TEACHER’S PET WOLF

KATI WILDE

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

TEACHER’S PET WOLF

Copyright © 2019 Kati Wilde

Cover design by Kati Wilde. Stock photos licensed from Adobe Stock. Woman on bed © razoomanetu. Full moon © ricardoreitmeyer.

All rights reserved.

First Digital Edition, July 2019

katiwilde.com

CONTENTS

Teacher’s Pet Wolf

1.  Alicia

2.  Ranger

3.  Alicia

4.  Alicia

5.  Ranger

6.  Alicia

7.  Ranger

8.  Alicia

9.  Ranger

10.  Alicia

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Also by Kati Wilde

Newsletter

TEACHER’S PET WOLF

This sexy alpha intends to teach his mate a few lessons about local wildlife…

Alicia Simmons rarely lets anyone get too close. So crushing on a hot wildlife expert via videochats in her classroom is completely safe. The long-distance flirtation means no expectations—and no expectations means no disappointment…or hurt. And when Ranger tells her he’s visiting her neck of the woods, spending a few days—and nights—with him doesn’t sound too dangerous, either. Sure, when the fling is over, she’ll have to pick up the pieces of her heart. But at least he’ll be safe from the beast inside her.

Except Travis Ranger isn’t coming for a fling. He’s coming for Alicia. And he’s got a lot to show the shy science teacher…starting with a lesson about what happens when a wolf finally gets his claws on the woman he’s waited far too long to claim. And no matter how hard she tries to push him away, he’s never going to let her go.

Because Alicia thinks she’s a beast? His shy little teacher hasn’t seen anything yet…

1

ALICIA

“CAN WE QUIT NOW?” Maria’s voice breaks through the quiet in my empty classroom as I’m adding up the points on a chemistry quiz. “Give me permission to quit now. Or kill me. I don’t care anymore. I just want this misery to end. Are you even listening to me, Alicia? Because you look like you’re ignoring me in this time of desperate need. Are you grading something important there? Am I messing up your count? Am I? Five, seven, eight, two, three thousand and twenty-four…”

Laughing, I write the score at the top of the sheet and glance up. Maria’s leaning back against the frame of my classroom’s open door, forking something green and leafy out of a huge Tupperware container, and looking gloriously frazzled—dress shirt untucked from her pencil skirt, curling brown tendrils falling out of her French braid, cat-eye glasses perched at the tip of her nose as if pushing them into place will take more strength than she has left.

“Only three more days,” I remind her.

“Three more days of classes,” she emphasizes. “But another week for us. So you know what unfresh hell will continue?”

“Lauren reheating fish in the microwave?”

I make it sound like a question, but it’s not a guess. Though the teacher’s lounge is on the opposite side of the building, I can smell the fish from here. And I’ve been trying to ignore it. Trying so hard, though my stomach keeps rumbling and my mouth keeps salivating. Because the smell doesn’t nauseate me. Not like it did only six months ago. Instead it just makes me hungry.

But everything makes me hungry.

“Yessss,” Maria hisses, then shoots a furtive glance around to make certain no students hear her continue, “Effing Lauren. I dashed to the fridge but my shirt still picked up that stink. Which means the rest of my afternoon is going to be spent trying to teach seventh grade boys who think they’re real damn clever with their fish jokes.”

Seventh grade girls are usually worse. More vicious. They’re just sneakier with the jokes, a little quieter. I hear them, anyway.

I shake my head in sympathy. “Effing Lauren.”

“And—and—as if that wasn’t enough bullshit today”—she takes a huge bite of salad and then chews while saying—“Ava’s mother wants to talk after school today about the grade she earned on her last essay. On the phone.”

“Which Ava?”

“Chase-Carroll,” she says without missing a chew, crunching what smells like sunflower seeds and kale. “On the phone. What’s wrong with e-mail? How is anyone of our generation choosing a phone call over e-mail? Even face-to-face is better than a phone call—and I hate people. So if I’d rather be face-to-face? You know it’s bad.”

By this time of year, every teacher I know hates people. The kids are still okay, but people? Ugh.

Except for Maria. I still like her well enough. And since she seems to be settling in to eat her lunch against my door frame, I pull a thick roast beef sandwich out of my desk drawer—forcing myself to unwrap it slowly, breathing through my mouth, already dreaming of sinking my teeth into bread and meat. “Are we the same generation as Ava’s mom?”

I’m not old enough to have a thirteen-year-old girl. Well, biologically I am. But only if I popped out a baby in middle school.

Which, knock on wood, I haven’t seen happen to any girl in this middle school. But this is only my third year of teaching, so it’s early days yet.

“I think so? If we aren’t, her mom looks real damn good for someone who’s of voluntarily-talks-on-the-phone age.” Maria scrapes up another bite and contemplates the forkful of kale, adding morosely, “This is the cruel and unusual punishment part of our job.”

“Talking on the phone or that salad?”

“Ha ha.” She narrows her eyes at me. “You probably like phone calls, considering that you’ve got a direct line to Ranger Ranger.”

My chest hollows out as my heart swoops into my throat, because simply hearing Ranger’s name creates the most wonderful, painful, achingly sweet combination of emotions inside me. “Those are video calls. Not phone calls.”

“Same difference.”

“It’s face-to-face.” When it wasn’t face-to-classroom, with Ranger giving lessons to my biology students from his remote location in the Arctic Circle. “You said yourself it’s different.”

She waves that off. “Is he calling in today?—it’s always Friday, right? Or did you guys already wrap up for the summer?”

My stomach tightens. “Today’s the last day.”

“Aw. Well, I’ll tell you what you should do as soon as vacation starts: fly up to Alaska, hike to whatever mountain he’s on, and then be all, ‘Oh, Ranger Ranger!’” she exclaims in a breathy voice, fluttering her lashes. “‘I’m so lost, and my vagina’s so rusty. Can you save me?’”

“Rusty? I really hope that’s a reference to my hair color.” Not that calling the auburn curls down there ‘rusty’ is much better, but still. My vagina’s not rusty.

It’s just…shy. But it has friends. Who cares if those friends run on batteries? They get the job done.

Maria arches her brows and glances toward that area of my anatomy. “I’m just saying that it might do you some good to spend a week in the wilderness with a big, strong forest ranger who’s been isolated out in the mountains and hasn’t seen another woman for the better part of two years.”

Like a week in Aspen might have done me some good, six months ago. Instead it did me some bad.

So I’m not going anywhere. “My only plan this summer is to lie on the couch in my pajamas and binge-watch everything on Netflix.”

“Oh my god, that sounds like heaven.” Her expression becomes pained. “Did I tell you what Dan and the kids are already planning for our vacation? Camping, camping, and more camping. The only break I’m getting this summer is the time I’ll spend hiding in an outhouse. And even then, one of the boys will probably barge in. Can I come live with you? Please?”

“I offered to share my couch with you last year,” I remind her. “You said no, that you were looking forward to spending time with your family.”

“I was a silly fool, with a head full of girlish dreams.”

I shrug. “No second chances. Sorry.”

“Fine.” She stabs into her salad. “But don’t expect an invite to our Fourth of July barbecue.”

“So you’re just going to hang out with your family and all the other teachers you invite? You gonna spend some quality time with effing Lauren? I hope you buy a lot of booze.”

She gives a little mock sob. “You’re so mean. Okay, you can come. But only if you bring Sergeant Sam, because I actually like her.”

My sister, Samantha. “You just want someone from the sheriff’s department there as a guest in case of noise complaints.”

“That’s only partially true. Because those damn Carlisles complain every year. But no way in hell am I inviting those assholes over. Oh, but wait.” She grimaces. “Maybe we don’t want Sam there. Dan’s already gone up to Washington and bought fireworks.”

The kind of big, rocket-style fireworks that are illegal here in Oregon. But that’s no surprise. Driving across the state line to buy fireworks is a yearly pilgrimage for half the county. “Yeah, Dan and everyone else in town. I doubt Sam will go rummaging through his stash. The city will probably ban all fireworks again by then, anyway.”

“You think that stopped most of my neighborhood last year?” With a roll of her eyes, she pushes away from the door frame. “Who cares if we’re toasted by wildfires, am I right? Gotta get that Independence Day celebration on.”

“Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum aren’t enough for some people, I guess.”

“Don’t forget Bill Pullman. That is a speech for the ages. No joke, I use that clip as my intro to Dylan Thomas.”

“I’m not sure if that’s awesome or scary.”

“It’s awesome. Alien invasions are scary. So…I’ll leave you to set up for Ranger Ranger.” She grins slyly. “And maybe you start thinking about that plane ticket to Anchorage.”

“Fairbanks is closer to him.”

“So you’ve already thought about it.” Slowly Maria walks past the door, and just before she vanishes from sight, tips back her head back for a parting, “Do not go gentle into that good night, my dear. Rage, rage against the rusting of the vagina.”

“It’s just shy,” I mutter into my sandwich before ripping out a bite.

But she’s right. I’ve thought about it. I think about it all the time. “Thinking about it” is as far as I get, though. Even before Aspen, that was only as far as I got—crushing on Ranger from afar, with no intention of making it into something real.

Ask my sister, Sam—I never ask her, but she’s always happy to give her opinion anyway—and she’d say the only reason I started crushing in the first place is because Ranger is safe to crush on. He’s big and growly and smart, which hits all of my buttons, but he’s also stationed in a remote Alaskan wilderness three thousand miles away. So every week, we exchange a few texts and emails, mostly about upcoming lessons, then have a flirty little chat during the video setup and before the students start filing into class. Well, I have a flirty chat. Ranger mostly just grunts his responses and watches me onscreen with a fierce intensity that I feel all the way down to my toes. But that’s all there is between us. And I know that’s all it’ll ever be. So according to my sister, there’s no expectations and no chance of getting hurt, and that’s why I’m so crazy about him.

I don’t think Sam is all wrong. But she’s not all right, either. I don’t have any expectations. Yet the pain is there, anyway. That feeling of wanting so much, it hurts. A feeling that has only deepened throughout the year.

And before Aspen—before the attack that turned me into a hungry, horrible thing who literally transforms into a monster every month—maybe that painful yearning could have pushed me out of that safe zone. Maybe I’d have bought that plane ticket.

But six months ago, everything changed. The three thousand miles between us aren’t keeping me safe.

Those miles are keeping him safe from me.

I’m gobbling down a third sandwich when a notification pops up on my laptop screen.

Ranger: You there?

I freeze mid-chew, my heart thumping. He’s early. Sort of. At the beginning of the school year, he always called at this time. This is my free period, so we’d connect almost a half hour before my biology class started. But after I was mauled during winter break…I began putting Ranger off until the last few minutes before class. Because I healed quickly from the attack and didn’t miss any days at school, yet I still felt this huge and horrible change inside me. Some of that must have shown through, because Ranger’s fierce intensity began looking more like fierce concern. I didn’t have any answers to give him, though—and I couldn’t bear lying to him and I couldn’t bear talking about it. So I just cut our conversations shorter and shorter. And it was like cutting out a part of my heart, every time.

Ranger: If you’re in a staff meeting again, tell them to fuck off. I need time to talk with you before the class starts.

Time to talk…to say goodbye for the summer?

Or to say goodbye forever?

I don’t know yet if we’re doing this again next year. A few weeks ago, I told him that I hoped we could, because my students love him. But Ranger didn’t give me much of an answer. Just that he wasn’t sure yet whether he’d still be stationed in the same district.

So if this is goodbye…I need more time, too.

Alicia: I’m here. Just finishing lunch. Give me about three minutes?

To brush off any crumbs, apply lip gloss, and fluff my hair. But Ranger doesn’t wait three minutes. He doesn’t wait three seconds. A notification for an incoming call pops up. Hurriedly, I brush and fluff, check my teeth for stray bits of lunch, then click Accept.

For a moment, only the blurry image of a short black beard, thick tanned throat, and khaki shirt collar is visible on screen. Then Ranger backs away from the camera and his face comes into focus, and it doesn’t matter that I just devoured three big sandwiches. Suddenly I’m starving all over again. Need rips through me, a full body hunger that has nothing to do with my stomach, a craving that grips my lungs and clenches deep within.

Travis Ranger isn’t a pretty man. His features are too bold, too rough. Heavy black eyebrows shadow intense dark eyes, and his face could have been carved from stout oak with a serrated blade—and all that blunt, craggy darkness makes him look a little mean. If he were ever cast in the movie, he’d be the villain.

The villain that everyone writes dirty fan fiction about.

Because he’s not handsome, but he’s sexy as hell. And despite his surly demeanor, he’s not mean to the kids. But he also doesn’t put up with any shit. A few times when they’ve been bratty, he shut them down with a single look…as if they can feel that gaze from three thousand miles away.

Just like I can feel his gaze devouring me. “Good morning, Miss Simmons.”

My breath shudders, heat flushing over my skin. God, his voice. Rough and smoky, like a campfire burning low, all crackling embers and black soot. He sounds the way I imagine a man sounds waking up late on a Sunday morning, not while standing in a field of wildflowers with Denali’s snowcapped peak behind him. A small window in the corner of the screen shows me how I look to him, so I know he can’t see my nipples poking out or the way I’m squirming a little in my seat. But I swear, he knows anyway. Probably every woman he talks to squirms when they hear that deep, smoky voice coming out of his mouth.

“It’s too late for a good morning here, Ranger Ranger.” The time difference means we hit ‘after noon’ an hour ahead of him.

His firm lips quirk. “But was it a good one?”

“Better now,” I tell him honestly and those eyes darken.

“You having trouble, Miss Simmons?” As if he might do something about it.

“No, it’s just…the last days of school always feel like I’m teaching to a blank wall. The kids are just done.”

“And you?”

“Oh, I’m not done. I’m using every second to pound that last bit of learning into their skulls.” When he grins at that, I smile with him—then sigh. “But don’t be surprised if you can’t get them to pay attention today. You’d think that plant reproduction would be a popular subject among horny eighth graders, because there are so many opportunities to slip their little innuendos in. But their eyes glaze over in seconds.”

“Yeah, that’s their problem, then. They’ve got little innuendos?” Ranger says, shaking his head. “My innuendos are real fucking big, so I’m sure as hell not slipping them anywhere. If I want my innuendos to fit, I’ve got to ram them in.”

I bite the inside of my cheek, pursing my lips and narrowing my eyes in my best ‘prim and disapproving teacher’ look. “I’m not laughing at that,” I tell him as soon as I can.

“Yeah, you are. You like my big innuendos.”

I really do. And I like how much he’s talking today…though I suspect it’s just because we’re both putting off the goodbye part. “So what kind of big innuendos have you got for them today?”

“For your students? None. Just the birds and bees. Mostly the bees.”

That probably explains why he’s standing in a field of wildflowers. “Telling them about colony collapse disorder and how we’re all going to starve if western honey bees go extinct?”

“Yup. That species doesn’t live here, but they don’t need to know that. I’ll scare the shit out of them. And if fear of cannibalizing their own families doesn’t keep their attention, I’ll fight a grizzly for a pot of honey.”

“That sounds so educational. ‘How to Die in Alaska 101.’”

“Nah, this grizzly is real friendly. Lazy, too. He’ll roll over after the first punch.” Despite his joking, Ranger’s expression slowly hardens, his gaze like a dark, magnetic force through the screen. “Those kids I’m hearing…are they in your classroom or are you alone?”

Kids? I glance up. A pair of students are halfway down the hall, chatting as they open up their lockers. “They’re out in the corridor.”

“Good.” The soot in his voice deepens. “Now you go close your classroom door, Miss Simmons. I don’t want to get you into trouble with what I’m about to say to you.”

My heart hammers. What could get me into trouble? “Why? Are you going to whip out a really big innuendo?”

A growl rips from him. “Shut the door, Alicia.”

An answering growl begins in my chest, and that sends me running away from my desk faster than his command could. Because that wasn’t me responding. That was the…thing inside me.

The monster. The beast.

Usually it’s quiet. Not sleeping, exactly. Just…dormant. It usually stays that way, as long as I feed it. That’s the best way to fight it—except during the full moon, when it’s useless to fight.

And except when I talk to Ranger. Because the monster wants him as much as I do. It wants me on my hands and knees while he mounts me from behind, each thrust ruthless and hard and deep. It wants me to ride his thick cock until I feel the hot pulse of his cum flooding my cunt. It wants me filled and fucked and screaming for him.

And the monster dreams of Ranger with me. I wake up growling his name with my pussy hot and slick and my bedsheets torn to shreds.

It’s terrifying, this ravenous need inside me. I’m only glad that need is directed solely at Ranger—and that my craving for him isn’t like the hunger in my stomach, sated by anything I stuff into my mouth. Otherwise I might have fucked my way through half the town the past six months. But the monster is like me. It doesn’t want sex.

It wants Ranger. Only Ranger.

But he’s safely away. So it’ll be okay.

Shutting the classroom door, I whisper that reassurance to myself. That it’ll be okay. Whatever he says, whatever happens. I’ll get through it.

I’ve got this. I can deal with this. I can.

I can. Because aside from that growl, the beast doesn’t control my mouth. So even as it howls for Ranger to mount me, fuck me—I face him again, my inner muscles aching for release, my panties drenched with arousal, my blood pulsing hot and thick. But Ranger can’t see any of that through the screen. So he can’t see the monster inside me.

I’ll never let him see it. “Door closed,” I tell him. “So what kind of trouble are we talking about?”

“The kind that’s me, if you want it,” he replies gruffly and my heart stills in my chest. “Because I’m going to be in your neck of the woods next weekend.”

I barely stop my body from moving as everything inside me lurches toward the screen. Toward him. As if he’s already here. So close. The effort of keeping still makes my hands shake beneath the desk, makes my thighs ache from clenching so hard.

Yes, I want it. I want you. Yes yes yes.

Only gritted teeth prevent me from growling my answer—but it isn’t only the beast responding. It’s me. Needing. So much.

Desperately I struggle for control, my heart swooping through my chest and the beast roaring as I finally manage a soft, “Oh? For a conference or something?”

Slowly he nods, his gaze locked on mine through the laptop’s screen. “Something like that. I’ve got a few meetings lined up toward the end of the following week. A whole lotta empty hours in between. And you’re completely done with school next Friday?”

Breathlessly I confirm that I am.

“That’s the day I fly in. Throw in driving time from Portland, and I’ll pick you up at seven, yeah? I’ll take you to dinner and then—”

“I can’t,” I break in, my heart twisting so hard it feels as if it’s tearing from my chest. “Not next Friday night.”

The night of the full moon.

His expression darkens. “You’ve got another date?”

“No. Just…other plans.”

“Blow them off.”

“I can’t,” I whisper painfully. “I really can’t.”

His face hardens. A muscle in his jaw clenches and unclenches before he continues. “Saturday, then?”

Do I dare?

It might be the only time that I can dare. The week following the full moon is the easiest. As if the monster sates itself while roaming free, and for a few days that beast isn’t as needy, isn’t as hungry.

But I am. I’m so hungry for more of Ranger. To hear that sooty voice and rumbling laugh in person and not through a speaker. To watch the powerful movements of his big body uncaged from a small screen. To feel the roughness of his hand against mine when we greet each other.

And to smell him. To draw in his scent and fill myself with it, the same way I’d fill my body with him, if I could. To smell him, and be mounted and fucked and—

“It doesn’t have to be dinner.” His voice sounds hoarser now, his gaze burning through the screen as he waits for my answer. “Whatever you feel comfortable with, I’ll make sure—”

“Dinner’s good,” I tell him, praying that it’ll be true. That I’ll have control. “It sounds really good.”

“Okay. All right,” he says but doesn’t seem relieved, raking a big hand through his black hair and looking away from the camera. His lips draw back in a taut grimace and his breath hisses through his teeth, a multitude of emotions warring over his face. As if he’s fighting himself. And when he looks back to me with torment in his eyes, I don’t know if he’s won or lost that battle. “It’s not just dinner I want from you, Alicia. But if dinner’s all you want, say so now and I won’t show up at your door with expectation of more.”

