A Wolf's Heart (Harlequin Nocturne) Read online

For the twentieth time, Elise flipped over onto her back and stared at the ceiling above her bed. A predawn glow filtered through the windows. It was not yet five and she couldn’t get comfortable enough to close her eyes and drift away.

  Sleep had been hard to come by. After they returned to the villa, each preoccupied with their own thoughts, Elise found it next to impossible to recover what little balance in their relationship they had found in the woods. It had been destroyed by Gabriel’s discovery of someone’s presence at the villa.

  Elise wasn’t naive enough to consider that it had been some harmless neighbor out and about. She had no close neighbors, for one thing, and the villa was surrounded by trees for another. No vampire was going traipsing through the trees for fun. A lycan possibly, but not a vampire. There was one road in and out of the property. If someone traveled it, it was because they were looking for her or had gotten lost. She was betting on the former.

  Flinging the blankets aside, she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed to touch the floor. Thankfully she had a rug in her room, because she had a feeling it would’ve been cold on her feet otherwise. There was a slight chill in the air. She stood, grabbed the robe that had been folded over the dressing chair and slid it on. She found a pair of slippers, put them on, and then left her room.

  In the hallway, she paused at Gabriel’s closed door. She put a hand to the wood, wanting desperately to open the door and go to him. Instead she pressed her ear to the door and listened for him inside. She couldn’t hear anything, not even the slow intakes of air indicating he was asleep.

  She pushed away from the door and continued down the hall to the kitchen. She’d make tea and then take it out to the patio and watch the sunrise. Maybe it would lift her heart a little.

  As she reached to open the cupboard door, something in her peripheral vision caught her attention. Leaving the cupboard door open, she crossed the kitchen and opened the sliding patio door.

  Gabriel swung around in the chair he’d been slumped in. A coffee cup sat at the side of the chair on the patio.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, although by the wrung-out look of him she suspected he’d been sitting on the patio all night, or at least most of it.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” he said, yawning and then stretching his arms.

  “You’ve been out here all night.” She padded across the patio and stood at the edge to stare beyond the yard, to the edge of the woods.

  “Not all night.”

  She turned to look at him. “Well, now that I’m awake, I’ll make you breakfast, then you can get some sleep.”

  Without another word, she turned around, intending to go back into the kitchen. But Gabriel grabbed her arm before she could pass him.

  She looked down at him and opened her mouth to say something, but closed it when she saw the look in his eyes. The look of years of yearning.

  She let him pull her closer. And when he wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his head into her stomach, she gently hugged his head close, stroking his hair with her hands. She closed her eyes and drew him in. It had been too long since she’d held him like this. Too long since she’d felt the heat of his body next to hers. And now that she had him in her arms she had no intention of letting him go even if he pulled away. There was no retreat this time around. They would finish it here and now.

  “Elise, I—”

  “Hush. No words, Gabriel. We don’t need them. Not today.”

  She drew him up into a stand, then wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. Burying his hands into her hair, he pulled her closer and deepened the kiss.

  It was hot and hard and full of so many things, past and present, that it made her head spin. She dug her fingers into his back for balance.

  His lips still on hers, Gabriel reached down and swept her up into his arms. He carried her, pressing his lips to her chin and neck, across the patio. He slid open the door with his foot, then strode across the kitchen down the hall to her bedroom.

  In three long strides he was across the room and kneeling on the bed to lay her down on it. When she was settled, he pulled back and, standing near the edge of the bed, removed his clothes. She watched every movement he made, reveling in every inch of skin revealed. Gabriel was a beautiful man powerfully built, with long, lean muscles that bunched and pulled as he took off his shirt, then his pants.

  When he returned to kneel on the mattress, he was naked and she drank her fill of him. She’d seen him naked before, years ago, and just yesterday, but this was different. Removing one’s clothing to shift wasn’t a sexual act. A sensual one most definitely, as her lycan side was definitely in tune with all her primal needs. But seeing him, here, now, his sublime body poised above her, ready and willing to share himself with her, sent a rush of pleasurable shivers down her back. She wanted to feel that hard flesh of his on hers. No, she needed to, just as much as she needed to take her next breath of air.

  Lying beside her, he untied her robe and pushed back both sides. She sat up and allowed him to pull the satin from her body. Thankfully, she slept in the nude so there were no more barriers between them.

  Slowly, he traced his fingers over her body. Starting at her collarbone, he trailed his hands down over her breasts. He cupped one and rubbed his thumb over her hard, throbbing nipple. She gasped a little as he bent down and took it into his mouth, brushing his tongue over her again and again.

