A beat of silence passed between them. Colt rarely found himself at a loss for words, but he didn’t know where to begin. What did you say to a woman whose face had kept you alive on the brink of death?
I didn’t save you. You saved me.
She placed her hand on his pectoral, overtop the steady thrum of his heart as if she were counting the beats of his pulse beneath her trained fingertips to reassure herself he was alive.
As her hand connected with the material of his shirt, that distant electricity he remembered jolted through him, charging his limbs like a live wire as no other woman’s touch ever had. It made him ache in places he didn’t know he could hurt. Far worse than any physical pain the vampires had caused him. The kind of pain that didn’t lessen with time, but only grew more acute. Instantly, he recoiled from her touch. No. He couldn’t go there again. Not now. Not ever. No matter how much he wanted to. One night. That was all they’d promised. He wasn’t allowed more. He’d never be allowed more, even if the loss of her would nearly kill him. She could never be his.
Not with the secrets he kept.
He stepped away from her. He had to fight to force the words from his lips, to distance himself. In truth, all he wanted to do was to draw her close. If only circumstances were different…
He cleared his throat. “I want to make this clear from the outset: there can be nothing between us.”
The curt detachment of his words seemed to catch her off guard.
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“As much as we both can agree we enjoyed our…” He struggled to find the word.
Lovemaking. Passionate night. Intimacy. Best night of my life. Fuck.
“Tryst…” he finally offered.
Tryst? What the hell was that supposed to mean? The words they’d whispered, the intimacy they’d shared, all chalked up to a word meant to describe some fun one-night stand. Who even used the word tryst anymore? With every phrase he uttered, the pain inside him grew sharper. But he knew what had to be done.
End this now. It will only grow more difficult with time.
“It’s for the best that we stay away from each other.”
She was glaring at him, her lower lip quivering with hurt. The color returned to her cheeks as she slowly sat up. “Tryst? You call that a tryst?”
The hurt in her eyes cut him in two. Shit. What the hell was she doing here? He was never supposed to see her again, so when the vampires had tortured him, he’d allowed his mind to question, to wonder…to dream.
To hope for what could have been, if he were a different man.
Dreaming of her had been safe then. But now she was here and all too real…
As real as his lies, the dark side of his past that needed to stay hidden, which meant he needed her gone. If she didn’t leave soon, he’d break every rule he’d ever set for himself, every promise he’d ever made to his family, his pack, to James…
And then he would lose everything. His pack, the only family he knew.
As hard as he’d tried to resist it, there had been more than heat between them that night. Given time, he knew there could be more there, and he’d never felt that way with anyone. Not in all his years. And he couldn’t feel that way with anyone. He would never be afforded that luxury.
His tone deepened as he forced out words he didn’t mean or want to say. “No, I wouldn’t call it a tryst,” he said. “I’d call it fucking.” It was as vulgar as he’d intended. Meant to wound and, more importantly, to protect him and his secrets, his lies. “I thought I’d save you the army language. Even a commander’s vocabulary is hardly better than a foot soldier’s.”
“Or a sailor’s, for that matter,” she snarled.
His gaze flicked toward her. There was that viper-tongued pistol he’d missed…
“And what makes you think I’d even want another night with you?” Hurt shone through her eyes, and she hurled the question at him with every ounce of her pain.
He froze. Her attack stung, and if the smug look on her face was any indicator, she felt proud of that. She should have been. Few things ever caught him off guard. He was a man who made his living keeping his guard up. The largest and strongest werewolf army ever to have existed hinged upon him keeping his guard up.
Except on a rare night in the snow-covered Montana mountains when he didn’t…
She stood, brushing herself off before she pegged him with a hard stare. “You were good. But not that great.”
He chuckled dark and low. It sounded forced through the pain, but he didn’t care. She was challenging him. Plain and outright, which meant she was angry. He could withstand her anger. It was the hurt he couldn’t bear.
When he didn’t rise to the bait, her hands clenched into fists. “Is that all I was to you? Some silly tryst?”
A lump crawled into his throat. He couldn’t address what she was to him. Not now. Not ever. Not even he was that good a liar.
She stomped her foot, her frustration with him mounting. “Answer me,” she begged. “Please.” The hurt was back in her eyes, and it flayed him open. She was shaking her head. “Give me something, anything, Colt. Throw me a bone here, even if it’s just physical. At least tell me you enjoyed what we had.”
“Is that what you came for? Something purely physical?” His words were harsh, distant.
She shook her head. “You know that’s not true, but if that’s all you’ll give me, I’ll take it.”
He watched her, suspended in indecision between what he wanted and what he knew he couldn’t have. He needed to make her see. To show her that he could never be what she needed from him. To leave her wanting more. So then she’d realize that allowing this to go further would only cause pain for them both.
Fuck.
One taste. To prove his point. That was all he would allow himself.
In an instant, the dynamic between them switched. His eyes flashed to his wolf’s, and he could practically see her nipples tightening beneath her blouse. “So that’s enough for you, is it, Belle?” Slowly, he prowled toward her with the smooth gait of a predatory animal.
