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  Still, she was afraid that she must act quickly, before something happened and he changed his mind.

  Although she had little experience with men, she was pretty sure she knew how to push him over the edge. With her eyes squeezed closed, she reached and found his hardened rod through his thin shorts and pressed her palm against him, rocking her hand.

  When she felt him shudder, she breathed out a little sigh, stroking her fingers against the firm shaft, listening to his breath quicken. Gods, he was big. Would he fit inside her?

  Well, she would find out soon, she knew, unable to keep a small shiver from going through her.

  When his hand came down over hers, lifting it away, her eyes blinked open to find him staring at her.

  She tried to drag her hand back, but he curled her arm inward, holding it against his chest.

  His voice was gritty when he asked, “Have you done this before?”

  She swallowed, astonished by the question. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I can tell you’re nervous.”

  “I . . .”

  “Have you done this before?” he asked again, more sharply.

  She dipped her head. “No. But I don’t want to stop.”

  “You always stopped before. With other men.”

  She couldn’t hold back a nervous laugh. “I never got this far before.”

  “Why?”

  There was too much to explain about the relations between men and women in her world, and if she tried to tell him any of that, she would get all tangled up in things she shouldn’t talk about at all.

  Raising her chin, she stared into his eyes. “Are you trying to come up with an excuse to stop?”

  “Yeah. And it wouldn’t be an excuse. It would be a perfectly logical course of action.”

  “Then stop being logical,” she managed to say, knowing she had no other words to continue the argument. She could only bring her mouth back to his for a long, passionate kiss. In the middle of it, she knew she had won. He wasn’t going to walk away this time.

  She thought it would happen fast now. She wanted it that way, so she wouldn’t have time to think—or worry.

  When he rolled up her T-shirt, exposing her breasts, her breath caught.

  He raised his hand, sliding his fingers across her tightened nipples. It was only the lightest of caresses, but it made her gasp.

  When he closed his thumbs and fingers around the crests, she arched toward him.

  And when he replaced one of his hands with his mouth, she thought she would go up in flames. He swirled his tongue around the erect point, then closed his mouth over her, sucking and mirroring the caress with his hand on her other breast.

  She stared at him, sure her expression must be equal parts shock and sensuality. She had known about kissing and touching, but she hadn’t known that a man might put his mouth on a woman’s breast, or how wonderful it would be.

  She felt her skin flush. Felt her breathing accelerate. Felt an unfamiliar heat gather between her legs. When she moved restlessly on the bed, he lifted his head, looking at her as he slid his hand down her body, playing with her navel, then the crinkly dark hair at the juncture of her legs. His touch in those places felt good. It was nothing compared to the burst of sensation when he dipped into the hidden folds below.

  It shocked her that a man was touching her so intimately, and even more shocking when she felt slippery moisture gather there.

  She should be embarrassed, but the heat smoldering in his eyes told her he liked her reaction.

  She caught her breath when he lifted his hand and licked his fingers.

  “That’s good,” he murmured as he kept his hot gaze fixed on her face. “I’d like a more direct taste, but I think that would be a little too much for you.”

  She swallowed. Surely he couldn’t mean . . . She stopped trying to figure it out when his hand went back to work and one finger dipped inside her.

  “What . . . are you doing?”

  “Giving you pleasure.”

  “I want to pleasure . . . you,” she managed to say. “Isn’t that what a woman is supposed to do?”

  “No more than the other way around. Unless the guy is a total jerk.”

  He bent to play with her breasts again, using his lips and tongue and teeth while he slid his hand up and down through her wet and swollen folds in long strokes that dipped inside her, then moved upward to a place that sent tingling sensations radiating outward through her whole body.

  As he touched her with such skill, she realized that he must have a lot of experience pleasing women.

  “I’m going to . . .” She didn’t even know how to finish the sentence. But she felt like he was pushing her toward some point of pleasure that was too much to bear.

  When she began to move her hips, he seemed to know what she needed. Increasing the pressure, he kept up the maddening stroking, until a kind of explosion quaked through her, starting at that point of sensation and making little spasms clamp her internal muscles around his finger.

  He stayed with her, drawing out the pleasure of it, and when it was over, her eyes blinked open, and she stared at him.

  “What happened to me?”

  “You reached sexual climax.”

  “You can do that without . . .” She let the sentence trail off.

  He answered with a shaky laugh. “Yeah.”

  She thought about what had just happened and what she knew about sexuality. “I reached sexual climax. You didn’t.”

  “I will.”

