by Sarra Cannon
She seemed hell-bent on encouraging those crazy ideas, though. It was in the whisper of her breath at his ear, in the warm slide of her hand along his chest. He’d sensed her wrestling with indecision earlier, but now she seemed to have made up her mind. Didn’t she get the memo about the kid from the wrong side of the ranch?
Apparently not, his coyote chuckled as she wiggled closer, making him feel impossibly good. As good as she’d made him feel on that glorious bike ride. He’d tasted freedom, purpose, and companionship, all on two wheels. Those forty-five minutes might have been the high of his life, what with her wrapped around him like a lining to his jacket.
You think that was a high? his coyote sneered. Try this.
Before he realized it, his hand shot out and slid around her waist, and sure enough, her body shuddered with delight that echoed through him.
This is the way to get high, his wolf agreed as his hand tugged her closer.
Her hand settled over his heart while her lips played along his jaw, licking him up. She’d fought her inner battle and won; why couldn’t he do the same?
As his dick grew harder, his wolf came up with lamer and lamer reasons why this would be all right.
Ty only said something about keeping other guys from messing around with her, right?
Logic, Zack knew, had never been the beast’s strong point. Ty’s father, the pack alpha, had also warned Zack to stay away from Rae.
The coyote, though, still managed to be persuasive.
This isn’t messing around, he said, and his voice was silky and sure. This is destiny. Not even the old man can fight that.
And hell, it certainly felt that way. Every cell in his body seemed to lean her way, and the urge he felt was as much a directive to hold her forever as to bury himself in her body.
She wants us, too!
That, Zack had to give the wolf. The woman who refused to flutter her feathers for any man was melting fast, and for him. Her gray eyes were glassy with desire. For all that she’d been on guard with him, she’d reached the conclusion that this was worth it. He was worth it.
His heart gave a little sputter, then hammered on.
She tugged on his chin, turning his face to hers. “I’m declaring it open season on trackers,” she mumbled. “Fair warning.”
He wanted to smile at that, and a lot of other sweet things about her, but his damn facial muscles were too stiff.
“I can’t kiss you,” he heard himself say, even as he leaned forward. Might as well put the rule he was about to break out there for the record. Maybe that would lessen the guilt, if the guilt ever came.
Oh, but it would, his subconscious promised. Sooner or later, it would.
“I can’t not kiss you,” she insisted.
A flash of lightning revealed the landscape, and it was different than the familiar view of home. A reminder of just how far away the ranch and its rules were. Christ, it had been a long time since he’d taken a risk. It had been a long time since he cared enough to dare.
So dare. Risk. Kiss, his wolf urged.
She closed the distance and let her lips cover his, and that was the last he could think about for a good long while. His arms closed around her and pushed everything else away.
He’d been fighting the attraction with everything he had because he knew this woman was to arrive back on Twin Moon Ranch untouched. She was forbidden. That was as clear as the ivory fangs the old alpha had flashed when he’d interrupted their first kiss. Zack was entrusted with her well-being. He couldn’t fail in the one sliver of trust afforded him by the old alpha. For her sake, and his own.
But for once, he didn’t want to settle for playing the good beta. He wanted to jump right to the top, where he belonged. To take destiny in his hands, not wait for it to come to him.
A man could spend a lifetime waiting, and he had had enough.
He closed his eyes on duty and opened his lips on hers.
That kiss should have been an explosion of sound and color and lust, for all that his wolf had been straining to get at her. But it was soft and cushiony and restrained. Lingering, like every second represented a lifetime. Trusting, with more than just the physical. The kind of kiss he’d had only once before—the one with her, back on the ranch.
The lightning and thunder receded until all he heard was the tame crackle of a fireplace sparkling a cozy vision to life: a bowl of popcorn, two pairs of intertwined feet, a couple of carefree lovers wrapped around each other atop a thick rug.
All that in one kiss. Either this was destiny or he was losing his mind. Whatever it was, he had no choice but to go along for the ride. No seat belt, no helmet, no rules.
