Claiming Ana by Brynna Curry Read Free Book Online

poured the hot liquid.
    “Thanks. I like it black.” He tightened the quilt around his waist, pulled out a ladder-back chair, and sat facing the counter.
    She stopped pouring, turned and narrowed her eyes. “Wait just a minute. You heard that?”
    “Every word.”
    Mmm. Something is seriously wrong with me. He’s been hurt and I still want to jump him. What kind of person am I?
    “Heard that too and I’m more than happy to oblige.”
    “Other than the fact this is a serious invasion of privacy. How can you hear me?” Her eyes dropped below eye level and just as quickly shot elsewhere as she handed him two aspirin and a steaming mug.
    Stop thinking about sex, Ana. Control yourself.
    Howl swallowed the pills with the hot coffee burning a path down his raw throat and hoped it hid his grin.
    Arrgh. Damn. He probably heard that too.
    “We’ll get to that, hopefully sooner rather than later.”
    “You’re evading the question. I’ll need to look at your arm and check the bandage.”
    “Sure.” He smiled. She’d already mentioned checking the wound. So he made her nervous.
    “So, how did you come to be bleeding in my woods not twenty feet from my doorstep?”
    “My woods. I’m renting the Parker place, remember? Technically, that makes Parker’s woods, my woods,” he corrected.
    She turned her back on him to retrieve something from the cabinet. Had it only been yesterday they had shared lunch in this room? She had been molten in his arms, melting into his kiss. If not for the damn phone call from Jace, they would have ended up in bed. Maybe on the couch. Against the wall. Now who couldn’t control their thoughts? Where had this distance come from?
    “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
    “I know.” He slipped in behind her at the counter. He had questions. She had answers. Howl intended to have them and her. “Thank you for taking care of me. Why didn’t you call for help?” Howl laughed when he felt her jump mentally. Mind reading was such a trip. He effectively caged her between the counter and his arms. He wanted to kiss her, just there where her neck curved into her shoulder.He nuzzled the spot and traced the tip of his tongue along the exposed skin of her throat.
    She tilted her head to give him better access. “The storm knocked down lines everywhere. We’re running off generator power, no phone, and no cell.”
    He felt her shiver as her situation started to dawn on her. They were completely alone. Nothing to stop them from acting on this all-consuming lust. No calls from Jace. No neighborly driveby visits from Cade. No work. Just walls, rooms, and plenty of doors with locks.
    “I would have driven you to the hospital once the storm let up and you were stable, but you asked me not to. That, and my Jeep was totaled by a tree. Then I found this.” Ana held up the small jar containing the bullet she had removed. “And I knew I couldn’t go to Cade. He wouldn’t understand.”
    Howl took the jar. Even through the glass, the metal burned his skin. He tossed it aside and it rolled across the floor into the corner, smacking into the baseboard, but didn’t break.
    “Thank you for that, for protecting me. You know what I am, then.” This time he did kiss her just behind her right ear.
    “Yes.”
    “And are you afraid of me?” Need beat a rhythm through his blood. Please say no. The hard planes of his body pressed against the silk of her back.
    “Should I be?”
    “I won’t hurt you.”
    “How do you do this to me?”
    Howl felt her frustration as she instinctively arched into him, offering her breasts for his touch.
    “What do I do to you?” He flipped open the buttons of her blouse.
    “Make me ache for you.”
    A feral urge consumed him with her whispered words, something animal, something that couldn’t be controlled. He kissed the nape of her neck, and felt her skin vibrate beneath his lips. He heard her shudder inwardly and beg her body to behave. “Oh, no you don’t. I