A quake rolls through me, hope and fear tumbling over each other. Hoping that I understood him correctly. Afraid that I didn’t.

Afraid that I did. “What kind of more?”

“The kind that gets my hands and mouth all over you,” he says, and in the harshness of his voice I can already feel them on me. “The kind that has your thighs spread wide and my cock deep inside you, fucking you the way I’ve wanted to from the first goddamn second I saw you. If you don’t want that, you tell me and I’ll take the edge off before I get there.”

I’m shuddering and shaking with need but that last part is a bucket of ice water over my head. “Take the edge off by hooking up with someone else?”

“By jacking my dick raw.” He looms in closer to the camera, a snarl twisting his mouth. “You think I’d touch anyone else now? After I spent a year wanting you, you think any other woman would do?”

“It doesn’t matter to some men,” I whisper.

“I’m not some men.” Those dark eyes narrow. “Is that what’s got you wary all of a sudden? Some asshole did you wrong?”

Biting my lip, I shake my head. That’s not why I’m wary. But the truth is, despite how much I want him, I probably am looking for reasons to push Ranger away. To keep him at a safe distance.

But if he’s only here for a short time…it should be okay.

“I want all that, too,” I tell him. “I want it so bad.”

“I fucking hope so.” He studies me for a long second. “How about this, instead? You show up at my hotel with an overnight bag, and we order room service for dinner—after.”

My inner muscles constrict with anticipation. “Okay. Or you could stay at my place.”

“No, I can’t. A sweet girl like you, I show up and you change your mind, you might not feel so comfortable sending me away after promising me somewhere to stay.”

“I won’t change my mind, Ranger Ranger.”

Like it always does, using his title and name like that makes his lips quirk, but his gaze remains intent. “We’ll see. Because you’ve never seen anyone standing next to me, don’t know how big I really am. You might take one look and run screaming. So we’ll meet in the hotel bar or the lobby, and if you decide dinner is all you want, no hard feelings. Yeah?”

“All right. But I’m not changing my mind.”

He relents a little. “Even if you did, I’d spend all that dinner trying to persuade you—preferably by spreading your pretty thighs and getting a taste of your hot pussy.”

Those thighs squeeze tight, so tight, trying to hold in the needy ache between. “You’d have to be gentle when you do that,” I tell him. “My pussy’s really shy.”

“Is it?” His breathing harshens, his teeth scraping over his bottom lip as he hungrily stares at me through the screen. “Fuck, I want that shy little pussy now. I want to get so damn deep inside you, baby.”

“You can do that, Ranger—” The ringing of the period bell interrupts me. As soon as it falls silent, I lean in closer and tease him, “But first you have to pass your oral examination in front of the class.”

He groans and laughs. “Yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll put you up on your desk and give those kids a hell of a lesson in biological reproduction.”

My classroom door opens and I bite my lip to stop the response I would have made. Another student follows the first inside, and suddenly the room is filled with the scraping of desk legs and the thudding of books onto desktops and the shuffling of papers.

Onscreen, Ranger closes his eyes as if in pain. “Maybe I’ll step off-camera for a minute. You hear any weird grunts, it’s just the bears roaming around up here.”

I muffle a giggle behind my hand and that draws his gaze to mine again.

Quietly he says, “So next Saturday, yeah?”

“Yes,” I confirm softly.

“All right. I’ll be staying at the—”

“Don’t tell me,” I interrupt urgently. My entire body is suddenly taut with fear. “Don’t tell me the hotel, don’t tell me which city. Just…text me the details on Saturday morning.”

Face unreadable, he looks at me steadily for a long, long minute. “Why?”

I can’t answer that. I can’t even think of a good answer for it.

Ranger comes up with one, teasing me a little, as if sensing my terror and deliberately trying to put me at ease. “Afraid you’ll blow off those Friday night plans and come looking for me?”

I laugh shakily and nod. The ringing of the next bell saves me from answering.

But that’s exactly why I’m afraid.

2

RANGER

“IF THE FOOD chain collapses and we start cannibalizing our family members,” my brother muses from his bed of wildflowers, “I call dibs on Grandma Florence. She’s already salty—and real well seasoned.”

I grunt out a short laugh, shoving my laptop and satellite uplink into their cases. I’m almost sorry to say goodbye to those kids. But not sorry the end of the school year means Alicia has free time coming up.

“Where’s the pot of honey?” my brother asks.

“What pot of honey?”

“The one we were going to fight over if the little fuckers didn’t pay attention. Though I wouldn’t have keeled over until at least the second punch. I have some pride,” Brandon says, sprawled out naked in the field with purple flower petals in his hair and idly scratching his belly.

“I don’t have a damn pot of honey.”

“So you’d have lied to a bunch of little kids? I don’t think you’re cut out for this teacher gig.”

I’m not. It was some bureaucratic bullshit that got me roped into this long distance learning thing last summer, and I had every intention of being such a surly bastard that they’d make someone else take over. Then Miss Alicia Simmons came onscreen, so fucking pretty and sweet and sharp, and changed my mind.

Hell, she changed everything for me.

“I notice you didn’t say a thing about that new job as district ranger and moving to her little hometown. Maybe you aren’t as sure of her as you think?”

“I’m sure of her.” Whether Alicia’s sure of me is the question. She seemed real spooked when I told her that I was visiting. Spooked and aroused. So I’ll use that arousal to keep her with me while trying to soothe whatever fears she has.

Finished packing up, I haul my equipment toward my truck. Brandon lumbers to his feet, following along.

“I notice you didn’t say a thing about biting her, either.”

“That’s a conversation that we’ll only have if we need to.”

I hope to fuck that we don’t need to.

“She didn’t look sick to me,” Brandon says. “You ask me, she looked damn good.”

“That’s because you only saw her this one time.” While Brandon was ambling around behind me, with the kids screaming that there was a bear and to look out. So I had their attention the whole time.

Alicia’s attention, too. And she does look damn good. That long red hair is thick and shiny, just waiting for me to mess it up with my big hands. Her eyes are clear and bright, and her porcelain skin blushes so damn easy. But last autumn, she didn’t have hollows in her cheeks and her clothes didn’t hang off her body like they do now.

We reach the truck and Brandon starts dragging on the jeans he left in the front seat. “Maybe she’s doing that…what’s it called? The diet where you mostly eat fat and meat. The kitty diet? Shit, we’ve been on that diet our entire lives.” He snorts out a laugh. “Which is fine for a bear. But you? A big bad wolf, eating a kitty diet. You ought to be hanging your head in shame.”

“It’s not a fucking diet.”

A diet might have carved away the softness in her cheeks but it sure as hell didn’t put the shadows in her eyes. A diet didn’t give her the haunted, hunted look that she doesn’t always manage to conceal.

Something happened to her this winter. Something bad. That was obvious from the first day I saw her again in January, but she said there was nothing.

But there’s something. Something that’s consumed her from the inside out for six months. So I figure that over the winter, she got some bad news. News that she’s sick, and that’s what has been taking a toll on her body and her spirit.

Maybe I’m wrong. But it doesn’t matter. Whatever she’s dealing with, I’m going to be there for her and help her through it.

And the truth is, I’d already planned to go. Last October, I started looking for job openings in Alicia’s area—and I’d have taken anything within driving distance of her. Even if it meant leaving the Forest Service. I never figured I’d get the district station smack dab in the middle of the little city where she lives. But I see it as a sign that it’s where I’m meant to be. Right beside her.

We load up and start off across the field, the truck bumping over the uneven ground. The windows are down and Brandon tilts his face into the wind, dragging in a lungful of air.

“Fuck me, that’s pure. You’re really going to leave all this? No people for miles, all this space to roam…it’s a damn paradise of pristine wilderness.”

“Oregon’s got plenty of wilderness.” And Alicia lives right at the edge of one.

“Not like this. There’s nowhere else like this.”

True. But there’s no one else like Alicia, either. “You don’t have to come. Stay here and be king of the grizzlies. I’ll leave word at the station that you might wander in to see a human face now and then.”

“Nah, I’ll come. I can’t think of a better way to spend my retirement than irritating the hell out of my older brother.”

Separating from the military sure as fuck isn’t the same as retirement. “You’ll have to figure out something besides that.”

“I’m not in a hurry.”

Brandon’s never in a hurry. Drives me crazy, sometimes. I’m never in a rush, either, but I also don’t wait to get shit done. If it needs doing, I’ll do it. But Brandon, he’ll put shit off until it has to be done.

Which is why I’m surprised he left the Army. I figured he’d make a career of it, simply because he’d wait so long before putting his discharge into motion that it truly would be retirement. But he just got out—and then he only spent a few days at home in Wyoming before traveling all the way up here to the Alaskan interior last week. So something’s gotten into him. But he’s in no hurry to say what it is.

He isn’t slow to shove his nose into my business, though. “She might rather be sick than be bit. They call it a curse for a reason.”

When someone’s bit instead of born, like we were. “I know it.”

“She’ll have a real beast inside her. A fucking beast. And there’s only one way to tame that thing.”

My knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. “I know it.”

Both she and her beast would have to fall in love. And the man she loves has to accept both of them in return.

“And if she doesn’t fall for you? We’re big hairy assholes. And women drool all over that shit on Instagram, but in real life, they take one look and run for the fucking hills.”

Yeah, they do. So if Alicia takes off for the hills, it’s a damn good thing I’m good at tracking. “I know it.”

“Or worse, she does fall for you—but maybe she’s not the woman you think she is after only talking to her through a computer, and you don’t fall for her.”

The truck bounces through a shallow gully, the struts screeching in protest. “That won’t be an issue.”

“You’d better hope so. Because she’ll wish you’d left her alone if her beast dies of a broken heart and takes her with it—”

“I fucking know it!” I roar up all the poisonous shit that’s been building in my chest for months. “But what the fuck would you do, Brandon, if your woman was sick? What the fuck would you do?”

He shrugs. “Take her to bed, make her come so many times she has no choice but to fall in love with me, then have you turn her into a werewolf.”

Because bears can’t curse someone with a bite. Only wolves. “So you’d do the same damn thing.”

“Nah. I’d make my woman come a hell of a lot harder than you ever could.” Yawning, he closes his eyes and leans back against the headrest. “I can’t believe you lied about that pot of honey.”

“I can’t believe you’re on fucking Instagram.”

“Only because they’ve got photo feeds devoted to chunky little puppies. And it doesn’t matter how shitty a day has been, those chunky little puppies remind you why life is worth living.” He’s quiet for a minute. “When did you say we were leaving?”

“In a week.” Not that long.

And a damn eternity.

3

ALICIA

THE SUN’S only been up for twenty or thirty minutes when my sister finds me crouching beside a stream. “You didn’t get as far this time,” Sam says quietly.

My throat a tight knot, I only nod and continue washing my skin with the icy water. I woke up covered in blood, naked except for the tracking device Sam locks around my ankle every full moon.

With a heavy sigh, she sits on a nearby log, wearing the same hiking boots, jeans, and hoodie that I last saw her in. She’s been following behind me all night in her truck…and at a safe distance.

“What was it?” I whisper, my voice raw with fear.

“Elk,” she says.

Tears of sheer relief spring to my eyes, but terror still lingers just beneath. So far, the beast has stayed away from people and hasn’t hurt anyone. But I don’t know if the beast avoids them on purpose or if I’ve just been lucky.

Sam digs into her backpack, pulls out a towel and tosses it to me. “I brought sandwiches.”

“I’m not hungry.”

A short laugh escapes her. “After seeing that elk, I’m not surprised.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“I won’t.” She watches me towel off, then drags the elastic off the end of her dark brown braid and shoots it in my direction. “You’re not going to get that gunk out of your hair without a shower, so just pull it back.”

Nodding, I use my fingers as a comb to scrape together a messy ponytail, then pull on the leggings she brought me. “Where are we?”

“Not far from Pendleton.”

Surprise stops me with my hands down the sleeves of a sweatshirt. Only as far as Pendleton? That’s less than sixty miles from our house. When Sam said I didn’t get as far this time, I thought she meant I didn’t cross the Canadian border. “Really?”

“You’re here for the second time,” she adds. “You made a big loop. Pendleton to La Grande, then back to Pendleton. And you spent a long time circling each city and…I don’t know. Searching.”

“Oh.” Stomach sinking, I finish dragging the sweatshirt over my head. “Shit.”

“You know what you were looking for?” She holds out a pair of tennis shoes. “You want to share with the class?”

Heart aching, I tell her, “Ranger said he’d be in my neck of the woods. But I didn’t let him tell me exactly where.”

Yet there are only two cities in this region big enough to host a conference. Unless he’s at a lodge somewhere in between. But yesterday, I was thinking that he must be near, and wondering where he might be.

Obviously the beast knows what I know. But I don’t know what Ranger smells like, so the beast couldn’t find him.

“Oh, damn.” Sam blows out a breath, drags her hands through her loose hair. “So every time you went north before, you really were going after him.”

Not me. The monster. But I don’t know if it’s a distinction that matters, because I want Ranger, too. And I suspected before that he might be the reason the beast always went north, but I wasn’t certain. It was just a feeling.

Now I’m sure. And after we meet, I’ll know Ranger’s scent. So the only way he’ll ever be safe again is if I’m far enough away from him.

Tears blur my vision and I close my eyes. “Maybe I shouldn’t see him tonight.”

That Sam doesn’t immediately tell me I should—or make a joke about how I always find reasons to push people away—means that she’s not too certain, either. Even though all this week, she’s been my number one cheerleader whenever the inevitable doubts slipped in.

“How are you feeling now?” she asks.

“Exhausted.” Just as I always am the day after a full moon. Usually I completely crash and sleep for about twenty-four hours.

Which I probably should have thought about before making a date for Saturday. And is just another reason to cancel.

“But is there any— Grrr.” She makes claws of her fingers. “Any of that?”

I shake my head.

“Then I think you should go.” Coming closer, she catches my face in her hands. “Do this for yourself. Because God knows, you need something good—then he’ll be gone, safely away again. And I’m on duty tonight, but I’ll be there in two seconds if anything goes wrong. You just call.”

Breath shuddering, I pull her in for a hug. “Thank you.”

“I’m just trying to pay you back for all the times you covered for me in high school, and didn’t tell mom I’d been sneaking out and drinking all night.”

I laugh. “Cleaning up after a werewolf’s night out is above and beyond holding your sister’s hair while she pukes.”

“Pfft. In six months, you’ve produced less roadkill than a single night on the highway,” she tells me, gathering up her backpack and preparing to hike out to wherever she left her truck. “But if you ever do more, I know all the best ways to hide a body.”

“That’s not as comforting as you probably think.”

“Maybe not.” Her face clouds. “But spending Christmas in Aspen was my idea, so I should at least—”

My snarl cuts her off.

She goes still. “Was that you or…?”

“Me. Because you shouldn’t ever think that.”

“Yeah, well—you’re my little sister, and I’m a cop. Both things mean I should have protected you. So I’ll feel shitty about it whether you give me permission or not.”

“So you’ll feel shitty, I’ll feel shitty…maybe I should call up Mom, so she can feel shitty, too.”

“Was that a threat?” She stops dead, staring at me. “Did you just threaten me with our mother?”

“I’ll tell her you’re feeling guilty about something, and she’ll come flying back from Florida to pull us into her warm bosom of motherly—”

“Okay! I won’t feel guilty! Holy shit, you went straight for the nuclear option.”

“Because that’s what your guilt deserved.” Total annihilation. To nuke it from space. And our mother’s the only way to be sure. Because she’s wonderful but she’s also relentlessly sunny, and determined to fix everything that’s dark or broken.

Some things can’t be fixed, though. And I’m one of those things.

But Sam’s right. I do need something for myself. So I’ll spend a few days with Ranger. And I will control this monster. This time with him is for me. Not the beast.

Even though the difference between us seems to grow thinner and thinner. And my greatest fear is that, all too soon, there will be no difference between us at all.

I WAKE up in my sister’s truck with Sam shaking my shoulder.

“We’re home.”

At the farmhouse we share at the edge of town. It’s not much of a farm now—just a big overgrown field and an old barn—and has been like this as long as I can remember. Back when her dad was alive, Sam says they used to have goats and chickens. But there weren’t any animals around except for a few stray cats by the time I came to live with her and her mom. Our mom, because Carolyn Green was more of a mother to me than mine ever was.

Mom continued living here when Sam went to college, then when I did. After we each graduated and returned to start our careers, we moved back into the farmhouse…and Mom moved out two summers ago, after falling in love with a rich retiree from Florida who was on a golfing tour in Oregon. She’s in the Keys now, living her best life.

And I’m glad. Glad she’s happy, and glad she’s not here to see me stumble groggily out of the truck, with elk blood saturating my hair.

Sam swings the driver door shut. “You okay?”

Yawning, I nod…then go still, the hairs prickling on the back of my neck. Turning my head, I draw a deep breath through my nose.

“Alicia?” Up on the porch, Sam realizes that I’m still standing beside the truck. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. I caught a whiff of…something.” Something that makes me wary and restless. But I’m not good with odors yet. I can identify some people that way—Sam, she’s easy. The other teachers and most of my students. Everything else seems to smell the same as it did before. Just stronger. And there’s a lot of stuff I don’t recognize.

Like who knows what a cougar smells like? I didn’t until one crossed our field a few weeks ago. And the scent was only vaguely cat-like. But I didn’t know what a cat smelled like, either, before this winter.

This scent I’m picking up now is…weird. And exciting. And scary. And new, yet also seems as if it should be familiar, but I can’t place it. Like a word caught on the tip of my tongue, a word that I know, but for the life of me I can’t remember it.

I’m just too tired. Shaking my head, I trudge up the steps. Inside the house, most of the odors from outside vanish and the restlessness within me vanishes with it. All that’s left in my mind are thoughts of Ranger—of seeing him later today—as I set my alarm and fall facedown into bed.

Seconds later, I’m out.

4

ALICIA

WHEN THE ALARM starts beeping at five p.m., dragging myself out of a dead sleep isn’t as hard as I think it’ll be. Anticipation overrides my lingering exhaustion when I reach for my phone. A message has been waiting since nine o’clock this morning.

Ranger: Columbia Inn.

My heart lurches and I shoot up to sitting, clutching the device. Columbia Inn? That’s not a hotel chain. That’s local.

He’s staying in town. Not Pendleton, not La Grande. Here.

Without thinking, I scramble out of bed and head for the door—and my only thought is getting to him. Seeing him. I’m at the top of the stairs before my brain clears. I’ve got dried elk blood clumping my hair. My feet are filthy, and my quick bath in the stream didn’t clean up everything. I’m a complete mess.

I can’t go to Ranger like this.

Coming to a halt, I pull in a deep, steadying breath. Another. Then text him back.

Alicia: 6pm in the bar okay?

I barely make it down the hall and into the bathroom before his response comes in.

Ranger: Yeah. Aside from one hour being too fucking far away.

Alicia: I’ll make the wait worth it.

Ranger: Seeing you will make this whole damn year worth it.

Not sex with me. But simply seeing me.

Happiness bubbles up in my chest. In the shower, I can’t stop smiling, though usually the sight of blood and dirt swirling down the drain fills me with despair. Today, I don’t care.

And I’m especially thrilled to see that the money I spent at a salon this week wasn’t wasted after a night of werewolfing. I had nearly every part of my body waxed, and I wasn’t sure if it would grow back. But I’m smooth and sleek and feeling deliciously naughty as I finish up in the bathroom and head for my closet.

Because I’m going to see him soon. There’s no long drive ahead. It’ll only take me a few minutes to reach him. Because he’s right here.

In town.

I falter a little then. Because when I shopped for something to wear tonight, I assumed we’d meet in a bigger city, where no one knew me. But everyone knows me at the Columbia. The first floor of the inn doubles as a restaurant, a bar and grill where Sam and I are regulars. And it’s Saturday night. A busy night.

