The Pack - On the Run
Twenty

Notice: 16+, mild mature themes

***

I was surprised I was still alive.

The warm, golden rays of the sun shone straight into my closed eyes as I slowly came to from whatever weird dream I had.

I felt as if I had been mauled by a train and pulled along the tracks, my body sore every-freaking-where.

My ears were overfilled with sounds - the ever-present, incessant noise of life around me I had not been aware of until now.

A buzz of a fly fifteen feet from where I was currently lying in the grass.

A soft rustle of dead leaves stirred by the nosing mouse.

The receding sounds of the chase deep in the woods.

A steady, familiar beating of a heart.

A way too familiar and way too comforting beating of a heart.

It was what actually drew my attention from all the noise and narrowed my focus.

I lifted my sleep-lidden lids just as Louis leaned over me, trying to pull his jacket over my form. A very naked - sprawled there for everyone to see - form, covered only by scraps of clothing here and there and not exactly on my most intimate places.

Mortification squeezed my stomach, flooding me from head, possibly to toe, in crimson red of embarrassment. I ripped the jacket from Louis’ hand, hurriedly wrapping its rough material around my body while I scrambled away in a blur of movement, only stopping when I hit my back at the tree trunk and scratched my skin in the process.

Fury, mixed with other feelings I wasn’t even sure I wanted to decipher, rushed through my veins. I growled, baring my teeth at the guy before me.

How dared he touch me?

Louis immediately put his hands up like I was a feral animal he wanted to appease before he slowly leaned back into a crouching position. His quicksilver eyes, rimmed by long, thick lashes, squinted and glistened in the sun that basked his face. He looked more handsome than ever - if it was even possible. His jet black hair fell messily on his forehead, his lips seemed softer and more tantalizing, and the smell...

The mixture of greenery, musk, and male pheromones made me dizzy with excitement. Wetness pooled between my thighs as desire suddenly clouded my thoughts.

Something in me purred.

The sound left my parted lips, and Louis’ eyes widened a fraction before they snapped to mine, dark with lust. He let out a soft rumble, matching my own as his nostrils flared and goosebumps started to crawl up his arms. He gritted his teeth, the vein on his forehead popping from the effort.

I shivered, but not from the cold. A lazy, flirtatious smile curved my lips as the corners of my mouth twisted in a blatant invitation, almost as if they had a mind of their own. Had I been in my right mind, I would probably slap myself awake, but everything seemed so confusing. Mixing feelings fought for control in my body, and I had a hard time deciphering what I actually wanted and what was right: jumping over Louis’ bones? Dying out of shame?

A little voice in my head told me that it was the latter, but all reason was stomped all over by that wild, impulsive part of me that had suddenly possessed my body.

Louis exhaled loudly, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides. He didn’t move an inch from his crouched position, almost as if he didn’t dare.

“Please stop doing that,” His words, although barely a whisper, were loud in my sensitive ears and strained.

They were also untrue. Louis most definitely wanted me to continue doing whatever I was if the prominent bulge in his pants and the smell of his lust were telling.

And Louis’ lust I could smell. It was heady, fragrant, and tangible. It also drove me nuts.

I unconsciously licked my suddenly dry lips, surprised I could taste his desire on the tip of my tongue. More wetness pooled in my southern region as my abdomen squeezed in want. Louis cursed under his breath, following the movement of my tongue with his eyes, entranced.

It pleased me to no end.

“Why?” I breathed out, getting on all fours as I started crawling towards Louis, his pheromones drawing me to him with a pull that was impossible to resist.

A moth to a flame.

“Because your wolf has taken over, and I'm not sure I will be able to keep myself in check around you for much longer,” he growled while I preened, ignoring the first part.

It was loads of crap, anyway. How could I not control my own body?

I crawled closer, and the jacket slid slowly down onto the grass as I approached him.

“Josie,” Louis’ soft murmur sounded desperate. He tried his damn hard to look everywhere but at my nakedness. He wanted to be decent, which was cute, but I didn’t need him to play nice with me. I wanted him to be rough.

“Snap out of it.”

As if.

I pranced at the guy with a speed I didn’t know I possessed, pushing him onto his bottom. Before I could straddle him, though, he had my waist in a tight grip, suspended a few inches in the air, successfully preventing our bodies from touching. I wriggled in his hold, unhappy, craving to feel Louis underneath me, hoping he would quench the fire that burnt hot in my lower abdomen, that he would help me get rid of my painful, pulsing need.

I half-growled, half-mewled, angry, rejected, and disappointed when nothing I did seemed to work.

Louis cursed once again, and his fingers dug deeper into the soft flesh between my ribs.

“Josephine, stop that.” He said while I fought to bridge the gap between us. ”Snap out of it.” It wasn’t a request this time. The words felt like an order, and they hit me like a bucket of ice-freezing water, shaking me out of whatever weird haze I was in.

I blinked, finally looking around the meadow, empty except for the two of us. My eyes found Louis’ dark gray ones, then moved to his face, taking in the frown and his clenched jaw, only to slide down to my naked self, which was still trying to straddle Louis’ - thank God - clothed middle.

For a second there, I just stared, too shocked and mortified to say anything, as my brain began to recall with a deadly accuracy what I had been dying to do only a second ago.

What I was still doing...

I screamed bloody murder, pushing Louis with all my might while I jumped away from him as if he was a plague. I ran for the jacket that had been abandoned somewhere in the grass and wrapped it around myself, bolting for the woods.

If the earth opened and swallowed me whole, it wouldn’t have been enough.