No limits, something in him sighed. Not tonight.
Rae’s soft touch took him from the fireplace to a sunny mountaintop which opened a miles-wide view over a landscape carpeted in the colors of spring. Hope bloomed all around. They lingered there a little while then ambled to a hollow filled with the white fleecy fluff of cottonwood trees, so thick it came right up to his ankles. She pulled him onward, toward his little shack out by the mesa on the ranch and the bed inside.
Then his hands were hitting a mattress on either side of her body, and he was transported back to this remote cabin in the hills, far, far from watchful eyes on the ranch. It was real. She was real. And her need was as great as his.
“Zack,” she whispered, pulling him closer.
He lowered himself, keeping his weight half an inch off her body, like he might squeeze the goodness out of this if he went too fast. Because for once, he didn’t want to lose himself in a woman. He wanted to find himself there.
Her hands traveled up his shirt and her fingers played along his spine just the way he’d imagined: the index finger first, callused and stimulating, then the middle finger, smooth and long, the softer ring finger, and finally the pinkie, barely a brush.
He wanted to hum and tell her to do it again, but all that came out was a grumble. His coyote sighed in exasperation.
Can’t you get anything right?
I’m trying!
Try harder, his wolf muttered.
“No good?” Her eyebrows shot up.
“Very good,” he assured her, pulling her hand back into place. He said it again, ironing out the kinks in his voice, just for her. “Very good.”
Her face turned on a smile that was all cheek and only a little lip, like she was trying to hold it back. Then her clever fingers found the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head. A breath later, she was wiggling under him, pulling her own top and bra off, and then settling back.
He held his breath, and his coyote sighed inside. Very good.
His eyes raked her torso, a masterpiece of mixed art forms. The cubist planes of her abdomen melted into the soft, impressionist curves of her breasts, then swept up the length of her neck to the chiseled planes of her face.
Your turn, her eyes grinned.
Zack felt the wolf rear up inside, body checking the man and coyote aside. The beast’s hungry eyes locked on the prize, declaring all bets off. It was definitely his turn. And if there were any rules to this game, he was about to blow them to tiny bits.
Chapter 13
With all the electricity in the air, Rae expected a breathless tussle, a rush to fulfillment, the burst of a dam. But even after their lips met, Zack devoted a long time to nuzzling, staking his claim. The way he touched her suggested that sex came way down on a very long list that put worshiping and discovery above everything else.
She was the one turning up the heat. It was her, pressing her hips to his. It was her, guiding him back to the bed until he had no choice but to ease her into position beneath him. Even then, his kisses were slow and sultry, like a dance on a long winter’s night. He seemed in no rush to peel off her layers, to get underneath.
Very un-wolf-like, she decided. And very, very good.
Nuh-uh, her wolf countered. This one is all wolf. Just you wait.
She pulled off his shirt, then her own,
eager for flesh to meet flesh. That’s when the beast flashed in his eyes, making her breath hitch. She saw impatient wolf paired with cunning coyote who was calculating just how long he might stretch this night. Animal eyes that promised hot, pulsing passion and steel-hard muscle primed to take. They promised her she’d have it all by the end of the night, that he’d do his best to stretch her pleasure all the way to eternity and back.
He dipped his head, found her left nipple, and sucked it into his mouth, gentle despite the raw need pulsing off him. Her nipple peaked immediately, and she could already sense what a wracking mess he’d make her before the night was through. She was whimpering already, crying under the stimulation of his tongue and fingers.
She arched back, completely at his mercy, and her wolf howled in glee. The irony wasn’t lost on her: the girl who refused to give any man an inch was suddenly handing herself over in yards. But hey, if she was going to dive off the high board, she’d do it with style. Because this man was like none she’d ever met. Alpha, but all heart. Wounded, yet giving. Passionate, but controlled.
Mine, her wolf growled. All mine.