I don’t care if everyone in town sees me with Ranger. I don’t care if they see my overnight bag and know exactly what I’m doing. But the way I want to look for him isn’t at all how they’re used to seeing Miss Simmons, science teacher. And it’s entirely different from what they used to see in Alicia, the shy and nerdy girl that many of them knew and mocked in high school.

This part of myself that I want to show to Ranger…they’ll see it, too. They’ll have more of me than I wanted to give before. And that makes me feel vulnerable in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time.

But I’m not vulnerable. And I’m not going let old insecurities force me into hiding. Not with Ranger.

And, heck. If I’m showing parts of myself that I haven’t exposed before, then they’re lucky to get sexy Alicia—and not the beast.

Who is along for the ride as I drive into town. The monster inside me isn’t nearly as quiet as it usually is following the full moon, but it feels exactly the same way I do. Excited. Nervous. And so, so aroused.

Until I park in the hotel lot and breathe in that odor again, and I’m filled with a confusion and restlessness that’s not my own. The scent I caught a whiff of earlier is so much stronger here—and not just one, but two distinct threads that are similar to each other but also different. All at once the beast is wary, uncertain.

But I’m not. I don’t care what the scent is. I just want Ranger.

Carrying my small tote, I stride toward the entrance, my tall heels clipping along the pavement. A few groups of diners are milling around outside while waiting for a table, and the noise coming from inside the restaurant is a cacophony of conversations and clattering dishes and country music. Yet amid all that chaotic sound, I so easily pick up a deep, smoky voice.

“…course I noticed. I can’t breathe without noticing. But I’m not hunting for it tonight. After waiting here all goddamn day, you think I’ll take off now, when Alicia’s on her way?”

It’s harder to pinpoint who Ranger’s talking to, whether it’s someone with him or if he’s on the phone. Until another man says my name, a rumbling voice that I don’t know, catching my attention in time to hear “—strongest near the middle school.”

“Fuck.” Frustration deepens Ranger’s voice. “All right. First thing tomorrow. We’ll track it down and find out if—”

I step into the restaurant and instantly spot Ranger at the bar, positioned so he’s facing the entrance. Oh my god, and he wasn’t kidding. He is big. Huge. And he’s staring at me, expression abruptly hard and hungry and feral.

“Holy fucking shit,” says the rumbling voice, and dimly I’m aware of another big man beside him. “That answers the question of who it is.”

“Answers a truckload of questions,” Ranger growls at him before pushing away from the bar. He prowls toward me, my nipples tightening and arousal curling low in my belly with his every stride closer. I’ve never seen him in anything but the Forest Service uniform of a khaki shirt and dark green cargo pants. Now he’s wearing a plain black T-shirt that hugs the massive expanse of his chest, and faded jeans that cling to the thick trunks of his thighs. Heavy boots complete it all but he’s so light on his feet that I can’t hear his steps over the thundering of my heart.

“Hello, Ranger Ranger,” I greet him breathlessly.

“Miss Simmons.” I thought his eyes were dark brown. Almost black. And they are, but now I spot the flecks of gold in his irises, like sparks through a night sky. His smoldering gaze runs from my head to my toes before he comes so close that all I can see is his rugged face looking down at me, all I can feel is the heat of his big body, all I can smell is…him.

Ranger is that strange, exciting smell. Oh, and the beast loves that—no longer wary and confused but unleashing another hot tide of lust within me, need so sharp it steals my breath and makes me ache, ache, ache.

I can’t stop the whimper that escapes my lips. Because I want him. So much. So now.

“Fuck, baby. Look at you. So damn beautiful and so damn hot.” Voice rough and dark as charcoal, he grips the back of my neck—and yes, please, touch me taste me take me. I drop my bag and arch up toward him, fingers clawing at his shirt, but he doesn’t lower his head to kiss me. Instead his words are pitched to soothe as he says, “You and I obviously need to talk. But first we’ll go upstairs and take the edge off, yeah?”

“Yes.” My pulse throbs frantically between my legs. “Let’s go upstairs.”

“You want to meet my brother first?”

I shake my head and he laughs, then bends to sweep up my tote from the floor. Abruptly he stops, his face on level with my stomach, his nostrils flaring. Ravenous intent fills the gaze he lifts to mine.

“You wearing panties under that little dress?” His voice is so low, so gruff, but I hear him.

“No,” I whisper.

His teeth scrape over his bottom lip in the hungry way I’ve dreamed about from the first time I saw him do it. As if he wants to take a taste right here, in front of everyone. To just duck his head under my skirt and slick his tongue through all of the wetness gathering there.

And I’d let him.

Who am I kidding, let him? I’d lift up the hem of my dress and happily ride his beard. So much for my shy little pussy. Suddenly it’s dying to offer up dinner and a show.

My gaze holds Ranger’s as he slowly rises with my bag in hand, inhaling the entire way, as if breathing me in. The long fingers of his free hand tangle with mine, and he pivots toward the corridor connecting the restaurant to the inn. There’s an elevator with a young couple and a pair of preschool-aged kids waiting in front of the doors. Ranger doesn’t say a word as we join them, though I see him looking toward the stairs as if deciding whether that’ll be faster when the indicator dings.

He heads into the corner of the elevator car, pulling me back against his front, wrapping his arm around my waist from behind—probably to save the kids from getting an eyeful of the gigantic bulge pressing into my lower spine. They both look curiously at us, eyes wide, while their parents stare straight ahead, as if afraid to glance our direction.

Or maybe just afraid to glance in Ranger’s direction. He is big. Even in my highest heels, the top of my head barely reaches his shoulder. Behind me, all I feel is dense muscle. The sinewy forearm across my stomach looks twice as thick as mine and hewn from solid oak. I’ve never felt particularly small—I would have described my body type as average—yet I feel tiny next to him. To me, all that strength and his enormous size is an incredible turn on, but I suppose other people find it intimidating.

And he does look mean, his features rough and scowly. Though given the way the kids start giggling and glancing at him before darting their eyes away, then doing it again, I think he might be making silly faces at them.

I don’t look to see if he is. It’s already going to hurt so much when he leaves and I have to let him go. And my heart is already in so much danger. If I fall in love with him…

I just can’t. This needs to be about sex—and about how much I enjoy being with him. Because I can survive without sex. I’ve done that for a long time. I can survive Ranger being away. I’ve done that for a while now, too. If I fall in love with him, though, I don’t know if I can survive him leaving.

But he won’t survive staying, so he has to go.

And an elevator never seemed so slow. The sliding doors take an eternity to open. The parents hustle out first, kids in tow. They stop at one of the first rooms and we continue past them, only the empty hall ahead, me trotting to keep up with Ranger’s long strides.

His hand tightens on mine. “That little dress smells new. You buy it for tonight?”

“Yes.” Nothing fancy, yet all sexy—a slip dress with a short, flirty hem. The swingy material doesn’t cling to anything but conceals almost nothing, my nipples visibly hardened beneath the silk. “You like it?”

An abrupt, hoarse laugh is his answer. His breathing roughens as he stops in front of the last door on the right. “I want to know what you’re telling me by wearing that dress and no underwear. Are you telling me that you want to get naked fast and easy? Or that you don’t want me to bother taking it off before I start fucking you? Or you just want to knock me dead with how goddamn sexy you are?”

“Is this a multiple choice quiz? Can I pick ‘all of the above’?”

“You can do that.” He shoves into the room and drops my tote to the floor. The closing of the door is loud within the sudden quiet of the small foyer as he crowds me back against the wall. “Though if you want all three, there’s got to be an order to it.”

Only getting me naked after fucking me in the dress. “I think you’re right, Ranger Ranger.”

His mouth curls, but need carves his face into austere lines as he leans in, bracing his hands against the wall on either side of my head. “Is that what you want? For me to lift up your skirt and get into you right here?”

My inner muscles clench with need. “Just to start.”

“Yeah.” Gaze ravenous, he skims one big hand down my side, leaving me trembling in the wake of that light touch. I bite my lip, whimpering as his blunt fingers delve between my thighs and glide through my saturated folds. A groan rips from him. “Holy hell. I was all set to get you riled up with my mouth but you’re already soaking wet. You ready for me, then?”

A thick finger pushes deep and I cry out, pleasure spearing through me. Ranger gives a hoarse grunt and his arm collapses beside my shoulder, folding against the wall to brace his weight on his forearm, his forehead resting against mine and his breath gusting over my lips.

“So fucking tight.” He grits it out like a curse, screwing his finger into me, frenetic need pulsing through my veins with every twisting thrust. “Not gonna lie, baby. I worried. Afraid I might hurt you. Because you’re so little. So tiny all over. But now I’m here and I know you’re strong enough to handle all of me, aren’t you? You can take every rough and filthy thing I do to this snug little pussy.”

“Oh god, Ranger.” Helplessly I rock against his hand. “Don’t make me wait.”

“I won’t. Because I can’t fucking wait to get into you, either.” His finger slides out of my wetness and he palms my ass in a rough grip, squeezing. “Unbuckle my belt, Miss Simmons. You claim what’s yours and I’ll give you what you need. Then after you’ve come good and hard, I’ll take what I need.”

Our foreheads together, open mouths only a ragged breath apart, blindly I reach for him. Fingers shaking with the force of my hunger, I tug on the leather belt. When the buckle hangs free, I attack the snap of his jeans. The weight of his meaty erection does the rest, forcing the zipper down as his hot, thick inches fill my hands.

His teeth clench, fingers digging into my ass. “That’s all yours, baby. You understand?”

Mine. All this burning steel. His big body shudders as I measure his enormous length with a stroke of my fisted hands, then he shudders again as my thumb explores the slick tip of him.

“Now you lift that skirt for me,” he commands harshly, and doesn’t give me an instant to obey before hefting me straight upward, the friction of the wall’s nubbly texture against my back an unexpected and delicious burn through silk. I go up, but my dress doesn’t. The straps pull tight on my shoulders before slipping down my arms, the bodice falling and exposing the upper swells of my breasts, the slippery slide of the material only stopped when the edge of the neckline catches on my hardened nipples.

A tortured laugh rumbles from him. “As soon as I get into you, I’m gonna bounce those pretty tits right out of that dress.”

Rough and hard. God, I want that. But I also want to drive him absolutely crazy. “I think we should see how long you can fuck me without it falling down.”

His gaze rips away from my breasts and burns into mine. And I knew he was strong. One look at him, and I knew it. But how strong, I never imagined, as he grips my thighs in his giant hands and spreads me wide, pinning me to the wall. Then he holds me up like that, his muscles not even straining, all of his tension in the need crackling between us—and in the effort of his restraint. As if he’s already thinking of fucking me, of ravishing me against this wall, because I’m spread open and so greedy for it. But instead he maintains rigid self-control.

“You take hold of what’s yours, Miss Simmons.” Gold flames dance in his eyes, his voice pure dark smoke. “And teach my cock where it’s meant to be.”

Inside me. His shaft is a hot, throbbing weight that I can’t close my fingers around. His breath hisses through his teeth as I guide him to my molten center, slipping his broad crown through my sensitive folds before lodging him against my entrance.

“That’s it, baby.” He widens his stance, as if bracing his booted feet in preparation to drive up into me. “Now you hang onto me and I’ll take us the rest of the way.”

Shaking with need, I wreathe my arms around his neck. The movement tugs at the straps of my dress but the bodice doesn’t slip yet, and I don’t look down. Only up into his eyes as Ranger slowly presses into me.

And he’s big. Big big big. It doesn’t hurt—at least not in the way I usually think of hurt. There’s no sharp pain. Only a dull, burning ache that moves deeper and deeper, discomfort bleeding through the pleasure. I arch my back, tilting my hips to ease the pressure, unable to stop the whine in my throat.

“I’m so fucking sorry, baby.” Ranger’s open mouth moves against mine, not kissing but breathing hard, his chest heaving. “But I’ll be in you so often, your cunt’ll get used to taking me. And you feel so damn good on my cock. Holy fuck.”

His head falls back, the muscles of his throat working convulsively as his massive length slides deeper. Then deeper. His groan echoes off the ceiling when he settles fully into the open cradle of my splayed thighs.

“Every inch.” His voice is hoarse with disbelief. He groans again and pushes against me, rocking me gently into the wall with my pussy crammed full. Sensation swirls through my tautly stretched flesh, the ache easing and sweetening, the burn flickering from discomfort to pleasure. “Every fucking inch. Like you were made for me, baby. Or I was made for you. You all right?”

All right? I’m pinned against a wall by Ranger’s enormous cock, and he just groaned like my pussy was the best thing that ever happened to him.

“I’m good.” So good. Biting my lip, I try to tilt my hips again, but the weight of him holding me to the wall has me locked down tight, and I only manage to squirm a little. Yet by the way his chest expands like a bellows and his grip on my thighs tightens, that small movement charged through him like a wildfire.

“Don’t move,” he growls. “Don’t let that dress slip down, or I’ll fuck you deep and hard.”

Oh god. Is this a choice? Because I want him deep and hard. But I also want to push him right to the edge.

I go still.

Ranger gives a tortured groan like I made the wrong decision. Oh, but it’s the right one. It’s so right. Because he presses his forehead to mine again, has me impaled on his cock and hasn’t even kissed me yet, but suddenly the world narrows down to the space between us, filled with the intimacy of mingled breaths and shared months of waiting.

“Ranger,” I whisper.

“I know, baby.” With a roll of his hips, he grinds me into the wall, his heavy thickness massaging the full length of my channel, making pleasure bloom deep inside me. “You want it all right now, yeah? Every goddamn thing we’ve been imagining. Everything we’ve been needing. We’ll do it all. And so much more. We’ve got time.”

Not enough. So I don’t want to wait another second. “Please,” I beg, threading my fingers into his thick hair at his nape, trying to pull myself closer to him. “Now.”

“All right, then.” Softly he nips my bottom lip, teasing. “You demand, I obey. And we’ll take it slow and easy so that dress doesn’t fall. Ah, Christ help me, I can barely make myself pull out.”

Though he does, mouth drawn in a feral grimace. Slowly he withdraws until only the fat head of his erection is still wedged within me, and a needy ache rushes in to fill the emptiness he leaves behind.

He leans back, his hot gaze angling down to where we’re joined. “So goddamn wet and smooth. Your pussy slicked up my cock real good.”

Those swollen inches glisten between us, long and curved. And almost too impossibly thick to imagine how he’d just been inside me, but I watch as his shaft sinks into me again, feeding the greedy hunger that constricts my inner muscles around him.

“So damn smooth,” Ranger grits out, pushing deeper. “But not easy. Not into a cunt this tight.”

With a grunt, he fills me completely. The quiet thunk of his dangling belt buckle swinging into the wall joins the choked sound of pleasure I make when he bottoms out. So deep inside me. And nothing hurts now. It’s all so good, the pressure that was stretching me too tight, burning too hot when it was concentrated just in my pussy now building through my entire body in waves timed to the slow rhythm of his thrusts, the rougher cadence of every word he says, the swing of his buckle.

“Don’t know what’s better.” Thunk. “Being buried deep inside this tight little cunt or fucking my way in.” Thunk. “Never felt anything so goddamn hot and sweet.” Thunk. “Ah, Lord help me. Can’t come unless I feel you squeezing me, baby.”

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Suddenly it’s too much. Slow torture of the sweetest kind. On ragged gasps, I squirm against the wall. Letting go of his neck, I brace my hands on his biceps instead, trying to gain leverage to push back against him. His cock invades my taut flesh again, and burning pressure returns to my pussy like a hot expanding balloon, but there’s no release for it, stretching tighter within me, twisting higher with every harsh breath over my lips and swing of his buckle.

But this time there’s no thunk. Ranger holds himself still, half-buried inside me.

“Alicia,” he says hoarsely, the golden sparks in his eyes glowing so bright. “Look at what we did.”

Made my dress fall. The bodice is bunched at my waist, my exposed nipples painfully erect and flushed a deep rose.

I almost sob with relief. “Oops.”

With a growl, Ranger slams his hips forward, shunting his cock deep. I let loose a scream as pleasure bursts through me, blinding me with the sheer intensity. This is what I need. This, this, this. His body batters me into the wall, his grunts and the wet slap of flesh joining the rapid thunkthunkthunk of his belt. For the first time in what seems like forever I don’t feel the monster inside me, don’t feel the endless terrifying hunger. All that I feel is this ecstasy, and Ranger driving into me, chasing away everything else with each brutal thrust.

The swelling pressure tightens unbearably. My fingers twist in the black cotton stretched across his chest, his name a desperate chant on my lips, my legs shaking uncontrollably in his unyielding grip.

“Like that, baby.” Expression feral, he pistons his cock faster, harder. “This is what I live for now. To make you come. To make you scream. To feel your pussy cinch up so goddamn tight that I can’t even get in without—”

Teeth bared in a savage grimace, he breaks off to pump into me with short, hard jolts, setting off little blasts of pleasure that make me shudder and whine, my inner muscles constricting.

Snarling, Ranger hikes my knees up, shoving me higher up the wall. On the first hard stroke the new angle detonates an explosion within me, flaring white behind my eyes as the orgasm rips through my convulsing flesh. The devastating wake tears my senses apart, everything I see and hear and feel scattering into disparate pieces.

Slowly I come back to the smoke of his voice, the burning embers of his eyes…his thick cock still buried inside me. But I’m not pinned to the wall anymore. Instead he’s holding me against his chest, his big hands cradling my ass, his gaze burning into mine.

Still quivering, I wrap my legs around his hips. “You didn’t come?”

“Fuck no.” Carrying me, he strides toward the bed, each step setting off little aftershocks that make me gasp and helplessly ride the rigid length inside me. “Ain’t going to fill this pussy with cum until after I taste it. But you didn’t make holding back easy, baby, giving me a cunt made of pure fucking heaven.”

Heaven is Ranger inside me. And heaven is Ranger’s tortured groan as he withdraws from my slick heat. As gently as if I’m a precious object, he lays me on the mattress, then steps back to tear his shirt over his head.

And that’s heaven, too, because I’m certain that I hear angels singing when his bare torso comes into view. I’ve always thought of myself as a fan of hairless chests, of the Captain Americas and the Thors. But it turns out that I’m a girl with a thing for mountains of muscle covered in forests of hair. The sheer masculinity on display makes my pussy clench, and when my gaze follows that forest path trailing down the ridges of his stomach, the thick column of his erection jutting from between his tree trunk thighs suddenly has me shifting around on the bed, trying to ease the deep, hollow ache that I thought my orgasm had blown away.

He kicks off his boots and his jeans. Standing in all his enormous, nude glory, he rakes his hungry gaze from my face to my thighs, pressed tightly together to contain the greedy ache inside me. Hot desire ripples through my lower belly when he scrapes his teeth over his bottom lip, and I whimper in delicious anticipation.

Ranger stoops closer to the bed, his face stark with need. With shocking swiftness, his fingers hook under the dress bunched around my waist and strip the silk down my legs. He tosses the garment into a nearby chair. A considering look is given to my high heels before he lets them be, and I laugh though the panting lust that has overtaken me again.

“You spread those pretty thighs now,” he rasps, his big fist stroking his engorged length, his gaze roaming over my flushed face, my heaving breasts. “Give me a good look at the pussy I’m about to eat.”

Shyness threatens to return, the sudden fear that he’ll think I’m awkward and silly instead of sexy—but only for the beat it takes to meet his dark eyes again, to see Ranger watching me as if he wants me more than he’s ever wanted anything. Emboldened by that look, I part my legs, knees bent with my heels digging into the bedspread. Then for good measure, I arch my back and cup my breasts in my hands, my thumbs teasing my beaded nipples, and touch the tip of my tongue to my upper lip.

