High Moon

by Kati Wilde

  I don’t get more than three steps before she tosses over her shoulder, “And if you ever make it back to Fortune City and want to try again, just send me a message letting me know where to meet you. I’ll make sure to put my kissing panties on.”

  Her teasing me like that is akin to her tugging on a leash wrapped right around my cock—and not a single part of me fights to get free. Instead I just want her to drag me nearer, keep me with her.

  “Makena.” I growl her name.

  She pivots to face me, then continues walking backward toward her truck, her thumbs hooked in the pockets of her jeans and a little smile playing around her lips. She doesn’t seem at all surprised to see me closing in on her. And when her back hits the door of her truck she doesn’t open it. She just waits, looking calm and cool but I can smell the tension gripping her.

  What that tension is from, I can’t tell. Maybe it’s because I’m so big and when I stop so close in front of her, there’s no hiding that. Maybe it’s because I’m no damn good at hiding what I feel, and I must appear to her like a ravenous man. And I am ravenous. But I’m also something more than a man, and I couldn’t bear seeing any fear in her eyes, so I struggle against the instinct to claim what’s mine.

  But I also can’t let her go yet. Not without touching her at least once.

  My heart thundering, I lower my head. I watch her face, giving her a chance to push at me, to turn away. “Are you wearing those kissing panties now?”

  “I sure am,” she says huskily, then rises on her toes and meets me halfway.

  I’m starving for her, and anticipation’s riding me so hard that my hands are shaking, but I know this might be the only taste I’ll have. So I take it slow, cupping her face and holding her still for the gentle brush of my lips over hers.

  Merely inhaling her breath is intoxicating. And although my cock’s hard as steel, sex is the furthest thing from my mind as I tease her mouth with whisper-light kisses. Instead I’m simply drowning in the ecstasy of touching her.

  Then her lips part at the first sweep of my tongue and it’s all over for me. Her scent was a goddamn miracle, but her taste. The slick heaven of her mouth, the fullness of her lips. I can’t get enough, and the soft moan of pleasure she makes in response shatters my control. With a rumbling growl, I lick deeper, devouring her sweetness and her heat with every thrust of my tongue. The thought passes through my head that I’ll never want to kiss any other lips but these, and something inside me twists up hot and hard and painful, because there won’t be any more kisses after this one. There can’t be. Not unless I find justice for my family. And I’m not doing that here in Fortune City.

  That knowledge gives me the strength I need to pull away. A flush of arousal bronzes her cheeks. Her breath shudders through kiss-swollen lips as she looks up at me, her eyes glazed, as if she’s not seeing anything at all but is still lost in that kiss. As if it affected her as much as it did me.

  But the tenderness that I’m feeling isn’t reflected in her eyes when her focus slowly sharpens. She hides the emotion so fast that I can’t be certain what it is, but it resembles…hurt. And although she conceals it, suddenly she’s looking everywhere but at me, and drawing away though there’s nowhere to go. The truck’s behind her, and I’m right up against the front of her, my hands still cupping her face.

  In an agitated movement, she jerks her head to the side and out of my grip, as if she can’t stand me touching her anymore. “Okay, then. All right.” She’s all but babbling. “I’ll just go—”

  “Makena.” It’s harder and gruffer than I intend, but the way she’s panicking and pulling away has turned my throat into a gristly ache. “What happened?”

  She closes her eyes, her body going still. In a tight voice, she tells me, “You shouldn’t kiss like that.”

  “Like what?” Fear grips my heart. Did I hurt her? I lost a bit of control when I kissed her. And I don’t think my teeth sharpened but my strength—

  “Like the girl you’re kissing means everything to you.” She looks up at me again with fire in her eyes. “A man who doesn’t stay in one place shouldn’t kiss as if he’s holding everything he’s ever wanted in his arms. As if he’s making a promise.”

  I only kissed her like that because I want to make that promise. But there’s only one promise I can make. “I won’t do it again.”

