Wolf's Deal: A Nick Lupo Novella (The Nick Lupo Series) by W.D. Gagliani

mused
almost dispassionately.
         “Mr. Bear!”
         “I get you. I got it.” Gritted teeth, hurting his skull. The red gauze curtain still in place
across his field of vision.
         “Yes?” A chuckle.
         “I’ll wait for your call.”
         “Yes, you will.”

 
 
    JESSIE

 
         She used her key and
quietly entered Nick’s large East Side apartment. Few people knew that when the
building had gone condo some years before, Lupo had bought the vacant apartment
next door and had an arch built between the two spaces, which now gave him four
bedrooms and a redundant kitchen he’d remodeled as an isolation cell in case he
had to ride out a full moon at home. Even though his control over the Creature
had increased greatly, the nights of the full moon could still kick his ass , as he put it, wreaking
havoc on his life. And then he was a danger to everyone, including her. Maybe
someday that would change, but for now it was a fact of their relationship
neither wanted to address.
    As soon as
she was inside, she picked up the heavy scent of musk. It hit her nostrils
hard.
    The Creature .
    He’d been
out. And now… was he back from the hunt?
         The door across from
her opened and in the half-light seeping in from the tall reinforced windows
and from the blue flame from the gas fireplace, she saw Nick watching her. His
eyes worked better than hers in the dimness, but as he approached she saw
enough to know he was naked. And very
happy to see her.
    Even in the
shadows, his muscled body was visible enough that she felt warmth cross her
features. Her cheeks burned and her ache for him increased.
    “Nick,” she
began.
         “Jess, I— ” He
began, simultaneously.
    They
chuckled.
    “You first,”
he said.
    His voice
had that gravelly post-Change quality. It made her tingle in all the right
places.
         “I had to get away,”
she explained. “I thought if I called, you’d convince me not to drive down this
late.”
    She sensed a
wave of musk overtaking her. Even across the floor, all the way around the
leather sofa and armchair, she could feel his desire and hers mingling.
    “I'm not so
sure I would have told you not to drive down,” he said. “But I’m on a case
– a weird one – and I had to let It out to run. To hunt.”
    “And now?”
    “Grabbing a
few hours’ sleep. An early start.”
    He stepped
closer, almost ghostly quiet on the hardwood floors.
    “Did you
feel me coming?” she said.
    “No, but I
plan to,” he whispered, smiling gently in the shadows.
    She
chuckled, but her mouth had gone dry.
    Suddenly
they were face to face and she had little memory of how that had happened, but
she reached out and lay her hand on his chest and felt the coarse hair and the
familiar shiver cascaded down her spine.
    Her hand
caressed his warm skin and traveled downward, and she found him there. Large
and waiting.
    “Ooooh, Mr.
Lupo, what big—”
    He didn’t
let her finish. He swept her up in his embrace and their lips mashed together
in the perfect fit of well-accustomed lovers. She felt his rigid flesh
straining toward her, brushing her thigh. His eyes seemed to glow into hers as
they tasted each other.
    She
fantasized she could see the Creature crouching way back there, far back in his
eyes, watching her. Maybe not so far
back… It made the heat between them sizzle all the more. His eyes were
doing their shift from color to color, rolling from brown to green and back
again so they seemed to shimmer in the light from the fireplace.
    She let him
guide her down to the sofa, shedding clothes as their lips melted together and
their tongues danced around each other's.
    This part of
their relationship had never waned, never faltered, and despite the challenges
they'd been handed by circumstances, she knew it would take a major rift to
break them apart. On the other hand, she knew that major rifts were more
possible now in the world they lived in. She put the