Ranger’s reaction is everything I could have hoped for. A hoarse grunt erupts from him and his massive body goes rigid. Not moving, not breathing. Utterly still…except for his eyes, consuming me on a slow path from my mouth to my tits, then between my thighs. The moment his gaze settles there, his fist abruptly clenches around the flared rim of his cockhead, and a rivulet of cum spills from the tip to stream down over his white-knuckled fingers.

“Uh-oh,” I tease, my hand leaving my breast to slip down over my stomach. “Did seeing the naughty teacher’s shy little pussy almost make you come? Then what happens when I touch—”

A growl rips through the room. He lunges onto the bed, catching my wrist in one hand and my opposite ankle in the other. With deliberate intent, his head lowers between my thighs, but all the while his gaze burns upward, locked on mine in wordless warning.

That I’m his to touch. His to please. Ranger doesn’t say it. He doesn’t need to. That look resonates somewhere deep inside me and I understand him perfectly.

“Yes,” I whisper, my heart pounding with the same wanton abandon that spread my legs to reveal the vulnerable core of me. I’m so ready to give everything to him. “Yours.”

An approving rumble from his chest is followed by a warm press of his lips to the center of my palm. He releases my wrist and wraps his arm around my thigh, angling his forearm back down over my hip, his big hand low on my belly. A quiver races over my skin as his long fingers form a V above my clit and part the lips of my sex.

He groans deep. “Your little pussy is so damn pretty, baby. And you smell so fucking sweet.” On a long inhalation, his eyes close in an expression of tortured bliss. “Even sweeter after coming on my cock. I bet you’ll taste like melted sugar after coming on my tongue.”

I don’t know what I’ll be. I don’t know anything after his first slow lick that culminates in a suckling kiss around my clit. I cry out, my back arching high, my coquettish posture forgotten, everything swept away but the way Ranger devours my pussy as if he’s starving for me and my pleasure is the only sustenance he’ll ever need.

And as if he’ll never get enough. His mouth is all over me, licking, tasting, teasing, then on a guttural moan he drags me even closer, his shoulders forcing my knees upward toward my chest. His thick finger sinks into me. His knuckle finds the spot that makes my thighs begin to shake, and he begins alternating between licking and sucking my clit, the sound so wet and hot and dirty that every taste, every touch is magnified, as I feel and hear it all at once.

An orgasm plows into me on one of those licks, knocking the breath from my lungs as I helplessly shudder and writhe beneath his tongue. A gasping scream leaves me when the explosion of ecstasy releases my convulsing flesh, and I collapse back, looking down between my thighs to where Ranger watches me with burning eyes.

“So fucking sweet,” he growls—then bends his head to do it again.

I’m a mindless, boneless wreck when he finally prowls up over my quivering form, his lips and tongue and hands worshipping more of my skin as he makes a slow pilgrimage to my mouth. His swollen length pushes into me again, claiming my body at the same moment his lips claim mine in a soul-shattering kiss. Because this, too, he does as if my kiss is the only kiss he’ll ever need. As if my lips are the only lips he’ll ever want. As if I’m the only one he’ll ever fuck as his thick erection moves within me in long, unhurried strokes.

I lock my ankles behind his back, our open mouths slanting together again and again—already addicted to the possessive thrust of his tongue, to the breathtaking intensity of his kiss. My fingers buried in his hair, I rock with him, loving every sultry taste past his lips, every endless slide of his cock. Loving how he makes me feel.

It’s so dangerous, what he’s doing to me. I know it.

And this isn’t at all what I expected.

My lips curve under his then. As if feeling my smile, Ranger lifts his head slightly—just enough that we don’t have to look at each other cross-eyed.

His voice is all heat and smoke. “What is it?”

I shrug a little, my fingers drifting down his beard. “I just thought…after waiting so long, that you’d use my pussy like a fuck toy.”

He rumbles out a short laugh. “I’ll do that, too.” Eyes searching mine, he cups my cheek in his big hand, his thumb slipping over my parted lips. “But as you say, it’s been a long time waiting. So I’m going to savor every sweet inch of you first. That all right?”

Yes. No.

He’s going to wreck my heart when I let him go.

But I don’t see any way to stop it. With a nod, I draw him down into another kiss. A moan builds in my throat as he fills me again, so big and so thick that there’s no escaping the pleasure that radiates through my body, the exquisite intimacy of it. He’s braced over me with his forearm beside my shoulder, his crisp chest hair lightly rasping my nipples with every leisurely thrust.

And savor me he does, holding me close as he fucks me sweet and slow, until I’m quaking beneath him and muffling my cries against the strong column of his throat. Only then does he break, plunging into me hard and deep, devouring my mouth with a scorching kiss. He shoves my knees up to my shoulders on a final pump of his hips, throws back his head and grinds his cock into my yielding flesh. Suddenly every muscle in his big body clenches, sinews and tendons corded with strain, and the hot flood of his release inside me sends my body reeling into another orgasm, coming helplessly on his pulsating shaft.

His chest heaves as he bends his head to take my mouth in another hot kiss that gradually becomes softer, slower—until finally he rolls over onto the bed and brings me with him.

Utterly sated, I sprawl over his torso, my legs still straddling his hips and his thickness still heavy within me. He holds me close as I pillow my head on his pectoral, listening to the thunder of his heartbeat, absently trailing my fingers through the short hairs. Then even that movement seems too much.

Not just sated. Still exhausted.

“I might fall asleep,” I tell him drowsily.

A deep chuckle rumbles through him, and his big hand caresses the length of my hair. Almost like he’s petting me. And it’s so comforting, so relaxing. “Long night last night?”

Almost too fatigued to speak, I move my head against his chest in a nod. Such a long night. Running miles and miles, searching for him. Needing him. Not finding him.

A painful lump in my throat pierces the fatigue. “Ranger?”

His hand sweeps down my hair again. “Hmm?”

“Promise me something.”

“I’ll give you anything you need, baby.”

And that’s the problem. How giving he is. How wonderful he is. In a raw whisper, I tell him, “Please don’t make me fall in love with you.”

His hand stops. For an instant there’s nothing, only the drumming of his heart. Then his big body moves slightly beneath mine, his muscles flexing, and I feel the kiss he presses to the top of my head. The slow caress over my hair resumes.

My eyes close. The thrum of his heartbeat lulls me deeper.

“I’ll give you anything, Alicia.” The quiet rasp of Ranger’s reply comes from a long way off. “Except for that.”

I can’t even remember what I asked.

5

RANGER

“WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?” Brandon asks, his voice low.

Hell if I know. “We didn’t exactly get around to talking yet.”

His shoulders shake with silent laughter. He’s in the hall just outside my room, with me standing in the open doorway. Alicia’s still out cold on the bed. Being quiet won’t really make a difference to her—she could hear us, easy—but I don’t think there’s much that could wake her now, anyway. About three hours ago, I called down for food, and she slept through both the delivery and the scent of grilled steak filling the room. Her dinner’s sitting in the mini-fridge now. I suspect it might stay there for a while longer.

Still, it’s a habit to lower our voices when we’re talking about anything involving fur or fangs. And no one appreciates two loud motherfuckers conversing in a hotel hallway at midnight.

“Someone must have bit her, though,” he says. “You want me to go sniffing around tonight, try to find who did it?”

“Have you smelled anyone else since we’ve been in town?” All that I’ve noticed was Alicia—whose scent is a lot like ours, but just a bit different. A little eerie.

That’s the curse in her. Something I haven’t smelled in years, since our great grandfather was still alive. But we aren’t necessarily looking for someone who was cursed, too. It might have been another wolf like me—born instead of bit.

“No one else,” he confirms. “Could be a nearby town, though.”

That it could. “Go looking if you like. Or wait until she’s awake to tell us.”

Brandon stifles another laugh. “And when you get around to it again?”

I’ll get around to it. Because I’ve got a feeling it’s a conversation Alicia and I need to have first thing. Probably should have already had.

But she was so fucking hot. And so damn sweet. When she walked through that restaurant door, looking like she did and hurting so bad for release, as if she needed my cock more than anything, talking was the last thing in my head.

Now I know what put all those shadows in her eyes, though. She’s not sick. She’s been dealing with a curse.

I should have come sooner. “If you find this fucker—”

“I’ll leave him to you,” Brandon says, reading me so easily.

“Be careful with your own scent. Don’t spook him and give him a chance to run.” Not that it’d help him escape me. But I don’t want to waste time chasing the bastard. Not time that I could be spending with Alicia.

“You think this is my first time hunting some asshole?” A cold, dangerous look hardens my brother’s face—and is not an expression I see him wearing often. “The motherfucker won’t know I was there. You just work on helping your woman.”

There’s only one way to do that. And it’s the one thing Alicia asked me not to do.

I ease the door closed after he heads out. All the lights are off, but I can see just fine on the way to the bed—I could even without the moonshine spilling through the curtains, the moon still looking full and round against the night sky. But not completely full, like it was last night.

And I was in town last night, godfuckingdammit. If I’d had any inkling, I could have been with her. I’ve never met an untamed beast before, don’t know how she would have reacted to me. But I could have made sure Alicia was safe while she wasn’t in control.

It kills my heart that she was out there alone. That she probably woke up not knowing where she’d been or what she’d done. But it’ll never happen again.

And she’ll never be alone again.

Lying on her belly with all that gorgeous red hair in a tumble down her back, Alicia doesn’t stir when I climb into the bed beside her, just like she didn’t stir when I first left the bed or when I slid those dead sexy heels off her dainty little feet. She’s sleeping so damn hard that I keep stopping to listen and make sure she’s still breathing, that her heart’s still beating. Now I pull her against my chest so that I can feel her breaths and heartbeat, too, then drag a lungful of her scent into me, until my heart’s surrounded by the fragrance of her.

Don’t make me fall in love with you.

But that’s exactly what I intend to do. There’s a good chance she asked that without knowing how love could tame her beast—yet even if she wasn’t a werewolf, I’d do the same damn thing.

Until she asked, though, it never occurred to me that she didn’t know what I was, too. I assumed that the second she stepped into the restaurant, she must have smelled the difference in me and recognized what it meant. Just like I did her. But I’ve been a wolf all my life. I’ve had decades to learn scents. I figure she’s had about six months…in a town where there’s no one else like her, nothing to tell her what that scent means.

Right now, she’s probably afraid that her beast might tear me apart. But the only danger Alicia poses to me is the damage she might do to my heart if she doesn’t let herself fall in love.

So the talk we put off—we’ll be having that first thing.

I WAKE to the sensation of a slight weight straddling my hips and sharp claws skimming down my chest. The sultry perfume of Alicia’s arousal fills the air, but that soft growl isn’t hers.

Not exactly hers. Because I’ve heard Alicia make that same sound. Yet I don’t think she’s the one making it now.

Her beast is. Not fully transformed, but with fangs and claws and her eyes glowing green. Night still fills the sky outside, the moon low and shining straight through the sliding doors that lead out onto the small balcony. Maybe that’s how the beast took over. Or maybe she can while Alicia’s sleeping. I don’t know exactly how all that works.

But I know that I need this beast to love me. And I need her to believe that I’ll accept and love everything about her in return.

“You’re fucking beautiful,” I tell her hoarsely, because she is—and make my own eyes glow, show her my own fangs and claws. “I bet you are in your other form, too. So you don’t ever need to hide yourself from me.”

She smiles but ducks her face behind her curtain of red hair, as if pleased but also shy. Just like Alicia seemed the first couple of times we talked. But as soon as she opened up…holy fuck, she was the sweetest, funniest, sexiest little thing. And after a while, I figured out it wasn’t all shyness. Some of it was. But there was wariness there, too. Like maybe she didn’t trust people not to hurt her. And I suppose me being so far away made it easier for her to accept that I wouldn’t.

This beast is Alicia, too. They share a heart and soul…and probably the same fears.

“I’ll never hurt you,” I tell her now, and her eyes flare a brighter green. With a snarl, she lunges for my throat but I don’t flinch. Her teeth snap together a millimeter from my skin.

Testing me.

“I’m not afraid of you, either.” I take the back of her neck in a tight grip, telling her without words to settle down a bit. “I’ll never run scared, you understand me? And I’ll never hurt you, never let you be hurt. I’ll be everything you need.”

She lifts her head and I allow it, my hand still cupping her nape. Her narrowed green eyes stare down into mine, then she dips her mouth closer, tongue flicking out over my lips. With a roll of her hips, she rubs her wet pussy into my stomach, then gives me a look rife with challenge. As if demanding me to prove that I’ll be what she needs.

I recognize Alicia here, too. This sexy and playful side. And my cock’s a solid aching stone, but I shake my head. “Not without all of you here, baby.”

She snarls and tries to scoot back onto my dick, as if intending to take what she wants. I tighten my grip on her neck again, let her struggle—my heart hurting the whole damn time I’m denying her.

But although she fights me, not once does she scratch me or bite me. Finally she stops, lying defeated on my chest with a heartbroken whimper, her face buried in the crook of my neck and shoulder.

My throat raw, I wrap my arm around the beast’s shaking form, holding her closer. “Don’t you ever think that I don’t want you. Because you’re all hunger and heat, and so fucking sexy—but I need more than that from you. And you need more than that from me, too.”

Alicia’s beast doesn’t respond, but I can smell the hurt pouring off her. Can feel her uncertainty.

Hurting with her, I press a kiss into her silky hair. “That curse tore you up good, didn’t it? But I’ll help make you whole again. I swear it to you now. So that you’ll know it deep down when you’re fully awake, even when you’re scared and doubting. I want every part of you, I love every part of you.”

She turns her head and bites into my neck then—hard, so fucking hard, but nothing ever hurt so good. Ecstasy jolts through my veins like lightning, electrifying every muscle in an erotic shock that jags straight to my cock. My hips punch upward, cum erupting in violent spurts.

Holy fuck. Holy fuck.

Heart pounding, I ease back to the bed, still holding her slight figure against my chest. If I were human, I’d be cursed now, too. But I’m not. And she knows it. So there’s no mistaking what that was.

A claim.

“You’re right,” I reassure her, laughing hoarsely. “I’m all yours, baby.”

I feel her smile against my neck before she licks the bite. Then she snuggles in closer.

A few minutes later, she’s asleep again.

6

ALICIA

THE FAMILIAR BUZZ of an incoming message on my phone wakes me. Probably Sam checking in before she goes home. I need to answer her soon or she’ll start worrying.

But I take a minute first to luxuriate in the delicious sensation of waking up with Ranger’s massive body serving as both my pillow and my bed. The heavy weight of one of his arms is slung across my back, the fingers of his opposite hand curled around my thigh—as if he fell asleep while holding me close and simply never let me go.

And he smells so good. Last night his scent seemed strange. Not like any other man’s at all. But now the only association I have with his unique odor is warmth and pleasure.

So much pleasure. And judging by the sunlight coming through the balcony doors, after he blew off the top of my head with all those orgasms, I completely conked out on him.

The way Ranger’s holding me now, though, he must not have minded. And hopefully he hasn’t noticed that I drooled on his shoulder a little.

Another buzz from my phone. Okay, okay. I surreptitiously swipe the drool from the corner of my mouth, then turn my face against his throat to draw in a deep breath through my nose—oh my god, so good. There’s another scent mingling with his, a familiar metallic odor that niggles at the back of my head, but that worry vanishes when Ranger’s arm suddenly tightens around me and a wordless denial rumbles through his broad chest.

“I’m coming right back,” I breathe against his lips. “Sleep some more. And I’ll order breakfast.”

Because I should probably eat something soon. I’m starving.

Without opening his eyes, Ranger makes a deep humming sound in his throat. His big hand smooths up my leg and his fingertips skim over the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, telling me without words the breakfast he intends on having, then gives my ass a squeeze and lets me go.

With sheer happiness bubbling through me, I toss my dress on over my head. I dig my phone out of my tote and grab the room service menu before heading out to the balcony. There’s not much of a view—just the hotel’s parking lot—but the early morning air is cool and fresh, and out here I’m less likely to disturb Ranger while I’m putting in the breakfast order. I slide the balcony door closed. My sister’s message is exactly what I expected.

Sam: Shift’s almost over. Heading home soon. All good?

Alicia: All good.

She replies with a thumbs-up while I eagerly look through the menu—then I pause, frowning down at my forefinger. At the smear of blood there. But where did it…?

Heart stilling, I touch my mouth, then frantically wipe at my lips. There’s more blood. Not much. But it’s there. Muffling my sudden, terrified whimpers with the back of my hand, I haul open the balcony door.

And my heart dies.

There’s a crimson stain on Ranger’s pillow—and a distinctive mark on his neck that wasn’t there last night. A bite mark. The wound is faint, almost healed…but so were my wounds, the morning after I was mauled.

I bit him.

A choked sob rips through my chest, barely muffled behind my hand. On the bed, Ranger’s big body stiffens and his eyes open. As if he heard me. Because he probably did. Desperately I stumble to the bathroom, grab a towel from the rack and bury my face in the white cloth before screaming into it, screaming and screaming, collapsing to the floor with my back against the door, my heart dead and broken, broken.

What did I do? What did I do?

“Alicia?” His sooty voice sounds just on the other side of the door, gritty with sleep and thick with concern. “Baby, you okay?”

I should never have come. I should never have dared getting close. Because I’m a fucking monster.

Now I’ve made him one, too.

I never want to open this door. Never want to see his horror, his anger—if I can even convince him. He’s going to think I’m crazy and push me away. Until the next full moon, when it all comes true. Then he’ll hate me for what I’ve done to him.

Knowing I would have to let him go was already going to destroy me. But this? This?

All because I was selfish. Because I thought I could control the beast.

As soon as I knew Ranger was coming, I should have run far away. Or told him to run from me.

But I can’t run from this now. Tears fill my hot, hiccuping breaths. “I’ll…be out…in a minute.”

“Alicia.” His voice hardens. “Tell me what’s going on.”

I can’t yet. And I need help. But my hands are shaking too hard to text. I tap my sister’s name and press the phone to my ear.

“Let me guess,” she answers dryly. “You want me to pick up half a dozen Egg McMuffins and—”

“I bit him,” I sob into the phone. “I bit him.”

“Okay. Keep calm. I’m on my way.” She audibly exhales a breath. “Is he still alive?”

“Yes.” Though he might soon wish he wasn’t. I bury my face in the towel again. “I’m at the Columbia.”

“I know where you are, sis. I’ll be there in five. You hang in there.”

I nod though she can’t see me, my throat a raw burning knot. Because now I’ve got to get up and tell Ranger what I’ve done.

Except he already heard it.

“You haven’t hurt me, Alicia.” His voice is a low, soothing rumble—and right behind me, as if he’s crouching next to the door, at my level. “You haven’t done anything to me.”

More hot tears spill down my cheeks. Because this is the last time I’ll ever hear him speak to me this way. As if I’m precious and wonderful and not a horrifying beast.

“You don’t know what I’ve really done,” I whisper.

“I do know. You think that you’ve cursed me with that bite, that I’ll become a werewolf now. But you can’t change me into something that I already am.”

My heart stops. “What did you say?”

“That I’m already like you, Miss Simmons. So come out here and talk to me.”

Am I dreaming? Slowly I get up from the tiled floor, my mind racing. Trying to make it fit. And maybe it does. Because there’s his scent, which isn’t like any other man’s. And his strength. Even for someone of his size, Ranger seemed too strong. Now other bits come back to me, too. Like him saying my dress smelled new. I didn’t think about it then, because it does smell new. Or did before he fucked me in it.

But…no. It can’t be true. Still, he knows something.

Hesitantly I crack open the door. Ranger’s standing with his hands braced on either side of the doorframe, his huge body blocking the path out of the bathroom as if making sure I don’t try to dart past him.

In a pained whisper I say, “You first wanted to meet on the night of the full moon. You couldn’t have done that if you were like me.”

“That’s true. I’m not exactly like you, because I was born this way. Not bitten.” His gaze searches my face through the door’s narrow opening. “I had a chat with your beast last night.”

My breath strangles in my throat. “A chat?”

With the monster? He saw the thing inside me?

