TurningWildBlankEditionHTML by Erika Masten Read Free Book Online

one-word responses. Holly’s anxiety level subsided quite a
bit when she noted that the wide streaks of dried blood across his torso now
covered not open wounds but raised pink lines of fading scars. All that energy
that wasn’t going into sparkling wit and conversation on the werewolf’s part
was at least healing him.
    With her own muscles
sore and straining, stiffened by the long car ride, Holly groaned behind
clenched teeth as she shifted some of Dustin’s weight to her own shoulders and
walked him into the open plan cabin. Thank God the bed and its inviting plaid
blankets sat not far inside the door. The shifter was heavier than he looked,
by a lot. Holly settled him and tossed a blanket over his hips, talked to him,
chided him about what a mess he was, decided to wash his chest and arms with a
warm cloth, all while she struggled to keep her mind and her eyes from
wandering over the defined musculature of his long, firm body.
    Scars from older wounds
than the ones he had received that night crisscrossed the pronounced bulge of
one bicep and the curve of his pectoral muscle on the opposite side. Blushing
hot but unable to stop herself, Holly ran her fingertips lightly along the
raised flesh, not like she would have smoothed the marks away but like she
wanted to learn something of the stories and pain behind them by feeling them
herself, at least from the outside.
    She’d have never looked
or touched Dustin like this under any other circumstance, of course. Certainly
not when he was awake. That made her a bit of a creeper, didn’t it? And even
worse, there was that one pale line that traced the inside of his pelvic
muscles on his right side, the set that made that amazing V shape some men had
tapering down into the waistband of their jeans toward…well…. Holly swallowed
and sighed out hard and left the bed to reheat the cloth with warm water. She
washed him down probably one more time than was strictly necessary, really, but
resisted the temptation to pull back the blanket. It was an effort.
    The shifter
occasionally moaned or sighed or tossed his head at her ministrations but never
opened his eyes, and Holly…waited. For Dustin to wake up, for him to be okay
and “call help”, for his pack to arrive, and for the real story to come out
about what had actually been going on all around her during the past year.
There was obviously a lot to learn, a lot the Agency hadn’t thought to tell an
entry-level analyst.
    Long wait. Long enough
for Holly to start snooping through drawers and bookshelves. She had always
wanted to be that size 4 girl who padded around looking so cute in nothing but
her boyfriend’s white t-shirt. Tonight, she was just happy to find a pair of
baggy men’s sweat pants, elastic around the cuffs, and a plaid shirt that would
have covered even the biggest steroid-enhanced professional wrestler. Definitely not Dustin’s , she thought.
Part of her wanted to see the man who fit that shirt; part of her didn’t. Holly
rinsed her track suit in the bathroom and left it dripping on the curtain rod
in favor of the borrowed clothes, selected a couple of old magazines from a
pile near the fireplace and a dog-eared copy of a historical mystery novel, and
ate peaches straight out of a can she’d found in the cupboard. Dustin slept
through all of it, even Holly clearing her throat too much and sitting down
hard on the bed, bouncing more than she had to. Long, long wait .
    Near midnight, she
stood in the open doorway to the porch and watched the clouds of an approaching
storm roll in over the bright full moon. It would have been colder outside if
not for that cloud cover acting much like a blanket over the whole forest
basin. Enough of a chill still hung in the night air, though, that Holly needed
a blanket of her own. Inside, she found a stack of woolen covers in a rocking
chair, but she preferred the heavy, fur-lined throw she’d discovered earlier in
a cedar chest tucked into a far corner of the cabin.