The Werewolf Ranger (Moonbound Book 3) Read online

  Whether he wanted her on the mission, plane, whatever—she didn’t care about his ego either. From her father’s comments, it sounded like Rain Dubois had more experience with this sort of shit than all of them combined, but for Nora, any time separated from her father was a gift from the gods.

  Rain rose from his seat, grabbed her hand, and walked her the length of the plane. They passed several of the other enforcers, but no one paid them any mind. They were all either occupied with discussing what horrors they might see when they arrived at the brothel, or trying to sleep and forget about what likely awaited them.

  She slipped through a narrow door, following Rain into the bathroom of the plane. When the Hollywood pack had volunteered their jet, she’d been ecstatic—even less to worry about when it came to her father watching her like a hawk. Who knew what kind of surveillance Edward Cavanaugh had on their family’s jet.

  Rain snaked his arm around her waist and crushed her against his chest, shutting the door behind them.

  Nora sighed, her body melting into his. His erection pressed into her belly and she moaned as he captured her lips with his.

  Hunger and need radiated from him, and his blue eyes darkened to the colors of a stormy Atlantic ocean.

  She undid his jeans and reached inside his boxers, freeing his erect cock.

  He growled and slipped a hand behind one of her knees, lifting her body to the height of his hips.

  Her skirt rode up as she leveraged his grip on one leg to hoist her other around his waist, putting her slick bare pussy right against his erection.

  Lust and something else snapped between them, but Nora only wanted one thing. Release.

  She rocked her hips, trying to angle her body just right to pull his cock inside.

  Rain nipped at the soft spot where her shoulder met her neck, using his tongue to taste her skin like it was made of something sweet and edible. The sounds coming from the back of his throat made her jealous.

  She mirrored him and nipped his earlobe before working her way down the side of his neck. He was salty and male and his scent in her mouth only made her want him more. “Fuck me, now.”

  The details were too much. Nora never let herself get caught up in the man. Everything would be better if she didn’t get attached. The stone walls she’d set up around her heart had served her well over the last year. They wouldn’t fail her now. She refused to allow that to happen.

  It was sex. Nothing more. Good sex. But still…just sex.

  One of his hands cupped her ass, while the other migrated to cup one of her breasts. He pinched at her erect nipple through the thin weave of her knit dress and she bit back a moan. They were on a plane with eight other people after all. No need to be loud and obnoxious.

  “You are so—” he growled, moving his lips from where he’d been nuzzling her neck through the fabric of her turtleneck dress, “so covered up.” He nipped at the skin behind her ear.

  “I’m not wearing panties. Can you please fuck me, now? Or do you need me to go ask one of the other guys on the plane to—”

  His mouth closed over hers, silencing her threat. Rain reached between them and guided his cock to her pussy. One thrust later, filled her completely and she dug her fingers into his shoulders, letting her head drop back as searing heat shot through her body.

  She was so wet; the sound of his cock slipping in and out of her was audible in the small area. Pleasure twisted and writhed in her belly.

  Rain pumped slowly, then faster, then slower again. She gasped for breath between kisses, shifting her hips to take him even deeper.

  Nora let go, allowing her body to sail on the wave of desire he elicited from every cell. She clung to him harder with each pant and each drive of his penis.

  Someone knocked at the bathroom door.

  “Occupied,” Rain snarled, never missing a beat or a thrust.

  Footsteps retreated immediately.

  Her breathing sped up as the orgasm neared. “More.”

  He gave it, and covered her mouth with his again before her shout of release escaped. Heat swept through her body pulsed around his.

  She rose into the fog of orgasmic bliss and moaned into his mouth. He slipped a hand between their rocking hips and ran a finger over her swollen clit, sending her through several more waves of pleasure and a second orgasm.

  He came hard with her this time, growling into her mouth and turning them so that she was pinned up against the wall of cabinets behind her. His cock sank deeper still, pushing until she had nothing left to give.

  When they’d both stopped shuddered, Rain slowly pulled away, letting her body slide down the door until her feet touched the ground again.

  Nora pulled in a deep breath, still reeling from the multiple orgasms, her knees wobbled and his hands were around her waist faster than she could blink. “That was…” She took another breath, steadied her self and smiled.

  “Something that can’t happen again.”

  Thwack—the sound of a figurative slap in the face knocked her for a loop.

  Fucking hell it couldn’t happen again.

  That’d been the best orgasm she’d had in…she couldn’t even remember. And he didn’t want to do it again because, why? Because she was a Cavanaugh? Because she was in charge of this mission?

  “Fuck you, Rain Dubois.” The bricks she’d been taking down to allow herself to feel a little more with Rain jumped back into place.

  If he didn’t want her, there would be others that did. He was one wolf. And their little encounters meant nothing.

  Right?

  * * *

  Rain was fucking pissed. All he’d done since leaving the conference room in Vegas was mantra himself into a place where he didn’t want to fuck Nora Cavanaugh. Then one touch…one…and all his resolve was gone.

  He hadn’t been thinking. Just feeling. Just wanting. And he’d been practically begging for it by the time he came. Damn the fucking wolf magick that had sunk its claws into him. He couldn’t say no to her.

