I inhaled sharply and the shock hit me, like a whiff of smelling salts. That morning after flashed back. All the pain, the humiliation. My hands shot between us and I tried to scramble back, but his grip tightened. He leaned down to my ear.
"I won't hurt you again, Hope."
He kept his lips at my ear, his breathing shallow, caressing my jaw as he pushed back a lock of hair.
"Never again," he whispered. "I promise."
My heart skittered. This was what I wanted to hear. What I'd dreamed of hearing. That it had all been a big misunderstanding.
But it hadn't been. He'd said so himself. There was no other way to interpret what he'd said.
His lips moved to my neck, gliding along my pulse, registering my reaction. He moved to my throat, light kisses that sent my pulse racing, but I stayed stiff in his arms.
He rose, face coming to mine. "I didn't walk away from you that morning, Hope. I ran. Turned tail and ran. My problem. But it won't happen again." His hand moved to the side of my face, fingers brushing my cheek. "I came back, and I'm staying."
His mouth came down to mine. The kiss started slow, almost tentative, as if testing his welcome. When my hands went to the back of his head, it was like a watershed breaking. He grabbed me, and rolled us over, moving on top of me, his weight crushing in the most delicious way.
When I gasped, he thrust against me, all smoothness gone as he fumbled with the front of my jeans. He cursed, as if undoing a simple button was beyond him, as lust-clumsy as any teenage boy, and I was thrown back to that night in the pool, that first kiss igniting, Karl pulling back, struggling to be suave, to be gentle, to be a perfect lover, only to be swept up again and finally giving up, slamming me against the side of the pool. Brutally passionate and unforgettable.
And how many nights since then had I spent trying to forget it?
How many nights would I spend trying to forget this one?
When I broke the kiss, he hung there for a moment, panting. Then he looked down at me and blinked, and I knew he saw the truth, that I didn't trust him. His lips curved in an oath.
He cupped my face, lowering his until he was so close I could see only his eyes. "It won't happen again, Hope. It was my problem."
"And that problem was...?"
"Later. I'll explain it all later." He brushed his lips against mine. "I need you. Now. Please."
I shivered, eyelids fluttering. God, how many times had I dreamed of hearing that? I could look into his eyes, and see it. He wanted me. Desperately. And I had to talk about it first? Was I crazy?
I squeezed my eyes shut. If I said yes, I'd never get that explanation. Right now, he might honestly intend to give it, but come morning, he'd brush me off with a, "Don't worry, it wasn't about you." That would be that.
Every morning after, if I went to sleep beside him, I'd worry he wouldn't be there when I woke, because I didn't know what drove him away the first time.
I opened my eyes. "I need to know now."
"No."
"No?"
"Not now?"
A tightness in his voice turned the words into a query--or maybe a plea--and I sputtered a laugh.
He growled. "You have no respect for a mood, do you?"
I eyed him. Considered my options. Realized there was only one way I was getting my answers, as much as I hated to use it.
I grabbed the back of his head and pulled him down in a kiss. His hands went to my shirt, and he had it out of my jeans and over my head so quickly, I barely realized we'd broken the kiss. A snap of the front clasp on my bra, then his thumbs tickled over my breasts as he pushed it aside.
His shirt started to follow, but I caught his hands and whispered, "Let me. Please." I took hold of the hem, met his gaze and said, "Right after you tell me why you left."
He let out an oath on a blast of chaos so sharp I arched my head back and shuddered.
"Like that, do you?" he said.
I grinned. "You know I do."
"Damn you."
"Mmm." I nibbled the side of his neck. "Tell me more...like what you meant that morning."
A growl and another string of obscenities.
I writhed under him. "Not bad. But it needs a little more venom. Say it like you mean it."
"I wish I could. You have no idea, sometimes, how much I wish I could."
He grabbed me in a kiss so hard, so rich with frustration, that had he reached for my jeans again, I wouldn't have stopped him. Instead, he broke it off and sighed.
"You're right," he said.
"Hurts, doesn't it?"
"Damn you."