Oh no. Please no.

“I did most of the talking. But, yeah. I told her that I wasn’t going anywhere. That I’ll be everything she needs.” His voice deepens, those gold flecks in his eyes sparking and glowing. “Now I’m telling you.”

I want so much to believe him. But no hope fills the deep and ragged hole in my chest where my heart was. Only pain. Because if he’s telling me that… “You must not have really seen her, then.”

“She hid herself from me, true. Just like you’re doing now.”

Behind the bathroom door. I don’t want to be anything like the beast. That’s probably why he made the comparison, trying to prod me out. The same way I might gently prod a reluctant student into opening up.

I’m not a kid, though. And the lesson to learn here is that I can’t control the beast and her hunger for Ranger. Not even the night after the full moon. I thought I could, but I can’t. So there’s no safe time for me to be around Ranger. Maybe it’s true my bite didn’t hurt him. But what about next time? Eventually, something worse will happen and he’ll see what’s really inside me.

Then he’ll push me away. Because he said it himself—I’m cursed. Cursed. And he’s not.

I made such a terrible mistake agreeing to meet him. I should have denied myself. I should deny myself now.

But he’s not pushing me away yet. And if I can have a little longer with him—just a bit more time—I’ll have more memories to hold close when he’s gone. The damage is done. The question isn’t whether I’ll be hurt. It’s only how much will I hurt?

So much. Because when I swing the door wider and step through, Ranger captures my face in his big hands and kisses me as if I’m everything. Helplessly I respond to the promise in that kiss, to the heat, to the need. He’s still naked from bed, his cock stiffening against my stomach. And all I want to do is take him inside me again, show him that he’s my everything, too.

But this is what got me into so much trouble—wanting so much, and not denying myself. Maybe Ranger realizes it, too, because he pulls away slightly, still cradling my cheeks, his breath harsh and hot against my moistened lips.

“This time, we talk first. Yeah?”

My chest aching, silently I nod.

“All right. I know you must have questions. So lay them on me. And—” He breaks off when my stomach growls. With a grin, he kisses me gently before letting me go. Naked, he stalks to the fridge. “There’s a cold steak in here. And we’ll order breakfast. We can eat and talk at the same time.”

A steak sounds so good. But I don’t want to rip into a piece of meat in front of him. “My sister’s still on her way. Maybe we can go downstairs to eat. This is a conversation that we should probably have together, anyway. Since she’s been helping me. And she knows what happened to me.”

Knows more than I do, really. What the beast does, where it goes.

Ranger gives me a considering look. “You’d be more comfortable with that?”

I lift a shoulder in a half-shrug. “Maybe.”

I can’t see myself ever being comfortable talking about what I’ve become, sister or not.

“That’s all that matters, then. And I’ll drag in my brother, too. Introduce you to him. That all right?”

A big family breakfast. Though nervousness quakes through me, I nod. “I’ll call my sister, let her know the change of plan.”

“I’ll call my brother, too.” He angles his head, voice deepening. “Hey, Brandon! Wake up, you lazy fuck. We’re heading down to breakfast and to tell my woman and her sister all about werewolves.”

I can’t stop my giggle. “Really? That’s how you call him?”

“Yeah, really.”

And I guess I’ll do the same thing to Sam when she pulls into the parking lot. The balcony door’s still open. So when I hear her come, I’ll just head out there and tell her to meet us downstairs, instead.

“Your brother’s like you?”

“Not quite. A bear, not a wolf. Still hears me fine when he wants to.”

A bear. And not like me at all. Swallowing hard, I drop my overnight tote on the bed and pull out a change of clothes. “So he’s not cursed, either?”

Something in my voice must have told Ranger how much that word hurts me. All the amusement leaches from his expression and he regards me solemnly. “He isn’t.”

Not cursed. And I realize there’s only one question that really matters to me. “Can the curse be broken? Can I become human again?”

“No, baby,” he says softly, and even as agony shoots through my heart, he adds, “But you can tame your beast.”

Tame it? “What does that mean?”

“It means the curse doesn’t tear you apart anymore. You’ll be able to control yourself in your other form. And change at will, even on the full moon.”

Hope lifts through me. “You mean…I would never have to turn into that monster again?”

“I suppose if you don’t want to.” His eyes narrow slightly. “But changing’s not so bad. A lot of times, it’s damn fun.”

“Fun?” In sheer disbelief, I shake my head. I wouldn’t call it fun. I’d call it horrific. Agonizing. Yet I don’t think Ranger’s lying to me…so he must be talking about something else, some other kind of transformation. Because if he’s saying fun, then what he calls a werewolf and what I call a werewolf are two wildly different things. “Can you show me? Or do you have to—”

No no no nonono. Earlier, I wondered if I was dreaming. But I’m not dreaming.

Instead I’m in a nightmare.

Ranger’s not standing in front of me anymore. Only the monster who mauled me, a giant horror of fangs and claws and fur. Terror shreds me open, ripping a scream from my throat and tearing apart every rational thought, leaving only desperation.

I have to get away. Have to escape. Or it’s going to tear me into pieces again. And hurt me so bad.

Panic surges through my legs. I stumble over the bed, feet tangling in the loose blankets, shrieking as I fall. No, no. The thing looks like Ranger again, his face taut and the edges of his lips white with tension, but I cringe away from the hard body that suddenly comes so close, the big hands that hold me tight, because all I still see is the monster coming for me.

Then my own beast comes roaring up beneath my skin—protecting us, protecting me—but nothing the beast ever does protects me. Only rips me open more, delivering new agony that makes me scream and double over as my bones snap and muscles bulge and face splits spart, my skin stretching horrifically and it hurts, hurts, hurts.

“Alicia! Oh, baby, baby. No. You’re safe. You’re okay.” Ranger’s sooty voice. His wonderful smell. His strong grip on the back of my neck. “You’re safe here with me. I’ll never hurt you. I’ll never let anything hurt you.”

He can’t stop what’s hurting me. Nothing can. And I can’t respond as my mouth cracks wider into jaws, until the sound coming from them isn’t screaming but howling, and all pain. All agony.

“You’re safe, Alicia.” His breathing roughens and his face presses into my fur. His voice is thick and hoarse as he says, “And I’m so fucking sorry, baby. I didn’t realize I’d scare you.”

He didn’t scare me. What scared me wasn’t Ranger. I know that couldn’t have been him, even if he looked like the monster that tore me apart.

A monster like I am.

But the beast seems to take comfort in his voice, his touch—and she retreats, while I scream and scream as the excruciating agony of transforming back into human cracks me open and rips me apart all over again, leaving me a sobbing wreck on the floor.

And Ranger saw me. He saw what I am.

Mindless panic tears through me again. To get away. To never see how he looks at me now. Screaming, I lurch out of his grip for the open balcony door, leaping onto the railing and then down, down, landing in a crouch on the pavement and then sprinting away from the heartbreak that awaits me, as if running fast enough and far enough will stop it from ever catching up.

Except Ranger does, in an instant—powerful arms wrapping me up so tight, so close to his huge body. I cry out and thrash against that strong grip, but he doesn’t release his hold.

“I’ll never let you go,” he snarls into my ear. “Never.”

The vow douses the fight in me. All panic gone. Only pain left. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tell him on a sobbing breath, “You will.”

“No,” Ranger replies, more softly this time. “And you can’t scare me away, Miss Simmons. So don’t even try. Now, is this your sister who’s about to shoot me?”

Samantha, standing in the open door of her patrol vehicle—her hand ready on the weapon at her hip, her face pale. “That was a hell of a jump you both just made. You okay, sis?”

No. But I nod, forcing myself to swallow past the lump in my throat. “We were just about to get breakfast.”

Her gaze flicks downward. “Not like that, I hope.”

Because I’m still in my little dress, even through my transformation, but barefoot. And Ranger is stark naked. If he wasn’t holding me so close, she’d probably already be writing up an indecent exposure citation.

There’s a pillowy thump as a pair of jeans and T-shirt drop to the ground. On the balcony above, a big man waves at us.

“Got you covered, brother. So we’re meeting downstairs?”

“Bring my boots,” Ranger rumbles, then presses a kiss to my temple. “Why don’t you take your sister up to the room while you change. Then my brother and I will meet you in the restaurant and answer any questions you have about this curse. All right?”

Wide-eyed, Sam arches her brows at me.

On a shuddering sigh, I nod. “Okay.”

But he doesn’t immediately let me go. For another second, he holds me close. “I meant every damn word I said, Alicia. You’re mine now. I’m yours. And I’ll never leave.”

Throat aching, I can only nod again. Not really believing it.

But it’s a wonderful thing to dream.

7

RANGER

SHE DOESN’T BELIEVE ME. Any other time, any other woman, maybe that would have pissed me off. Having to prove myself.

But not with Alicia. With her, I’m lucky to get a chance at all. I know that for damn sure. Because her sister’s upstairs telling her that maybe she shouldn’t be so quick to push me away, and to listen to what I have to say first.

Which means I wasn’t wrong about Alicia. She isn’t just shy, she’s also wary. And, fuck. After what I saw in that hotel room, I can’t blame her. She probably doesn’t think anyone can handle that.

She’s almost right. Most people couldn’t.

But I can.

Brandon slides his phone across the table with a message written there for me. You ever get around to telling her about the job?

I grit my teeth. No, I didn’t. So she really doesn’t know yet that I’m staying.

He shakes his head at me like I’m the most pathetic asshole who ever lived. “You know that communication is the most important part of a relationship, yeah?”

“You get that from Instagram, too?” Because he’s sure as hell no expert on relationships.

“It was from Dad,” he says.

Shit. He’s got me there. Our parents are as solid as any couple I’ve ever seen. You wouldn’t think it, a wolf and a bear. But they’ve made it work for thirty years, so they’re doing something right.

Brandon begins writing something else. Growing up in a family where everyone has excellent hearing means learning how to avoid someone listening in on what they shouldn’t. Alicia and Sam haven’t quite worked that through yet—or maybe they just don’t realize how easy it is for me and Brandon to pick up what they’re saying.

Or maybe they think we’re decent men who’ll respect their privacy. Most of the time, we would. But fuck that right now. I need to know how to fight for her.

Brandon shows me his phone again. Never seen a cursed werewolf change. Was it as bad as it sounded?

“Worse,” I say softly. And not because of the way she looked. As a werewolf, she’s gorgeous. Sleek and strong, fur tinged the same red as her hair. But the way it happened was fucking horrifying, literally breaking and ripping her apart—and hurting her. Hurting her so goddamn bad, and taking forever to finish.

That’s not how it is for Brandon or me. The change happens in a blink. And it feels good, like a warm stretch after a deep sleep.

“What triggered it?” he asks.

“Me.” Terrifying the fuck out of her. My chest still aches from the way she screamed and panicked. But she knew that I intended to transform. She asked me to do it. So I don’t figure it was me that really scared her. Voice real low, I tell him, “I’m thinking she got ripped up bad.”

His face hardens and the rest goes without saying. We’ll find who it was. But since I hear Alicia and her sister on their way, that’s something we can discuss later.

We got a booth in the corner, with Brandon sitting across from me. Maybe it’s a jerk move to split up the women, but two big assholes won’t fit on one bench. Still, I’m glad when Sam deliberately hangs back until Alicia chooses her seat—and she chooses the one beside me.

Even more glad to see that she didn’t bring her overnight bag down with her. As if she intends to return to that room upstairs.

A big knot of tension eases from my chest, letting me draw my first real breath since the moment she started screaming. She smells so good, fresh from the shower, her own delicious fragrance mixing with the soap and shampoo. Her thick hair is damp and piled on top of her head. Loose red tendrils trail down her vulnerable nape. Her tiny shorts and little top aren’t as new as her dress was but just as damn sexy—and I love that this is what she packed to wear during her time with me, as if she wanted to drive me crazy with her long sleek legs.

My brother reaches across the table. “Brandon Ranger.”

“Hi, Brandon.” All that shyness is there again as his giant grip swallows up her hand. “And this is my sister, Sam.”

In a county sheriff’s uniform. She tosses her hat onto the table and drops in next to Brandon. No shyness in this one. She lifts her chin to greet me and then turns to my brother. “What the hell does a werebear look like? Because these two are pulling some classic Hollywood horror movie shit, but you’re like…what? Winnie the Pooh? Because that’s the only bear I can think of that walks upright.”

His eyes narrow. “What about the Care Bears?”

“Ahhh, crap. Totally forgot about those. Do you have a big four-leaf clover on your belly?”

“No such luck.” And the fucker actually pulls up his shirt to show her his abs—probably hoping some muscle and hair will snag her interest. Probably praying it will, because the way Brandon’s looking at her tells me his interest is snagged hard. But maybe that’s how it is with us. One look, and we’re done for.

“There’s the Charmin toilet paper bears, too,” Alicia says mildly from beside me. She’s got her nose buried in the menu. Not looking at me yet. But that’s okay.

Her sister snorts out a laugh and Brandon shakes his head.

“My heart dies a little every time I see those commercials,” he says. “But an animated bear’s gotta make a living, just like everyone else. I guess wiping your ass on TV is one way to do it.”

The waitress shows up again, a trim woman of about fifty who already gave us plenty of sass and vinegar along with the pitcher of orange juice that Brandon ordered while we were waiting.

Her eyebrows arch when she sees who joined us. She looks to Samantha. “Just your usual, Sarge?”

“Yeah.”

“You too, sis? With double meat?”

Alicia sighs and hands over the menu. “Yes. Thank you.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She eyes me next. “You look like a double meat, too. Maybe a triple.”

Samantha snickers. “You’re earning that tip today.”

The waitress snorts right back. “Honey, if you put a little sugar on it, they’ll give you more than just the tip. So what does such a big and strong and handsome man like you want for breakfast this morning?”

Just my woman. But triple meat will do for now. And when the waitress disappears again, there’s no menu for Alicia to hide behind.

Hesitantly, she glances at me, and all the uncertainty in that look rips my heart to shreds. As if she isn’t sure how I’ll see her now.

I’m going to chisel away that uncertainty until it’s gone. And maybe she needs me to go easy, but I can’t be smooth and subtle any better than her untamed beast can resist the full moon.

“I’m crazy about you, Alicia Simmons,” I tell her now in a low voice, my palm covering the hands she’s got twisted together on her lap. “And when I say that I’m not going anywhere, I mean it. That ranger station up the street? Starting next week, that’s my new post.”

Her head shoots up and she stares at me, her green eyes wide. “You’re moving here?”

I nod. “I began looking for a job in this area about a month after our first conversation. And I got the best one.”

Hell, I got the best everything here.

I can see Alicia’s processing that news as the waitress drops by again to pour coffee into hers and Samantha’s mugs.

Samantha slides the bowl of packaged creamers to her side of the table. “So you’re taking Ranger Farley’s spot? I heard he was retiring.”

“He is.”

“The big log house at the other end of the station’s nature park comes with the job, doesn’t it?”

The district ranger’s residence. “Yeah, it does.”

Sam nods. “Alicia and I always liked that house.”

“Is that right?” I look to Alicia.

“Yes,” she says quietly. “The house and the park.”

Good. I have to let go of Alicia’s hands when she reaches for her coffee, but I don’t want to stop touching her. So I rest my hand on her thigh, instead—and she doesn’t tense or pull away. “Does that coffee still do anything for you?”

She stops, looking at me. “What do you mean?”

“The caffeine. We can drink gallons of that and not even feel a buzz.” I gesture to Brandon, who’s nodding. “Can’t get drunk, either.”

A wry smile curves her soft mouth. “I noticed that.”

“Tried a few times?”

A shadow passes through her eyes. “Yes.”

Trying to kill the pain and fear of what was happening to her, most likely. But couldn’t do that. Softly I ask, “Can you tell us what happened?”

“Not much to tell.” She shrugs like it’s nothing but I can smell the fear coming off of her again. “We were in Aspen during winter break. I went for a walk, because the full moon on the snow and the mountains was so beautiful.” Her voice begins to waver and her eyes close. “And I was mauled by a monster who started ripping out pieces of me and eating them, then who ran off when people came to see why I was screaming.”

Holy fucking Christ. Eating pieces of her. Gut churning, I look to Brandon, who’s already texting our parents. Colorado’s right next door to Wyoming. If there’s a cursed wolf running loose on the full moons, they might already know something about it.

Or Sam might, too. “There haven’t been any other attacks there,” she says. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the police reports in that area.”

“Maybe it’s killing elk now, too,” Alicia says painfully. “And I was just the unlucky human in its path.”

I lightly squeeze her thigh. “Is that what you’re doing—hunting elk?”

She looks so haunted, so sad. “For now. Until I run across someone hiking or camping, I guess.”

“Nah, that’s not how it works.” Brandon sets his phone down. “The curse unleashes a beast inside you, but it doesn’t put anything into you. You are who you are. So a sick fuck who always secretly wanted to hurt people will go out and hurt people. When decent people are cursed, though—their beasts don’t go around ripping people up.”

She stares at him in disbelief. “I wake up covered in blood.”

“Of course you do. You’re hungry, so you go out and hunt. But if that bothers you, then after you tame the beast, you don’t even need to do that. Just can just…eat bacon,” he says as the waitress returns and places a platter heaped with potatoes and bacon and eggs in front of him.

By the time she’s distributed all the plates, Brandon and I have practically got a whole pig on the table. Alicia’s double meat order looks tiny next to ours. Her stomach growls loudly again. Her hands shake a little when picking up her knife and fork, but she neatly cuts off a small bite of sausage. Starving but controlling herself.

That takes some willpower. She probably doesn’t even realize how strong she must be to do that.

Across from her, Samantha digs into a stack of pancakes. “So you two were born like this?”

“Not exactly like this,” Brandon says. “I was a wee bit smaller.”

“Only a wee bit? I feel sorry for your mother. Is she the wolf or the bear?”

“Bear.”

“So then…how? And— Nope, nope.” Sam abruptly points her fork at my brother, stopping him just as he opens his mouth to respond. “Don’t even start. I know your type. You’re going to say something like ‘I can show you how a bear and wolf make babies, Sergeant Sam’ and then I’ll have to smack you.”

“My type?” Brandon appears wounded. “You’ve never met my type, Sergeant Sam.”

She snorts and shoves another bite into her mouth.

“But I wouldn’t mind if you smacked me.”

Samantha rolls her eyes away from him and toward Alicia as if to say, “See?”

Alicia’s smile appears, the one that first started showing after she got over her initial shyness with me. The one she shows with people she trusts. Her sister, obviously. Me, thank fucking god. But it looks as if Brandon might be winning her over, too. “But where does it start? How far back does it go?”

“Hell if we know,” he tells her. “On the wolf side, our great grandfather was bit. Don’t know who bit him or where that wolf came from. On the bear side, it must go way back, since we can only be born. But all we know is that in the mid-1800s, a woman came out of the woods in Minnesota and she married a fur trapper, and they had little bear babies. I don’t know of any bear or wolf who doesn’t have a similar story—and I figure most of that history is gone because it wasn’t exactly safe to announce what they were to the general public.” His phone buzzes and he reads the message. “Mom says they tracked down that fucker in January. So that’s that.”

A meaning that’s clear to me, but maybe not to Alicia. Her smile is gone, her face pale as she asks, “The one who attacked me is dead?”

“Yeah,” I say gruffly.

A tremor shakes through her. “Yesterday, when I was walking here…I heard you talking about tracking someone down. Was that about hunting me?”

Ah, fuck. “Just to talk, baby. To see what kind of werewolf was running around town—someone decent or someone like the one who bit you, or maybe someone who already tamed their beast. But as soon as you walked through the door, we knew who we’d be looking for. And I already knew the kind of person you are.”

Expression uncertain, her eyes search mine for a long second before she nods. She drops her attention to her plate again, cutting away another small bite. “So…how do I tame it?”

Voice low, I tell her, “By falling in love with me.”

Her gaze jerks up to meet mine again. “What? That’s not funny.”