  Because I won’t be kissing anyone else after this. And I don’t need more reason to find the fuckers who killed my family. But knowing that if I do, that I can come back and stay is a hell of a new motivator.

  Stiffly she nods, accepting that answer. And it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I step back, forcing myself to let her go. My voice is hoarse as I tell her, “I’m heading back into town now.”

  “Good.” She swings open her door, then pauses long enough to add, “Take care, Ethan” before climbing into the driver’s seat.

  Then she just waits. Maybe because something inside her is aching, the same way it is in me. Aching and wishing for more, and making it hard to leave.

  It’s not until I hear the soft whine at my side that I realize what she’s waiting for. Thelma and Alf are plastered against my legs, trying hard to console me by licking my hands. “Go on,” I tell them softly. “And look after her.”

  The way I ought to be watching over her. Instead I watch them scramble to load up into her truck. Then I watch her drive away.

  4

  Ethan

  Thirty minutes later, I can still taste her. Every single second I think about turning back. I park at the motel and debate heading into my room and wrapping my fist around my cock until I jerk out some of this need. But the physical pain of wanting her is a welcome distraction from the deeper ache that’s been building in me since I watched her drive away.

  I adjusted to breathing her air. Now that I’m away from her, it’s like I can’t breathe at all. I sniff my palms every chance I get, where I cupped her jaw in my hands, cursing the oil and grease that almost overwhelm her smell. The faint scent of her that still lingers in town is a painful tease. And when I hit the first tavern and her fragrance fills that closed-up space, as if she’d been there only a few hours before, it’s relief and agony all at once.

  Relief that I can breathe in more of her again. Agony that she’s not here.

  I fucking knew this would happen. I don’t know what the hell is going on, or why she affects me like this. Attraction, sure. That’s easy to understand. She’s absolutely stunning, a goddess in the flesh. And I wouldn’t blame any woman for driving past a broke-down truck and a giant stranger, but she pulled over—and that means a hell of a lot. Looking at her ranch, I know she works hard. Talking to her, I know she’s smart. That’s a hell of a woman.

  Still, I’ve known other women who were the complete package like she is, and I never reacted this way to them. Never. And until I first caught Makena’s scent three years ago, I had my share of female companionship. That’s just my nature. Sex feels real good and as long as the woman was willing—and as long as she knew I wasn’t staying in one place—I never saw any reason to hold back.

  I wouldn’t have held back with Makena if it weren’t for the effect she has on me. Because being with her will be different than being with any other woman. And nothing in my brain can explain how I know that. I can list all the ways she’s a woman I want in my bed. But I can’t explain why her scent drew me like it did. Can’t explain why I nearly passed out the first time I got a strong whiff. Can’t explain why being next to her feels so damn right. Can’t explain why kissing her was a fucking holy experience. Can’t explain why leaving her nearly ripped me apart.

  I can’t explain any of that, yet my instincts warned me this would be the result. I’d meet her, then kill myself walking away in order to do my duty for my family. Or I’d kill myself by staying with her and betraying their memory.

  But the questions of “how” and “why” she affects me like she does…? I don’t need to think on it too hard. I’ve
never heard of any wolfkin getting all lightheaded when they come across a human woman. But not hearing anything doesn’t mean much. Every other wolfkin I know was slaughtered when I was twenty-two years old. There’s probably plenty about humans and our reactions to them that I didn’t learn before my family was killed.

  And in the end, those questions don’t concern me much. That’s the thing about being wolfkin. You learn that not everything can be explained. Science has a whole lot to say about the impossibility of a man my size becoming a werewolf that’s eighteen inches taller and a hundred-fifty pounds heavier—conservation of matter and all that. And there ought to be a nuclear explosion every time I shift from my warrior form to my human form, because all that mass supposedly becomes energy, and that’s the only way science can account for the loss. Considering that nothing’s blowing up, I figure that energy is something else. Some kind of magic. I’ve got no trouble accepting that—or the possibility that there’s similar magic at work between Makena and me, and that’s why smelling her and touching her affected me like it did.