A moment's silence. Then he rolled off me and propped his head up on his arm. I twisted onto my side to face him.
"This is going to take a while."
"I've got all night."
A noise, half sigh, half growl. "All right then. When I went to Europe, I planned to take you with me. I'd make it sound like a whim. A lark. Light and casual. Then morning came, and I realized you'd know it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision, and if I was telling myself it was light or casual..."
He shook his head. "I wanted to forget about it, but I couldn't. So I told myself I'd mention the job, see your reaction when I said I was leaving."
"See how crushed I was?"
A muscle in his cheek twitched at the coolness in my voice, but after a moment he nodded.
"And when I wasn't upset enough, you had to keep pushing. See what did upset me. Not just flying off to Europe for a few days, but indefinitely...and maybe I should date other guys while you were gone. See if anything dug in enough to hurt."
"Yes."
I scrambled up. "You bastard."
"Hope--"
"No." I backed away. "You want brownie points for being honest? You hurt me just to see if you could, just to prove that I have feelings for you?"
He shook his head. "I didn't want to see if I could get a reaction. I wanted a reaction. I wanted you to think exactly what you did--that you'd been seduced, that I was just as cold and self-serving as you've always suspected. I wanted to walk away and close the door. Slam it, so I could never come back."
"I don't understand."
"I'm not sure I do either."
He pushed to his feet and looked around, then settled onto the couch. I stayed on the floor, arms around my knees.
"I've never understood it," he continued. "What happened that night at the museum. Why I helped you get away from Tristan and why, after I had helped, it was so hard to walk away. Why, even when I did, I couldn't stay away."
He shifted to see me better around the coffee table. "Not that I couldn't understand the attraction. You're beautiful. You're smart. You're fun to be around. But I've been with beautiful women, smart women, fun women, and there wasn't one I didn't walk away from in the morning. I only ever felt a twinge of regret if I had to leave a piece of jewelry behind. At first, I told myself it was because you were a challenge. You weren't interested in me and I wanted to change your mind. But even when I knew I could change your mind, I didn't. Because, if I seduced you, then I'd have no excuse for coming back, and..." A pause. "I wanted the excuse."
I hugged my knees, wondering if I should say something, but feeling like I wasn't supposed to.
"I've been having dreams. For a few months now..." Another pause, his jaw working, as if trying to figure out how to word something. "I don't dream very often. It's usually...wolf. If I postpone my Change, I dream of Changing. If I haven't hunted, I dream of hunting. I'm reminded, prodded. Lately, I've been dreaming of you. Of us. Of..."
He fell silent, jaw tensing again.
"Cabins," he spat finally, as if making some terrible confession. "I dream of forests and cabins and us, and no one else. I dream of taking you someplace, holing up, making love and making--" He clipped off the last word.
"Making what?"
He met my gaze and his lips twitched. "From that look on your face, you know what I was about to say. Let me remind you, emphatically, that it's a dream
. When I wake, I'm as horrified as you."
"Thank God."
He arched a brow. "Can you honestly see me living in a cabin? It's a symbol, obviously. An impulse. Not to carry you off into the woods and raise a pack of squalling brats. Just to...be with you."
"The instinct to mate."
He gave a low growl, and I braced for an argument, but he only turned his gaze toward the window, as if he'd already figured out what the impulse was, and just hated hearing it put into words.
"It's understandable, isn't it?" I said. "You're fifty years old with no children. The animal instinct to reproduce is sure to kick in--"
"So I start having caveman fantasies about the first woman in prime childbearing years to cross my path? In some ways, I wish to hell that's all it was. A biological imperative that randomly fixed on an appropriate target."
He stood and walked to the window, his back to me.
"I used to hear other werewolves talk about it," he said. "The problems of living solitary lives. Fighting the urge to find a mate and settle. I'd commiserate, if it was to my advantage, but even as I was listening I was calling them fools. Weak. Convincing themselves it was an instinct because they didn't have the balls to admit the truth--that they wanted a wife and kids and a picket-fence life. I'd never felt the urge to stay with a woman until morning, let alone for life, so I was living proof there was no mating instinct. The truth was, it seems, that I just hadn't met..."