The muscles of his shoulders and arms were edgy, like a sculptor had been in a hurry to finish his statue off or just given up on hacking at that hard stone. She ran a hand down the landscape of his stomach, diving straight under his unbuttoned jeans and toward his groin. He was so erect, her fingers found him immediately and closed slowly over his shaft.
She couldn’t help a little chuckle. “Gotcha.”
“That was my line,” he mumbled.
“Mine now.”
All mine, her wolf purred as she worked him slowly up and down.
He groaned into her chest and lay panting, motionless.
Relish, she told herself. Do not devour. If any man deserved it, it was him.
He tilted his head up, eyes seeking out hers, and there it was again, that secret, boyish smile. She brought her free hand to cup his cheek, and he leaned into it, humming in appreciation as she explored him from base to tip. He was big, very big, and somehow, very right.
“Tell me you don’t bring all the ranch girls here on the back of your bike.”
His eyes popped open. “I don’t. Never.” His voice was raspy, and she believed him. He shook his head and kissed her. “Never.”
A clap of thunder brought on a flurry of hasty activity, the two of them rushing to tug off the last layers separating them. But even then, when her clothes were flat on the floor and her hands gripping the headboard while her knees spread wide, Zack was tender and slow. A man in a museum, getting it exactly right.
His fingers explored her folds and tunneled slowly inside, working her in languid circles until she was wide and wet and crying for more. He shifted his weight, and she was sure she knew what was coming next. He’d line his body up with hers, lock his hips over hers, and slide home at last. They’d rock and roll and howl their pleasure into the night. Right?
But what Zack did next, no man had ever done to her before. He sat back, lifted her hips, and pulled her knees to his shoulders in one swift move. She couldn’t understand why it felt so right to lie back and let him, but something in her demanded this feeling of being thoroughly and utterly taken.
Claimed? the voice of warning sounded, muffled deep inside.
The raging heat in her smothered the worry right away. Tonight, she would not be denied—especially by herself. It was all about trust. His hung before her like a fragile thread, begging for reinforcement. What choice did she have but to wrap hers around it?
Zack paused and she thought she would burst from the pressure building inside. He tipped his head back and breathed deeply, like a weary man on the verge of claiming a hard-fought prize.
He swiveled his jaw in a look that said, Make ready for me, my mate. Then he lifted her to his mouth like a meal too good to leave on the plate.
Her eyes rolled back in their sockets as he feasted on her, his tongue ravishing every fold, every hidden corner of her sex. The action drove her deeper and deeper into a fog bank of bliss. The man consumed her so thoroughly, so eagerly, that all she could do was ride the exquisite movement of his tongue. Her head fell limp against the mattress—the pillow was long gone, a casualty of their movements—and listened to her own moans fill the cabin as she came undone. Higher and higher, tighter and tighter, until every muscle clenched and shuddered.
He held her as she came, shaking and howling inside, then fluttered slowly back to earth.
Heaven, her wolf sighed.
She wanted to say something, but her legs were already wrapping around his waist, guiding him home. Hitting the orgasm of her life suddenly wasn’t enough; she wanted all of him.
His green eyes were studying her, glittering with need.
Need. Not greed. The man was a prince.
“Zack, please.” She was begging, but it was better than what her wolf was yowling inside.
Fuck me. Fill me. Now.
Another man might have reveled in the power he held over her, but Zack only nodded, like her wish was his command.
The green eyes narrowed as he pushed in, one delicious inch at a time. She was consumed by the slick, white heat of him, stretching her, sliding within her, tapping something deep in her soul. This was as emotional as it was physical, and she feared what it might make her say, vow, or promise. Her wolf was trying to bare her fangs and lick his neck in preparation for a mating bite, desperately thirsty for more.
Mate! Mine! her wolf cried, and she swore she could hear his reply.
Mate! Mine!
