumped against her, causing her breasts to tense along his muscular body. Oh, that heat within her. She’d better get off. Quickly.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”

“So I’ve just learned.” She appreciated the irony in his tone. “In this kind of situation. But even so, Kathlene, you have to realize that what we’re likely to be up against, if you’re right about those guys being anarchists, is—”

She had to shut him up. She bent her head forward—and covered those still-moving lips of his with her own.

He responded. Oh, did he ever. His voice stopped immediately, but the movement of his lips didn’t. He fastened them on her as he thrust his tongue into her mouth, hot and moving as enticingly as his body below suggested by its pressure against her, imitating the dance of sensuality that she had already imagined going on between them.

“Kathlene,” he murmured against her. She responded by drawing his tongue even farther into her mouth, teasing it with hers as suggestively as he played with her.

She couldn’t think. Couldn’t react with the sanity of a deputy sheriff in danger. For this was danger, maybe even a kind Jock had been warning her about.

Danger that would be magnified by her joining his team. Working with him. Seeing him often while he was here, till they had accomplished—

“Hell.” A familiar male voice from the doorway interrupted her thoughts that were already disjointed, thanks to Jock’s continuing to drive her nuts with the movement of his body. She turned her head to see Ralf standing there. He’d come back. “Didn’t mean to interrupt anything like...I’ll go take another walk.”

Jock’s body heaved slightly from beneath her. He grabbed her with his hands and lowered her gently to the floor as he stood. “Not what it looks like,” he told his fellow Alpha Force member. “We were just demonstrating some fighting moves we’d each learned.”

“Right,” Ralf said. His deep complexion had grown ruddy with embarrassment.

“It’s true.” Jock was standing now. He bent to offer his hand to help her to her feet.

She accepted, still looking at the floor. Kathlene didn’t dare glance toward Ralf. Not just yet.

“Kathlene and I have reached an agreement of sorts,” Jock said. “She wants to work with us. Be part of our team as we investigate those potential anarchists. She’d wanted to show me some of her fighting skills to prove that she could hold her own, and I now agree with her. Kathlene is now definitely a part of our team.”

* * *

Had he let her win? Jock didn’t think so, but he had allowed her to distract him enough with her so-sexy body in motion that the result had been inevitable.

Besides, he’d felt reluctant to fight a female at all. Could that have been his wolf side reacting? Unlikely. That part of him illustrated his wildness, not holding back when it was in his best interests. Even so...well, it was over now.

She had stayed for just a short while as they planned their next meet-up—lunch the next day. Meantime, Ralf and he would do a little recon on their own before getting together with her, studying the layout of Cliffordsville and its environs even more, maybe even doing an initial check of the area containing the anarchists’ habitat tonight.

Little did she know how he would check it.

And that was one of the biggest problems of her working with them as a team. That, and the potential danger.

He could protect her. Would protect her.

But what would she think if she knew what he was, and why he, rather than a member of any other military unit, had been sent here?

Now, after their brief discussion inside the cabin, he walked her to her car. She said goodbye to them—for now. It was getting late, darkness was falling and she said she was heading home.

She used her key to unlock the driver’s door of her SUV, and he opened it for her.

“Sorry I embarrassed you in front of your partner,” she said as she faced him before getting inside. Her lovely face was flushed a bit, too. Her smile seemed ironic, drawing her full lips up just a bit at the corners.

He couldn’t help it. He bent and gave her another kiss.

Oh, not as sensual as last time. It was, in comparison, just a peck. But it still managed to evoke the feelings he had captured before—feelings of her firm but curvaceous body against him.

She pulled away first. “Bye, Jock. I’ll be thinking about you tonight.” Before he could react, she said, “About our team. And how best to investigate the anarchists together.” She ducked into the car and pulled the door shut. She turned the key in the ignition and waved to him as she drove off.

“You’ve got an interesting way of sealing the deal, making her part of the team.” Ralf and Click had come up to Jock as Kathlene’s car vanished around a curve. “And I thought the last thing you wanted was for her to help us—and potentially learn what Alpha Force is all about.”

Jock turned and motioned for Ralf to follow him back toward the cabin. “I don’t know yet what kind of help she might be, but she does know people around here as well as locations. Plus, she was the one who revealed that there was a potential issue here and was credible enough for those in charge to follow up. Maybe she can help, and maybe not. But as far as her learning about Alpha Force—and me—we’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t. At least not unless we decide it’s to our advantage for her to know—which I doubt. Speaking of which, now that she’s gone, I think it’ll be time soon for some very special reconnaissance.”