He let the sentence fade, and stared out into the night. The silence dragged out past seconds into minutes.
"Damned inconvenient, isn't it?" I said finally. "That's the problem."
He glanced my way. I got up and perched on the edge of the coffee table.
"You've been on your own since you were sixteen," I said. "Since your father died. There hasn't been anyone. No lovers. No friends. No one you couldn't cut ties with in a heartbeat...and wouldn't kill if they got in your way. Then you joined the Pack, but you're still ambivalent about that and tell yourself it's a business arrangement and keep social contact to a minimum. Now you have me. Someone who might expect some kind of commitment from you in return, a commitment you might--horrors--want to give. Damnably inconvenient."
He gave a hoarse laugh. "You can't resist, can you? Even this you can turn into 'Karl thinking about himself again.'"
"Am I wrong?"
He met my gaze, then turned back to the window. "Damn you."
I crept to him, stood on tiptoes and kissed the back of his neck--or that was my goal, though I barely reached his collar. He glanced over his shoulder in surprise. I put my hands on his sides and leaned in, laying my cheek against the middle of his back.
"Remember when we met? Before you left, you said you were going to make a fool of yourself over me. That's still what you're worried about. That you'll find yourself doing things you never dreamed of doing, things you laughed at in others, and you'll make a fool of yourself."
A sigh rippled through him. "You never cut me any slack, do you? You can't find some unselfish motive, like that I don't want to hurt you. Or even a romantic one, perhaps that I'm worried about having my heart broken."
"A broken heart is just a fancy way of saying you've been made a fool of--that you opened up, let someone in, and they took advantage. As for hurting me, I'm sure that's in there somewhere, but it's not the driving factor."
"Dare I ask what is, in your opinion?"
"That a relationship with me would not only be inconvenient, but potentially humiliating. After all these years of being happy on your own, why risk that for a relationship that might not work out?"
"Sounds like you're trying to dissuade me."
I kissed the back of his shirt. "If you can be dissuaded, I think you should be."
"No. I don't think I can."
He turned, pulled me to him and kissed me. Then he waited. After a moment of silence, he sighed. "My grand confession, my soul laid bare, and you aren't even going to throw me a scrap, are you?"
"If you're waiting for me to say that the idea of being a werewolf's chosen mate is incredibly romantic, maybe swoon at your feet..."
"Perish the thought."
"Granted, my mother would be thrilled to see me hook up with someone, but a fifty-year-old werewolf thief might not be her idea of the ideal partner."
"We won't tell her about the thief part. Or the werewolf part." A pause. "Or the fifty-year-old part."
"If you ask me whether a fifty-year-old werewolf thief is my ideal partner, in my idealized life..."
"I suppose not."
"Sorry." I looked up at him. "But if you ask me whether it's what I want, my answer might be different. No guarantees. But there's a strong possibility."
"I can live with that."
He scooped me up and carried me into the bedroom.
LUCAS
3
I WAS IN BED, waiting for the alarm to ring. Paige lay on her side, facing me, the blankets pushed down to her waist. She'd been naked when we'd gone to bed last night, but must have risen at some point, putting on a short nightgown to go downstairs. Now the nightgown was twisted, and one breast peeked from the curtain of long curls, straining to be free, thwarted only by that last half-inch over her nipple. It needed only a tweak of the silk folds to finish its escape. Most mornings I would have completed the rescue, then turned off the alarm and found a less jarring way to wake her. But last night we'd worked on a new spell, and while that might not seem the obvious excuse for my hesitation, Paige's methods of spell practice are far from obvious.
