He opened his mouth, but the little she wolf refused to let him get a word in edgewise. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had taken that tone with him, all bossy and pissy and arrogant. Not even Graham did such a good job of goading his wolf as this bundle of anger and oncoming heat. His eyes narrowed as her emotions intensified her scent.
“So, fine. We both know where we stand, and as far as I can see, continuing to bitch at each other isn’t likely to change either of our minds. Why waste the energy? Especially when I’ve got a thousand and one more important things to do in order to keep this pack running. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m getting back to work. I wish like hell that you’d get your ass out of my territory, but since I don’t see that happening any time before Sunday, I’m not going to bother worrying about it. All I ask is that you stay out of my way. Go do what you have to do, talk to whatever members of the pack you want to talk to, watch whatever you want to watch, but just stay the hell out of my way. All right?”
She skewered him with one last glare, wrenched the shovel out of the dirt, and turned her back to him. She actually turned her back. It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull, only red was the color he pictured turning her ass, and the bull was the wolf inside him who figured spanking her could wait until he’d pinned her down and mated her a time or two. Or twenty.
His nostrils flared and he inhaled deeply. With every breath he took, he could feel the full moon drawing closer and smell her heat building. The fragrance filled his head like a mist, making his thoughts foggy and his dick hard. Goddess help them both.
“No.”
He barely understood himself. The denial came out as more of a growl than a word, a rumble pulled from a throat more inclined to form Lupine howls than human words. His wolf wanted out, and only the force of his will kept his change at bay. He liked to think that if he had been a weaker male, he’d already be sprouting fur. That was the effect this woman had on him.
“Well, that’s just sad for you, then.” She dropped the shovel and bent down to shift a particularly large stone. “Too bad I don’t give a shit. Now go away and leave me the fuck alone.”
“No.”
He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. Saliva pooled in his mouth as his beast imagined the taste of her; his palms itched as he pictured the feel of her smooth skin under his hands. His control hung by a thread, and with every insulting word she uttered, it was as if she sawed at that thread with a tiny, diamond-edged knife. A few more strokes, and not even the Moon herself could stop him.
“Okay, you know what? I give up. I didn’t think it was possible, but you really are dumber than you look.” Honor threw up her hands and all but howled at him. “What part of ‘get the hell away from me’ do you not understand?”
Logan was on her before she got it out, the thread a distant, severed memory. “The part about ‘away,’” he growled, and closed his mouth over hers.
Five
Oh, shit. Not again.
Yes, please, thank you.
Honor couldn’t seem to make up her mind. Or rather, her hormones. Was Logan Hunter the best thing she’d ever tasted and the one thing she needed more than her next breath, or did she need to kill him and leave his carcass for scavengers to denude the flesh from his bones?
While she pondered, he gave a little roll of his hips against hers and threatened to turn the tide of the whole debate. Not to mention the planet.
Hell, it threatened, promised, and carried out. One minute Honor was contemplating how his head would look posed on a spike in the flower beds next to the front door, and the next, she clung to him like a honeysuckle vine, arms and legs twined around him as she tried to get as close as she possibly could to the source of her arousal.
Damn heat. Why Lupine women couldn’t have a normal female menstrual cycle, Honor had never understood. No, she had to go through a monthly bout of nearly uncontrollable lust and a frantic desire to mate every single time she ovulated. How was that right?
Logan didn’t seem to mind. His arms closed around her and hitched her higher against him, until her legs wound around his waist and his hips could grind directly between her legs. That felt good for all of seven milliseconds before Honor wanted more. She gritted her teeth against the urge to sink them into his flesh—something a male Lupine usually took as an invitation—and concentrated on remembering to breathe. That lasted five milliseconds. At that point, she gave up on good sense and reached for his shirt collar, grabbing hold and wrenching her hands apart until his buttons popped open and scattered about the floor of the clearing.
Three milliseconds later, she felt the impact of her back hitting the rough bark of a tree trunk and a distinct draft as her T-shirt tore down the middle and fell to hang limply off her elbows. If the man kept this up, she’d have to live permanently in her wolf form for lack of clothes.
That didn’t seem so bad, though, not when he was nibbling a path from her mouth, down her throat, to her breasts. She felt the little stings of his teeth against her skin, followed by the heat of his tongue laving the wounds, and the pressure of his mouth as he sucked her skin against his teeth. She’d look like a hickey map of the Milky Way by nightfall, and she couldn’t have cared less. All she cared about was getting her hands on him and easing the burning ache between her legs.
Her hands clenched the material of his shirt, and she shoved it off his shoulders and arms, tugging furiously until it gave up and fluttered to the ground beside them. Then her hands were on him, exploring the smooth expanse of muscle and skin, the furring of hair across his chest, the tight, flat discs of his nipples. She wanted to taste him, but he was too bloody far away, so she memorized his textures as if she were blind and he was her very own form of Braille. When her hands slipped below the waistband of his jeans and her nails scraped intricate patterns in the skin at the small of his back, he roared and shifted his weight to the side, tearing open the fly of her own jeans until he could slip his hand inside and plunge two long fingers deep into her slick heat.