  But it might also just be instinct. Just my gut telling me that this woman will be my whole damn world. Just something inside me that knows long before my brain figures it out.

  Instinct is a damn fine part of me. Usually, I listen to it. But I can fight it if I need to.

  Right now I need to. I’ve got a purpose here in Fortune City, but that purpose isn’t getting into bed with Makena. That purpose isn’t staying. But when I sit at the bar, I’m not thinking of my family like I ought to be, or asking about the couple who were mauled eleven years past. Instead something she said is nagging at me. Something that I didn’t get a chance to ask her about.

  She said that it’d be “safest” if I didn’t take the job at her place. And no matter how I turn it around in my head, I can’t make sense of it—except to wonder whether it means that she isn’t safe there, either.

  If she isn’t, that changes everything.

  So after I order a beer, the first thing I say to the bartender is, “You know anything about the Riverbend Ranch?”

  His eyes narrow and he sizes me up, like I already did him. He’s white, with a short brown beard and thinning hair. His body seems mostly arms and legs and neck, but he’s more wiry and deliberate in his movements than gangly and awkward. In his early forties, maybe—older than Makena but, since she was in here having a drink, possibly a friend of hers.

  That might explain the guarded note I hear in his voice when he says, “I suppose that depends why you’re asking.”

  Because I’m desperate to know everything there is to know about the woman who runs it. Because I need something more of her before I leave Fortune City. Anything more. Even if it’s just some fucking small-town gossip. And I need to know if she’s in some kind of trouble.

  But asking that directly might shut him down, just like it did the librarian earlier today when I asked about the Laines. Instead I tell him, “Because I ran into the owner and she offered me a job. She said her ranch hand just quit—but being new around here, I’ve got no idea whether he had the right idea, and if she’s the kind of employer who screws her men over.”

  Considering how Makena went out of her way to help a stranger, I’m sure that she’d bend over backward helping anyone who worked for her. So I know the answer. I just want to get him talking.

  That narrow-eyed stare remains steady on my face for another long second. Then he gestures to my right with a sharp lift of his chin. “You’ll want to ask Sam about that.”

  Three stools down, a grizzled old man responds to the name, pulling his gaze away from the flatscreen over the bar, where the local sportscaster is highlighting a sack that had the Aggie’s quarterback eating Smurf turf. With weatherbeaten skin and thick-knuckled fingers, Sam looks like he’s spent most of his life toiling on a ranch or a farm—and smells like he’s spent a good portion of it in the bar. The alcohol fumes coming off him are stronger than my beer, but judging by the clear gaze that meets mine, he holds that liquor pretty damn well.

  “Then his next one’s on me,” I tell the bartender as I change seats, settling in next to the old man. “I hear you’re familiar with the Riverbend Ranch?”

  “Makena offered him a job,” the bartender fills in. “Apparently Julio took off.”

  Sam frowns. “Julio quit? Why?”

  He sounds like he can’t believe it. But when the bartender shrugs, they both look to me for an explanation.

  I give them the little I know. “Makena said he left to take care of his family.”

  Which seems a reasonable explanation, but the two men only frown a little more. “She didn’t say a damn thing about it when she was in here earlier,” Sam grumbles before pinning a steely look on me. “Did you take the job?”

  “I’m leaning that way.” I stick to the line I fed the bartender. “But hearing that her last man quit made me wonder if I should.”

  He snorts. “Julio was with them for ten years—and I’d have bet good money that he’d be with them at least ten years more. If he’s gone, you can be damn sure Makena and Jonas aren’t the reason.”

  Jonas, the uncle. “You know them pretty well, then?”

  “You might say that. I called them neighbors for almost twenty-five years. When haying and calving time came around, they’d help over at my place and I’d help over at theirs.” He suddenly grins and nostalgia tinges his voice. “Hell, my youngest girl bought her first car off money she earned babysitting Makena.”