“You think I’d joke about that? I’m dead serious.”

Her lip trembles before she pinches it between her teeth, hiding her face as best she can by staring down at her plate. “That can’t be right,” she whispers.

“It is.” Beneath my hand, her smooth thigh is taut, quivering with tension. “And that’s where this thing between us was always headed, yeah? Even before you were bit. So let’s just keep on going.”

She gives a little shake of her head. “But it can’t be that simple.”

“It is. Mostly.” The falling in love part sure was simple for me. Might be more complicated for her, though. “And like I said, I’m sticking around here. So we’ve got time for it to happen. If it takes longer than the next full moon, that’ll be all right, too—because I’ll be out there with you.”

She gives me another of those haunted looks. “With the beast, you mean.”

The beast is Alicia, too. But I don’t push it now. That idea might take a while to get used to, and it’s clear she believes there’s a vicious monster inside her, just like the one who attacked her. And she’s terrified of what it might do.

But she’s also sitting right here, not at all scared of me. Though she’s seen what I can become. So in time, maybe she’ll also stop being so scared of herself.

Her brow furrowed slightly, Sam asks, “Does a gold chain have anything to do with this taming?”

And that was damn unexpected. I meet my brother’s eyes, see the same surprise there. “Yeah, it does,” I tell her. “How’d you know that?”

We only know because of our great grandfather—and the story of when he was tamed by my great grandmother.

“Internet.” She drags out her phone. “We’ve scoured about every site there is, looking for answers. The problem is, how do you know what’s bullshit and what’s real? But what you’re saying now reminds me of this. And I bookmarked— There it is.”

Brandon pushes closer to her, looks at the screen. “‘A History of Wolfkin and Bearkin. Based on the research of Bjørn Virtanen.’ Shit, that’s a good start, because we’ve run into people like us who do call themselves wolfkin and bearkin. So who’s this Virtanen?”

Sam shrugs. “I looked up the name but got nothing. So here we go…Norse epics and runes, blah blah blah, bears are berserker warriors, and there are also warriors with wolf skins that are called— I can’t even pronounce that word.”

Reading over her shoulder, Brandon tries an, “Ulfdugha…?”

“Whatever. Are you guys impervious to fire and most weapons?”

“Yeah, we are.” I look to Alicia, who’s quietly eating again. “Did you know that? Can’t get burnt, can’t get stabbed or cut by anything made of iron. Which means you’re safe from steel, too. Lead bullets hurt a bit—so does silver, but it doesn’t kill us. Just takes longer to heal.”

Tightly she nods. “Okay.”

Ah, baby. My heart fucking aches for her. The curious science teacher I know wouldn’t just meekly accept what I just told her. She’d ask all kinds of questions about how and why it works.

But she’s hurting bad right now. I can feel that pain, can smell the hopelessness coming off of her. And what’s hurting her now isn’t a weapon or fire, but inside her.

“Who even made this site?” There’s a little tussle on the other side of the table as Brandon swipes his finger down the screen, apparently trying to scroll past whatever bit about the gold chain that Sam’s trying to find. “There’s barely anything here but the notes and research. Is there a contact number?”

“Just a generic email.” Pulling the phone out of his reach, Sam pivots in her seat, presenting her back to him. “I never sent a message, though. Alicia didn’t like that it was all based on mythology and legends instead of science. And for all I knew, it was someone who uses this site to lure in unsuspecting werewolves and kills them for their pelts.”

“Holy shit, you got real dark there. Send me the email address, I’ll do it.”

“I remember the part about the chain,” Alicia says abruptly, her expression as wooden as her voice. The bickering from across the table falls silent. “That it was comparable to the werewolf making a marriage proposal—the chain connects her to the man she loves until he either rejects her or accepts her. And if he accepts her and the beast, it heals the rift the curse put between them, and they become whole. If he rejects them, she and the beast die.”

“No way in hell am I rejecting you.” I’ve already accepted Alicia. All of her. “So we’ve just got to wait until you love me and your chain is around my neck.”

Her eyes suddenly glow bright green, shimmering with tears. “Except that’s not all, is it? It’s not only that I have to fall in love with you. You have to love me, too. And I—” She breaks off, her trembling lips pressing tight together, despair flaring through her scent.

Abruptly she shakes her head and is up out of the seat, heading for the restaurant exit.

Shit. I start to haul up after her, but a boot planted in the seat that Alicia just vacated stops me from sliding out.

“Hold up, Ranger Ranger.” Sam must know that I can move her foot with a flick of a finger, but doesn’t seem to give a fuck. “Let her be for a minute.”

My jaw clenches. “She’s scared and hurting, goddammit.”

“Yeah, she is. She’s also about to cry, and she hates it when anyone sees her do that. So give her a minute to pull herself together, so she’s not scared and hurting and embarrassed.”

Fuck. I want to argue, but Alicia’s sister knows her better than I do. And I’d be a fool not to listen.

With a snarl, I settle back down, my gaze following Alicia out of the restaurant. She doesn’t go far. Just leans back against the brick wall of a storefront and tilts her head up, gasping in air.

I’m watching her, barely listening as Brandon asks Sam, “Are you married? You don’t smell married.”

“How the hell does a married woman smell?”

Like she’s got a man in her bed, his scent clinging to her. Even after her shower, Alicia came down smelling like that. And her scent’s all over me, too.

I’m fond of smelling married already.

Brandon doesn’t explain that part. And doesn’t conceal his satisfaction when he says, “Divorced, then. Are you over him? Do you need a rebound?”

“Do you like digging holes or does it just happen?”

“Kind of just happens. But I’m actually trying to figure out why your name tag says ‘Green’ and your sister is a Simmons.”

“Why is he Ranger and you’re Brandon?”

“Anywhere but here and home, I’m Ranger, too.”

“But are you a Ranger Ranger? Because that’s twice the Ranger.”

“Until about three weeks ago, I was.”

“Forest Service, too?”

“Army Ranger.”

“Shit. I had you pegged as a jarhead.”

“Now I’m deeply, sincerely offended. So you make it up to me by telling me why you’re a Green. Are you married? Or was Alicia?”

I know she wasn’t. Still the mention of Alicia’s name draws my attention away from her for the barest second, to see her sister watching me with a considering look in her eyes.

“Try again,” she tells Brandon.

My brother finally pulls his head out of her marital status. “Stepsister?”

“Close. Except her dad and my mom never married. Just lived together for a while. Until my mom realized there was nothing but an asshole beneath that charming smile. So she kicked him out, but we kept Alicia.”

Outside, Alicia stiffens slightly. As if suddenly listening in.

Then she goes rigid when I ask, “And her father just let you keep her?”

“Let us?” Samantha laughs bitterly. “He was all too happy to wash his hands of her. But her mom was just as bad. Her biological mom, that is. And between the two of them, they bounced her back and forth for almost fourteen years, neither one wanting her. And telling her so. But we wanted her. So we kept her.”

Parents who didn’t want her or love her like they should. Who tore her down. Might be why she was so certain I wouldn’t stay. And why she thinks that I’ll never love her or accept her.

Jaw set and thumbs flying, Alicia types on her phone.

Her sister’s buzzes, and after a brief glance at the message, Sam lifts her voice. “You want me to shut up, come in here and stop me before I start telling him what happens to a shy, nerdy girl in high school when she’s got buck teeth and braces, crazy red hair, and eyeglasses as thick as paperweights. He ought to know why you’re so fucking afraid and that it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with his fangs.”

On a shuddering breath, she bows her head and pinches the bridge of her nose as if to stop herself from crying again. “I’m not afraid of your fangs,” she whispers.

“I know, baby,” I say softly. “You’re afraid of yours.”

Sam couldn’t have heard her, but after my response, she must have realized Alicia said something to me. “Okay, and now I feel gross for airing your private shit, so I won’t say any more. Except this, Ranger Ranger. Kids are fucking cruel. And they pulled some Carrie shit on her—”

“Oh god.” While her sister’s still talking, a laugh shakes through Alicia and she tilts her head back again. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“—and all she ever wanted was for someone to look at her as if she was amazing. As if there was nothing in the world they wanted more than her. So the only reason I’m telling you this is because you look at her like that. Like she finally deserves. But, yeah. It might take a while for her to trust it.”

All right, then. I glance at Brandon. “You got this covered?” That’s the only downside to jumping naked off a balcony—a wallet doesn’t come along with you. “I’m taking my woman upstairs again. You might not see us again for a couple of days.”

“I’ll keep myself busy. Maybe I’ll try to find out what’s at the other end of that email address.” He glances hopefully to Samantha as I slide out of the booth. “If they answer, are you gonna tag along with me, make sure they don’t steal my pelt?”

“I’ve got work.”

“We’ll wait for your day off. Until then, check out this cute shit.”

As I head outside, Brandon’s got her looking at some chunky puppies—and Alicia’s waiting for me about two steps past the door. Her hurt’s eased up some, though it’s not gone. But now arousal and anticipation filter through her scent, too.

She bites her lip, the green of her eyes glowing like an aurora. “So you’re taking your woman upstairs?”

In a minute. First I catch her beautiful face in my hands, kiss her until she’s clinging to me, her body soft and hot against mine. But I wasn’t lying to her beast last night. I need more from Alicia than just heat and hunger. And she needs more than that from me—but I’m guessing sex is easier for Alicia to deal with right now than everything else I laid on her.

And, shit. I want sex, too. We get upstairs, I’m going to start fucking that sweet little pussy and it’ll be a hell of a long time before I stop. I don’t want her thinking for a second that’s all I’m here for, though. I’m here for her. The woman who’s knotted me up for a year. And I’ve been waiting my whole goddamn life for a woman who’ll be everything to me that Alicia is.

And now that I’ve found her, I’m never letting her go.

I lift my head, rubbing my thumb over her full bottom lip, feeling her hot breath shudder over my skin. “Let me tell you, Alicia—it’s not just a new job that I showed up with. I also came with every intention of putting my ring on your finger by the end of this summer.” Her eyes widen, then she goes utterly still as I press my thumb between her lips, teasing the edge of her teeth. “And those fangs you’ve got don’t change a damn thing. All they do is make it easier to explain what I am. You think I wasn’t terrified you’d run away as fast as you could when I confessed to being a werewolf?”

Her expression softens. “I still would have wanted you. No matter what.”

“You think it’s any different for me?” My gaze falls to her lips. “You saw me with a muzzle and fangs and still kissed me again. Do you think I won’t kiss you now? Do you think that seeing you sprout fur and claws is going to keep me from touching you? Do you think having a beast is going to stop me from getting inside you?”

Her eyes squeeze shut. “It’s not how I look. Not just that. It’s what I am.”

“You’re not a monster, baby. And after you tame your beast, you’ll see it doesn’t matter, anyway. When that chain appears around my neck, all it needs is me accepting you and loving you—and I already do,” I tell her gruffly and watch her eyes fly open again, watch them fill with wonder. “So you’ve just got to fall for me.”

Her gaze brightens with tears. A rasp thickens her voice. “But…that’s how I know taming can’t really be as simple as you say. Because I already have fallen for you.”

In love with me. Sheer joy grips my throat and I don’t know how my heart doesn’t swell out of my chest. Maybe because of those tears.

Gently I brush my mouth over hers. “Have you?”

Her breath shudders and she nods, her lips trembling. “I didn’t mean to. I told myself that I wouldn’t. But that was probably wishful thinking on my part. If I didn’t love you before you showed up here, then I was right on the edge of it. And you sealed the deal simply by being you.”

I’m not sorry for that. But there’s no golden chain around my neck. So she might love me, but Alicia and her beast must not be completely sure of me. She’s still wary, still holding back.

All right, then. She has doubts. So I’ll start tearing them down.

Alicia lets out a shriek when I abruptly haul her up, tossing her over my shoulder with her pretty little butt in the air and her head hanging down my back. Then a laugh shakes through her and she slaps my ass. “I can walk!”

“I know you can.” I start off down the block.

“Hey, wait. The hotel’s entrance is that way.”

“I know it.” And my cock’s aching for me to take her upstairs but this is more important.

“Then where are we going?”

“Not far.”

It’s only just after seven on a Sunday morning, in a small town with no private residences on this section of the main street. There’s not a car in sight on the road, no one on the sidewalks. Just me, carrying my entire future.

So I’ll give her a look at that future. The ranger station sits only a block down from the hotel, across the street from the city library. Behind the station, a small woodland park with walking trails for the public stretches south for about two hundred yards. While killing time yesterday, I made my way over here, took a look around.

I strike down one of the trails and the scent of Alicia’s arousal blooms into the air, as if an erotic fantasy just rolled through her head. Or maybe she’s just reacting to the way I’m carrying her and holding her, because fuck knows that I don’t have to fantasize about her before getting hard. Just a touch does it. A single look. And Christ, her pussy smells so damn sweet. So hot and wet. But although my dick’s as stiff as a railroad spike, I also notice she’s not acting on whatever fantasy she had. Not grabbing my ass, not teasing me with her saucy little tongue. Maybe because we’re outside.

But I didn’t bring her out here to fuck. Instead I carry her to the center of the park, where a picnic table sits beside a pond. A wooden bridge arches over a narrow stream feeding into the pond and offers a view through the trees of the district ranger’s residence.

In the middle of the bridge, I set her down. I kiss her briefly before turning her to face the house, pulling her back against my chest.

“So you like it—and wouldn’t mind living there?”

She laughs. “Sam wasn’t subtle, was she?”

No. But I’m not subtle, either. “I don’t care where we live,” I tell her bluntly. “All that matters is that you’re with me.”

Alicia gives a shuddering sigh and leans her head back against my shoulder, her fingertips absently caressing the forearm I’ve wrapped around her waist. “Is Ranger Farley still living there now?”

One day, when she’s more used to being a werewolf, she won’t need to ask. “Until the end of the month. I told him if he wanted to stay, I’d find another place. But he’s moving back to California to be close to his kids. You should be able to hear him.”

Turning her head slightly, she holds her breath. After a moment she whispers, “He’s humming…and it sounds like he’s making breakfast?”

“He is.” I hold her tighter. “It won’t be long until you hear me humming in that kitchen, instead.”

A smile fills her voice. “Do you hum while you cook?”

“When I’m married to you, I’ll wake up singing every day.”

Her laugh is a delicate little snort. “Sure you will.”

“Yeah, probably not. I’ll wake you up by eating your pussy until you’re soft and wet, then make you come on my cock.” And she likes that idea as much as I do, because her body tenses and her weight shifts as if she’s squeezing her thighs together to ease the needy ache between them. Fuck, I need to get back to that hotel, need to get into her. But not yet. “And that would be enough for me, baby. Just waking up with you every morning, making a life with you in this town, then falling asleep with you in my arms. If you want kids, that sounds damn good, too. We’d play with them in that yard there, read a bedtime story to them every night, teach them to be as fucking wonderful as you are.”

She goes utterly still against me. “I can’t have kids,” she says raggedly.

“No problem. If you want them, there’s always adoption—”

“That’s not what I mean.” There’s so much pain in her voice it’s making my chest hurt. “I could. Physically. But…how could I even risk it?”

“You worried about them being cursed? Because they wouldn’t be. They’d be born, like me.”

“But I am cursed. What if I hurt them? What if the beast takes over and…” She trails off as if she can’t even say it aloud, just shakes her head in denial of whatever she’s imagining.

“You won’t. And after your beast is tamed—”

“What if it never is?”

“It will be.” Because I’m going to fight every doubt she has until she’s sure of me. Until she’s sure of us. “But even if not, it won’t matter. You don’t go around hurting people—and you’d sure as hell never hurt anyone you love. Your beast would protect them, instead.”

Violently she shakes her head. “No—”

“Yes. You’d never hurt our children—or any other child. Just like you’d never hurt me.”

“But I did hurt you!” she cries out. “I attacked you and bit you! Your blood was all over the place!”

“Is that what’s worrying you?” It was hardly any blood. But to her, maybe it seemed like a lot. And the real issue is that she doesn’t remember what happened at all. “You didn’t attack me, baby.”

“I bit you.”

“You did. But it was more like…a love bite.”

She stiffens. “A what?”

Is that jealousy I’m hearing? Grinning, I catch her hair in my hand and gently tilt her head, exposing the side of her neck. Bending my mouth to her ear, I tell her in a low voice, “You made sure I knew who I belong to. You sank your fangs into me like I sank my cock into you.”

She shivers when I kiss the tender skin just below her jawline, her arousal perfuming the air. “But it must have hurt.”

“It did.” Not going to lie to her. “Though I was feeling too good to notice. Kind of like this.”

I set my teeth against the side of her throat, letting her feel my fangs. Not piercing skin, just teasing.

The sexiest little sound escapes her and she squirms back against me, breathlessly saying my name. “Ranger.”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Let me see.”

Me. With fangs and claws. I ease up on my hold and she turns within the circle of my arm, my hard cock pressing into her belly. Her eyes are alight—not glowing, just bright—with curiosity as she touches the corner of my mouth.

Her full lips curve with amusement. “Like a vampire.”

Hell no. “Don’t even start.”

She giggles, then her gaze rises to mine. “Your eyes have sparks in them.”

“Sometimes, yeah. When I’m on the edge.” On the edge of transforming—or simply at the edge of my control.

“When you let your beast come through?”

I shake my head. “I don’t have a beast. I’m just me, no matter what form I’m wearing. But I’m not human, either. More like something in between.”

Her eyebrows knit into a frown. “I don’t really know what that means.”

And I don’t know how to explain it. “You’ll understand soon enough.”

A sad smile tilts her mouth. “When my beast is tamed?”

“Yeah.”

Her gaze searches mine for another moment, then her fingertips slide down over my beard to the side of my neck—the spot where she bit me. “You heal quickly, at least. I can’t even see a mark now.”

“It’s still there. Because you put your mark on me a long time ago, Alicia Simmons. Long before you got your teeth into me.”

A pleased blush tinges her cheeks. “And it really felt good?”

“Yeah, baby. It did.”

Arousal and curiosity return to her gaze, and her eyes are brighter now, truly glowing green as she focuses on my neck. “Lift me up,” she says huskily.

Oh fuck. I’ve got a damn good idea of what this is—she’s still thinking that she and her beast are separate, and Alicia wants her mark there, instead. And it’s about the hottest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen.

But Alicia doesn’t need me to raise her up. And I don’t think she understands yet how strong she is. “You want to claim me, you lift yourself up here.”

Her brow furrows slightly. Then determination lights her eyes and she smooths her hands up over my chest and shoulders, before linking her fingers behind my neck.

Ah, shit. The look on her face when she realizes how easy it is to pull herself up. Sheer wonder. Sheer delight. And I love her so damn much.

When we’re face to face, she seems to forget all about biting me. Laughing with her lips against mine, she kisses me, her happiness bubbling through every taste of my mouth that she takes. Now that she’s up here, I keep her close, bracing my arm under her ass and filling myself with the flavor of her, the scent of her.

Then she pulls back slightly, her hungry gaze holding mine, her fingertips tracing down my throat. “Are we heading back to the hotel next?”

“Yeah.” Because I can’t control this need much longer. I’ve shown her our future. Now we’ll start it. “So you like the house?”

Silently she nods. Then she just fucking turns me inside out when she whispers, “But I don’t care where we live. As long as I’m with you.”

The same thing I said to her. So she’ll try to believe in what I’m telling her about me and our kids being safe, and about her being different from the monster who attacked her. She’ll try to believe in me loving her and that being enough to tame her beast.

She’ll give me the chance. And that’s all I need.

I lean in to kiss her again but she angles her head to get at my throat, and I feel a gentle nip. Truly a love bite. Not hurting, not breaking skin, not even hard enough to bruise. Just my woman, staking a sweet claim—and ripping my soul apart. Shredding me open to unleash the ravenous need I’ve been holding back. Because I haven’t staked my claim yet. I had her on my cock. But she didn’t know I was staying. She didn’t know I was more than a man. She didn’t know she was mine.

