Read Online Caged Wolf (Wolves of Willow Bend Book 2) by Heather Long - Free Book Online Page B

a person be startled and relieved at the same time?
    “Thank you,” he said, the soft whisper of his voice an intimate promise.
    “For cracking up?” The tension split down the middle, and she wanted to burrow into the peacefulness generated by their fit of giggles. “You’re welcome.”
    With a grin in his voice, he said, “For reminding me what it is like to laugh. I haven’t had a reason to in a very long time.”
    Sobering thought.
    “Don’t,” he ordered, giving her upper arm a squeeze. “Don’t retreat. There is no blame.”
    The buzzing of a bee as it drifted a lazy path captivated her attention. Sunlight dappled the landscape beneath the canopy of the trees.
    “It’s like a magical fairyland.”
    “You embrace the non sequitur, don’t you?”
    Delighted, and intrigued, she cast a sideways glance in his direction.
    “What?” At her scrutiny, he raised his eyebrows. The grooves in his cheeks deepened with his smile. For a split second, she saw him as she had that night—robust, virile, and so full of life. He’d worn his strength like a shield, but he’d been gentle and so damn careful with her.
    “Tell me you’ll be well again.” She had to know, craved the knowledge as though it were her next and last breath. “Tell me being in prison didn’t cripple you.”
    The joy in his eyes dimmed and he shrugged. “I don’t know. My parents took us to a zoo once.” A glimpse of another life whet her appetite for more. He curved his fingers, stroking her shoulder in a light petting gesture. The twisted pieces in her soul began to relax. “It was a fun day out. Linc, Tyler, me—Ranae was still little. We took turns corralling her when she tried to run off. I loved all the different animals and the smells. Most of the animals—the predators especially—recognized us for what we were. They kept a wary distance, but I saw this lion. He sat on a rock and looked right through me. Not even an ounce of challenge or care.” The more he spoke, the greater the distance in his voice.
    He was slipping away from her. Scooching sideways, she brushed her fingers to his cheek and his gaze slammed into hers, rooting her in place. “I stared at him, tried to get him to stare back. I wanted to see the fierceness in him that I’d seen in the other animals.”
    Sadness swam through her. “But you didn’t?”
    “No.” He shook his head, never once looking away from her. “My father told me to leave him alone. Some animals, Andrew, he said, do not fare well in captivity. Sometimes they give up. They deserve our sympathy and our care, but also peace. So leave him alone.”
    Vivian swallowed hard. “You’re not that lion, A.J..”
    “Aren’t I?” Though his tone was arch, and seeming blasé, his eyes weren’t. They burned with a ferocity she remembered—imprinted in her soul and appearing in her dreams so often, she’d memorized their detail. Beneath the haze and the fog, the glint of it still shone in him.
    “I see you staring me,” she said, tracing her fingers along his jaw and then up to outline the shape of his eyes. He caught her hand and pressed her palm to his lips. The brush of his kiss to her skin sent a quiver along her nerves. Everything in her went low, tight, and hot. “You see me. ”
    “Yes.” So much emotion vibrated in the single syllable. “I see you.” His irises blazed blue, chasing the darkness away. He cupped her chin. Time slowed as he bent his head and then his mouth closed over hers. Liquid heat raced through her blood. Opening to him was as natural as breathing, and the first brush of his tongue to hers short-circuited her nervous system.
    One moment she leaned into him, the next she straddled his lap. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she threaded her fingers through his hair. Soft, and hard. Darkly dangerous and liquid sunshine. The torrent singed her, then he deepened the kiss and she forgot how to think.
    Everything heightened. The rich amber of his scent, the salt of