“Colt,” she warned. She backed away until she bumped into the far wall of his living room.
“Yes, Belle?” His words were a sultry purr.
He eased closer, and she sucked in that little intake of breath, the one she did every time she anticipated him touching her. Lowering his head to her neck, he inhaled the scent of her curls. She smelled divine. Like sex and sunshine and everything he’d ever wanted.
And more.
His lips grazed the beat of her pulse, hovering beneath her ear in that spot he knew drove her wild with need. “You came for the feel of my mouth on your skin…” he breathed.
He trailed a single hand up the side of her curves, the wide swath of her hip, the narrow band of waist, the soft mound of her breast, until he was brushing over her shoulder and gently twisting his fingers into her curls.
“The feel of my hands in your hair.”
Her breathing hitched.
He was rock hard and aching for her.
His other hand drifted down her side, toying with the edge of her jeans, until he dipped his fingertips beneath the edge, grazing the line of her undergarments. “The feel of my hand between your legs.”
She leaned into him, rocking her hips forward. He was dying to feel how wet she was. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself.
“Or the length of my cock buried deep inside you,” he whispered against her lips. He could practically taste her on his tongue. Her lips were like candy…
And he didn’t mean her mouth.
“And nothing more?” With that last word, he pulled away from her. It took everything in him to ease back, placing some much needed distance between them. He was torturing himself as much as he was teasing her.
“This can’t happen,” he reiterate
d as he slipped away from her. “We both know it’s not enough for you.”
For either of us…
“Fine,” she near growled. “I’m enough of a woman to admit it. But I’m also not the only one who wants this.” She stepped forward. Her small hand shot out, cupping the hard length of his cock through his jeans. Her hand barely covered the girth of him, but the feel of her palm pressed against his aching shaft would be enough to give him blue balls for days. Fuck. He had a feeling his own hand wouldn’t be much use for this ache.
He growled.
“Tell me I’m wrong.” A challenge blazed in her eyes.
He loved it when she was like this. Saucy, brazen, wild. He loved that he brought those things out in her. She had him there.
“You’re not wrong,” he admitted.
Releasing him, she stepped back. Instantly, he wanted her touching him again. He ached for her hand, wrapped around him and rubbing up and down the length of his cock.
Shit.
His attraction to her was fucking magnetic. Faint or not, bringing her back to his apartment when he knew they couldn’t be together topped his lists of not very bright ideas, right alongside his twenty-first birthday in Vegas and that one time he’d stupidly let Blaze use his Amazon Prime account.
Never again.
End this now. It’s only going to escalate from here.
Already he was envisioning bending her over his bed and taking her roughly from behind. He wanted to leave her aching for him. And he had a feeling that round ass of hers would look just as pleasing when pink as the gorgeous shade on her cheekbones.
“So you want to give me the real reason this can’t happen, Commander Casanova?” she said, breaking the tension between them.
He stiffened. He didn’t bother to ask where she’d heard that god-awful nickname. Likely one of his idiot soldiers when they’d hauled her in. They’d be running extra laps during training for weeks as a result. Normally, the nickname barely irked him, but on Belle’s lips, it pissed him off with rage he struggled to contain. He didn’t want to be Casanova to anyone.
Not anyone but her.
Colt settled on the best excuse he could find. He couldn’t ignore her. Not unless he wanted her to try to prove her own point again…which he did, if he was honest. To think this was the same woman who couldn’t so much as utter the word cock without turning fifty shades of red. Their night together had changed her. Filled her with confidence in her sexuality. He could see it.
“I make it a point never to be seen fraternizing beyond normal work relations with the females of our species, at least not at Wolf Pack Run. More importantly, there are extra considerations because…” He hesitated on the next words, trying to find the right phrasing.
“Because I’m not a Grey Wolf,” she finished for him. “Because I’m a Rogue with ties to the Wild Eight.”
He saw the disappointment in her eyes. “Because I’m high commander of the Grey Wolf armies,” he finished.
It wasn’t about her or being a Rogue. If only she knew how familiar he was with that life. But he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes, and as much as it killed him, he knew it was better this way. This was the closest to the truth he could give her. Not without revealing everything he’d worked his whole life to hide.
Couldn’t she see him for what he was? The monster he’d been born as? If she looked closely enough, she had to be able to see him. The real him. The truth beneath the Grey Wolf commander facade. His stare bore into her, urging her, willing her to see.
But she turned away from him in her hurt.
“Those were your words, not mine.” He wanted to make that clear. “Belle, I understand what it’s like to be standing on the outside looking in at something you want but can never have. Believe me when I say I know the feeling more than most.”
He lived that reality every day. As a child, he’d lived it when he’d been separated, excluded from his birth father’s pack—the bastard son of a monstrous man who couldn’t have given two shits about anyone but himself, even though Colt had been naive enough to want him to. And his mother, so caught up in her own nightmarish relationship with his sire that she failed to choose what was best for them both. Her death had been decades ago, yet his heart ached for her, for the ways he’d never know her now that she was gone. The Grey Wolves were his pack, his family. He loved them as his own flesh and blood, but they’d never truly be his family, his blood. No matter how hard he wished it.