Now I won’t leave any fucking doubt.

A second after she swipes her tongue over my neck, as if soothing that tiny nip, I’ve got her facedown over the end of the picnic table. With a yank, I drag her shorts and panties down to her ankles. She gives a strangled gasp when I take a long lick through her pussy on the way back up, groaning at the sweet taste, at how wet she is, at the evidence of how much she needs me, too.

“Biting me soaked you up good, didn’t it?” I growl, slicking the head of my erection through those drenched folds until the blunt tip lodges right into the quivering well of her entrance. “And pushed me right over that fucking edge.”

With a hard thrust, I shove into her—the few inches that I can get in easy. Fuck. She’s so tight. So goddamn hot. Alicia cries out, arching her back, pushing her hips up. Begging for more. Grunting with each rough stroke, I work deeper into that scalding wetness, gripping the nape of her neck and keeping her pinned to the tabletop when she tries to rise up onto her elbows.

“Ranger! Oh my god.” Her eyes roll back, her soft mouth going slack as I bottom out, her slick passage sucking and pulling the length of my shaft. “It’s so good,” she chants. “So good, so good.”

Too fucking good. Lust knots up everything inside me, holds me in a grip as tight as her cunt. Her pleasured cry echoes through the trees when I pump my thick inches deep into her again.

“You’d best stay quiet.” Every word is snarled as I brace my hand beside her shoulder and buck into her, hard and fast, her moans rising with every slap of my hips against her round ass. “Unless you want someone to come looking to see what all this noise is. Unless you want them to know that you got me so fucking hot, I couldn’t wait one goddamn minute to get you back to our room and had to mount you right here.”

“Oh god, Ranger.” Her cunt clenches around my cock and she writhes back against me, so wet that each smack of our flesh is getting louder and sharper, each hard fuck into her slippery channel smoother and faster. “Please.”

“‘Please’ what? You want me to start bellowing so someone comes to see how the good little Miss Simmons drives me so goddamn wild that I had to bend her over right fucking here. Had to stretch her pussy with my dick right fucking here.” Fisting my hand in her hair, I pull her head back, rasp into her ear, “Had to fill her with my cum, right fucking here. Is that what you want, baby? You want people to see how I’ve got no choice but to fuck you until your cunt sucks me dry and I’ve emptied all this need up inside you?”

Her inner muscles tighten up on me again. She’s making gasping little sobs now, eyes blind with pleasure. Growling with every thrust, I lean in harder.

“But I’d tear out their eyes before letting anyone see. Just like I almost fucking did last night. You walked into the restaurant in that little dress and every man in the place got hard, looking at you. I could smell it. Walking to your side was like walking through a filthy swamp filled with horny bastards dreaming of spreading your thighs and getting a taste of you. Did you like that, too? Knowing I’d have torn apart anyone who tried to touch you? Anyone who tried to get in the way of my having you?”

“I didn’t know.” Wildly she shakes her head, her body stiffening up, her thighs trembling. “I only saw you. Only smelled you.”

Fuck, yes. I swipe my tongue on a hot path up her neck. “Because you’re mine. You’ve belonged to me since the first time I saw you through that laptop screen. You’ll always belong to me.”

“Yes,” she gasps, tilting her head as if in anticipation of my bite.

Sweet baby. No way in hell would I hurt her. So I give her what she gave me, just a pinch from my fangs—and it sends her rocketing, muffling her screams behind clenched teeth, her pussy seizing up. Holy fucking Christ. Those exquisite convulsions on my pistoning shaft begin dragging me along with her, pleasure wrenching tighter around the base of my spine.

Not yet. I’m not fucking ready to come yet. Not until I have more. Gritting my teeth, I shove her left knee up onto the picnic table’s surface, spreading her wide open and slamming balls-deep. And this woman. God help me, this woman. She takes every inch of my long, fat cock like her pussy was made for nothing else, her back arching and hips tilting up to receive each brain-melting thrust. Planting my right boot on the bench, I angle her up higher, driving hard and deep and unleashing all the savage need building inside me into the soft, welcoming flesh of her cunt.

She begins to shake again, her fingers curling against the tabletop, gouging out splinters beneath her claws. So close.

Growling, I get my hand down over her hip to rub the slippery nub of her clit. Crying out, she twists against me like it’s too much. Probably is. Just like the way her squirming on my dick is too much. So good it’s damn near agonizing. But I need to feel that cunt squeezing me again. To make her scream and thrash on my cock. To know that I’m the only one who’ll ever hear her say she’s mine, the only one who’ll mount her and fuck her and make her my wife.

This time when the orgasm crashes into her, Alicia hauls me along for the devastating ride. Can’t fucking stop it. As her hoarse scream sends my name ringing toward the sky, her pussy cinches up so tight that even all the wet lust slicking up my shaft can’t ease my way through her passage, her cunt locking me in deep. The pleasure of that primal grip nearly blinds me. Chest heaving, I can only grunt and grind against her, molten fire surging up the length of my cock and spilling into her clenching depths.

She collapses flat on the table, panting and flushed. Even when her pussy eases its hold, I can’t stop pumping into her, letting her quivering inner walls coax every last drop from my softening erection.

Nuzzling the nape of her neck, I tell her softly, “You couldn’t get rid of me now, Miss Simmons. Not even if you tried.”

A smile curves her panting mouth. She reaches back, cupping my jaw. Her claws are gone, the glow in her eyes fading. I’m not sure if she even realizes they’d appeared. “I won’t try.”

Good. Though that golden chain still isn’t around my neck. She’s committed to me, but something’s holding her back. Something that’s keeping Alicia from giving herself fully to me and taming her beast.

But we’ve got plenty of time to discover what that is. For now, I’m taking her back to the hotel.

And doing this all over again.

8

ALICIA

“YOU SLY DOG.” Maria tucks her elbow through mine and turns me so that we can both watch Ranger, who just left my side to grab a few drinks for us. Her big backyard is a madhouse, with kids screaming and playing in the aboveground pool, teenagers slouching about with their phones—most of them inhabiting that awkward intersection of an affected ‘I’m so above all this’ and a desperate ‘someone please notice me being so above all this’—and adults congregating around every table and seating area. “All the while I was telling you to fly to Alaska, you didn’t say a thing about Alaska coming to you.”

“I didn’t know then that he intended to.” Not until ten minutes later.

“Then you’re forgiven. But I’m still taking credit for getting you two together.” She makes a humming sound low in her throat when Ranger digs two water bottles out of a tin tub filled with ice, his huge biceps flexing and providing some impromptu arm porn. “You lucky girl. How is he even bigger in person?”

And he’s a lot bigger when he’s a werewolf. “Genetics, I guess.”

“It does seem to run in the family.” Her attention swings over to Samantha and Brandon, in a swimsuit and swim trunks and heading for the pool. “So what’s up with them?”

God knows. Last week, they took an overnight trip to Idaho following up on that website, and met a wolf whose wife had created the site from her father’s research. There wasn’t much more to learn from them—at least nothing that’ll help me tame my beast—just more legends and mythology. But Sam and Brandon have been as tight as BFFs ever since.

Now I watch as Sam whacks him over the head with a pool noodle, and he retaliates by lifting her up and tossing her into the water. When he launches his huge body in after her, the resulting splash is like a tidal wave over the side.

Maria raises her eyebrows at me, waiting for an answer.

“I honestly don’t know. But Sam says they’re just friends.”

“Maybe she is. He’s not.”

Probably not. Sometimes I see Brandon gazing at her like a lovelorn puppy, but she’s got him firmly in the friend zone. “Maybe it’s because Ranger and I are spending so much time together. So his brother has no one else in town to hang out with, and Sam…”

Well, I don’t know about Sam. She has other friends.

“Yeah, right. Because when I have no one else around, the first thing I do is spend time with my sister in-law.”

A sister-in-law whom Maria just spent an entire week with. “So how was camping?” I ask her sweetly.

“You bitch.”

I laugh and accept the water bottle Ranger hands to me on his return. He pops off the top of Maria’s hard lemonade, and she takes it gratefully.

“Thank you, Ranger Ranger. But seriously, though. That woman is just…” She pretends to choke the air in front of her, as if strangling her sister-in-law, then drags in a deep breath and offers a bright, totally-not-murderous smile. “So that was a real fun week. But now she’s gone back to her perfect little life in Seattle and I don’t have to see her again until Thanksgiving. The next trip is just Dan and me and the kids—and we’re taking the camper instead of tents. So it should be better. Hopefully.”

“When are you going?”

She gives a long-suffering sigh. “Tomorrow.”

I snicker.

“You’re so mean. I can’t wait until you have kids and a husband and evil in-laws and zero real vacation time.” She flutters her lashes at Ranger. “Please make my dream of dragging Alicia down into the marital trenches with me come true.”

“Can’t.” His long fingers tangle with mine. “No evil in-laws. Most are just like him.”

Brandon, who’s currently letting about ten screaming kids pile onto his giant shoulders in an attempt to dunk him.

“Well, shit.” But she only pouts for a second before reaching out to draw in a tall, blonde man with wire-rimmed glasses. “Speaking of marital trenches, look who apparently escaped the barbecue pit. Dan, this is Ranger Ranger. Ranger Ranger, my husband, Dan.”

“Or Travis,” Ranger says, shaking the other man’s hand.

Maria’s husband grins. “My wife has referred to you as Ranger Ranger for so long, I wouldn’t know who Travis is. Except that you’re the man who’s got half the town pissed off at him by persuading the mayor to enforce that fireworks ban.”

Unbothered, Ranger slides his arm behind my back, fingers curling around the side of my waist in a casually possessive hold. “Only half?”

“I was being nice, since you’re new around here.” Chuckling, he shares a look with his wife. “Hell, we’re still new around here and we moved in five years ago.”

“Yep,” Maria says. “Don’t let this crowd fool you. People only like us for the free booze and the pool.”

“True,” I say and she gasps in mock outrage, then we both start laughing. Because it isn’t true. But it also is. Everyone genuinely likes Maria and Dan. Yet the booze and the pool still go a long way toward getting people to show up.

Even with a pool and booze, Sam and I could never get this many people out to our house.

“So…Travis,” Dan tries out the name that even I haven’t used yet, because it doesn’t fit so easily. He’ll always be Ranger to me. “You’re in the ranger’s residence now?”

“I am.”

When he’s not at my house. When he started his job at the station almost two weeks ago, he left the hotel and came to stay with me—and Sam and I offered Brandon our guest room. But although the residence is officially his now, he’s still in my bed every night.

At some point soon, that’ll change—and it’ll be me in his bed. Or rather, our bed.

I just haven’t gotten there yet.

“All moved in? Because we’re not yet good enough friends for me to actually help you move furniture, but given the strength of the relationship between our women, we’re at the level where I can pretend to offer and then say, ‘Sorry, man, but it turns out I’m busy this weekend.’”

Ranger’s deep laugh rumbles out. “It’s done. I had exactly one bag to carry in. The house is already furnished.”

“Thank fuck for that.” Dan lets out a relieved breath like he dodged a bullet. “And, shit. If I’d known the ranger business comes with free, furnished housing, I’d have signed up.”

Ranger says dryly, “Most of that free, furnished housing is a leaky cabin and a cot.”

“Not the same, then. So what inspired you to make a career of cots and cabins?”

“I watched Bambi.”

Maria chokes on her drink.

I giggle, too, but I’ve also developed a good feel for when Ranger is joking—and I don’t think he is. “Really?”

He nods.

Now he’s in charge of wildlife and forest management. “Because of when the hunter kills the mother?”

“Hey now,” Dan protests. “Spoilers!”

“Not the mother,” Ranger says. “But the forest fire at the end completely fucking terrified me when I was little kid.”

Oh god, I can barely contain the giggles now. “So…Smokey Bear was your hero?”

Amusement lights his dark eyes. “Yeah, he was.”

Terrified of the forest fire. I can picture it scaring a little boy, but at the same time…Ranger personally didn’t have anything to be afraid of. Fire can’t hurt him. And something that I’ve learned in the past few weeks is that quite a few wolves and bears end up pursuing firefighting as a career, simply for that reason.

Another thing I’ve learned is how to refer to all these differences without actually saying it. “Did you not know…?”

That he was impervious to fire.

“I knew. Didn’t matter. It was watching all those animals flee for their lives, watching their home be destroyed. So I decided to save all of them. That feeling’s evolved a bit, but the reason is the same—and that reason is making sure we don’t destroy our home.”

Now I just want to rip off his clothes with my teeth. “So you’re saving the planet, Ranger Ranger?”

His gaze falls to my lips. “Doing what I can, Miss Simmons.”

“Yeah…so I’m an IT guy. Saving the world’s economy by restarting one computer at a time.” Dan scratches the back of his neck. “It’s cool to finally meet someone as dedicated to being a hero as I am.”

“And you recycle, too,” Maria says, giving him a sultry look over the cat-eye rims of her glasses. “That’s really hot.”

“Oh, yeah. I recycle all the time. She especially likes it when I take off my shirt while sorting those plastics—because sometimes they still have drips of rotting juice or soda in them, and I just don’t like getting that on my clothes. But then I sort them hard.”

“Don’t share our sexy private secrets, honey.”

“Sorry, darling. You just get me so riled up with your dirty recycling talk and then…Arrr. All my manliness comes roaring out for everyone to see. So, Ranger”—Dan tilts his head toward the grill—“how about I show you how I burn some meat and introduce you to some of my man friends and tell you which ones are complete assholes. Though most of them, it’s fairly obvious after ten seconds of conversation.”

Eyebrows raised, Ranger looks down at me and I give him a little shove. “Go on,” I tell him. “I’ve monopolized your time for three weeks now. You should probably meet other people in this town besides the ones at work.”

He nods, bending his head to brush his lips across mine—then stopping by my ear to say in a gruff, low voice, “I don’t give a fuck about other people. But I’ll be polite. And he’s a good sort, isn’t he?”

“He is,” I say softly.

“I like your friends, baby.” His teeth nip the upper curve of my ear, sending a hot shiver across my skin before he pulls away.

I watch him go, biting my bottom lip. Really, I shouldn’t be so shallow. But my god. His broad shoulders fill out a t-shirt like nobody’s business. And his thick arms and those big hands. And his ass in those jeans—or out of them, I’m not picky. It’s all just… Unf.

Maria bumps her shoulder into mine, her narrowed gaze searching my face. “Are you happy?”

“I am,” I say softly.

“Good. I worried about you this year.”

I know she did. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Yeah, well. That’s me. I care too much. My heart’s too big. That’s why I have such amazing tits. All the love that spills out of my heart has to go somewhere.”

Laughing, I glance down at myself. My blue cotton sundress isn’t as short as the one I wore that first night with Ranger, but has a more fitted cut and a tighter bodice—and not much cleavage to speak of.

“So I have a miserly heart?”

“Nah. Pretty sure all the love is just going to your ass, instead.” She winces as a crash sounds from somewhere inside the house, followed by young male voices shouting at each other. “Oh god. I told those boys to stay off Fortnite for one freaking afternoon. Just one! So—you’ve got a drink, great. Make yourself at home and all that jazz.”

Oh shit. “Do you need me to do anything? Preparing food or washing dishes or whatever?”

“You’re a doll, but I’ll kick your ass if you put yourself to work at my party! It’s all handled.” She starts off toward the house. “And these boys are about to be punished with dishwashing for life.”

“Alicia.” My name in Ranger’s smoky voice cuts through all of the noise of the gathering. He can’t have said it loudly—he’s watching me from across the yard, a drink in hand, but although Dan and a few others are near him, they aren’t looking at Ranger or reacting to what he says. As if they can’t even hear him when he tells me, “I love your tits. And your ass. And your big heart.”

A heart that swells even bigger after that. “I love you, too,” I whisper.

His hot gaze runs from my head to my toes, then Dan says something to him and he looks away—leaving me filled with so much sweetness.

The same feeling that’s filled me for weeks now. Being with Ranger has been simply amazing. Not just the sex or him loving me, though those are also incredible—more wonderful than anything I’ve ever dreamed.

But it’s more than that. After the trip to Aspen, terror and despair ruled my life for so long. With Sam helping me, I got through as best I could. But I wasn’t doing so well. My sister knew it. I knew it. Obviously Maria saw it, too. Everyone who cares about me noticed. Ranger told me that it was what made him push harder for a transfer, but that he would have come with or without a job…because he thought I was sick.

And I was sick. But the cure ended up being something I never expected—not becoming fully human again, or even taming the beast. What’s helped me most is learning to be comfortable again in my own skin.

Just like Ranger is. And Brandon, too. Being around them, seeing how the things that terrified me were so normal for them changed how I look at myself. The hunger that used to scare me, the shame of eating so much—it’s nothing now. It’s just simply what my body needs. The strength and speed that made me fear hurting someone, that never let me forget how fast and strong the monster who attacked me was—they’re fun now. Almost like having superpowers, and I’ve spent more time testing their limits. My heightened senses of hearing and smell were often so overwhelming and confusing, to the point where I just blocked them out…well, sometimes I still do block them out. And when I don’t, they can still be overwhelming. But Ranger’s been helping me adjust to those changes, too.

So I’m not as afraid of myself anymore. And although I haven’t tamed my beast, I don’t fight her as much, either. I don’t need to fight her. Because more and more, she feels like I feel. Or maybe I feel like she does. I’m not sure there’s much of a difference, one way or another.

Except I haven’t changed forms again. I’m still afraid of that—and of how much it hurts.

Soon I won’t have a choice, though. The full moon is coming up in less than a week. I’d be a liar if I said that didn’t scare me, too. Because although I’m more comfortable with my beast…I hate not having control over my own body. And I hate not knowing where I’ve been or what I’ve done. I’m not as worried as I used to be, because I’ve begun to trust what Ranger said about my beast not hurting anyone—and he also promises to stay with her. But I want to be with him.

I’d like to be with him now. Becoming a werewolf didn’t make me any less awkward during social gatherings. Luckily, I figured out how to get through a party a long time ago.

Maria already nixed my favorite route: keeping myself busy by helping out, so that I’m not simply holding up a wall with a drink in my hand. I head toward option two, instead: watching whatever form of entertainment that’s provided, which gives the appearance of being engaged with something, even if it’s not other people.

Today, the entertainment is at the pool. Aside from the parents in with their toddlers, Samantha and Brandon are the only adults swimming. It’s so weird, what’s going on with them. I’m not sure if it’s a competition or friendship or both. And I don’t know how Brandon got past her defenses. Because she’s got guy friends, especially in the sheriff’s department, but I haven’t seen her this unguardedly happy with someone in…forever. Maybe with me. But I can’t pick her up and toss her halfway across a pool, so that she comes up sputtering and laughing.

Or I couldn’t pick her up. I suppose now I could. But won’t. It’s just odd that she’s letting Brandon do it.

I exchange small talk with some of the parents watching their young ones, and respond to a few “Hey, Miss Simmons!” from students—then oof, I totally blow option two. Because Sam sees me and swims over to the edge of the pool, stealing my water bottle and draining it before giving me a quick, concerned look. “Everything okay?”

“Yep. Just making my circuit.”

She laughs at me, because she knows exactly what I’m doing. “Do you need a buddy?”

“No.” I don’t want her to abandon the fun she’s having to baby me. “I intend to grab a plate of food and practice listening in on all the gossip.”

Her eyes light up. “Oh my god. This is going to be the best day ever. You should especially listen in on Robin and Erin, because I’d love to hear how they’re gnashing their teeth about you snagging Ranger.”

Oooh, me too. I grin, then hold up the bottle she emptied. “Another?”

“That’d be great, yeah.”

Great for me, too. Now I can meander purposefully to get her a drink, then meander purposefully back, and kill a little more time. Though I should have remembered the adage about eavesdroppers never hearing good about themselves, because Robin and Erin aren’t gnashing their teeth but running through a critical assessment of my appearance and wondering how an ugly freckled fish like me snagged a guy like Ranger—and predicting that he’ll leave me soon.