“Logan!”
Her cry sounded choked and harsh to her own ears, but it was the most she could manage when her world was exploding behind her eyes like summertime fireworks. She tilted her hips to take him deeper and then moaned in frustration when he pressed knuckle deep inside her. It wasn’t enough.
“More. Now.”
He didn’t answer, but the rough rumble in his chest sounded like approval to her. Shaking with need, she reached between them for the button on his jeans and popped it open, only to encounter another one. Her eyes widened incredulously.
“Button flies?”
He growled in frustration and used his free hand to yank open the next button. “I know. Never again.”
The third and fourth buttons gave easily, practically leaping out of their holes to avoid their owner’s ire. As soon as the stiff denim parted, his cock sprang free and Honor all but wept in relief. Her hand curled around it, stroking down the length and back again. He felt amazing, hot and thick and achingly hard, and she needed him inside her. Now.
Giving up the last of her restraint, she ducked her head forward and sank her teeth into Logan’s shoulder, directly over the spot where she’d bitten him last night in the kitchen. Holding on, she released her grip on his cock only long enough to unzip her own jeans all the way. The rasping sound seemed to echo around them, then her jeans fell away under his hands and her legs were winding back around his waist. She reached for him again, but he was there before her, guiding himself to her liquid entrance. He paused briefly, his hot gaze capturing hers, before he tightened his hands on her hips and plunged deep.
Her cry, all hoarse triumph and blatant challenge, rang through the clear air around them. Logan grunted and leaned into her more heavily, pinning her to the rough tree trunk as he began thrusting inside her.
Honor squirmed to get closer, ignoring the scrapes and patches of raw skin the rough tree bark left on her back. Her awareness encompassed
no more than him. Logan. The man against her, around her, inside her. The man who felt like home, whose body had been made to fill hers.
She thrust back at him, frantic to take him, all of him. His cock stretched her wide, filled her to the heart, and still she wanted more. She braced her hands against his shoulders and pushed, trying to get the leverage to increase the force of his thrusts. He growled a warning and pushed her hard against the tree. She snarled in his ear, but before she could bite, he shifted. His hands snaked down between them and spread her thighs even wider. He hooked his elbows behind her knees and pressed her legs up and back, and she felt his next thrust in the back of her throat.
God, he felt incredible inside her. Hot and thick and hard and so perfect her head spun with it. She felt the truth pounding at her in time with his movements, but she shoved it back in fear. She did not need or want this right now. Sure, her life sucked these days, but it sucked on her terms. If she gave in and accepted the truth she could feel haunting her, her terms would cease to exist. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. The only terms Logan Hunter intended to play by were his own, and Honor knew that giving in would cost her more than she was willing to pay.
She could feel his muscles tensing beneath her clutching hands. She felt the slickness of sweat and of blood where her nails had bitten deep and carved furrows in his broad back. He began to thrust harder, if that were possible, to quicken his motions until he moved with blurring speed and force and Honor had to abandon her efforts to keep up. She simply held on for dear life. Higher he drove them, and faster, until Honor could feel the tension twist between her hip bones like a tightened rubber band, ready to snap.
She forced her eyes open and met his gaze. His eyes looked hot and wild, glowing a feral gold with hunger and instinct. She knew what he was about to do, and she couldn’t let it happen. Her body tensed, the first wave of orgasm gathering inside her, preparing to break. Logan growled in response to her body’s instinctive tightening and his hands bit deeply into her hips, leaving bruises where tanned fingers gripped creamy flesh. He shifted abruptly and forced her hips to tilt upward until the base of his cock rubbed against her clit as he thrust, and Honor broke.
The climax seized her by the scruff of her neck and shook her like a disobedient cub. Her body clenched around him, milking his cock in hot, slick motions, dragging him into ecstasy behind her.
She felt the moment of his explosion and twisted her torso to the side, raising one arm to deflect his bite, catching it on the muscular flesh of her bicep, rather than on the shoulder where he’d been aiming. She heard his muffled roar, but his jaw had already clenched shut around her arm and he couldn’t pull away. He mouthed the skin as his body emptied itself inside her, a growl rumbling low in his throat. Honor hung there, pinned between the tree and his shuddering body for endless minutes until his tension eased.
He raised his head to glare at her, brown eyes still glowing an amber gold with the aftermath of his climax. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“You shouldn’t have tried to mark me.” She shivered, suddenly aware that they were all but naked outside in the stone yard in the middle of winter. Never mind that steam billowed off them in a hazy fog; she wanted her clothes.
“You are mine.” Logan shook her, staring into her eyes as if he could will her to agree with him.
“I don’t belong to anyone. Least of all you. I bear no man’s mark, and I intend to keep it that way.”
He snorted. “What are you? The Virgin Alpha? I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but your name isn’t Elizabeth.”
“It doesn’t need to be.” She shoved hard at his shoulders, and he grunted, but didn’t release her. “Let me go and get the hell off my property. We’ve said everything we need to say, and I need to go take a frickin’ shower.”