Paige is as voracious a student of the art of spellcasting as I am. But that doesn't stop her from livening it up with an extra twist. Last night's added attraction had been a personal favorite of mine: strip spellcasting. Fail to cast the spell, lose an item of clothing. Given that it was a new and difficult spell, that first stage hadn't lasted long, leading us--naked--to the second, in which at any sign of a successful cast, the "winner" receives a service from the "loser." By the time we felt confident in our ability to cast the spell, we were exhausted, barely able to find our way to bed, and six hours later, I still wouldn't consider myself fully recovered. That did not, however, keep me from enjoying the sight of Paige and even feel the first twinges to suggest I wasn't as tired as I'd imagined.
She rolled onto her back, covers twisting until she was nearly free of them. The hem of her gown rode up one thigh, granting me a peek at the red lace panties beneath. The bodice had pulled even tighter, her breast now straining all the more to be free, her nipple poking against the fabric and making me decide that, indeed, I was quite recovered.
A gentle tug and the trapped breast was free, full and firm, the nipple still erect, begging for attention. First, though, I tugged the other side of the skirt up, until it was around her belly, the bright red panties on full display. I took a minute to enjoy the view.
My wife has a body worthy of the attention. Full, soft and generously rounded everywhere a woman should be rounded. I'm not usually aware of such things, but even on our first meeting, I'd noticed. At the time, if a fortune-teller had told me that one day I'd waken to this sight every morning, I'd have demanded my money back. So I can be forgiven if I do, now and then, like to wallow in my good luck.
I saw the clock preparing to flip to six and tapped off the alarm. Then I leaned down, tongue tickling over that waiting nipple. Her response was instantaneous, a low moan of pleasure. I took her nipple between my teeth, my tongue--
My cell phone blared so loud we both jerked up...fortunately without injury.
"Ignore it," I said, pulling her back.
"No." She reached over me, breast brushing my lips, then handed me my phone. "You answer. I'll keep things going."
With a grin, she kissed my chest, then moved lower. An order was an order, so I answered.
"Lucas? It's Karl. We have a problem."
Paige heard and stopped, scant inches from her destination. She glanced up at me, a question in her eyes that I really didn't want
to answer. I considered accidentally hitting the disconnect button. She read my mind and gave a soft laugh, kissed my stomach, then rolled from bed with a mouthed "later."
I cursed Karl Marsten, sat up and gave him my almost complete attention.
I WAS STILL on the phone when a cup of steaming coffee appeared by my hand, slid discreetly across the desk. I'd moved into the tiny office adjoining our bedroom and was jotting down notes as Karl talked. I motioned for Paige to stay, but she gestured something I couldn't decipher, and slipped from the room.
"Jasper Davidyan?" I said. "That's D-a-v-i-d-y-a-n?"
"Yes, but Hope suspects the surname is phony, and I'd agree. It comes from the license in his wallet, which is definitely a forgery."
"You said he goes by Jaz. Is that one z? Two? Or an s?"
A snort, clearly contemptuous of the moniker in general and not about to speculate on the specifics.
I continued. "So Hope found no sign of chaos at the apartment, and you discovered no extraneous trails or blood--"
"No, I said I told her that."
"Ah." I sipped my coffee and waited. It took a few moments, but he finally went on.
"There was blood under an armchair that, judging by the marks in the carpet, had been moved to cover it. And there was a bloody rag in the bushes below the balcony."
"But you kept this from Hope?"
His tone frosted. "It was spatter under the chair. Just enough to make a mess and there wasn't much more on the rag, meaning no one's dead or seriously injured. If Hope knew, she'd worry and she's already worrying enough."
I took the rest of the details, then signed off.
I was jotting down a list of steps to pursue when Paige appeared, this time bearing toasted and buttered English muffins for two, and a coffee for herself. I took the plate and mug and filled her in.
"I don't think your father's involved," she said finally.
That was, as she knew, my first question and the one I least trusted myself to answer.
"I'm not discounting the possibility--" she said.
"Always wise," I murmured.
"--but, unless I'm missing an angle, I can't see the advantage for him. He hired Hope to infiltrate the gang. Granted, he's also hoping to woo her to the dark side, but he's a practical man, and he'll want value from the job, so there's no sense sending her in if he plans to squash any whiff of rebellion three days after she starts."