by Vivi Andrews
Moira glared after the lioness’s retreating back. It was easy to say that, easy to dispense forgive-and-forget counsel, but a lot harder to open up her wounded heart to the man who’d hurt it in the first place.
But Grace was right that they couldn’t go on as they were. Something had to give.
Maybe it was time to open her heart up to someone else…
The Lion’s Den was packed. Moira had never been here on a Friday night and she was already regretting her decision to come here on her “date” with Aaron Brandt as they wove through the crowds around the pool table toward the smaller tables clustered in the back. It had seemed like a good idea at the time—someplace they would both be comfortable, helping to keep things casual and take the pressure off this as a big romantic evening.
She liked Dr. Brandt—Aaron, must remember to think of him as Aaron—but she’d never really thought of him that way until she was desperate for someone to take her mind off Hugo and he’d walked into the office they shared. He really was the obvious choice. They had so much in common. They got along well together. It was a miracle they’d never tried this in the past.
Brandt—Aaron—held out her chair for her and Moira smiled gratefully as she sank onto it. He took the other chair and said something. Moira lifted a hand to her ear. “Sorry?” she called over the noise.
“Crowded!” Aaron shouted back.
She smiled and nodded enthusiastically. She scanned the tables around them, looking for something else to kick off awkward first date conversation with this man she’d worked with every day for the last decade.
There was Lila, perched on the lap of her beau, Santiago, laughing at something Whiskey said as the bartender slid a pair of pints to the couple. And there was Kelly Mather, with his cowboy hat and ever-present smile, leaning down to whisper something to Grace as the scarred and surly tiger, Dominec, growled at him to take his next shot at the pool table.
And there in the corner booth—
Moira’s heart stuttered.
Hugo.
And he wasn’t alone.
Moira couldn’t see the woman across from him from this angle, but she could tell the woman wasn’t blonde. Not Lucienne then. Who was he here with? What had happened to fighting for her, huh? Sure, she’d ignored his attempts to woo her for the last two weeks, but was that really all the devotion she merited? Lucienne had gotten two and a half decades and Moira didn’t even get two and a half weeks?
“Moira?” Brandt shouted. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes.” She forced her eyes off the corner booth, but they just ricocheted right back there. The burning was back—but it wasn’t the burning ache of heartbreak, it was the white-hot flame of righteous indignation. Whoever he was with now deserved to know exactly what she was getting into with Hugo. “Actually, no,” Moira said to Brandt. “I’ll be right back.”
Springing out of her seat, she stalked to the corner booth. She still half-expected to see Lucienne, so she stared for a moment when she recognized Aubry. The leopardess was a bit on the young side for Hugo, but she was romantically unattached. Available. What the hell was he thinking?
“Moira.” Surprise colored the big dumb bear’s delicious rumbly voice.
Moira pivoted to pin Hugo with her fiercest glare. “May I have a word with you?” she bit out.
His brow furrowed in confusion, but he excused himself to Aubry and rose to trail her to the side door where Moira pulled him out into the brisk night. She rounded on him even as the door snapped shut. “What do you think you’re doing? Yesterday you were begging to see me and now this?”
Something warm gleamed in his eyes and his lips quirked, but his words were serious. “You told me to grow up. I’m trying that. No more one woman or no one. Not even you.”
She glowered up at him. “Always with the trying,” she grumbled.
“What are you doing here?”
She shoved her chin up pugnaciously. “I’m on a date as well.” In a pointless attempt to forget you, you big lummox.
His eyebrows bounced up. “With Brandt?”
“He’s a good man and a good friend. At least I know he will never treat me like I don’t deserve to be loved.”
Hugo flinched. “That’s never what I wanted. I’m so sorry, Moira. I know I was a bastard. No wonder you can’t forgive me.”
And just like that all the steam drained out of her anger. “I always forgive you, Hugo. That’s how you keep getting the chance to hurt me. Or heck, maybe I’m hurting myself. It’s easy to blame you for not wanting me, but I should have made myself move on long ago.”
He reached out and suddenly her hand was enfolded in his—the grip warm and callused and too comforting to let her pull away. “Moira, please,” he said, rumbling low. “I know you’ve already said no, but I just want a chance. That’s all I’m asking for.”
She grimaced. “How many chances did you ask Lucienne for? How many times did you beg her?”
His brow pulled in confusion. “Never.”
“What?” Moira blinked, shocked.
“I never asked her. I never begged. I never fought for her, not like I will fight for you if you’ll let me.”
Moira felt her entire life teetering on those words. She knew it shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t make any difference, but it did.
In this one way, she was more to him than Lucienne had been. All these years, she’d felt like she was somehow less than the woman he loved. She’d felt inadequate—but how much of that had she built up in her own mind?
She needed to stop building castles in her mind and wiping them out the same way. Facts. She was a pragmatist. She needed facts.
“How many times did you kiss her?” Moira asked, realizing she didn’t know, had never asked how far their unspoken attraction had progressed.
“None. We wouldn’t have done that to Greg.”
“Did you tell her that you loved her?”
He shook his head. “It would only have made things harder.”
She tried to stay pragmatic, but her heart only needed one question answered. “Do you love me?”
He went still, choosing his next words carefully. “I want to. If you’ll let me.”
Her hopes wanted to fall, but she had to give him credit for not giving her empty words. If she was honest—and it was time to be honest—she didn’t know if what she felt for him was love either. But maybe it could be.
“I suppose neither of us really know how to be in love,” she admitted. She wet her lips—someone had to stop being an idiot. “Maybe we should give it a try.”
Maybe try wasn’t such a dirty word after all. Maybe it could be a beginning.