  He began to kiss her again, caress her again, and she understood that this time it wouldn’t be his finger inside her.

  Now more than ever, she expected it to happen quickly, but he surprised her again, kissing and caressing her until she felt that tempting pressure building inside herself once more.

  He kicked off his shorts and shifted on top of her, parting her legs with his knee as he kept kissing her, murmuring into her mouth. She felt the pressure of his rod against her and started to tense up. But he surged inside her, and she gasped as he broke through the barrier of her virginity.

  He went very still above her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hurt you.”

  “Only a little.”

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  “Gods, no.” Because she couldn’t say more, she moved her hips a little, feeling him slide inside her.

  He gazed down at her, watching her face as he began to move above her, slowly at first.

  Shifting to his side, he took her with him, caressing her breasts, then reaching between them to find that spot with his fingers.

  As he stroked her there, her pleasure built again so that she was soon moving against him as she had before.

  He moved, too, stroking in and out of her as he caressed her—until the explosion came again, more powerful than the time before. And while the aftershocks were still vibrating through her, she felt him follow her over the invisible cliff.

  She clung to him, pressing her face to his shoulder.

  “I’m glad it was you,” she whispered.

  “Yeah.” His hands slid over her back and shoulders, and she snuggled into his warmth. She had never imagined this contentment, this closeness, with another human being.

  His lips nibbled against her cheek and her sweat-slick brow.

  “Will you sleep with me?” she murmured.

  “Yes.”

  She drifted on a gentle cloud, her body cushioned against his.

  “It never would have been like that in my world,” she murmured.

  He lifted his head, staring down at her. “What do you mean, your world?” he asked.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  KENNA SWALLOWED. IN the afterglow of making love, the words had simply slipped out of her mouth, and now she scrambled for an explanation that would sound plausible.

  “My . . . community,” she managed to say.

  Talon pushed himself up, giving her a long look. Moments ag
o she’d been relaxed and cozy in his arms. But no longer.

  “Which is where?”

  Her throat clogged. She longed to tell him, but she knew it wasn’t possible.

  “We just made love, and you still can’t trust me enough to tell me where you come from?” he said in a rough voice.

  She looked down, unable to meet his gaze. She ached to speak honestly, but she had learned that was impossible.

  When she remained silent, he climbed out of bed, naked. As he stood looking down at her, she was suddenly very conscious that she was naked, too.

  She wanted to ask him to come back. Instead, she sat up, found the covers, and pulled them over herself. At least she wasn’t so exposed when she looked at him again. Making love had been magic. Then she had ruined everything. He had expected honesty from her, and she had denied it to him.

  He was speaking again, and she struggled to take in what he was saying. “At dinner I was going to talk to you about something.”

  Before she could comment, he went on. “I have a trip coming up. Day after tomorrow. I mean, I’ll be away from home with a group of men on a canoe trip. I’ll be meeting them at a parking area along the Clarion River, and I won’t be back for four days.”

  “You want me to leave?” she whispered, unable to keep her voice from quavering, or her body from trembling.

  “You can stay here while I’m gone, if you want.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “But there’s a complication. That gunshot last week. The guy who did it could be watching the house, and he might get bolder if I’m gone.” He shrugged. “So you could be in danger.”

  “Maybe your being away won’t make me less safe.”

  “Maybe.”

  Before she could answer, he turned and walked out of the room. Tears stung her eyes, and holding them back was too much effort. The beauty of making love with Talon was shredded around her. Because of the compulsion Vandar had placed on her.

  As she lay in bed confronting her misery, she told herself this was for the best. She wanted to stay with Talon forever. But that was impossible. Instead, she would complete her assignment and go back where she belonged.

  FOR the next day, as he prepared for his trip, Talon stayed out of Kenna’s way. Was he hoping that she’d tell him the truth about herself? Or hoping that when he came home she’d be gone?

  And was that what he really wanted? Did he want her to disappear from his life?

  “Up to her,” he muttered.

  Making love with her had been . . . He couldn’t finish the sentence because there were really no words to describe how good it had been.

  But what did that matter? If she couldn’t trust him enough to be honest, there was no future for the two of them. Or was he kidding himself about that? Was he stuck with her no matter what? Did the life mate of a werewolf feel the same compulsion he felt? Would it be impossible for her to leave?

  He should be worried about the shooter. In his present mood, this was the least of his concerns. Perhaps that meant he wasn’t acting rationally.

  He took a breath and tried to think through his options. Was there someone who could stay with Kenna? Keep her safe while he was gone?

