The Werewolf's Wife. Michele Hauf
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kept thinking he should have gotten her name when she had been sober enough to recall it. But when the question reached the tip of his tongue, she tilted another drink down his throat, and the two laughed over their horrible adventure escaping the flames.
“I love you,” she slurred. “You big, hunky man, you. You saved my life.”
“I did.” He laid his head on her shoulder and toyed with the reddish-blond hair that smelled smoky and a little like coconuts. Burnt coconuts, actually. “You’re soft.”
“You’re sexy.”
“You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever met,” he said on a contented sigh.
“Sexiest guy, hands down.”
“Let’s get married.”
“By Elvis!”
She lifted what may have been her tenth—or thirteenth—vodka to salute, and Ridge swept his arm to clink his glass against hers, but missed, his arm swinging around and splashing the trio of strippers sitting in the next booth.
Half an hour later, Elvis pronounced Mr. and Mrs. Addison happily married. To the tune of Billy Idol’s “White Wedding,” the groom lifted his smoke-smudged bride into his arms and walked down the short red-carpeted aisle and right into the red-and-black-striped wall behind the electric organ.
As the couple tumbled about in a tangle of limbs and fits of giggles, Elvis—the rhinestone-spangled leisure suit version—bent over them and pointed out the cheap stained-glass window to the hotel across the street. “Because I’d hate to see either of you behind the wheel right now.”
They saluted the King of Rock and staggered across the street. It took three tries to actually make it to the other side without ending up back at the Viva Las Vegas chapel.
Room 12 had probably seen some crazy things during the motel’s sixty-year run, but this night it would see the weirdest.
Clothing was torn away. Laughter accompanied sensual moans and sudden giggles. They didn’t kiss much. Too difficult to get the aim right with their blurry brains.
Ridge, while in his cups, couldn’t stop touching his sexy new wife everywhere. Her skin felt softer than anything he’d known. Thank heavens, she hadn’t been burned. Her hair, tangled and dirty, and smelling like a burnt coconut, appealed as no woman’s ever had.
Despite his inebriation, something deep inside him growled in a knowing way. Mine. Meant for me.
He ignored the growl—to his detriment—and managed to find his way between her slender, smooth legs. Remarkably, his cock was hard, which only proved how much she turned him on, even two sheets to the wind. Her fingers grasping greedily at his thick, muscled arms, she let out a long, delicious moan as he fit himself inside her.
For one perfect moment, he grew sober and fell into the heavenly sanctuary of her body.
This is where you belong.
“Oh, Ridge,” she moaned. He’d told her his name after Elvis had prompted him. What was hers? Something like Gail or Abby. “Yes!” Her body bucked beneath his, and he chased the climax that was so close to exploding in his loins.
That inner growl he had ignored? Well, now it turned into a real growl. He let out a low and wanting howl that vibrated in his bones. Even drunk, he knew this was Not A Good Thing.
Or rather, Just Plain Bad Timing.
Thrusting quickly, Ridge ignored the shift in his bones and the stretch of skin that prickled with fur. He was almost there. Just a few more thrusts …
Climax shuddered through his body—which was now halfway between man and beast.
He lost hold on the woman’s narrow shoulders and his talons cut into the mattress. His shoulders stretched and the bones reshaped. Fur pushed through his pores. His torso lengthened. Paws slipped off the bed.
Bloodshot blue eyes flashed open and his pretty new wife gaped. That look was one hundred percent sober. Without pause, she scrambled onto her elbows, hauled up her leg and kicked Ridge’s furred chest. He stumbled backward and off the creaky old bed, his paws slapping the wall.
He growled, revealing a maw of meat-tearing teeth.
“What the hell?” His wife huffed and gasped, clasping a hand to her bare and oh-so-gorgeous breasts. Then she angled those wicked blue eyes on him and pointed a finger. “Ignis!”
The rusted tin lamp on the nightstand flickered out. The electrical outlet, which was missing an outlet plate, sparked and smoked. The television shot out sparks from behind the tube, and the LED clock on the nightstand exploded in a stunning shower of white sparks.
Ridge’s werewolf yowled as some kind of weird electricity hit him in the gut, burrowing deep through his skin and burning his very organs. All he could think was magic. He’d been struck by magic. The woman was a witch! Which went a long way in explaining why she’d been tied to a stake and surrounded by fire—the only way to kill a witch. She and the bastard flinging fire from his fingers were both witches. What had he interrupted?
The burn in his gut flared a sizzling path to his loins. The magic still cut through him. Ridge gripped his penis protectively. His muscles clenched and he let out a desperate howl that was abruptly cut off.
As his werewolf collapsed, his wolf-shaped head landing on the end of the bed, Ridge had one thought: werewolves should never mess with witches.
Chapter 2
Present, in Minneapolis
Abigail dusted the soccer ball on the floor next to the Powder Pro snowshoes, which sat next to the football and a tennis racket. This boy’s room was classic, but it hadn’t felt the thud of a basketball on its walls or heard loud rock music vibrate the artist’s pens in the drawers for months.
Ryan was due back from Switzerland this evening. She wanted to put the finishing touches to the cleaning before leaving for the airport to pick him up. He’d been less than thrilled when she’d mentioned the Swiss prep school last spring, but since he’d arrived in the summer for admissions, she rarely got a phone call from him because he’d made so many friends, and “Mom, the skiing!”
A total boy, Ryan liked anything sporty, dirty and rough. Winter sports, especially. His hair had grown shaggy and he was wearing his jeans loose to reveal the waistband of his boxer shorts—a style she abhorred but “Mom, all the guys do it!” He’d yet to discover the mystical, wondrous attraction to girls, but she felt sure that was just around the corner, and actually looked forward to her son going girl crazy. Of course, no girl would be deserving of her boy.
He hadn’t shown signs of developing magic yet, so she was thankful for that in ways she wasn’t willing to admit to herself.
It wasn’t common for male children of witches to be born with innate magic unless both his parents had mastered the same magics. With the combined genetic capabilities, then the possibility of gaining magic increased greatly, but as with most witches, they didn’t come into their magic until puberty. Judging from her last phone conversation, as she’d kept a chuckle to herself to hear her son’s voice crack and bellow, Ryan was toeing that change right now.
On the other hand, there was another warning sign she hoped would not rear up in her son’s body. She actually prayed to a god she had never before worshipped that sign would never come to fruition.
And then sometimes she did wish it would show up. It would make Ryan’s life more difficult, but it would appease her aching heart in ways she could never completely explain to her son.
Smoothing out the blue-and-black-striped bedspread, she eyed the box wrapped in sparkly red-and-green Christmas paper on the stand by the bed. They hadn’t been able to share Christmas together, which they did celebrate, even though witches did not tend to observe the Christian holidays.
Ryan had never been bothered