Mark of the Wolf by T. L. Shreffler

warmth around her. He held
her like that, still watching the TV, and she sighed. He smelled so
good!
    His hand started gently kneading the muscles
of her arm. “You’re tense,” he murmured. “Relax.”
    “ Easier said than done,” she muttered,
not really expecting him to hear her.
    “ I’ll make it easy,” his voice was
low.
    Maddy’s breath caught, but already he was
moving. He turned her gently so her back was facing him, not the
exact position she had imagined, and his hands went to her
shoulders where most of her tension had built up. Then he started
rubbing them, applying just enough pressure to soothe the muscles,
but not enough to hurt. He hit the crook between her shoulder and
neck and she sighed again, this time in pleasure, feeling her
muscles melt.
    They stayed like that for a long couple of
minutes, his hands flowing over her shoulders and then her upper
arms, her neck, then down her spine and to her upper back. He
worked carefully and smoothly, his hands traveling lower and lower.
She felt him lean over, his back pressing against hers for a
moment, the brush of lips against the back of her neck. A
satisfying tingle ran down her spine and settled between her legs.
He was keeping her in an aroused state, so hot she thought she
might burn up.
    She closed her eyes dreamily as he kneaded
out another knot, this one in her lower back. “Why are you doing
this?” she asked, her words slow.
    “ Doing what?” he responded quietly,
though only after the briefest pause.
    “ I don’t know, all of this… helping
me, saving me… taking care of me.” The last part was barely a
whisper, she said it so softly. It made her blush with
embarrassment, but he had taken care of her – he had wrapped her
bandage twice now, taken her to school, and then paid for their
dinner. Why?
    She could feel him shrug behind her, and his
silence lasted a little too long for her liking. His hands moved to
the bottom of her shirt and she felt his fingers brush against the
bare skin there, slipping beneath the shirt and trailing across her
lower back. They left paths of fire across her skin, and she had to
stifle a groan.
    “ Let’s say, for a moment, that I’m a
werewolf,” he murmured, his breath moving the hair near her ear.
She shivered at the sensation, his words barely audible. It was so
intimate it made her heart pound. “Separated from my pack, freshly
moved to Black River, and I’m spending a night running through the
forest.” His hands were trailing higher, up to her shoulder blades,
warm and steady. She could feel the callouses and cuts on his
fingers, probably caused by his job.
    “ I’m running through the trees, and
suddenly I smell something – a human. But not just any human: a
young child, all alone. I take her back home, but it seems that
half the time I’m on that mountain, she’s out there too. I can’t
help but wonder why.” He paused again, his hands still trailing
across her back, and she sighed slowly. She could feel his fingers
pull against the skin, hitting the ridges of the scars that her
stepfather had left on her, most of them by his belt. It felt so
good to be touched, to feel his thumb running over the thin white
lines, the rough patches where her skin still held the raised,
white marks.
    His hands grew still.
    She frowned, wondering why he had stopped.
She was about to turn her head to look at him when suddenly he
grabbed the edge of her shirt and yanked it up, exposing the length
of her back. She yelped in surprise, ready to spring from the
couch.
    But he held her still with one hand on her
shoulder, holding up the shirt, as the other one traced over the
skin of her back. His finger ran down a particularly thick line
that crossed her back diagonally. She remembered that one
especially; she hadn't been able to stand up immediately after, and
had laid on the floor for close to an hour. It had taken more than
a month to heal.
    “ Shit,” he said softly.
    Suddenly Maddy’s good mood