Howling Mad: A paranormal wolf shifter romance (Badlands Book 2) Read online

  Shock washed down Naomi’s spine like ice-cold water.

  Another picture flashed onto the screen, this one of Naomi. It was a candid shot, taken when she was frowning over a painting. Cropped and out of context, on an old television with bad color, it made her look sallow and unpleasant.

  Was there the slightest wobble to her father’s voice as he closed the press conference? “Members of the public are urged not to approach these two fugitives, as they should be considered armed and dangerous. Dynamic Earth will be doing everything in its power to facilitate their capture. Thank you.”

  Chapter Six

  Naomi stared wide-eyed at the television screen. It made no sense. Why would her father believe that? She’d never given him any reason to think she might betray him or the rehabilitation center. Never.

  Maybe they hadn’t been close the way some fathers and daughters were – he was a businessman and a noted philanthropist, funding scholarships for gifted youth and vaccination programs for the poor. That had meant a lot of time spent away from home when she was a child, years before his various projects had come together under the Dynamic Earth umbrella. But he’d always doted on her. Always told her how proud he was of her.

  Who had told him she was involved with the security breach and Byron’s escape? Who would want to hurt her like that? And why would he believe them? What could they possibly have said or done to convince him?

  She turned to Byron, bewildered, shaking her head from side to side, at a loss for words. She didn’t even realize tears were pooling in her eyes until they spilled down her cheeks and a shocked sob escaped her.

  “Oh…” The tight look of anger on his face faded at once, to be replaced by an expression of subtle panic. “No…don’t cry. Come on.”

  He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her, rocking her awkwardly. She leaned against his bare chest, breathing in the scent of leather.

  “Please don’t cry.” He sounded so uncomfortable with her tears. He was a rough, tough bad boy who’d broken out of a high-security prison—lock him in a room with a weeping woman and he didn’t have the first clue what to do. He couldn’t punch the problem, so he was out of ideas. The thought startled a laugh out of her. She knew she was being unfair. Byron was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid.

  He pulled back a little and crooked his finger under her chin, lifting her face so she was looking up at him. She knew her eyes were puffy and the tip of her nose was red, but she didn’t care.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It was just such a shock. He can’t really believe that, can he?”

  Byron hesitated. “Someone’s lying,” he said. “But you and I know the truth.”

  * * * * *

  Byron hadn’t known what to do when Naomi had started to cry. He’d faced down street thugs and biker gangs, and on one occasion taken down a pair of crazy bears who’d jumped him in an alleyway. He hadn’t flinched when other animals at the Zoo had wanted to play dominance games, just dealt with anyone who wanted to take his reputation for being the biggest and baddest.

  But the trembling woman in his arms was a different kind of problem. The pinkness around her huge dark eyes made his heart hurt, and he wanted to tear the heads off the people who’d made her feel this way.

  Not that he’d have turned down an opportunity to tear off Atkins’ head on any given day, but he could hardly express his anger against the man here and now. He was Naomi’s father, and she loved him – that was why his words had hurt her so badly.

  He needed to distract her – and he knew just how to do it.

  He stripped off his leather jacket and slung it over the headboard, then sorted through the packs and bottles he’d liberated from the drugstore.

  “You’re an artist,” he said to her. “How do you feel about giving me a makeover? You need a different look too. Now our faces have been on the news, we’ve got to change our appearances.”

  Naomi picked up a box of hair dye. “Bombshell Blonde,” she said. A faint smile twitched the corner of her lips. “That sounds like your color.”

  He grinned. “Don’t make me too sexy. We don’t want all the ladies fainting at my feet.”

  She slapped him gently on the arm. Her voice still sounded snuffly, but she was smiling. “If you want to be inconspicuous, stop that. The people who’re after us could spot your ego from outer space.”

  Her smile faltered a bit at the thought of the people who’d be pursuing them – the people her father had sent after them. But she picked up a pair of scissors and said, “First things first – you need a haircut.”

