“What do we do now?” Wide-eyed, Alex stared at the wrecked car.
“You go home.” Rafe nipped Alex’s ear.
“But—”
“Go.” Rafe pointed his nose in the general direction of Alex’s house.
“Aw, man,” Alex grumbled. Head and tail hanging low, he trudged into the woods. At the ridge, he looked over his shoulder. His eyebrows lifted in a hopeful expression.
Rafe barked a warning. Alex’s nose wrinkled, pulling his upper lip over his canines. He slowly padded between the trees and disappeared from sight.
Rafe waited a few seconds and called out, “Alex, go home.”
A disgruntled growl rumbled through the forest, followed by a rustle of leaves, then silence.
Rafe turned toward the pale green Volkswagen Beetle, the right front side pinned against the opposite embankment. His own low, frustrated growl lodged in his throat. Of all the people in the Walker’s Run territory, the one woman he’d gone out of his way to avoid would have to be the one who almost killed him.
He should follow his orders to Alex and go home. The accident didn’t appear to be serious enough to have injured the driver. He could howl a signal to the sentinels. They’d take care of her.
His gut pinched and something deep in his chest tugged him to move forward. Toward the disabled car. To the woman behind the wheel.
The farther he padded forward, the more intense the feeling grew. He sat on his haunches. A soft burst of electricity pulsed through his nervous system. Ignoring the ticklish current, he stood as a man. “God, I need a drink.”
Rafe stalked toward the disabled car. His heart beat a weird tattoo of excitement and doom. The wolf in him couldn’t wait to see the human female. The man would rather be fed to a starving, angry bear.
Rafe had been sober for only twelve days when he’d met Grace Olsen at Brice’s thirtieth birthday party. Encountering her once was enough to deter all future interactions. Her tantalizing scent had captivated him from across the room. So much so that he’d had a hell of a time focusing on anything but getting close to her and marking her with his scent—something he could not, or rather would not, do.
At the time, he wanted to stay focused on remaining sober and putting the pieces of his life back together. Grace presented a complication he wasn’t equipped to handle and he’d gone to great lengths to avoid.
Rafe snatched open the car door. A myriad of scents—greasy fried potatoes, vanilla and sweet cream, and sickly sweet chocolate assaulted his nose.
Uck! He hated chocolate.
Snorting to clear his nose, he honed in on the more delicate musk of the woman slumped over the partially deflated air bag.
His breath knotted in the back of his throat.
“Grace?” The soft rise and fall of her shoulders were a comfort beneath his palm.
Leaning over her to shut off the engine, he breathed a deep lungful of her heady essence. A frisson that had nothing to do with the residual shift energy coursed through his body.
She squinted and a whispery moan escaped her clenched mouth.
“Grace, can you hear me?” Squatting beside her, he tucked a few wisps of blond hair behind her ear. A trickle of blood seeped from the half-dollar-sized knot forming along the hairline above her temple. “You’ve been in an accident.”
Her eyelids opened on a sigh and the clearest, darkest green eyes he’d ever seen peered at him.
Every cell in his body froze. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink. Damn near couldn’t think. Nine months hadn’t been long enough to weaken the pull he felt toward her, but he was in a better place to resist it.
“Rafe? Rafe Wyatt?”
He nodded. She recognized him and remembered his name. That shouldn’t make him feel good, but it did.
“Oh, no! The wolf!” Her panicked gaze darted past him. “Did I hit him?”
Either the knock on the head had really messed her up, or she didn’t know the truth about the wolves in Walker’s Run.
He guessed the latter. If the pack’s Alphena-in-waiting, Cassie Walker, had not confided in her best friend, then Rafe wouldn’t be the one to let the wolf out of the bag.
“He’s fine, Grace. I checked him before I came to you.”
“What a relief.” The strain on her face eased and she finally seemed to see all of him. “For Pete’s sake. Why are you naked?”
He stared at the open moon roof above Grace’s head, willing his body, his mind, and his wolf to behave.
“Haven’t you heard the stories?” He put an edge in his voice, despite the smile scratching at the corners of his mouth as Grace covered her eyes like the see-no-evil monkey. “I run naked through the woods and howl at the full moon.”
“The moon isn’t full.”
Rafe was thankful it wasn’t. His attraction toward her was real, dangerous, and something he wanted to avoid like the mange. A full moon would only heighten his awareness of her and weaken his resistance.
He lowered his eyes to her pink tank top and pink bottoms covered with tiny cat faces.
She liked cats and the color of bubble gum. Two strikes. One more and maybe he could get her out of his head for good. “Why are you driving around in your pajamas?”
“No one was supposed to see me.” She peeked through her fingers. “Hey! Don’t stare.” She slapped her arms over her chest, then quickly uncrossed them to grab her head. “Oh, no! I’m going to be sick.”
Covering her mouth, she bumped past him. He followed her to the spot beside the road where she’d dropped to her knees. Her stomach heaved, but expelled nothing. The muscles in her back rippled beneath his touch. “Relax. Everything will be all right.” He slowly stroked along her spine. As his hand warmed from the friction, something ebbed into his being. Something soft and feminine. Something that intrigued man and wolf. Something that would upend his life and he’d suffered enough upheaval. He couldn’t endure any more.
Grace swayed as she stood.
“I got you.” He pulled her against him. Her soft curves flush against his hard planes opened up a deep-seated yearning he needed to keep buried. But damn, it had been so long since he’d held a woman, and since he’d almost died tonight, what harm could come from a little hug?
The lightness of her feminine scent filtered through him. His ears tuned to the quiet, rapid breaths she swallowed. Her cantering heartbeat, softly thumping against his chest, slowed until the pace matched his. The synchronicity sparked an excitement that skipped along his nerves, soothing as much as it ignited him.