  She’d had lovers before, but none whom she’d wanted as much as Gabriel. Fifteen years had not diminished her desire for him. But they had both grown, both matured, both experienced so much in their lives, that lovemaking now would be so much more. She knew it in her very bones that making love to Gabriel would destroy any possible future with others. After this, she’d not want another man. Ever. She’d never be truly happy without Gabriel ever again.

  But she was ready for that. From the moment she laid eyes on him again in her trailer, she knew this moment would come. Fifteen years ago, she was his and that hadn’t changed. Despite all that had transpired between them and within their separate lives, they were mated. Nothing could break that bond.

  After lavishing attention on both her breasts, Gabriel poised himself above her body, his arms shaking with barely controlled restraint. All she could feel was the heat of him and it radiated between her legs. Spreading them, she hooked her heels onto his hips and brought him down to meet her.

  Gabriel nestled his cock against the soft folds of her sex. She was already wet and open, and he pressed into her with ease. Elise raked her nails over his skin when he filled her completely, everything inside her stretching to accommodate him.

  As he slid back and forth, she moaned into his ear. He felt incredible inside her, filling her emptiness. Emptiness she hadn’t realized existed until now.

  Gabriel licked the side of her neck, moving his mouth over her flesh. He nibbled on her chin and found her eager mouth with his own. Bringing his hands up, he buried them in her hair while they kissed.

  Every nerve in her body responded to him. To his touch, to his taste. She moaned into his mouth and nipped hungrily at his lips. She wanted to devour him. Raw animal need consumed her. Something she hadn’t felt in so long. With Gabriel, it went beyond the physical longing. Deep inside her psyche and her soul, she yearned for him. She’d forgotten what it was like to need so fiercely.

  Elise wrapped her arms around him and rolled him over onto his back. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed this.” Gabriel stared into her eyes as she straddled him, his long length still deep inside her.

  She started to rock on him, slow at first then gaining her rhythm. As flickers of pleasure surged up her body, she started to pump faster, harder. Slamming herself down onto him, losing herself to him. The sounds of flesh against flesh reverberated around them in the room.

  Gabriel reached up and molded her breasts in his hands, flicking his thumbs over her peaked nipples. He trailed a hand down her torso, caressing her skin to where they joined. His fingers
found her wet cleft, cleverly nudging his knuckle against her most sensitive spot.

  Jolts of fire rang up her body. She could feel her orgasm tightening deep inside her belly. It would not take much more to push her, drive her, over the edge and into bliss.

  Gabriel gripped a hand around her waist and stilled her motions. “Not so fast. I want to feel every inch of you. I’ve waited so long to have you again.”

  With both hands, he encircled her hips, slowing her movement. He lifted her up slowly along his cock, held her still with just the tip of him inside, and then brought her down inch by excruciating inch until he filled her entirely again. He did this several times.

  Elise could barely contain herself. All her muscles and nerve endings began to hum and vibrate. His slow, exquisite torture was sending her spiraling to the edge, hovering in midair. Her sex contracted around him as her climax slammed into her with an explosive force.

  Crying out, she fell forward to bury her face into the warmth on his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and continued to stroke inside her, and his orgasm came soon after. She could feel every surge of his seed inside her.

  Clamping her eyes shut against the tears that welled there, she felt like a dam burst inside her. Emotions long ago dried up came rushing to the surface. She took in a ragged breath, finding it difficult to contain them.

  Gabriel kissed the side of her neck as his orgasm subsided. She could feel his hot breath on her sensitive skin. By the intake of breath, she could tell he wanted to say something, but instead he resigned himself to kissing her on the cheek and resting his head against hers.

  The tears leaked out despite her closed eyes. So she opened them, and watched as Gabriel licked them away from her cheeks. She gave him a half smile, words still locked deep inside her, then rested her head on his chest.

  He wrapped his arms around her, stroking his hands up and down her back. And there they lay until the sun peeked over the horizon and bathed the day in a bright yellow hue.

  Chapter 15

  For the rest of the day, Gabriel and Elise fell into a comfortable routine with each other. Their lovemaking had cut a certain edge off their interaction and they were both able to relax a little.

  After a hearty breakfast that they prepared together, they set out to tend to the garden. Gabriel pulled the weeds while Elise reaped the rest of the vegetables that they would use for their meals to come.

  Gabriel enjoyed the menial task of digging out the weeds from the dirt. He hadn’t used his hands for more than collecting evidence and writing reports in a long time. When he was a boy, he loved nothing more than to till the land and plant seeds to watch them grow. He was a farmer’s son through and through. But his other needs, his other hopes and desires, had pushed him toward a life in law enforcement when he grew up. He was never sure his dad ever understood his ambition to be a crime-scene analyst.

