Read Wolf on the Road for Free Online Page B

Mali noted his hand was still on the side of her neck, only now his fingertips were stroking her cheek. “And whatever I am, I’m not the sort to leave someone when they need me.”
    “Need you might be a little strong,” Mali said, her voice soft and almost bashful as he moved almost imperceptibly closer. “More like I don’t want to go crazy the first time there’s a full moon, kill half a village and have a bunch of people chasing me around with silver bullets. But wait, why would you be in trouble?”
    She stared at him for a long moment, and then reconsidered what she was doing. “Actually you know what? This is fucking crazy.” She pulled away. “Absolutely nuts. You have me out here in the woods, somewhere I don’t have the first clue where I am, and you’ve apparently turned me into a werewolf, which is the stupidest thing I’ve ever...” She forgot the whole notion of his being in trouble as her head spiraled in on itself. One of her specialties was digging herself into real nasty rabbit holes of anxiety and self-doubt, and this wasn’t any different. With every passing second, she was falling deeper and deeper into her own head.
    The only problem was that it wasn’t the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. She couldn’t deny her senses heightening, she couldn’t deny that she could hear every single bird, that she could feel breeze in a way she’d never felt.
    Something was different, that much she knew. Whether or not it was having a very near death experience and coming out the other side, or whether it was actually turning into a magical wolf creature that didn’t, by the way, exist outside of movies, was another matter entirely.
    All she could do was bite her lip.
    Even that was more sensitive than ever before. She felt around the inside of her mouth with the tip of her tongue, and found surfaces and textures she’d never noticed before. Jake was watching her with a raised eyebrow. Mali could tell that he knew what she was thinking, even if he didn’t notice the bulge of her tongue and the look of disbelief on her face. “Is everything like this?” she asked. “I mean, assuming you didn’t just give me a bunch of acid or something and then convince me I was turning into a magic wolf.”
    “Everything,” he said. Before, Jake had been light and almost jokey. He was suddenly serious as he stared into Mali’s eyes and continued swirling his fingertips on her cheek. It seemed like every single hair on her cheek had a new bunch of nerves in it. She shivered, but not out of chill. “Everything,” Jake said again. His eyes were so intensely focused on Mali’s that she felt an almost physical presence in his gaze.
    She took a step closer to him and inhaled deeply, breathing in his scent. The smell of sweat and leather and the road filled her nose, all aromas that sent squiggles of pleasure down through her belly. “I, uh,” she said softly, “maybe overreacted a little bit with the whole refusing to go anywhere with you thing.”
    Mali took another tiny step forward and craned her neck. She brushed her lips against the stubble on Jake’s chin, relishing the rough scrape. Jake put his other hand on Mali’s shoulder and framed her face with his thumbs. With every tiny stroke against her skin, electric surges worked through Mali’s entire being, and a moment later, she felt a pulse of heat radiating outward from her core. “Everything?” she asked, brushing her lips against his neck.
    Instead of answering with words, Jake responded with a kiss. It was so soft, so gentle, that it may as well have been a breeze blowing across Mali’s lips. She felt herself quail slightly. When he pulled back, she chased him a couple of inches, and sucked his bottom lip gently between her teeth. Jake braced her head with his hands, holding her still and then devoured her with a kiss that forced her head back.
    He breathed her in, running one hand down her back and tangled his fingers in her hair. He