  Could he send her to Ross?

  Yes. That might be the solution.

  Shit! He’d have to explain why she was so important to him. But he’d do it, because he wasn’t going to leave her here alone.

  Unable to deal with his roiling emotions, he doggedly checked his supplies and equipment for the trip and made sure everything was ready.

  Often he met his party at the lodge, but this time they were meeting at a parking lot in Ridgeway, one of the places where you could put boats into the Clarion River. He wasn’t sure why he’d made those arrangements. To keep Kenna’s presence at the lodge secret—for her sake? Or because he didn’t want to explain what she was to him?

  One thing he knew: after the confrontation in the bedroom, she’d been avoiding him, just as he was avoiding her.

  But he kept turning over that last conversation with her. She’d said “gods,” not “God.” Had he heard her right? And what did she mean about “her world”?

  Could Ross answer those questions?

  Maybe, but how the hell was he going to talk to another werewolf about it?

  While he dealt with his own anxieties, he couldn’t stop listening for her, even as he lay awake at night. Which was why he heard her tiptoe down the hall at two in the morning, then slip out of the house.

  Now what? Was she running away?

  His throat closed as he climbed out of bed and opened the sliding glass door that served as his bedroom window. After pulling off his shorts, he rushed through the chant that changed him from man to wolf. As soon as he came down on all fours, he was out of the house, sniffing the air. It took only moments to locate Kenna. Silently, he followed her into the forest, where she walked rapidly, using a flashlight. Over her shoulder she carried a backpack.

  She seemed to know where she was going. To meet the guy who’d buried the money? Had that been her intention all along? And now she was proving her duplicity?

  He kept expecting her to rendezvous with the man. Instead, she walked toward a house that was used as a vacation residence by a couple from Philadelphia, Mr. and Mrs. Winslow.

  Staying well back, he watched her climb the two steps to the porch and pause at the front door.

  He had thought the Winslows would have locked up the cabin, but after a few seconds, Kenna opened the door and stepped inside.

  The wolf moved closer, slipping from tree to tree in the darkness. He thought about climbing the front steps. But he decided it was better to wait until she came out and see what developed.

  KENNA knew she had to go home. But she had one more thing to do before she left. Teeth clenched, she closed the door. She’d used her telekinetic powers to open the lock, but she hated being in here, and she was going to get out as soon as possible. Still, she had to bring some artifacts from this world back with her, and she would rather steal them from the people who owned this house than from Talon.

  Walking quickly through the rooms, she took in the details. The house was much smaller than Talon’s, yet it was still luxurious by the standards of her world. She recognized the appliances in the kitchen: the stove, the refrigerator, and the dishwasher. The living room had comfortable furniture, in a much different style than Talon favored. The fabrics had flowers, and there were lots of pillows and knit blankets. In front of the fireplace was a fancy brass screen.

  The two bedrooms were furnished in the style of the living room. One looked like adults slept there. The other had a couple of dolls leaning against the pillows, and toy animals on the dresser. Opening the closet, she found small dresses on hangers. She might have taken one, but they were too pretty to steal, so she stepped back into the hall.

  She had thought the bathrooms in Talon’s house were luxurious. They were nothing compared to the bathroom connected to the bedroom where the adults slept.

  It was huge—larger than her bedroom back in Breezewood. The tub was enormous, big enough for two people, and there were two sinks, set in a stone top with a cabinet that looked like expensive furniture.

  Trying to select things that weren’t too valuable, she riffled through the drawers and took a package of soap. In the kitchen, she took a knife, fork, and spoon from another drawer. Then she plucked a book from the shelves beside the fireplace and picked up an old guide to the television programs.

  Was that enough? Quickly, she returned to the kitchen and took a can of soup and an old can opener. In the closet by the front door, she took one of the folded-up umbrellas. And from a jar on a shelf, she scooped up some of the coins that they used in this world.

  After putting everything into the knapsack she’d brought along, she hurried out the front door, locking it behind her.

  TALON waited in the darkness. Kenna was in the house less than fifteen minutes. When she came out again, she hefted the knapsack onto her
shoulder, and it looked like it was a lot heavier than when she’d gone in. She turned back to the door for a moment, then started rapidly into the forest.

  Again he waited to find out what the hell Kenna was doing. She headed back toward the lodge but stopped several yards from the structure, near the garage where he’d piled up wood chips to use as mulch. As he watched from behind the trunk of a tree, she looked around, then scooped out a hole in the center of the mulch, set the knapsack inside, and covered it back up again.