* * *

The drive back to her home was a short distance along narrow streets now illuminated by artificial light, but Kathlene considered it a huge way from where she had left Jock. What had she been thinking?

Apparently, she hadn’t been thinking. A hand-to-hand combat battle to convince him to let her help in finding out what was up with those anarchists?

Well, he was military, she was in law enforcement, and engaging in that kind of confrontation may have made sense...may being the operative word.

At least it had worked out. He had acknowledged that she would be part of his team.

Kathlene reached the cottage-style redbrick house on the residential street that she called home. She pulled into the driveway and pushed the button for the garage door to open.

She knew she wouldn’t sleep much that night. She would be thinking too much about Jock Larabey, their workout together...and the feel of his body, and lips, against hers.

She made herself rehash their final conversation—and realized it felt too easy. They were going to look around. Preliminarily check out the town and the anarchists’ site that she had pointed out to them. Tomorrow morning?

Maybe. But she had a feeling that these men would not wait. She turned the key in the ignition, closed her garage door and backed out of her driveway again.

They might be checking out the anarchists’ location that night. If not, she’d just return here, no harm, no foul.

But if they were checking it out—well, she’d be checking them out.

* * *

“This should do it.” Jock had allowed Ralf to drive him back along the route they had taken when Kathlene pointed out the turnoff toward where she’d indicated the possible anarchists were living. Then they had cruised a bit longer until they had found what appeared to be a nearby solitary and abandoned home, at least from what they could tell in the near absolute darkness of this forested area. The place had been built of wood in a style that looked like some bygone era’s, and that wood was rotting.

Its emptiness made it a good place to conduct what they now needed to do.

Ralf had pulled behind the structure, just in case. They didn’t want their car to be seen from the road if any of the people they wanted to surveil happened to drive by.

Plus, what they now needed to do could not be done with any normal, non–Alpha Force human around.

It was a secret from all other eyes. It was the heart of their supercovert military unit.

They both were out of the car. Click had remained locked in the rented cabin next door to theirs. He was vital to this part of their assignment—but only because he closely resembled the wolf into which Jock was about to change. If anyone happened to see Jock, Ralf and he would laugh it off. Show off the dog later and say it had always been Click.

“You ready, sir?” Ralf asked. He had pulled his large backpack out of the rear seat of the car and was holding out a vial of the very special Alpha Force shifting elixir.

That elixir alone was enough to entice shapeshifters to join Alpha Force. It had been developed by some of the unit’s members, starting with its commanding officer, Major Drew Connell, and enhanced by formulas that other members had created independently that provided additional qualities.

“‘Sir’? You’re too military, bro.” Ralf was a staff sergeant. Jock, as a lieutenant, was, in fact, his superior officer. But Alpha Forcers worked together too closely to stand much on military protocol. “But yeah, I’m ready.”

They had decided, to save time, to have Jock shift outside the house, at least for this change. Then, when he was off performing his recon, Ralf would find a way to get inside and check the place out.

Now the only illumination was from the penlight that Ralf had taken from his sack and turned on, plus a bit of natural light from the starlit sky, visible now and then through the canopy of trees and over the road where they had been cleared. No full moon, not for another couple of weeks. Jock took the bottle of elixir and downed it slowly. It tasted somewhat minty and a bit like citrus fruit. Drinkable, but that didn’t matter.

When he had finished it, he handed back the empty vial, took a deep breath and said, “Now.”

Ralf aimed the other light he had taken from the backpack toward Jock, the one that, turned on, resembled the illumination of a full moon.

Jock immediately felt the stretching and pulling sensations begin. He smiled, then growled, as his body began morphing into the form of a wolf.

* * *

He prowled through the forest, in the direction of the distant sounds and scents of a large human habitat.

The one that was his target. The target of Alpha Force.

Tonight would be an overview by a wolf seeking information—one with the perception of a human, thanks to the elixir—to see what was there, to help plan what would come next.

He smelled the aromas of the woodlands—the trees. Small creatures whose sounds he heard in the underbrush, fleeing from him. Larger animals—a bobcat. A bear. Perhaps a wolverine. He scented them all, but none was near him.

A good thing. He wanted neither to flee nor to fight.

Not this night.

He soon arrived at his destination. He smelled a legion of humans. Saw the compound surrounded by a tall chain-link fence.

He slowly began circling it, careful to stay far enough away in the trees not to be spotted by curious human eyes.