  The door to the bathroom made a crack in the silence, as though everyone had been watching, waiting for him to emerge. But when he walked into the hallway, they were all still in their seats. He’d thought, by choosing the one at the front, facing the bar and lounge area that took over the entire front third of the plane, he’d be able to hide from Nora, but he’d been wrong.

  He walked up the aisle and wanted to smack each one of the smirking wolves that smiled up at him as he passed. This was exactly why Nora was dangerous. Rain needed these people to trust him, to respect him. And he needed to trust and respect them.

  Nora had destroyed the veneer of collegiality that should always exist on a jump team. They were friends, on a mission—friends who would die for each other. The one thing they could not be was lovers. Being lovers brought a dimension of intimacy to a relationship that would endanger every single person on that plane. Even the jackasses that smirked at him.

  Fuck. Why hadn’t he been able to control himself?

  This absolutely could never happen again.

  Rain returned to his seat and re-covered himself with his blanket. He wanted to turn around and yell at the whole group of them, like a captain should. Everyone should be sleeping. Saving their energy. Not having sex. And certainly not laughing at each other. But the damage was done.

  Nora’s heels clicked, even on the carpeted aisle, and she stalked to the bar, turned on one of those fashionable toes, and clapped her hands.

  “Everyone, can I have your attention?” She deftly avoided his eyes. “As you know, the alpha council put me in charge. My name is Nora Cavanaugh.”

  There were murmurs in some of the chairs behind him. Between the frustration that most of the wolf packs felt about the way King Cavanaugh took everything over, and the undoubted sex sounds they’d all just heard, there was very little respect for Nora’s authority happening in the cabin of the fancy jet.

  Rain turned around and barked a general order. “Fucking pay attention, pe
ople. The alphas made her your captain on this mission. A little respect.”

  Nora continued to avoid his gaze. “The alphas may have voted to put me in charge, but I’m sure you know that there’s someone on board with much more experience at leading these kinds of missions.”

  His breath came a touch quicker. He tried to catch her attention. No. Nora. Don’t. The only thing worse than having just heard your captain get fucked was watching them hand over control of the mission to the person who did the fucking.

  “Rainier Dubois, of the New Orleans pack, has experience as a soldier. As far as I know, that trumps the rest of our experience combined, so I’m going to turn control of the mission over to him.” She gestured to him, like she expected applause, but everyone was silent.

  He had two choices. Accept what looked like a payment for some good orgasms, or reinforce the will of the alpha council and make them question Nora’s leadership even further.

  Fuck.

  Nora backed toward the bar, probably expecting him to get up and make some kind of formal announcement.

  Instead, he turned his head over the top of the chair. “Everyone needs to sleep. Most of us were up all night, and it’ll be afternoon by the time we reach Guadalajara.”

  A lot of blank faces—one of them Nora’s—stared back at him.

  He raised himself up again. “Sleep now. Talk later.” Rain settled back under his blanket, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes. They would listen, or they wouldn’t, but he needed his shut-eye. With an already-compromised team, he had to be at one-hundred percent alertness when they hit the ground. Nora could stand and stare at him all day, but hopefully he’d made it clear that she was not welcome to slip her hands back under his blanket.

  He needed to get them all back to Vegas alive, and he needed the boundaries to be clear. If someone could just tell that to his dick, it would be great.

  Chapter Four

  No one managed to get through to his dick while he was asleep, and Rain woke with a hard-on. At least he’d managed to sleep at all, with her scent still all over him, but he was pretty decent at falling asleep on cue after ten years as a Ranger. He just wasn’t very good at making his erection go away.

  Thank the gods for blankets.

  He turned in his seat and looked around the cabin. Most of the group was asleep. At least they’d listened. That was one good sign. They were probably all exhausted, after nearly twenty-four solid hours of posturing and bickering and Mary Foster talking incoherently about her captivity.

  Plus, eyewitness testimony was notoriously unreliable. Rain still wasn’t sure the information they’d managed to get out of her during her hypnotism session would prove to be anything like helpful.

  He pulled out his phone. They should be landing soon.

  “You know, there’s wi-fi on the plane,” a female voice broke into his internal moment.

  Directly behind him was the Colorado wolf, holding up her laptop. Next to her, the attractive black woman from Los Angeles. Davis was her last name; that was all he could remember. And the skinny, perky brunette from Colorado was Gallagher. He thought she’d introduced herself at some point.

  He needed to make a point to get to know their names. They would have to become a real team at some point, if they expected to get anything done.

  Rain was frustrated with the whole setup. The team was half female, first of all, which meant that all the seven-seconds-between-sex-thoughts dudes on the trip would end up thinking with their collective dicks. Couldn’t be helped, especially not with wolves, who were largely instinctual, until trained. And as Rain’s own dick could attest, sometimes the training didn’t stick.

  Additionally, there were far too many of them. Four would have been sufficient. He could’ve picked out the strongest, quickest-on-their-feet, least emotional enforcers in that alpha room in a heartbeat and made his own team. But no one had asked him.

  This was an actual recipe for disaster. Not to mention the fact that the captain had fucked her second-in-command in earshot of the rest of the team. They were all screwed.