  He supposed it never really mattered though, as his father and he never got along, never saw eye to eye in any matter. And that was especially true when it came to Elise.

  His father had forbidden him to see her, to form a relationship with her. The feud between their families was very much ingrained in his father. As it had been instilled in him from his father before him. And so on, all the way back four hundred years earlier to the first Bellmonte and first Leroy, one a lycan and one a vampire, who had once been the best of friends but had fallen out over a woman and a chunk of land.

  Lifting his gaze from his work, Gabriel watched Elise as she dug up potatoes. She was barefoot, ankle deep in the soil and, by the radiant smile on her face, loving every minute of it. Sometimes it took his breath away to look at her. She was crazy beautiful, but it was more than that. She had a light inside her. Something that glowed when she was truly happy. And it was glowing bright right now.

  It filled him with joy to see her like that. And to know he had turned the light back on inside her.

  But he wasn’t sure how long he could fuel it for. After the case, he was unsure how to proceed. He wasn’t convinced they could truly be together. He had never been certain of their relationship. He wanted her—that was no lie, and impossible to fight any longer—and he knew she wanted him as well, but he wasn’t sure it was enough. Love sometimes just wasn’t sufficient to survive the heartaches and heartbreaks.

  He stood, wiped his dirty hands onto his increasingly soiled jeans and stretched out his back. It was a good stretch, one birthed from good hard labor. He walked over to where Elise still dug in the ground and bent down to collect the potatoes she’d unearthed.

  “Looks like potatoes au gratin, tonight,” he said.

  “Oh, really? And are you cooking it?” She put one elegant hand, streaked with dirt, on her hip and cocked her one eyebrow. It was a stance he’d often seen her take. It was flirty and sexy and one-hundred-percent Elise Leroy.

  “Maybe I can be persuaded.”

  With a spark in her eye, she dropped the spade and literally pounced on him. As he caught her around the waist, he brought her mouth against his. The kiss was hot and hard and furious. He could taste the earth and the sun and the sweat from her body. Tastes he savored as he sampled her mouth with his lips, tongue and teeth.

  As he kissed her, she wrapped herself around him and he carried her over to the water tap and hose. He set her down and pulled away from her. Smiling, he bent down to grab the hose.

  Hers eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Wouldn’t I?” With a quick twist of his wrist he turned the tap and cold water burst out of the hose. He swung it around and aimed it right at her.

  Laughing hard, she rushed him. Any other woman would’ve gone screaming the other way, to get out of the spray. But not Elise. No, she rushed headlong into the situation and tried to wrestle the hose from Gabriel.

  Within minutes, they were both soaked and muddy and wrestling for control of the water on the ground. Gabriel felt twenty again and foolishly in love. He let go of the hose and rolled Elise onto her back, trapping her there with his body. She smiled up at him, her face streaked with mud, her hair a wild, tangled, golden mess. She was spectacular. There would never be another woman as amazing as she was in his life.

  Lowering his head to hers, he softly brushed his lips against hers. On a sigh, she opened up for him and he deepened the kiss. Within seconds, they were kissing and tearing at each other’s clothes.

  “Hurry,” she panted as he fumbled with the buttons of her shirt. “Just rip it.”

  He did as she demanded and tore at the fabric of her shirt, ripping it in half and capturing her bare breasts with his mouth. He suckled on one nipple then the other, and then slowly trailed his tongue down her sternum to her navel. She giggled a little when he dipped the tip of his tongue in. She was ticklish there on her belly.

  He loved her laugh, and her giggle was so sexy it drew shivers up and down his body. Nipping at her hip bones, he slid his thumbs into the band of her shorts and prepared to shuck them down her legs so he could indulge himself with other parts of her delicious body.

  But before he could, her hands came on top of his head to still him. “Someone’s near the cottage,” she whispered.

  He didn’t move. “Where?” he whispered so only she could hear him.

  Her gaze moved past him over his right shoulder. “Along the side, just at the edge of the yard.”

  “Can you tell who it is?”

  She shook her head.

  Releasing his hold on her pants, Gabriel slowly pulled up until he was on his hands and knees. Before Elise could even blink again, he was turning and sprinting for the side of the house.

  The trespasser must’ve sensed him, because he was already running back across the yard toward the woods and the road. But he wasn’t fast enough.

  Gabriel shifted in midrun. It took more effort and was ten times as painful as a regular shift, but he didn’t have time to stop and change. Within two minutes, his clothes shredded, he was on all four furry paws chasing after the vampire who
had been in the woods the previous day. He could tell by his scent.