by Moira Rogers
She knew it was chilly in the barn, but she couldn’t feel it. Everything was warmth and desire and Colin, and she tugged at his shirt. “Take yours off too.”
That careful control didn’t extend to his own clothing. The neckline ripped as he tore his T-shirt over his head, and he cast it aside with rough impatience. His feverish gaze latched on to her fingers where they rested near her open pants.
Lorelei quelled a shudder and edged her hand inside the denim and under the cotton. Lower, until her fingers slipped over sensitized flesh and brought that shudder back to life.
Colin buried his face against her throat, his fingers flexing on her skin. “Don’t hold back. I need to know how you sound when you come.”
“Why?” The word broke on a gasp, and she arched off the worktable, pressing closer as she wrapped her other arm around his shoulders.
Teeth scraped her skin. “So I can imagine it tonight,” he murmured before biting the spot where her shoulder met her neck, sending another zip of pleasure up her spine.
“When you’re alone in your bed?” Lorelei wiggled until his hips pressed firmly between her thighs, pushing against the back of her hand through her jeans.
“Yes.” He splayed his fingers across the small of her back and held her close as his other hand twisted in her hair. “Or maybe in the chair. You were there long enough for it to smell like you…”
“I smell like me.” They were close, so close. All she had to do was kick off her jeans and open his.
His fist tightened behind her head with a roughness that bordered on too much, and she felt his growl as much as heard it—low and hoarse, vibrating through her. “Not in my bed,” he rasped hoarsely. “You can’t be in my bed yet. Not until there aren’t any lines.”
The pressure of his hand in her hair made her shift her hips. Her fingertips skated closer to her clit, and Lorelei bit back a whimper.
Colin repeated the gesture, pressing his mouth to her ear. “Make that noise again.”
A moan slipped free instead. “Tell me how you’ll touch me.”
“Fingers first. Soft, until you’re squirming. Then harder.” The words blew hot on her skin, hotter when he continued. “And when you’re panting, I’ll get my tongue on your clit.”
A delicious threat, one to feed a hundred fantasies. Lorelei obeyed Colin’s implicit instructions with a slow, careful circle of her fingertips, followed by a firmer caress. Her nails bit into his shoulder, and she turned her face to his. “Yes.”
He licked her lower lip and pressed his forehead to hers. “I’ll make you feel so good. So safe.”
The very concept seemed distant, foreign. There was nothing safe about the inescapable need burning her from the inside out. But good…
Oh, that was undeniable.
“Harder,” she whispered. Her hand brushed the erection straining his fly, and he hissed out a breath. So she did it again, deliberately this time, the caress too rough in counterpoint to her own questing fingers.
She yanked her hand free of her jeans and gripped his shoulders, locking her legs around his hips. “Please.”
“This is bending the rules,” he muttered, but then he was there, the unyielding steel of his denim-clad cock grinding between her thighs with just the right pressure to splinter blinding light behind her closed eyelids.
She scrambled to get closer, to ride the sensation cascading through her in a very real, very literal way. “I make the rules, remember?”
“Then tell me what you want.” He rocked harder. Faster. “Tell me what you need.”
The hair on his chest teased her already hard nipples to painful points, and she soothed them by pressing tight to his warm skin as she fed his earlier words back to him. “I need to know how you sound when you come.”
He growled. “That is cheating.”
Because it felt selfish to seek his own pleasure while she found hers? Or because he needed to hold on to control? Both were possible—and neither mattered.
Lorelei gripped his hips, urging him to give her more, held on tight and hid her face at the base of his throat. She licked the spot where his pulse pounded under his skin—once, twice—and bit him. Hard.
He froze, panting, her name a plea. “Lorelei…”
She stilled, as well. Maybe it did matter, after all—not that he wanted to hold back, but why. And until she knew those reasons, she couldn’t ask him to set them aside.
She wouldn’t.