Even as he stood among them, he’d always be the outsider looking in, his hidden truths keeping him forever separate.
And now, separate from Belle, too…
* * *
The pain in Colt’s eyes tore Belle in two, making her question all the truths he left unspoken, but what he had said vibrated through her, awakening her reason like a tuning fork. She couldn’t tell this cowboy she was pregnant with his child. Not when he viewed her as an outsider, thought so little of her, all because she’d been born a Rogue.
I thought you were different. She wanted to scream it at him from the mountaintops.
A familiar ache filled her whenever she looked at him now—a deep-seated longing. It started in her chest and resonated down to the heavy feeling in her womb. He was right, though she’d never admit it. Choosing to have a child might not have been a mindful decision, but she’d always wanted a family, children, and a partner to call her own and a pack to belong to, but as a Rogue, she’d never have those things, not even with this wild, feral Grey Wolf who made her feel things she hadn’t known she could feel. For a brief time, she’d thought she would find that sense of belonging in the Wild Eight, but it had all been a lie. She’d made the mistake of trusting them. It was her biggest regret.
And now…
She recognized she had no one to rely on but herself. She’d made this mistake before, and she wouldn’t make it again. She would wait until she was certain the pregnancy was progressing normally, beyond the first twelve weeks when the risk of miscarriage was high, and if that time came, then she’d give him the option of fulfilling his role as a father, but she’d be prepared to do this without his help. She had a friend, a fellow werewolf female she’d met in med school who’d become an obstetrician for humans. She could reach out to her, make her twelve-week appointment. And until then…this would be no one’s burden but her own.
“Don’t pretend that’s not what you were about to say, Colt. I’m a Rogue. I’ve heard that from pack wolves my whole life.”
“Why are you really here, Belle?” he repeated.
The stiff frustration in his tone meant he wouldn’t allow her to skirt the answer this time. But she wasn’t ready to tell him the truth. She had been when she’d arrived. She’d had the best intentions, but that was before she’d realized she didn’t mean anything to him.
“What about your family? Your friends? Your freedom? Hell, even the rodeo?” His questions flew at her like knives, cutting straight to the core and reminding her of everything she was missing.
Her hands clenched into fists, and she trembled. She felt light-headed and flopped onto the couch, sinking into the cushions so he didn’t have to catch her again, for the sake of the baby.
Oh God…
“My mother passed away years ago. She was all I had. As for friends, I thought I had one here”—her lips drew tight—“but clearly, I was mistaken.” Pushing herself to stand, she moved from the sofa toward the door. “I’ll see myself out.”
Colt shook his head. “No. You still haven’t answered me. Why are you here, Belle?”
She settled on the first thing that came to mind. “I swore to you that I would testify to the Seven Range Pact. After you saved my life—again—it seemed right to pay my debt. Even as Elizabeth Beautane, I can still do that.” It hadn’t been her original intention, but it was true. He may not want her, at least in a romantic sense, but she considered hi
m a friend all the same, and what the vampires had done to him sickened her.
She wanted revenge for him as much as he did. The way they’d hurt him…
It brought out a violent streak in her she hadn’t realized she had.
“I…thought I could help you,” she said.
“You thought wrong.”
He might as well have told her she didn’t mean a thing to him.
“After the massacre, I told the Pact what you overheard. I said they should consider it postmortem testimony. It was a lie, but it served a purpose. You got your freedom, and I had my counterstrike, or so I thought…”
Belle gaze softened. “What do you mean?”
“The Seven Range Pact voted against me.”
Belle’s stomach churned. After what the vampires had done to him, it was like throwing salt on an open wound. “Why would they do that?” she breathed.
He shrugged, but she knew it was a matter of life or death to him. “Lack of proof. Even though the vampires drew my blood when they held me captive, the Pact’s scientists think the serum is impossible. They say it was an intimidation tactic to throw me off my game.”
Belle was shaking her head. She’d overheard the conversation herself. It had never been meant for Colt’s ears. Intimidation tactic, her ass. “What about the other missing shifters?” she asked. “The bobcat? The cougar?”
Colt shook his head. “Both the bobcat pride leader and the cougar pride leader reported none of their packmembers missing.”
“Maybe not packmembers…” Belle’s eyes widened in realization.
Colt raised a brow.
“When I fled after the massacre, I found another Rogue house and—”
Colt scowled as he interrupted. “I thought I warned you about getting involved with the likes of that vigilante bastard. He’s dangerous. He—”
“Would you listen and not lecture, Commander?” she snapped. “There was a note. In the house. It was a warning note from him.”
“From the Rogue?” Colt’s Adam’s apple jerked. “Not a Rogue, but the Rogue?” His eyes widened in disbelief. “No one knows who he is, Belle.”
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