  She shuffled closer and kneeled on the bed, close to him. She leaned towards him and ran her fingers through a section of hair near his face, detangling it and smoothing it.

  Byron held his breath. It was torture to have her so close. Her scent was tempting, intoxicating, making him feel drunk on her. Her fingers were cool and clever, and he could feel the heat radiating from her body. He realized his breath was a little bit jerky and uneven, his pulse thick and drugged in his veins. He couldn’t keep his eyes from the soft, beckoning curve of her lips.

  She twisted the strand of hair between her fingers and said, “It seems such a shame to cut it. It’s so beautiful…”

  He raised his eyes to hers, and their gazes locked. Her eyes were huge and dark and dreamy, and he couldn’t help himself. He just couldn’t. He leaned forward and kissed her.

  * * * * *

  His mouth on hers was electric and thrilling. When her lips parted against his, he kissed her hard, pulling her against his body. He hauled her onto his lap so she was straddling his hips, and ran his hands up her spine, knotting his fingers in her hair and yanking back her head so he could trail hungry kisses down her throat and over her collar bone.

  She moaned, overcome with sensation. She was aware of the dampness of her panties and the thick, rigid length of his cock pressing against her center through their layers of clothing. She couldn’t think, could hardly breathe, just knew she wanted more of him.

  It was madness, but it was a madness that carried her along with it. She clutched at his broad shoulders, clinging to him, and he turned and rode her down onto the bed, pressing himself between her parted thighs. His body was a hot, insistent weight on top of her. When he flexed his hips against her aching core, she wrapped her legs around him, urging him closer.

  Naomi pushed him away for a moment so she could yank off her T-shirt and bra, and he took advantage at once, filling his hands with the creamy swells of her breasts and lowering his mouth to her nipple where it peeked between his fingers. He teased the rosy nub with his tongue, then briefly suckled it before trailing kisses down her breastbone and over the swell of her stomach.

  He fumbled impatiently with the button of her jeans, then yanked them down over her hips, dragging her panties with them and leaving her wantonly exposed. She squirmed beneath his gaze, then gasped when he hooked her thigh over his shoulder and French-kissed her wet pussy. His tongue was quick and clever as he parted her folds and flicked her clitoris, drawing the threads of desire tighter and tighter in her belly until she stuttered his name. Her hands fluttered to the back of his head and rested there as he swirled and lapped and suckled. With every touch, the ache between her thighs coiled tighter until she thought she’d snap or shatter or die.

  When he pushed two fingers inside her, it felt so good she couldn’t think. He worked them in and out of her slickness, pushing deep and then drawing back, tormenting her again and again. She tangled her fingers in his hair as her pussy clenched against his mouth, moaning helplessly as she came.

  She was racked with tremors as Byron moved up her body, lingering for a few moments to slide his hands over her breasts and taste her erect nipple with closed eyes, lashes downswept over his cheeks. Her lips were parted as she fought for breath and every nerve was still singing as he nestled between her open thighs. He wrapped his hand around his thick erection, rubbing firmly against her and using her sticky juices
to lubricate his length.

  She gripped his hips, urging him inside her, and he obliged, pushing into her with a steady, confident pressure. She groaned – a hoarse, wild sound she barely recognized as her own voice – and with an answering growl he started to thrust in and out of her tight, wet heat.

  She clutched his muscular ass, digging her fingers into his glutes as they flexed with each smooth, hard thrust of his hips. The muscles in his arms bunched and relaxed as he held himself above her, working himself in and out of her body until she was gasping on the edge of orgasm.

  His breathing was labored, his skin sheened with sweat as he held back his own pleasure, beautiful face set in hard lines of concentration and restraint. And then, as she tumbled into a rolling climax that built in waves of overlapping bliss, he lost control. He thrust helplessly as he came, groaning against her sweat-slick skin as he pulsed inside her.