Lorelei pushed herself back on the table and shoved her hair out of her eyes with one trembling hand. “I want to understand,” she whispered. “I want it more than this. Does that make sense?”
Heavy silence broke on his rough sigh, and he looked away as he straightened. “Trust,” he said finally. “I want it. I need it. But maybe I don’t feel like I deserve it.”
He couldn’t know how strongly the thought weighed on her, as well. She had to swallow around the lump in her throat. “Why not?”
He traced a line up her arm, his attention fixed on her shoulder and the tiny, swirling patterns he drew there with his fingertip. “Because it’s too easy for me to justify taking things I swore I wouldn’t. If I want something—someone—badly enough.” His gaze leapt to hers, dark and intent. “I want you. Would you say no, if I wanted too much?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “If it was too much for me, absolutely.”
He touched his thumb to the corner of her mouth with a crooked little smile. “It doesn’t feel right to do more, not when we made the agreement when we were both clearheaded. Maybe you still are, darling, but I’m sure as hell not. I’m drunk on you. And that’s why. If I’m ever going to trust myself, I need to know I won’t break a promise, even if being inside you seems more important than breathing.”
Later, then, when they’d both had time to catch up to the spinning. “Next time?”
“Oh, yeah.” His thumb traced her lower lip and then slid just as gently across the upper. He watched her with hunger, a barely banked fire that could flare to life again with a single breath. “If you trust me.”
She always would, as much as she could, because someone needed to. “You’d hurt yourself before you hurt me. I believe that.”
“Thank you.” He leaned in to kiss her, just a warm, quick brush of lips, and when he retreated he was smiling. “Maybe we could go for a run sometime. In a few nights, when nobody needs us.”
“Whenever we can.” With so many questions lingering about the magic spell, it was impossible to know for certain.
Colin swept up his T-shirt and offered it to her in silence. Pulling it over her head would surround her with his scent, a claim every bit as real and primal as the marks of his teeth on her skin.
Lorelei took it and rubbed the soft, wash-worn fabric between her fingers. “Mine won’t fit you.”
He shrugged one beautifully muscled shoulder, a show that must have been at least a little bit for her benefit. The glint in his eyes confirmed as much. “I’ll have to finish my construction work shirtless.”
The heat of arousal prickled over her skin, but an entirely different kind of warmth bloomed in her chest, bubbling up along with a laugh. “Tease.”
“Of course not,” he replied with mock seriousness. “It’s just a lot of hammering.”
“You’re lucky I like you.” Lorelei tugged his shirt over her head and shivered as the cotton caressed her skin. “I like you a lot.”
With another of those heart-lurching smiles, Colin closed the distance between them and wrapped her in a hug. “Then I’m the luckiest wolf in Tennessee.”
Just like that, need flared again, and she almost bit him. Instead, she closed her eyes, turned her cheek to his shoulder and let him hold her.
Every moment they shared had a way of turning into something deeper than she’d anticipated. They were close enough to touch hearts as well as bodies, already inextricably entwined. Fast—too fast, maybe, when there were so many things he didn’t know.
No, he wasn’t safe.
And neither was she.
Chapter Ten
Confession wasn’t a possibility anymore. It was a priority.
Even fresh from the shower, Colin could smell Lorelei on his skin. Just a hint, along with the lingering memory of her naked skin pressed to his as they groaned and writhed toward the brink of release only to stop frustratingly short. Hugs and soothing and the trip to Memphis might serve as explanation for the scent for a few more days, but Jay and Eden weren’t stupid. And Eden—Eden, with the unpredictable temper of a newly turned wolf and the protective instincts of an alpha three times her age—
If the alphas decided Colin had taken advantage of Lorelei, Jay wouldn’t hesitate to administer a calm, collected beat down. Eden might just grab the nearest sharp object and shiv him.
The house was eerily quiet when Colin stepped from his room. Shane was already gone, having undertaken the long trip to the nearest airport to fetch the visitors from Red Rock, and the women had been in the barn all morning, arranging supplies on the new storage shelves.