With a mighty crack, lightning split a tree outside, and the sound boomed over the hills. Zack hammered home then started pumping to a steady beat. Out, and slowly back in. Out, back in. Rae’s wolf receded in her mind as she gave in to the climax coiling inside like a spring, feeling it slip out of her grasp even as she tried to grab on and yoke it back. Zack’s pace went from strong and steady to deep and desperate as he, too, gave in to instinct. When he came with a low grunt, she found herself flying, then floating through space, her brain on standby as her body hung on through wave after wave of pleasure.
Then she was nestled beside him, listening to his heart race. Two solid arms wrapped around her: protecting, not possessing. Promising.
Even his sweat smelled clean. Honest. She burrowed against his skin, wondering if she could ever get enough of this man.
She hung there, suspended between dreams and conscious thought, marveling at this sense of peace filling the cabin. She could lose herself in dreams. Lose herself in plans, in hopes. But lose herself in a man? It seemed foolish and foolhardy.
Yet it seemed so right.
Chapter 14
Deep in the night, Rae’s eyes popped open. She lay still and hushed, struggling to comprehend what was tugging at her.
It wasn’t Zack, not this time. They’d been up twice already, each time finding another way to dance into each other’s arms and bodies, and each time as good as the first. She wouldn’t be surprised if her skin was glowing like a beacon in the night. A beacon for him to find his way home to.
Right now, though, Zack’s steady breath and relaxed limbs signaled sleep. She watched his chest rise and fall with every breath. Was there anything more appealing than a rock of a man babied by sleep? Especially a man whose moments of peace were as fleeting as his.
She was tempted to brush the hair back from his forehead, to smooth a hand over his skin. But the force urging her awake was a different one. It came from beyond their intertwined limbs, beyond the cabin. From out in the night.
Time to hunt, came the whisper, the call.
Part of her wanted to jump up and obey, while the other part didn’t want to budge. She glanced down at her naked body, locked under the weight of Zack’s arm. Feeling possessed wasn’t supposed to feel so good. Wasn’t supposed to feel so right.
And that was the frightening part: she wanted it. She wanted to be possessed.
She told herself she couldn’
t give in, not even to Zack’s wounded warrior appeal. A man like him could take away her freedom and smother her soul. She’d seen it happen again and again. Greer, the brutal alpha in Colorado had been like that. Roric in Nevada had the same heavy-handed style, as did Tyrone of Twin Moon Ranch. His son, Ty, seemed decent enough, but he had that same inner power. So powerful that it created a black hole all around him.
Alphas were like that. They were all the same.
Even Zack. He kept his power under wraps, but it would snuff her out if she stayed too close for too long. He’d erase the special part that was Rae and shape her into just another mistress. Whether that happened through brute force or her own dumb cooperation, the end result would be the same. She’d lose who she was. Lose everything.
No, her wolf insisted. Our mate gives without taking away.
He’s not our ma— Rae wanted to insist, but somehow, she couldn’t form the words, not even in her mind.
She gave herself an inner shake. New moon. Time to go.
Her wolf nodded in agreement. New moon. Time to hunt. The storm was clearing, and Zack had chased Jed away. No reason to wait.
She slid slowly out from under Zack’s arm and padded silently to the door, where she hesitated, looking at her bow. Would it be that kind of hunt?
She considered, testing the air. No. Not tonight. Tonight was a wolf hunt. The best kind.
Still, gravity seemed to double its pull on her feet, trying to coax her back to bed. Back to him. Just further proof, she knew, of what she had to beware of.
She forced herself outside and studied the sky. The storm was clearing quickly, heading south in search of a new stage for its mighty show. The first gaps were appearing between clouds, each twinkling with a star sharing its pale light. Bit by bit, Rae cleared the clutter from her mind and focused on the task ahead of her. The hunt. It was her duty. Her passion. Her calling.
She closed her eyes and let the moon pull the wolf out of her. Her shift started with a yawn that gave way to a stretch as another body emerged from inside. It came willingly, her body folding into its familiar second shape smoothly. She dropped to all fours and curved her back as golden brown fur broke out over her skin. Her nose stretched long, filling with a thousand desert scents while her eyesight faded to grayscale.