His jaw snapped shut, loud enough for Honor to hear the click. When he spoke from between clenched teeth, it sounded as if it came from a wolf’s throat, not a human larynx. “Not yet. I’m not done. You will be my mate, Honor. No matter what I have to do to convince you.”
He carried her to the floor of the clearing and went ahead with the convincing. All Honor could do was moan.
* * *
“This doesn’t change anything, you know.”
Logan sighed and stretched, shifting his weight partially off Honor’s limp body and onto the rough ground. “I never thought it had.”
He might have hoped, but he hadn’t really let himself believe any different. In the twelve hours or so that he’d known Honor Tate, he’d come to realize she could teach stubborn to Missy Winters.
Logan winced at the reminder of his own pack and why he’d come to Connecticut in the first place. It unfortunately hadn’t been to roll around the forest floor with the mouthwatering alpha of the White Paw Clan, but to decide if she had what it took to lead her pack. Something about which he hadn’t yet made up his mind.
“Just so we’re clear.” She pushed him off her, forcing him to roll onto his back so she could sit up and brush the bits of leaves and dirt from her skin. “Now when are you leaving?”
“Sometime next week. Just like I told you.”
She turned to him with narrowed eyes, an expression entirely different from the one she’d worn about ten minutes ago.
“Wrong answer. Try again.”
Logan shook his head. “Honor, I’ve been here for barely twelve hours and I’ve already seen you have to take down one male and had another all but introduce himself to me as alpha in your place. Do you honestly think—”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m just trying to point out that—”
She growled, low and vicious. “What. Member. Of this pack claimed my title to an outsider?”
Logan tightened his lips. “On my way here, a male stopped me. He didn’t tell me he was alpha, but he wanted to welcome me to the territory and clearly would have been happy for me to draw my own conclusions.”
“Who.”
She wasn’t even pretending it was a question.
“Darin Major.”
The tension popped like a balloon, huffed out on a bark of a laugh, and Honor returned her attention to searching for her clothes. “Darin. I thought I was going to have a problem for a minute.”
“You don’t think a male member of your pack assuming your position before outsiders is a problem?”
“No, I just don’t think Darin is a problem.” She met his gaze briefly. “Trust me, I know all about Darin and his delusions of grandeur. I can handle him. Even if he were to challenge me, I can take him. He’s not a threat.”
“The question isn’t just whether or not you can take him. Don’t you think your regional alpha would be a little bit concerned if the alpha of this pack couldn’t go a week without someone challenging for the position? Graham wants stability.”
“And I’ll provide it. In fact, why don’t you go tell your boss that right now? If you get on the road before noon, you can beat most of the traffic back to New York.”
Logan groaned and covered his eyes with his forearm. “Look, I think we’ve come to a Mexican standoff.” He shifted to look at her and tried desperately not to get distracted by the sight of her bare breasts and the marks he’d made on them, most of which were already fading. “You’re not going to change your mind about having me here, and I’m not going to change my mind about staying. So I have a proposal for you.”
“Does it involve you catching the next green light back to the city?”
“No. And that’s not just because I have lousy luck with traffic signals, either.” He saw her looking around for the remains of her T-shirt and felt a twinge of conscience. He handed her his mostly intact, if buttonless, shirt and watched her shrug into it. “I intend to stay until I find out what I came here to find out.”
“It doesn’t matter what you say. This pack is not going to change, and I’m not going to give it up and make a graceful exit no matter what you think your job is or wh
at you decide is best for us.” She tied the ends of the shirt into a knot below her breasts and reached for her jeans. “You’re wasting your time.”
All of a sudden he realized she’d never been wearing a bra and his body responded in a pretty predictable fashion. He drew one knee up to his chest and rested his forearm across it. In spite of the pleasurable interlude they had just shared, he still wasn’t sure if it was safe to leave any of his body parts sticking out and vulnerable around this testy female.
“It’s my time to waste, but I don’t think that’s what I’ll be doing, anyway. But here’s what I’m thinking.” He waited until she fastened her jeans and turned to him with an impatient expression. “The full moon is in three days.” Along with the peak of her heat, but he wasn’t thinking about that, and he certainly wasn’t going to mention it. “It will be the first Howl since your father’s death. It would be a perfect opportunity for me to see the dynamics of the pack and to get the answers to the Silverback alpha’s questions. If you can put up with me for another seventy-two hours, I’ll leave after that without a fuss.”
“Why? Give me a good reason. I have every right to order a nonmember out of pack territory. I don’t have to let you stay.”
“You do if you want to avoid a clan war.”
He saw her pause, saw his words sink in and make her think. He kept his gaze level, but unthreatening. He needed her to know he meant what he said, but he didn’t want to come across as any more hard-nosed or unyielding than he had to. He walked a delicate tightrope, but his balance had always been good.
“Winters would really take it as far as a war? That’s insane. This pack isn’t big enough to make a difference to him. It shouldn’t matter to the Silverback who leads the White Paw, so long as they aren’t intending to lead it into his business. And trust me, I’m not. So why is this suddenly a life-or-death situation?”
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