Like a wolf on the hunt, he picked up his pace as the door to the inn closed shut behind her.
* * *
Cassie's heart raced as she ran through the hallway, heading for the kitchen and the back door that led out to the herb garden. As soon as she reached the kitchen, she heard the front door open. Axel Ash. Had to be him.
Coming to say good night? Hoping for an invitation to stay the rest of the evening, maybe. At least, she figured, he wanted a kiss. And she would have given it to him if she hadn't worried she was getting herself in deeper trouble.
She opened the kitchen door with a squeak, just about giving herself a heart attack as he stopped before the door of her room and called out in a low voice, "Cassie? It's me, Axel Ash."
He didn't say anything for a moment. "I forgot to give you my number and I also forgot to give you Good Night kiss."
Is Axel Ash attracted to her and she is not reading his mixed signals right? She couldn't believe that. She senses nothing from this man but contempt for me. Why make the life of someone you are attracted to a living hell?
"You ran out on me," he says in a steely voice. "You thought I wouldn't know what you were up to?"
"I didn't run out on you," she refutes his claim.
"You're forgetting something Cassie".
"I don't give a rat's ass if you do. Threaten me all you want, I won't let you intimidate me."
With one long stride he has me cornered, the imposing wall of his chest to her front and the kitchen sink to her back. She thinks about running to the left or right but he places his hands firmly on the countertop on either side of her, trapping her within the imposing box of his masculinity.
"You've not begun to see intimidation yet, baby," he hisses at me and my belly bottom drops at the term of endearment. But the way he says it is unflattering. Are we playing Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf?"
He does seem like the Big Bad Wold right this minute the way he is staring at me like he is going to snap her head off my body.
"I- I wanted to see my friend," she respond, licking her lip nervously. He is too close and she is not sure how much longer she could manage to breathe with him so close to her. We are almost chest to chest.
"You're lying. Honesty isn't your strong suit, is it Cassie?"
She confirms his prognosis by blushing bright red.
"By the way you should know Cassie, anywhere you go I'll find you," he threatens in a quiet voice.
"It might not be as quickly as I found you. But even if it takes me a whole damn year, if you run to the ends of the earth, I'll find you and bring you back."
Fear runs through her and she shudders. She would think he is joking but the look in his eyes says he is dead serious. His face is hard and unreadable.
She snaps and pushes hard against his chest. "You're insane. Please go away."
He takes both her hands in his and holds them to his chest. "Be honest with yourself Cassie. You don't really want me to go away, do you? She swallows hard and tries to pull her hands out of his but he isn't about to let that happen.
Suddenly he lets go and she feel disappointed but before she could register why she feel that way, he takes her face between his hands and his lips to claim mine.
The touch of his lips against her is unlike anything she has ever felt. His lips are softer than they seem when you look at them. They cling to her, sucking on her bottom lip, teasing her mouth open.
On a gasp, she involuntarily parts her lips and he plunges his tongue into her mouth. Waves of ecstasy roil around in her belly. She feels me falling so she grabs hold of his shoulders as he deepens the kiss.
Axel Ash crushes her to his chest while pressing her back into the kitchen counter. He cups her round bottom, lifting me slightly, fitting our pelvis together and his arousal presses between the V of her legs.
Breathless, she digs her fingers into the hard muscles of his shoulders and tentatively inserts her tongue into his mouth. He sucks on the tip of her tongue and each tugging motion pulls at her womb.
She runs her hands down his chest, gasping at the rigid muscles she comes in contact with. Oh God, what is this man doing to her? She can't think.
My brain scrambles from the myriad of sensations he is creating inside her. She wants to feel him more intimately against her. Her breasts ache and the nipples are hard, seeking attention.
"Axel Ash," she moans into his mouth.
He wrenches himself away from her so suddenly, she almost falls from the loss of contact. She clutches at the counter behind her back to support the weakness in her knees. He looks unperturbed while she is quite shattered by the kiss we just share.
"I'll be back tomorrow at ten," he announces.
Feeling bad that she had to leave him without a further word this way, she exited the house, shut the door, and slipped behind some shrubs in the event he heard the squeaking door and came to investigate.
He didn't. Yet she had a job to do, and being with Axel Ash or any other lupus group wasn't going to help her get it done.
She waited until the front door shut. When Axel Ash's Humvee roared to life, she remained where she was until he drove off. Then she raced around to her truck, unlocked the door, and threw in her briefcase.
She'd change out of her dressy clothes after she parked in the woods. Now was the time to find the little red wolf.
As soon as she got on the road, she thought she was being followed. She glowered at the headlights behind her. She'd picked them up close to the B&B. Surely, Axel Ash hadn't been watching and waiting for her to sneak off..
Without any other choice, she drove two hours out of her way in the direction of California until the truck finally turned off. And then after driving another fifteen minutes to ensure she didn't pick him up again, she returned to the location where she'd seen the red wolf from the road.
At the turnout for the trailhead, Cassie parked changed clothes and slept for a couple of hours.
*******
Then she grabbed her field pack and took off into the woods to locate the red wolf. After three hours of hiking up and down the hills and valleys, and crossing two rocky creeks, she was sure she was closing in on the elusive wolf.
In hot pursuit of her goal, she slipped through the dappled forest, the filtered sunlight giving it a ghostly appearance.
Her boots barely made a sound on ground cushioned with years of accumulated composting leaves, the earthy smell mixed with that of the ancient Douglas firs in the Mount Hood National Forest.
She lifted her nose and sniffed the chilly spring air again, trying to locate the female wolf's scent that she'd smelled after tracking her into the area.
Was it regular lupus or a lupus group?
Had to be a wolf. A werewolf wouldn't be running around in its fur coat in broad daylight. Or shouldn't be. Unless she was in trouble. Then that would put a different spin on the whole scenario.
As a wolf biologist, Cassie was normally interested in only one thing: a plain, old wolf and its pack that she could study to dispel the myths and legends about the big, bad wolves--and get paid so she could continue to devote her life to their cause. She swallowed a lump in her throat. She owed their kind.
Her shoulders growing weary, she shifted her backpack and crouched down to observe the ground, looking for signs of wolf prints. The water lapping at a bank some distance through the trees caught her attention.
Maybe the wolf had left tracks on a muddy bank while she paused to drink there. Unless the bank was rocky...
Cassie headed in that direction to check it out.
What sounded like light footfalls on crunchy dried-out leaves caught her attention. Abruptly, she stopped in the heavily wooded area, smelled the air again, and listened.
Just the breeze caressing the leaves and pine needles surrounding her, and hidden in the thick foliage, birds twittering with one another or scolding her for being too close to their nest, the babies peeping for another meal.
Yet for the last couple of hours, she had felt as if someone was following her, tracking her every move. So what... or who would be trailing her?