  “So they’re good people.” But I already know that Makena is.

  “Best I’ve known,” Sam says and the bartender nods. To the other man, Sam adds, “You ever hear anything more about their fences?”

  The bartender shakes his head. “Not a word.”

  Tension grips the back of my neck. “What about their fences?”

  “Some shithead ripped out a bunch of posts in the south pasture.” A dangerous glint in Sam’s eyes tells me he’s not exaggerating when he adds, “I ever hear who did that, I swear to God I’ll help Jonas string them up by their balls.”

  And this is what I needed to know. “They’ve had some trouble recently, then?”

  “Nothing that I thought might scare Julio off. Mostly talk.” He eyes me closely. “You worried about talk?”

  I’m not worried about anything except Makena. “What kind of talk leads to ripping out someone’s fences?”

  The bartender leans in, face hard and voice quiet. “When there’s rumors that a development company can’t get started building the resort that’ll bring new jobs into this town until Makena and Jonas sell their spread.”

  “Which is bullshit,” Sam adds, “because MDC’s original plans didn’t include anything on our side of the river. But after I sold them my place, it seems they wanted more.”

  Then I’ll be staying in Fortune City longer than I planned. “You telling me she’s got some big company riding her ass?”

  After a short nod, Sam chuckles. “And your expression says that settled it. What’d you say your name was?”

  I didn’t. “Ethan.”

  “You have something against golf courses, Ethan?” He looks amused, but I’m not even close to laughing. Because Makena said “safest”—a word she wouldn’t need to use if there wasn’t any danger.

  “I have something against bullies,” I tell him.

  “So I guess you’re taking that job.”

  “I guess I am.” Because I’m not leaving town until I stop any fucker who messes with her. And somehow, I’ll need to be strong enough to leave when the trouble’s over. But I’ll deal with that when she’s safe. And I’ll suffer any pain to make certain she is.

  I better not waste any time, though. Since people in this town are hard up for jobs, her offer might not be on the table for long. Hell, a job might not be on the table at all anymore, not after the way she reacted when I kissed her.

  And she might not be the only one who’ll make the decision to take me on. “What abou
t her uncle Jonas—is he easy to get along with?”

  “Sure he is, providing that you’re not a damn fool.” Sam gives me a look that says while he’s no fool, he’s not convinced about me yet. “Some folks around here think he’s an odd one, but I suppose that’s because he doesn’t run his mouth and he keeps to himself—and he don’t seem to bother with any women. I’m not saying he’s fancy, mind you.”

  The bartender shakes his head. “You can say ‘gay,’ old man.”

  “He’s not,” Sam says.

  “Wouldn’t mean a thing to me if he was,” I tell him bluntly. Though I’ve been in enough places to know how people might create another layer of trouble for Makena and her family over it. Just like they might because of her color.

  “Well, I figure it’s because he’s a foreigner, so his ways aren’t like ours.” That declaration has the bartender shaking his head again, but Sam continues before the other man can respond. “And maybe because he’s still hung up on Makena’s mother. But you can’t blame a man for that. God rest her soul, my wife used to tease me that I was half in love with her myself.” His eyes go misty. “And perhaps I was. That was a hell of a woman.”

  “Her mother was?” Not surprising, since Makena is, too. But I don’t miss the past tense.

  Sam nods, his misty gaze still on the past. “I never even knew women like that really existed—not outside of movies, anyway.”

  The bartender snorts. “You didn’t know black women existed? She was hardly the first one in Idaho, Sam. Not even the first in Fortune City.”

  “You gonna let me finish?” Sam shoots back. “I’m not talking about her color. It was the way she moved, the way she talked. Even in jeans she looked like a queen—or like one of them women from those old spy movies. First she’d hypnotize you with that accent. And then if you’re lucky, she’ll kiss you before she kills you. But even the way she kills you might not be so bad…” He trails off, whistling through his teeth, then takes a long swallow of his whiskey.