His smile blinded, making her heart lurch. “I’d like that.”
He bent and kissed her, the touch soft and cautious, as if their fragile truce could shatter at any moment. Moira pulled back. “We both have dates inside,” she reminded him.
Hugo nodded and pulled open the door to the Lion’s Den, peering inside, then pausing and grinning over his shoulder at her. “Brandt is hitting on Aubry.”
Moira rolled her eyes. “Of course he is.”
Hugo cocked his head. “Should we leave them to it?”
Moira tugged his hand off the door, letting it fall closed again. “Who knows. It might be true love. Who are we to interfere with that?”
Maybe true love wasn’t crashing cymbals and a symphony playing the first time you looked at someone. Maybe it wasn’t spinning fantasies for happily-ever-afters in the air or pining for someone for a quarter of a century. Maybe it was just a choice. A choice to give your heart and hold on tight.
And if it was a choice, perhaps it was past time she made it.
Or at least gave it a try.
She reached for her lover and pulled him down for a kiss. Eleven years and a lifetime ago, she met him, b
ut this, this was where they began. Hugo’s lips touched hers…and the rest was history.
About the Author
An Alaskan born and raised, award-winning paranormal romance author Vivi Andrews still lives in the frozen north when she isn’t indulging her travel addiction by bouncing around the globe. Whether at home or on the road, she’s always at work on her next happily-ever-after. For more about her books or the exploits of a nomadic author, please visit her website at www.viviandrews.com, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
Look for these titles by Vivi Andrews
Now Available:
Reawakening Eden
Ghosts of Boyfriends Past
Superlovin’
Serengeti Shifters
Serengeti Heat
Serengeti Storm
Serengeti Lightning
Serengeti Sunrise
Karmic Consultants
The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental Gigolo & the Poltergeist Accountant
The Ghost Exterminator: A Love Story
The Sexorcist
The Naked Detective
A Cop & A Feel
Finder’s Keeper
Naughty Karma
Lone Pine Pride
Jaguar’s Kiss
Taming the Lion
Hawk’s Revenge
Unbearable Desire
Coming Soon:
Lone Pine Pride
Tangling With the Tiger
Don’t miss these other titles by Vivi Andrews
To get what he wants, he’ll have to rattle her cage…
Lone Pine Pride, Book 1
Lila Fallon, the Lone Pine Pride Alpha’s only daughter, has been betrothed since childhood to marry her father’s chosen successor. The match is designed maintain peace by shoring up any cracks in pride solidarity.
She’s always known she would do her duty—she just never expected to meet a man who would tempt her to throw it all away.
As a black panther, Santiago Flores couldn’t be a less suitable mate for the Alpha’s purebred lioness daughter. But that doesn’t change the fact that for every one of the five years he’s been with the Lone Pine Pride, he’s been head-over-heels in love with her. And when the Alpha announces that Lila’s indefinite engagement is about to end in a very definite marriage, Santiago is through holding his peace.
From their very first kiss, Santiago rattles Lila’s neatly ordered world. But can a lioness who’s always lived to please everyone else risk everything to please herself?
Warning: This book contains tempting lone-wolf jaguars, lionesses who long for fairy tale endings, arranged marriages, tangled emotions and a pride full of trouble.
When she’s in heat, there’s no cooling down…
Lone Pine Pride, Book 2
Wilderness guide and cougar-shifter Patricia “Patch” Fontaine has known the dangers of lone-shifter life since she was ten, when her parents mysteriously vanished. All grown up now, she thrives on her hard-won independence.
When rumors of a new rash of shifter abductions crop up, she’s forced to come home to the Lone Pine Pride for protection—right as the man she’s always secretly wanted is about to marry her best friend. And right as she’s going into heat.
Roman Jaeger values his role as Alpha heir apparent, but he isn’t thrilled about his arranged marriage to the Alpha’s daughter—especially when his bride is just as nonplussed as he is—but he’ll do his duty for the pride. Seeing Patch again challenges his noblest intentions. The wildness in her sets him on fire, and he can’t resist the chance for one last fling.
Both know a future together is impossible. But when chemistry and sowing wild oats grows into a need deeper than lust, their bond could threaten the very heart of the pride they both love.
Warning: This book contains a strong sexy Alpha-to-be, an independent cougar-shifter who knows her way around a lion’s heart, secret affairs, arranged marriages, politics, passion, and a pride full of lions and tigers and bears. Oh my.
Her betrayal is unforgivable. But their passion? Unforgettable.
Lone Pine Pride, Book 3
Hawk-shifter Adrian Sokolov made the mistake of trusting the beautiful Dr. Rachel Russell once—and wound up drugged, captured, and experimented on inside Organization Labs.
He isn’t about to make the same mistake again, but when she offers to help him escape this hell hole, he can’t say no. Her only condition? That he take her with him.
From the moment Rachel discovered her bosses’ true intent, she’s been secretly smuggling shifters out of the Labs. But now the higher-ups suspect they have a mole, and it’s time to flee—but not before she frees the golden-eyed hawk she was forced to betray.
When their escape goes wrong, Adrian wakes, confused and alone, in the safety of the Lone Pine Pride infirmary and realizes he may have left behind the one ally the shifters had within the Organization—the same breathtaking woman who invades his dreams.
Now he must face the Organization that destroyed him… before she pays for his freedom with her life.
Warning: This book contains betrayals, escapes, rescues, plots, double-crosses, a sexy surly hero, a heroine who deserves sainthood… and a pride full of trouble.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Unbearable Desire
Copyright © 2015 by Vivi Andrews
ISBN: 978-1-61922-582-4
Edited by Christa Soule
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: May 2015
www.samhainpublishing.com