of your skin. You’d know me for what I am, what I’ve become. My secret would be out.
Those were words he could never say out loud. But the truth was that she didn’t want him to stop this. She was trembling and ready to take him on. The look in her eyes explained it all.
She reached for his shoulders, dug her fingernails into his shirt as if to tear away barriers and accept everything he had to give.
Forgive me...
He could try to be a man, and only a man, one more time.
For you.
Pulling her from the pillows, Gavin released the clasp keeping her lacy bra between them. As she fell back, he covered one of her breasts with his hot, breathless mouth.
The wolf swam in his bloodstream, causing his heart to thunder as Gavin drew her in, circling the pink raised tip with his tongue. A lick and a draw and then he bit down lightly, teasingly, sweating with the effort of holding passion back. None of this was enough by far, yet it was clear that he wouldn’t get much further if he hoped to maintain some control.
More thunder hammered his skull and beat at him from behind his ribs. Beneath his belt, his body was demanding this union, though shadows lengthened in the room, darkening the floor. Night was near, and inside of that darkness roamed a monster this woman needed protection from.
Two monsters, actually.
When he looked down, it was to find his shirt hanging open from mid-chest down, with a few buttons missing. The woman beside him was running her hands over his stomach with a touch like hot coals—over his abdomen and halfway around to his lower back. He arched with each incendiary caress, maintaining eye contact, holding his breath.
Her nails grated against his ribs to leave long red grooves. She let out a sultry, sexy-as-hell sigh that shook Gavin to his core. This was her own growl of need and longing, an expectation of the otherworldly boundaries she planned on obliterating with him, and a promise to see this through, whatever he had in mind.
“Who the hell are you?” he whispered as his chest met hers.
Her lips separated, luring him into a kiss, daring him to devour her. And what the hell, he would have done it anyway, damn the beast, damn the curse that mocked his life.
Or so his thoughts went until he heard a distant sound that froze him inches from her, and kept him from taking that beautiful mouth for all it was worth.
The roar echoed in the clearing around the cabin and instantly chilled Gavin to the bone. He hesitated for several agonizing seconds, horrified. “No. Not now. Not yet,” he whispered.
The woman in the bed also heard the noise. White-faced and wide-eyed, she sat forward, her heart beating as furiously as his.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Nothing you’d want to meet.” Even that much of an explanation seemed to expose too much, Gavin thought.
Damn the timing. He should have known better than to put his mind and energy elsewhere when he was sure the monster had returned.
On his feet in a flash, Gavin reached for the radio still tucked into his belt before deciding against using it. Who would believe him or want to face whatever made that awful roar?
With a graceful swing of one arm, he retrieved the gun from the floor and set it on the bed.
“I’m sorry.” After taking one last look at the woman who’d distracted him into nearly forgetting a vow, and with his heart filled with regret for having to pass up what she offered here tonight, he added, “Really sorry.”
Then he turned for the door.
She scrambled after him. He heard the sounds of her bare feet on the old wooden boards. “What was that?” she repeated. “Tell me.”
“Wolf,” he said. “Big one. Badass. Doesn’t belong here.”
“You have to go after it?”
Her voice kept him hard and hating the separation.
“I have to find that beast before it finds other things to harm,” he explained.
“Aren’t wolves usual out here?”
Gavin stopped at the front door thinking that people were so damn naive. But though this woman looked bewildered, she didn’t appear to be the slightest bit hurt by his hasty withdrawal, and only truly curious about the sound they’d heard. She didn’t ask him to explain his abrupt behavior. She was looking at him with hunger dilating her beautiful green eyes.
Grabbing her by the shoulders, Gavin tilted her head back with a small shake. She didn’t object, just bit her lower lip hard enough to bring up a droplet of blood with her tiny white teeth.
“Christ!” He wanted her so blessed badly, and to prove it, he kissed her mouth so savagely, she uttered a cry of surprise.
He kept on kissing her, deepening the union of their mouths, devouring all he found, breathing her in, tasting her sweetness. And she met him with the fervor of a storm.
God, yes, she was a storm encased in fragile human skin. But it was okay. He could get away now that he had an excuse. She wouldn’t have to see what might happen to him if he stayed.
Unsure of how long the kiss lasted, Gavin finally drew back. He’d done it, kissed her, and felt a kind of weary triumph about that. But he had to go, leave her, take care of this. Although he wanted nothing more than to stay, the monster out there in the dark had torn him apart, injected a beast into his bloodstream and then left him to die. That beast was outside right now, close enough to reach out and touch.
He had no choice here.
“Close the windows and lock the door,” he said with his lips inches from hers. “I shouldn’t have come here like this. I should have known better than to let it get so close.”
He turned to go, torn and hurting.
“What do you mean? What’s getting close?” she called after him as Gavin, broken and unfulfilled, strode across the yard, vaulted the fence and headed for the hillside, leaving perhaps the sweetest night of his life behind.
Skylar didn’t call for the ranger to stop as she stood in the doorway staring at the darkness settling over the mountains. The noise they’d heard hadn’t just interrupted her first unplanned one-night stand, it had jangled her nerves.
Harris’s haste in getting away from her would have seemed like a slap in the face if it had been for any other reason than going after whatever had made that terrible sound. His disappearance gave her breathing room to contemplate what she’d been about to do—to him, with him.
This whole night had proved a fairly spectacular hiccup in her present situation, and she wasn’t all that clear about what she wanted right then—a man or a creature that was more than a man. She wasn’t certain that a mere