  Chapter Seven

  Byron’s hair was shorn into a choppy crop. He kept running his hands through it, unused to the short length, which made it stand on end in all directions. It was oddly endearing. And as beautiful as his long hair had been, framing his face and curling against his collarbone, the new haircut suited him. It drew attention to the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the amused, sensual tilt of his lips. Without his long hair softening his features, his pale eyes stood out even more in his face, framed by those dark lashes. He looked starkly beautiful and dangerous, like a bad angel.

  She caught herself staring and looked away.

  The motel bathroom was just as run-down and dingy as Naomi had expected – offcuts of linoleum on the floor, chipped porcelain, rust marks in the tub. The single towel, wrapped around her and barely covering her, was worn so thin she could have read a newspaper through it. Not that she’d want to, when there’d probably be a picture of her right underneath the headline.

  Especially if anyone saw this. The towel, the linoleum, the tiles and the tub were streaked and smeared with red hair dye. Her hands were covered with red hair dye. Byron has smears of crimson on his chest and arms. It looked like the scene of a very messy murder.

  She touched her hair, which she’d rinsed thoroughly, squeezed dry and knotted on the top of her head.

  “Do you really think it’ll work? I mean, all I’ve done is change the color of my hair. I don’t think Jimmy would feel threatened by my uncanny chameleon-like powers of disguise.”

  The dye splashed and smeared all over the bathroom reminded her of an art therapy session with the difficult teen, when they’d been messing around with poster paints. He’d played invisibly around the room leaving an indigo handprint there and a vivid smear of crimson there – even dotting the end of Naomi’s nose with blue paint – until they’d both been giggling helplessly and he’d finally agreed to come out of hiding. She’d felt she was making real progress with him. That had been only a few days ago. How had she ended up here, on the run with a wild Alpha wolf?

  Byron stripped off the flimsy plastic gloves that had come with the box of hair dye and balled them up. “Trust me. Most people make terrible eye witnesses. They’ll be looking for a guy in an orange jumpsuit and a girl with dark hair, and when we don’t fit that description, they’ll look right past us.”

  She decided not to think about how he knew that, just sudsed up a sponge and knelt to tackle the stains on the floor around the tub. “Even so, we’d better clean this up. Even the kid at the front desk could probably join the dots to work out someone’s dyed their hair in here. And you need to get some shades. Your eyes are too distinctive.”

  Byron leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his naked chest. “If we’re disguising distinctive features,” he said, critically assessing the view of her backside pointing towards him, “what are we going to do about that delicious heart-shaped a—”

  He spluttered as the wet, soapy sponge hit him smack in the face.

  Naomi scrambled to her feet, grinning, then squealed as he lunged towards her, seizing her by the waist and swinging her towards him. Riots and newscasts and stolen motorcycles fled from her head as she struggled in his arms. He sat on the edge of the tub, manhandled her across his lap, and held her there, wriggling fiercely and trying to catch her breath between fits of mirth.

  As well as being thin and worn, the towel was too small, and in the undignified position Byron had wrestled her into, it left her backside exposed. She gasped as Byron flirted his fingers over the pink petals of her sex, then cried out in shock when he drew back his hand and brought it down with a sharp smack on her bare bottom.

  “Ow!” she protested. “Let go of me, you animal.” But it was half-hearted. The fact was, the spreading warmth where his palm had struck her was doing strange things to her, setting up a fluttering in her lower belly. Slippery juices trickled from her core, and he dipped his fingers between her lips, bringing them to his mouth and sucking the honey from them. She was very aware of the eagerness of his thick erection where it dug into her belly.

  “Animal, is it?” he chided her. “I'm not the one who needs a lesson in playing nicely.” And he smacked her bottom again, then ran his palm over the singing flesh and down to her pussy, where he pushed two fingers inside her. She was soaking wet with arousal and desire, and he worked them easily back and forth. She groaned and pushed back against his hand, eager for more, and he growled and shifted restlessly beneath her.

  He pulled her upright, yanking her back against him so his lips were beside her ear, and he growled, “Do you want to see how much of an animal I can be?” It was a promise, not a threat.