  “You want to use my laptop?” Gallagher asked, passing the computer forward.

  “I’m good. I just wanted to see what time it was.” Rain offered her a forced smile. “You’ve got wifi?”

  “I was just checking up on our network back at home.” She put the laptop back on her extended tray table and her seat companion turned one shoulder up, putting her back to them.

  “Your network?”

  “Yeah, we run a tech company.” She offered her hand. “Maggie Gallagher.”

  “We met before.” Rain shook and smiled. “Rainier Dubois.”

  “Oh, right. At the slot machine.” A smirk crossed her lips. “I maybe had one too many.”

  “You and me, both.” Rain nodded at the laptop. “If you have wifi, can you look something up for me?”

  She perked and her fingers went right to the keyboard. “Sure, boss.”

  Rain winced at the title. Did he really want to be the leader of this mission? He’d cross that bridge later, with Nora, when they could be alone. No sense in arguing in front of the team.

  “The Vegas alpha gave me a list of the scenes they got from Mary Foster when they took her through her escape.” He dug around in his seat pocket for the folder he’d gotten from Carl. Apparently, with the connection over Marco, Carl Rivera felt much safer giving the information to Rain than to anyone connected to Cavanaugh.

  There were too many tense relationships between the alphas, and Rain didn’t want anything to do with any of those politics. He just wanted to find the brothel bastard and rip his arms off and go back to North Carolina where everything was simple.

  Not to mention the distance it would put between him and Nora.

  Step one had to be the mission. Before he could think about Nora again, and before he could reach the safety of his base, he needed to complete this mission.

  “I got one, too.” Maggie pulled out the same sheet of paper Rain was handing over and showed him. Same hand-written sentences. “From my alpha.”

  “I think we’re going to have to start with this church.”

  Maggie pointed to the sentence in the middle of the page with the words two bell towers. “That was my thought, too.” She made a few clicks and turned her laptop so he could see. “I already found it.”

  On her screen was a Yelp page that read Catedral de Guadalajara La Asuncion de Maria Santisima. The picture showed two different pictures of a double-spire church with a dome in the middle. Exactly what Mary had described.

  “How far is it from the airport?” he asked.

  “Half an hour, if we’re lucky.”

  “And if we’re not?”

  “Who knows. The church is in the center of the city.” Maggie turned the computer back and made a couple of entries, then swiveled it back to him. “There’s the map view.”

  Rain smiled. He should have more Maggie Gallaghers around. It was like having command central in the plane.

  “And do we have transport…”

  Before he could finish, Maggie made another click. “I booked a private car to pick us all up. It’ll take us as far as the church.”

  “We can be on foot from there.” Rain nodded. He was starting to feel much more in control. Much more grounded. He liked that feeling.

  Not like being around Nora, where he felt honed in on her like a beacon. This was more like…normal.

  “Good work, Gallagher,” he said. “I can see why they wanted you on the mission. We need a whiz with a computer.”

  “That would be me.” Her smile was sweet, but he knew that there was a daredevil lurking underneath it. No one parachuted off buildings and bridges unless they had gonads of steel.

  “Any thoughts on where the next landmarks are?” Rain looked over the sheet that had been written during Mary’s hypnotism session. The directions were vague and almost laughable.

  A building with frowning red eyebrows and the yellow dog seemed impos
sible to spot. The dog would be dead, surely, and buildings didn’t have eyebrows. They had their work cut out from them.

  “I’ve done some searching online. I can’t find anything.” Maggie’s cute smile turned upside down. “These directions… they’re not directions.”

  “I know.” He mirrored her frown.

  “It’s more like a scavenger hunt.”

  Something clicked in Rain’s head. Scavenger hunt. Yes. That’s exactly what it was. A plan began to form and he smiled at Maggie. “I think I know what we have to do.”

  The cathedral was cavernous on the inside. And empty. Rain led the team into the middle of the nave and stopped. He and Nora had been studiously avoiding each other since the inconvenient bathroom sex, but he hadn’t stopped thinking about her for longer than a few minutes at a time.

  She’d picked up a conversation with the guy from Miami at the end of the flight that had continued in the car and beyond. If she thought she was working up to getting another guy in her pants, she had another thing coming.

  A million pounds of nope.

  If Rain could keep it in his pants on the mission, then she could, too. Or keep her dress down. Even if he had to fuckin’ handcuff her legs together. No panties. Gods. He was gonna buy her some damned panties.

  “Okay, people, here’s the plan.” Rain clapped his hands together and the sound echoed through the giant cathedral.

  Everyone looked at him. Conversations stopped immediately.

  “I thought Nora was in charge,” Miami said.

  “Nora put him in charge,” Gallagher countered, her eyes narrowing at the obvious subversion of authority.

  “Why does he get to be in charge?” This Miami guy just would not shut his pie hole.

  Nora touched his arm to calm him and Rain took a step toward the jackass.

  “You have a lot of experience leading missions into hostile territory, asshole?” He kept walking, and the group parted for him.

  “¿Cómo planea una misión en México cuando ni siquiera habla Español?” Miami crossed his arms and stood his ground as Rain approached.