He smelled fire and approached the wooded area closest to where it seemed to originate. Yes. Beyond the fence, a group of humans sat around a large campfire, apparently talking and drinking. He could smell beer and some harder stuff. Despite his keen hearing, he could only make out a hum of conversation, not specifically what they were saying.

Was it true? Were these men bent on evading—or toppling—authority and harming other humans? Or were they just a group of hunters banding together in a bond of yearning to kill wildlife?

As much as he despised that, it would not be something that merited Alpha Force intervention.

Killing or even threatening other humans did.

He needed to learn more. But he had done most of what he had intended for this night.

Observing, using his other senses that were much keener than those of a human, he nevertheless waited for another twenty minutes, but that yielded little further useful information except for the scent of gunpowder, which fit with who these people were. Explosives? Maybe, but if so they had been set off a while back.

But what he sought could still be on the property, hidden, perhaps being stored without being utilized, for now. This was not the time to check—but he would in the near future.

He had determined where the gates to this property were, including the one staffed by a guard. Other areas where the fencing was not rooted as well. Ways he could enter if he had to.

Still others where the trees and bushes and undergrowth did not end at the fence line but extended onto the property—and could hide a wolf who happened to stalk into them and hide.

He would return here.

Soon.

And then, as he began to leave, he inhaled a scent. A familiar human scent, one that trumped all he had smelled previously.

He had to be wrong. And yet his special senses were never wrong about things like that.

A woman with the anarchists?

No. Near them.

Kathlene.

* * *

What was going on?

Kathlene had headed back to the area of the cabins and arrived just in time to see the car driven by Ralf exit through the motel’s gates and head in the direction of the anarchists’ area. She’d had to stay far back, even drive without using her headlights, to ensure that she wouldn’t be seen.

She’d watched as their car pulled into the driveway of what appeared to be an abandoned house along the road. She had decided she’d better park along a nearby turnout and walk, rather than drive, to keep an eye on them.

And, potentially, protect them. She had taken her weapon from where she had locked it in her glove compartment and now wore it at her hip.

The night was dark, especially with the canopy of trees looming overhead, obliterating the light from the half moon and the stars that, in as remote and unlighted an area as this, usually lit up the sky in identifiable constellations. And she had been right. It was unpleasant to come to this area at night, especially alone. But she had little choice.

She had carefully stayed on the road, walking slower than she would have liked but trying to make as little noise as possible, staying off the cover of dry leaves on the ground yet trying to remain invisible at the edge of the road. Making her way in the darkness. Staying careful, and as aware of her surroundings, and her solitude, as she possibly could.

That way, it took her a long time to catch up.

She had finally reached the house, looked inside a window, saw Ralf there in the faint illumination of a flashlight—but not Jock.

Had he tried to get inside the compound alone?

Bad move, she’d thought. What if he were seen?

Maybe he’d only intended to walk the perimeter outside the fence, just to take an initial look in the dark when he was less likely to be noticed. That made sense to her.

She’d decided to go check, just in case.

Still careful to walk as silently as possible, she had left the house with Ralf inside and hurried toward the road to the compound.

She’d wished she could use a flashlight, but at least her eyes had acclimated to the darkness. She had soon seen the light from the guardhouse and slipped behind the nearest trees, still carefully drawing closer to the area.

Then she’d started to slowly walk the perimeter. But then she had stopped. What was that?

Some kind of canine. It looked, from where she’d stood, like a German shepherd mix of some kind—but tawnier. Furrier. Like a wolf. A wild dog, maybe, that was part wolf.

As she’d watched, it seemed to smell the air in her direction. And then it moved on.

Moving cautiously, she tried to watch it but got only occasional glimpses of it. It appeared to stalk the compound outside the fence, like her—staying in the cover of the trees. It walked slowly, staring inside the enclosed area as if consciously observing what was there.

And then it disappeared. Even so, she continued to watch the area of the old ranch from her cover.

Now she had returned to an area not far from the driveway, hoping to see Jock, assuming he had come on foot to check the place out.

But after half an hour, she didn’t see him. She was tired. Disappointed. Maybe she had been wrong about what the Alpha Force members intended to do this night besides exclude her.

She still didn’t know what Ralf had been doing at that house. Where was Jock? Did it matter?

That wolf had most likely been hunting for food and had nothing to do with what else was going on around here.

Right?

But why was it she couldn’t quite accept that?

Still careful, she headed back to where she had parked her car.

Maybe she would get some answers tomorrow.