Deciding to try and remember the placement of this beautiful spot to revisit later, Chloe began to turn back to her car when she caught the white glow of another human. Startled, Chloe stopped. Thinking it must be another person, maybe lost in the woods, she was about to call out and offer help, when the man turned around and she recognized who it was.
Samuel.
He was so handsome it was hard to catch her breath for a moment. His chest was bare, giving off a pale glow from the reflected moonlight. Even though he had a light tan, in the silvery moonlight he looked ghostlike, pale. Her mouth dried up, and Chloe couldn’t move her eyes, even when he began to unbuckle and remove his jeans.
Her lust-numbed mind briefly wondered why the hell he was standing in the middle of the forest, stark naked, but she was enjoying the view far, far too much to be too bothered by it.
Chloe rested against a convenient tree, licked her lips and prayed he would stand like that for another twenty minutes or so while she looked her fill. He really was a most stunning man. Why the hell hadn’t some lucky woman snapped him up yet?
He obviously hadn’t seen her yet, and she liked that just fine. Being able to watch him without him knowing of her presence made her feel decadent, naughty. His shoulder-length dark brown hair glowed darkly in the moonlight, caressing his shoulders in a flirty way she briefly envied.
Why was it men’s hair always behaved, no matter how badly they treated it, yet women would pamper and coddle their hair from age about ten onwards, yet it never did what they required from it? Men with long hair never had bad hair days. Or bed hair. Chloe smiled as she mentally recited the indignities women put up with.
The thought of bed hair briefly sidetracked her, however, and made her wonder how Samuel would look, rumpled, first thing in the morning after a long, intense night of loving. The mental pictures whizzing through her mind had her blood heating and the chill of the night air suddenly became a much-needed breeze rather than a freezing wind.
Far too soon for Chloe’s liking, Samuel started stretching his muscles and shimmering.
Shimmering?
Chloe rubbed her eyes, damning how tired and worn out she felt after a full day of driving. If the gorgeous hunk in front of her was shimmering she must be far more tired than she realized. Maybe she should just bunk down for the night in her small car.
One minute Chloe was rubbing her eyes, hoping to refocus on all that gorgeous naked masculinity, the next she was staring open-mouthed at the largest wolf she had ever seen.
The wolf was huge, far larger than the few specimens she had watched at a safe distance behind a fence at a zoo or parkland reserve. Chloe frantically looked around for where the naked Samuel could have disappeared to.
He was nowhere to be seen.
That so did not happen. I’m overtired. Or over-stressed. Or something. No way in Hell did Samuel just turn into a wolf before my very eyes.
Too panicked to think about anything except the instant denial hammering in her brain, Chloe stood rooted to the spot.
When the wolf-Samuel—he is so not that wolf, her brain injected—turned to stare directly at her, then sniff the air, Chloe couldn’t help the girlish gasp that escaped her lips.
Oh shit, he’s scenting me.
Unsure and uncaring where the thought came from, Chloe tried to gather her wits.
The wolf silently padded over to her. Frozen in terror, Chloe mentally begged her legs to run, to move. Never in all her years had she felt so terrified she could not move. She had always been in full control of her body. She didn’t enjoy the feeling of helplessness her terror caused her.
In less than a minute, the wolf had come right up to her. Yet it was not growling, its hairs were not raised in anger or threat. Chloe blinked, totally confused.
Why wasn’t the animal threatening her?
Like a gigantic dog, the wolf stuck its muzzle into her hand, making her pet his head. Despite herself, Chloe felt the warm, silky fur covering the giant beast. For the barest moment, wolf and woman stood in the woods, frozen together.
When a piercing howl broke the silence of the night, Chloe snapped back to reality.
She was standing in the middle of the woods petting a wolf.
Bad idea girl, the big bad wolf ATE Red Riding Hood’s grandmother.
Jerking her hand back from the silky head of the wolf, she turned and fled back to her car.
For a few paces the wolf loped after her, as if they were playing a game of Chase. As her car came into view, she continued running, panting for breath and the wolf fell behind. Digging her keys from the pocket of her coat, Chloe rushed to open her door. Jerking it open, she was about to jump in, when some niggling sensation made her pause and turn back.
The wolf stood there, on the edge of the forest line. Fierce and proud, he stood watching her. Woman and beast stared at each other for a moment, while time seemed to stand still.
Chloe was scared, but unafraid at the same time. It was the strangest sensation. Not once had the beast growled at her, threatened her in any way, yet he was a wild beast, who hunted and killed smaller animals. And when that wolf in the distance had howled, she had felt very much lower on the food chain.
Coming to her senses, she climbed into her small car, closed the door and roared the engine. Dirt