All except for Stella, who had suffered a hard blow to her confidence. The apprentice witch had been making herself scarce, her rare appearances plagued with such guilt that Colin was having a hard time holding on to his anger at her.
Colin started for the back porch, intending to check on Lorelei one more time before submitting himself to Jay’s judgment, but the rumble of low voices coming from the kitchen slowed his pace. Two more steps, and the sound resolved into Fletcher and Jay engaged in a disagreement.
“—know I don’t have anything against witches on principle,” Fletcher was saying, his voice intent. “Hell, my mother’s one. But the more outside magic you bring into the pack dynamic, the more unbalanced it gets.”
Jay sighed. “Even if I were inclined to agree with you, these aren’t normal circumstances. Like it or not, there’s magic here, and we need magic to fight it.”
“At the expense of our own kind?” Fletcher demanded. “Tammy and her son are the only ones left at the little house. I failed them, Jay. I couldn’t make the others feel safe—not when a witch killed one of their pack and they heard another was on the way.”
Colin tensed. There had been two other wolves from Memphis—Terrance and Cash, mid-rank wolves from Christian Peters’ pack who had snatched at the chance to flee to a newly created sanctuary. Both had been abused by their alpha—but both had stood by in silence while Christian rampaged through Memphis, unwilling to risk themselves by fighting back.
Understandable, perhaps, but hardly sympathetic on a farm full of Christian’s victims. The regret Colin should have felt was hard to summon. Even Mae—submissive, soft Mae—had risked herself to protect those she loved. Lorelei and Kaley had damn near walked through fire, and had the burns to prove it.
Fletcher was wrong, and Jay told him as much. “I find it hard to care about their petty fears when they spent months refusing to stand up to Peters. He was never strong enough to rule alone, even as a tyrant. He depended on the others not rising against him, and they obliged him willingly enough.”
“You know what, Jay? Life’s not always as black and white as you think,” Fletcher snapped, and the irritated wave of power gave Colin just enough warning to resume his walk before the other wolf slammed out of the kitchen. He started at seeing Colin but hurriedly smoothed his features. “Need something?”
“Just looking for Jay.” Colin studied Fletcher, not bothering to pretend he hadn’t heard the end of the argument. “You all right?”
“Always.” Fletcher turned on his lazy smile, as easy as flipping a switch, and patted Colin on the shoulder on his way by. “Step lightly. I pissed him off.”
Great, thanks. Colin bit back the words and watched Fletcher stalk toward the front door. He’d known the other wolf long enough and well enough to trace Fletcher’s defensiveness to its source—the tyrant who’d taken his father’s position. The one he’d never returned to face.
Jay would understand, so Colin rounded the corner into the kitchen with little concern for the alpha’s current state of agitation. Whatever his annoyance with Fletcher, it would be nothing compared to how much Colin was about to piss him off.
Some masochistic part of himself he hadn’t dreamed existed was almost looking forward to it.
“Not you, too.” Jay finished pouring a cup of coffee and raised an eyebrow. “Want one?”
Colin opened his mouth, intending to accept, but the truth came out instead—the blunt, nearly belligerent truth. “I almost had sex with Lorelei.”
Jay froze with the coffee carafe held aloft. “You what?”
“I touched her.” And the feel of her lingered on his fingertips, so he balled his hands into fists. “I wasn’t taking advantage. She approached me. More than once, and I don’t think it’s just about comfort. It’s not for me.”
“I see,” Jay said flatly. “And because she approached you, you think that means you weren’t taking advantage?”
“No.” For all the self-doubt that had plagued him, he felt none of it now. Faced with an alpha whose gaze was anything but friendly, Colin had the confidence of pure intentions, and the peace of being willing to accept the consequences if those intentions weren’t enough. “I think I wasn’t taking advantage because she told me so, and I’ve had enough honesty from her to feel comfortable I know it when I hear it. But that’s just my opinion, and I agreed to abide by yours. So I’m being honest with you now.”