  “Oh god, yes.” She yanked at the towel and let it drop away.

  She moaned helplessly, panting with desire as he pushed her down to the floor, positioning her on her hands and knees, presenting her wet pink sex to him.

  When he entered her, it wasn’t gentle. It was hard, and fierce, and possessive, and everything she needed. He covered her spine with his warm body, rolling his hips as he pushed into her over and over again. Each thrust jerked her forward, and she braced herself with her hands, absorbing every impact of his body and moaning her encouragement each time he buried himself deep inside her. She arched her back, pushing her sex back against him, changing the angle so his cock was drawn against her G-spot every time he withdrew. Each time he thrust forward, he rocked her to the core.

  He growled as she tightened around him and reared back, gripping her hips so he could plunge into her harder and faster.

  As she spasmed around him, shaking with the force of her orgasm, he pulled her back against him and clapped his hand over her mouth, muffling her cries of release. She felt his heart thundering against her back as he came too, muting his long, toe-curling growl against her naked shoulder.

  Chapter Eight

  Byron had found an open-air market in a dubious part of town, where he’d got chatting to an old guy called Clem, whose lingering looks towards the bar had got more and more frequent as the morning had worn on. His florist stall wasn’t exactly doing roaring business – probably because of the smell of whisky leaking out of his pores and overwhelming the more delicate scents of his wares – so when Byron offered to mind the stall for a few minutes while he used the facilities, he quickly accepted.

  “I don’t know about this,” Naomi said as the old guy strode unsteadily away in the direction of the bar. “What can we do in ten minutes anyway?”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Byron reminded her. “We’re out of cash, and we can’t use your cards. You’re on the run too, now. We need money to survive until I can get us somewhere safe, where we can lie low and work out what to do next.” He nodded towards the bar. “Besides, he’ll be gone for hours – probably all day. He’ll be back when his money’s gone or his liver gives out, whichever comes first.”

  “I guess…I guess I thought you wouldn’t have any compunction about just taking what we needed.” She hastily added, “Sorry. It’s just…”

  “I know,” he replied. “Criminal. Ki
dnapper. On the run from the forces of justice and goodness and flowers and baby bunnies. I guess this is where you find out my terrible secret. I don’t steal unless I have no choice, I don’t rob banks, and I don’t mug little old ladies. I actually have some moral standards.”

  Naomi knew her face must be red enough to clash with her new hair color. She felt horrible. He’d laughed it off, but she thought she’d seen a flash of hurt deep in those unearthly silver-blue eyes of his. But what on earth was she supposed to think? This was a guy so mad, bad and dangerous that the wardens just knew him as Byron. He’d kidnapped her from a secure facility during a prison riot.

  But the way he’d touched her…

  There was a long moment of awkward silence, during which Naomi sold a bunch of carnations to a dapper-looking elderly gentleman, who handed over his money with palsied fingers. She looked around for somewhere to put the bill, and settled for tucking it underneath an enormous tub of rather sad, blowsy-looking roses.

  “Besides,” Byron continued, “it’s much more fun this way, and nobody gets cheated who doesn’t deserve it. Just wait – you’ll see.” He grinned wickedly at her, spread his arms wide, and said, “Laaaadies and gentlemen! Gather round for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get your hands on a dose of Doctor Dash’s medicinal marvel…”

  He went into a line of patter that tripped off his tongue as though he hadn’t spent the last three years being shuttled between solitary confinement and the high-security wing, where he’d snarled at anyone who approached. He’d barely spoken a dozen words during his time at the Dynamic Earth facility, but now he was a showman, dizzying in his roguish charm.

  “Not you, madam,” he said to an elderly lady who’d wandered up and was listening intently to his patter, though her rheumy eyes were a little confused. “A lady as beautiful as you doesn’t need pills or potions.” He handed her a flower from Clem’s stall with a bow and a flourish, and she accepted it with a smiling blush that made her look twenty years younger.