Page 71 of White Wolf
When she looked at him, he was already looking away.
~*~
Sasha had never known a sensation like this. It was somewhere between joy, excitement, and perfect contentment. The wolf in him was delighted to be reunited with his wolf pack. And Sasha was delighted right along with him. Having his own human pack and the wolves together flooded him with warmth. They were all here, where he could watch over them, keep them safe.
He raked his fingers through the alpha female’s thick coat and she closed her eyes with happiness. He felt her heartbreak – they’d taken her mate from her – but she was happy to have his scent and presence here with her now.
“Wonderful,” Monsieur Philippe said.
Sasha was already growling when he turned to him, and eight wolves echoed the sound.
Everyone took a startled leap back.
Except Philippe, who, as always, smiled, eyes disappearing in his wrinkled face. “They’ve accepted you, Sasha. Marvelous.”
“They’re my pack,” Sasha said, because it didn’t require an explanation beyond that.
“So they are. That’s why we’re out here in the forest. So you can learn to hunt together. Tofighttogether.”
18
MEN LIKE YOU
Ivan insisted that when a man went too long without the company of a woman, the backed-up lust went rancid and turned to violence. Nikita didn’t disagree with him, but the last time he’d visited Natalia, he’d left tired, but far from satisfied.
He hadn’t ever thought of himself as someone who wanted a substantial relationship – he didn’t tend to meet charming young women eager to accept courtship when he was looting through houses in the name of Communism – and certainly had never sought one. He could have found a wife, if he’d wanted to. But his cause had always been the most important thing. His brothers-in-arms had satisfied his need for human closeness – as much of it as he would allow. And he’d shoved all lascivious thoughts deep down beneath his layers of grief, fear, and general disgust with the state of the Soviet Union and this hellish war that was on.
He chose to blame it on abstinence when he woke from a vivid dream and found himself flushed and achingly hard, curled up on his side beneath his blanket, slick with sweat, breathing raggedly through his mouth.
He blinked to clear the sleep from his eyes and tried to calm his racing heart.
Dawn was just breaking, its light milky and barely-there through the gap in the tent flaps, not visible at all through the canvas walls. He was, thankfully, alone. Sasha’s insistence that he was plenty warm, and that he needed to sleep with the wolves – that was never going to sound normal to his ears – had left them with more tents than sleepers. As technical co-leaders of the expedition, Nikita should have bunked with Philippe, but the old man had said he would sit up for first watch, and then never come into the tent.
So. Alone. With a painful erection and a pulse that wouldn’t slow. He couldn’t remember being this desperate for release in his life. And he couldn’t pretend he’d been dreaming about anyone other than their sniper.
There was no shortage of beautiful Russian women.
But Katya possessed a quality that had always driven him crazy: competency.
Last night, sitting around a fire that was really just smoke thanks to damp wood, she’d polished her spotless rifle with methodical, deft movements. Nikita could tell with a look whether or not someone was comfortable with his or her weapon, and Katya was comfortable. If she’d listened to their conversation, she hadn’t shown that she cared. She’d set up her tent by herself without trouble.
He’d dreamed of her with her hair unbraided, her lips red and bruised, her deft, gun-polishing fingers wrapped around him.
She haunted him now that he was awake too: visions of the sleek, pale body hiding under her uniform, skin chilled and hungry for touch.
He strained his ears for the sound of anyone moving around the camp, and heard only the early twittering of birds. He could ignore the problem and eventually it would go away. Or he could help things along and be done with it.
With a sigh of mixed exasperation and relief, he unfastened his pants.
It was the first time he’d touched himself to do something besides piss or bathe in months, and the moment he got his hand around his cock, he knew it wouldn’t last long.
It didn’t. As riled up as he was, it only took a few intense minutes, his face buried in the musty blanket, shameless fantasies of Katya playing out behind his closed eyelids. He had the presence of mind to cup his hand and catch his release, sparing his clothes the indignity of stains. The wave crashed over him hard, pulling him down into a wakeful sort of sleep, a crushing exhaustion that set him reeling.
He dozed for what must have only been a moment, battling his heavy eyelids when the sweat began to dry and the spring chill snaked into his clothes. He still lay on his side, pants still open, hand resting on top of the blanket, his open palm sticky.
Ugh.
That was when the shame settled in. Not just for the act, but on behalf of the object of his lust.