“I didn’t think you’d do it.” Jay pulled out a chair at the table and gestured to it before sinking into a second one. “But I wouldn’t have mentioned her attraction to you at the festival if I wasn’t okay with you acting on it.”
It was irrational to be irritated, but the emotion bubbled up nonetheless as he stared at Jay across the table. “I didn’t act on her attraction. I acted on my own.”
Jay snorted. “I hope you were acting on both.”
“That’s not—” Colin fisted his hands on the table and took a deep breath. “I expected you to kick the shit out of me.”
“That’d be rather hypocritical of me, wouldn’t it?”
Colin thought about Eden—violent, newly made Eden—and honestly couldn’t decide. A new wolf was always more vulnerable than one who’d found her footing, but Eden had been reborn into strength and power that matched Jay’s. Colin could feel the weight of responsibility on his shoulders every time he touched Lorelei. Not because she was weak, but because her strength came from an ability to bend and endure.
“I don’t know,” he admitted finally, dropping his gaze to his fists. “I’d walk away from all of this before hurting her. If I knew I was hurting her. But it’s been a long time, Jay. I don’t remember all the rules.”
“You’re worried.” Jay sipped his coffee. “If you were really out of control, I doubt you’d be aware enough to worry.”
It had a perverse sort of logic, and Colin felt his lips twitch. “You trust me not to cross any lines because I told you I’m scared of crossing lines?”
“Not entirely, but it doesn’t hurt.” He shrugged. “I was never seriously concerned about any of you taking advantage of the women, Colin. I did think you could get tangled up, though—especially if you thought you were giving them something they needed. That’s the thing I never wanted to happen.”
“Us thinking they needed it when they didn’t? Or them needing it and us thinking it was more?”
“You, feeling like you had to give them something good, even if you didn’t feel it a hundred percent.” His mug hit the table with a thump. “That’s the true curse of an alpha wolf, right? Not being able to stand watching others’ pain?”
It was Colin’s turn to snort. “I can’t stand any of their pain. But I’m not feeling the urge to soothe Kaley and Mae in the same way, no.”
“That could be more self-preservation than anything.”
Colin raised an eyebrow. “I know Zack’s a live wire, but do you really think Shane’s that…possessive?”
Jay tapped his fingers on the table. “Maybe not. Then again, warning you off Mae doesn’t have to be about possessiveness.”
“He’s that protective,” Colin conceded. “But that’s all beside the point. I don’t know what I’m feeling…and that’s how I know it’s not that. I’ve done the hero thing, man. Killed the monsters, and had the girls left behind give me the big eyes. I know what the white-knight thing feels like, and this isn’t it.”
“Then I don’t see why you expect me to kick your ass.”
“Because I didn’t tell you sooner. Or just…” Colin half-shrugged. “Maybe because it all seems too good to be true. Gotta wake up from the dream sometime, right?”
Jay’s eyes held as much understanding as sympathy. “She trusts you. That part seems real enough.”
“And everything else is still going to hell, I guess.” Colin managed a smile. “But help’s on the way as we speak. Maybe Stella’s mentor can pry her out of her room. It’s hard to be mad at her when she’s on a guilt bender.”
“She thinks she should have known somehow. I’m not sure she really believes she could have, but that doesn’t stop the guilt. You know that as well as I do.”
“I do.” Just like he knew that Stella would only get past it if she could face what she’d done and forgive herself. Not easy tasks—for an apprentice witch or a dominant wolf. “Once we get this magic thing straightened out, I’ve got a new task I want to concentrate on.”
“And what’s that?” Jay asked.
“Helping Zack get better.”
The alpha’s gaze sharpened. “For whose benefit?”
“His.” When Jay kept looking at him, Colin shifted in the chair. “Theirs, mostly. Hers.”
Somehow, the answer seemed to satisfy him. “All right, but you shouldn’t wait. He needs a friend right now.”