Okay. So listening to them wasn’t the best plan.

After delivering the water, it’s on to option three: grab a plate of food and find shade under a tree, away from the tables and chairs where everyone else is seated. And if someone notices me sitting alone and says that I should come and join them, I’ll look at the bright sun and gesture to my red hair and say, “I will! I’m just going to finish my lunch and then I have to reapply my sunscreen, or I’ll burn to a crisp in fifteen minutes.”

Which used to be true. I don’t get sunburns anymore—which is so far the single greatest thing about becoming a werewolf. But no one else knows that. So food, shade, and ginger lamentations.

I idly practice listening again as I head to the buffet table—with my lesson learned, so I’m not actively listening for gossip and also trying to ignore any mention of my name. Which is hard. A name always seems to cut straight through any background noise.

“Hey there, Alicia.”

Ugh. This one isn’t background noise, but right here. I look up from the stack of ribs I’m piling onto my plate. Joy Pritchard is across the table from me, her husband Mike at her side—a husband I’ve just heard is cheating on her with Robin, though Joy doesn’t know yet.

“Joy.” A few years of teaching have allowed me to perfect a bland smile that I usually offer to overbearing parents. “Mike. How’s your summer been?”

“Oh, you know,” she laughs and flips her blonde hair back over her shoulder, a move she’s done since high school. “We don’t have a summer vacation at our jobs. Most people don’t.”

Oh Lord, save me from assholes who don’t think teaching is a real job. My bland smile widens. “That’s why I asked about your summer, and not your summer vacation. Because unless your jobs exempt you from the changing of seasons, you are smack dab in the middle of one.”

Her eyes narrow and anxiety knots my stomach. The only thing worse for me than parties is confrontation. I’m not good at it. Oh, but Joy’s ready for a fight. I can almost smell it on her. As if she was simmering in sour resentment, rarin’ to go even before she saw me.

And I’m such an easy target. Especially without Sam beside me. They’re afraid of her. They’ve never been afraid of me.

“Joy! Mike!” Maria comes up, carrying a tub of sliced watermelon—and completely oblivious to the tension, but that’s okay. Her presence makes ignoring the assholes easier, and I go back to loading my plate.

“Hi, Maria.” Instantly Joy is all bright smiles again, but that sour smell of resentment is still there. “Thank you so much for inviting us. This is amazing.”

“I’m just glad you could come! Help yourselves to anything.”

“We will. I brought a salad, made some room for it on the table with the others.”

“Fantastic. Thank you.”

“I suppose you’re the one who brought the fish, Alicia?”

The knot in my stomach tightens, begins spilling acid that burns and churns through my gut. Why are people like this? Why?

“Fish?” In confusion, Maria scans the dishes. Because of course no one brought fish to a barbecue like this. “Didn’t you bring the chocolate cake?”

I did. Oh god. Now Ranger’s heading this way, jaw clenched and eyes sparking, as if he can sense the painful lump in my throat, the horrible pressure in my chest.

“Oh, it’s just a little joke from way back when,” Joy titters. “Alicia gets it.”

Yeah, I do. I really do. She’s hurting about something—probably her prick of a cheating husband—so she’s lashing out at me. Oh, and I could hurt her back right now. Not with fangs and claws, but simply by spilling everything I’ve heard. I could get Robin, too. I could humiliate and expose all of them, like they’ve so gleefully humiliated me for years.

But that would make me the monster I don’t want to become. And the beast isn’t raging. My claws aren’t out, my teeth aren’t sharp. Instead everything within me is cringing and hurting. For no damn reason, except that people can be cruel and horrible.

“I do get it,” I tell her—my heart thundering, my stomach a pool of acid, but my voice strong. “Your life right now is pure shit, and you’re reaching all the way back to high school to find something to feel superior about. So you go ahead, just keep on doing that. Wallow in your petty little jokes if that’s what makes you feel better. Me, I’m going to eat some ribs and chocolate cake, then go home and let my giant, gorgeous fiancé—who’s crazy in love with me—give me three or four orgasms.”

“I think we can do better than that,” Ranger says gruffly from behind me, his strong arms circling my waist, nuzzling his face into the side of my neck. “Usually we hit about six or seven.”

“Hush,” I tell him, leaning back into the warmth of his broad chest. “I don’t want Mike to start feeling bad about himself, too.”

“You only need one to outdo him,” Joy snaps, glaring at her husband before stalking away.

A flush climbing his neck, Mike plods after her.

Maria stares after them both. “What in the hell…?”

“It’s nothing,” I tell her—though I’m trembling, and I know Ranger can feel it. Trembling, but also feeling amazing. Maybe I’m not such an easy target now. “They’re assholes who deserve each other.”

“Ah.” She turns her gaze toward us, arching an eyebrow. “Also…fiancé?”

I did say that. “It’s not exactly official—”

“Yes,” Ranger says firmly.

Maria fistpumps, then heads toward another table, pointing back at me to say, “You, me. Trenches.”

A laugh shakes through me. “So I guess I’m well and truly caught.”

“You are,” he rumbles against my ear, holding me closer. “You want to go?”

“Not yet. I am hungry. Want to share a plate of ribs?”

“I’ll share everything with you, baby. Do you want to share with me?”

He’s not talking about the ribs. With a sigh, I tell him, “Maybe tonight.”

“No rush.” He kisses the side of my neck. “Whenever you’re ready. Until then, maybe keep a good hold on me so I don’t fucking rip apart anyone who even looks at you sideways.”

Oh, I’ll keep a hold on him. So tight. But not to save the jerks in this town. Fuck them.

I’m holding tight for me.

9

RANGER

ALICIA FINDS me on the front porch of her farmhouse, sitting on the steps and watching a bunch of assholes light up the distant night sky with fireworks. With a sigh, she sits beside me, wearing nothing but one of my shirts—the T-shirt I had on at the barbecue today, stripped off the second we got home and I got her into bed. The jeans, I put back on before coming out here.

Tugging her closer to my side, I wrap my arm around her waist. “Did the noise wake you up?”

“Missing you woke me up.” She lays her head back against my shoulder, all that red hair in a pretty tangle over my arm. “Are you going to go hunt down whoever it is and scare the shit out of them?”

After no rain for three months, and strong winds kicking in? “Thinking about it. You want to come?”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet.”

“You wouldn’t have to transform.” Which still terrifies her. With good reason. I wake up sweating some nights, remembering Alicia screaming and her bones cracking. “You’re fast enough to keep up.”

She turns her head to look up at me with narrowed eyes. “Are you really going to turn into a werewolf and scare them?”

Shaking my head, I drop a kiss to her furrowed brow. “I called it in to your sister. And it’s better I’m here with my phone, in case one of the spotters sees something flare up.”

Though given what I heard at the barbecue after I started paying closer attention to what people were saying, a part of me wouldn’t care if half the fucking town burned. I don’t understand that kind of petty cruelty. I never will. And although Samantha mentioned it that first weekend Alicia and I were together, I figured the vicious shit was in her past and it was the emotional fallout she was still dealing with. But it’s not. Alicia must have been putting up with that bullshit ever since she came to live with Samantha and their mother.

Though she didn’t put up with it today. I was on my way to terrify the weeping Jesus out of the blonde and her husband, but Alicia took care of it herself. And I still don’t know what it was all about.

She tilts her head, listening. “Is Brandon out again?”

“Yep.”

Just like he has been every night that Samantha is on duty. The schedule’s worked out well for all of us, so we don’t keep tripping all over each other at the farmhouse. Samantha’s got a night shift, and usually heads out a few hours after I get off work at the station. My brother says he goes out into the hills behind their property and wanders around as a bear. Claims he’s giving Alicia and me privacy. But I suspect he’s keeping an eye on Sam while she’s on patrol, because his scent’s all over the town and highway…and not in the hills out back.

At some point, we’ll move into the district ranger’s residence. But I figure if Alicia was ready to go, she’d already have packed a few things. She hasn’t yet, though—and I’m not rushing her. I know she likes the house. I know she loves me. What’s likely holding her back is hanging up in the sky, growing fuller every night.

She looks up at the moon now, her gaze shifting away from another burst of fireworks. The silvery light glints in her green eyes, the moonglow falling gently on a face that dictates every emotion in my heart. When she smiles, my whole fucking world shines. And if a shadow of unhappiness appears, I’m desperate to fix whatever’s hurting her.

“You’re so damn beautiful, baby.”

She smiles now and darts a glance up at me, a blush rising beneath her pale skin. “You make me feel beautiful.”

“You’re so smart and sweet and sexy, you ought to always be feeling that way.”

A laugh shakes her against my side. “You really do love me.”

Because I think she’s beautiful? “Did you doubt it?”

“No.” Her laughter eases into a soft sigh. A faint smile still curves her full lips when she pillows her head on my shoulder again. “I don’t.”

But she must doubt something, because her gold chain still isn’t around my neck. “Are you worried about the full moon coming?”

“Yes,” she says. “But not like I used to be.”

“Just afraid of it hurting?”

She nods.

And it’s the one thing I’m helpless to stop. Which rips me apart, knowing that she wouldn’t have to hurt if her beast was tamed. If I could fix whatever it is that’s holding her back.

My voice is thick as I ask her, “Is there anything you need that I’m not giving you, baby?”

“What? No.” Something in her voice says that she can’t believe that I could think so. She pulls back to look up at me, her gaze searching my face. “You’re giving me everything I need. More than everything.”

But there’s something. Maybe she just doesn’t know what it is any better than I do.

Biting her bottom lip, she continues watching me—then moves up to swing her leg over mine, straddling my lap so we’re face-to-face. With her forefinger, she gently draws a line across my throat where her chain would go.

“Is this about me not taming my beast yet?”

Ah, fuck. I know she’s already feeling uncertain and worried about that. As if she’s not doing something right. I don’t want her to believe that’s what I’m thinking, too.

There’s only one reason I care if she tames her beast. “I just don’t want you to go through the pain of transforming again.”

When her beast is tamed, it should be painless.

She gives me a wry smile. “I’m not looking forward to it, either. And I don’t know much about this curse…but I know that whatever is wrong, it’s nothing you’ve done. Or haven’t done. It’s something about me.”

“There’s not a damn thing wrong with you, Alicia.”

“Well, maybe not wrong. Just…afraid.”

“Of what?”

She shrugs, then wraps her arms around my neck, burying her face in my throat. Shy or hiding, I’m not sure which.

Heart aching, I hold her close, fingers tangled in her hair. Silently I wait—letting her work through whatever it is she’s working through.

After a minute, she says quietly, “You know what’s weird?”

“A whole lot of shit.”

I feel her smile against my skin before she pulls back, fingers still linked behind my neck. “That’s true. But more specifically—I didn’t do the fangs and claws thing with Joy today. Even though I was so…”

Angry. And hurt. She was hurt so bad that I smelled her pain from across the yard, heard it in every word she said. A growl rumbles from me, just remembering.

“That,” Alicia says. “I was so… Grrr. Just so sickened and pissed off. And so disgusted that she was attacking me for no damn reason. But my beast didn’t even try to pop out. She was so afraid. She just wanted to hide. Which is the exact opposite of what I thought would ever happen in that situation.”

Opposite of what I would have guessed, too. Though maybe because I never thought on it too hard. I’ve only seen Alicia’s beast come out twice—once that first night, and once to protect herself when my transformation scared her. It sounds as if what Alicia expected today was more like what happened when she was scared.

But I’ve seen the beast differently. “She was so shy with me, baby—as if afraid of showing me her true self. So vulnerable, even with those teeth and claws. And so hurt when I wouldn’t fuck her without you being fully awake.”

Sudden tears fill Alicia’s green eyes, though she laughs a little through them. “She really is me, isn’t she?”

So sweet and beautiful. “Yeah. She is.”

Nodding, she closes her eyes, teardrops sliding over her cheeks. “It’s so stupid, you know.”

“What is?”

“The fish thing. I know you’re thinking it’s that joke about how girls smell—”

“Told by boys who’ve never been near a pussy in their lives.”

“And the girls are probably better off for it.”

“Probably.” A dickhead like that wouldn’t know what to do with a pussy, anyway.

“But this is even dumber. And I think Samantha already told you… Well, let’s just say I was awkward when I was younger. Even more awkward than I am now. Like a million times more.”

She doesn’t seem a bit awkward to me. Just like she isn’t with her sister or any of her close friends. But maybe that’s how she feels with people outside her circle.

And I remember how Samantha described her. Wild red hair, big teeth and braces, thick glasses. “Smart, too?”

“Pure nerd,” she confirms. “I moved here my freshman year in high school. My dad and Sam’s mom had gotten together, but Sam and I didn’t get along right away. She wasn’t ever mean, it was just that we had absolutely nothing in common. And she’d lived here all her life, had her friends, was a year ahead of me. So I was the little sister that she never asked for. But when her mom and my dad broke up, and he didn’t want me…she was so supportive and protective of my feelings, and made a point to hang out with me more. And that helped. Because I didn’t make any other friends that year.”

“Ah, baby.”

“No, that was okay.” She shrugs a little. “I’m never going to be the girl with loads of friends. And I prefer it that way. Most of the time, I’d rather just read or do my own thing.”

“I’ve seen that.” Whether on her phone or in paper, she’s always got a book ready to whip out and fill the time. “And considering that I was living alone in the middle of nowhere when you met me, you’ve probably figured out that I do all right on my own, too.”

“I did.” Her gaze is soft and warm. “I like that about you. And because people who do well on their own usually aren’t the type to fuck around with other people just to stave off boredom.”

Ah, hell. “Is that what happened to you?”

“Pretty much. Though throw in a crush, too.” She gives me a half-smile while shaking her head, as if a little embarrassed and disbelieving now of the girl she’d been. “It was the summer after my freshman year. Sam had softball practice, and she’d drop me off at the library pretty much every day on her way into town. Then I’d take my books over to the park and read until she was done. And also watch the boys play basketball.”

“The crush?” I ask with a rumble in my chest.

“Yep. Though he wasn’t playing. He’d broken his foot and was…” She rolls her eyes. “Looking for something to do. And there I was, with hearts in my eyes after the first word he said to me. Pretty much every day, he’d come over and talk, and soon I was trying to dress cuter and be less dorky. And he would compliment how I looked and said I was pretty…and I fell for it so easy. He didn’t trick me into anything sexual, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“What?” I snarl.

She grins at me. “You’re getting so tense. But it wasn’t like that. Or actually, it was. But not the same way. And maybe he was heading toward that, but I made the mistake of letting him take a few pictures of me. Not even naked pictures”—she says that hastily, maybe because I’m growling again—“but he came one day with this camera, and said he wanted to learn photography since he had nothing else to do that summer, and then said things like, ‘Oh, show me your sexy face. How you would look for our first kiss.’ So I rolled around in the grass in the park that day and felt so pretty and sexy. About two days later, Sam comes home with a black eye and a fat lip and a stack of pictures that she’d gone around collecting from his friends. But she didn’t get them all. And the one that got shared the most was my kissy face.”

She purses her lips for me now, exaggerating a wet kiss. And holy fuck, I’m hard in a second.

“That’s goddamn hot.”

A giggle shakes through her. “Okay, but also imagine these really thick glasses that make my eyes bug out. So…Alicia the Fish. And oh my god, it didn’t end. Not after the summer, not after school started—not after the next year, or the next. Every fucking day, practically. I’d find tuna cans in my locker, or someone would offer me their goldfish crackers or the fish sticks from the cafeteria. Even when the braces came off, and when Mom got me contact lenses, it didn’t matter. And Sam, she would go after anyone who messed with me, and ended up getting in so much trouble with the school. So many times, to the point where she was going to be expelled if she kept it up. Because they never went after the kids who were doing it, just her for reacting. So I stopped telling her when it happened. And I’m pretty sure that became part of the game for them…doing it behind her back. Then of course when she graduated, my senior year became a free-for-all.”

For a school full of bullies. “Sounds like a living hell.”

“It was. But I put my head down and told myself to get through it. To graduate, then I’m out of here. But even the graduation ceremony, god. I was valedictorian, so I gave a speech, and half the kids in my class thought it was real funny to put on these big, thick glasses with fake water and fish in the lenses.”

Christ. “That was the Carrie moment she was talking about?”

Alicia nods. “I mean, it wasn’t pig’s blood. But it was…” Her voice thickens. After a second, she continues, “I kept my focus on Mom and Sam in the audience and got through it. And of course college wasn’t so bad. Though I was…well, let’s just say that I didn’t trust people easily. So when someone showed interest, I’d start looking for what they weren’t telling me. Because I just knew they must be lying, or they had some other angle. Or waiting for them to humiliate me the second I tried to be sexy. So, yeah. That kind of suspicion doesn’t exactly go over well on first dates.”

I’m not sorry. I wish to hell she’d never experienced the hurt that caused it, but glad as fuck that she never let anyone else close enough to steal her heart. Or I wouldn’t be here now.

Though I don’t understand why she’s here. “Why the fuck did you come back to this town?”

“I wasn’t going to. I didn’t think Sam was ever going to, either. So when she applied with the county sheriff’s office, I asked her ‘What the hell are you thinking?’ And she said to me, ‘If I leave, then I can’t change anything here.’ She told me that I should go, though. Because the assholes are still here. Most of them. Not all of them are as bad now, but…well, you saw today. And Sam hated seeing me hurt.”

I hate seeing her hurt, too. “But you came back?”

“Because she was right.” Her voice hoarsens slightly. “And going away to college for a while did help. Meeting people who appreciated who I was—or who were more like me. So I was stronger, more sure of myself. And so I came back with one purpose: to make sure every kid that goes through my classes comes out a little kinder, a little more empathetic—and with a healthy respect for science and the idea that the world around them is bigger than they realize, and includes so many different things, and the way all those different things exist together is what makes it so amazing. So maybe fewer kids will have to go through what I did, and everyone ends up a little better than their parents were.”

And that would be her way of changing this town. “I knew you were smart, baby. I had no idea how fucking brave you are.”

I knew she was courageous, because to get through these past few months, she had to be. But she’s been brave for a hell of a lot longer than she’s been a werewolf.

Her eyes shimmer with tears again and she buries her face in my neck, holding me so tight. Her hot breath shudders against my skin, then she says in a wavering voice, “But I wonder if that’s what the problem is. That I’m not really brave. That I’m just…cowering inside while putting up a tough façade. And that’s why I can’t tame my beast.”

“Cowering? No.” Cradling her face in my hands, I make her look at me. “That’s not what I saw today. I saw a strong, brave woman protecting something vulnerable inside herself. And you know what this curse does, yeah? It rips you apart, separates you into the things you hide and the things you don’t. Some people, that means all the bad shit they’re careful to keep concealed. The kind of monstrous shit that makes them attack people and eat pieces of them. You, though…what you’ve kept hidden is this sexy, sweet part of you that got hurt so bad after you let one person see it, and he betrayed your trust and showed it to everyone else. And you didn’t always hide that part of you, because you showed it to me long before you were bit. You’ve been showing it to me ever since I got here. But I’m guessing that, especially with other people in this town, you’ve kept it pretty well under wraps. Yeah?”

She nods into my hands. “I do,” she whispers. “Though less so when I’m with you. Because I like the way you look at me…and I don’t notice other people looking when you’re around.”

“That’s not cowering, Alicia. That’s you choosing who to trust with this vulnerable part of yourself—because not everyone deserves it. Not everyone has earned it. Hell, I don’t know if I deserve it or if I’ve earned it. But I’m so fucking grateful that I’ve got it. Though you don’t have to dress a certain way with me. I’ll look at you like that no matter what you wear.”

“I know.” She gives me a watery smile. “But I like being more of my full self with you. And not hiding anything with you.”

Her full self. She probably doesn’t even realize how telling that is. With a sweep of my thumbs, I stroke the tears from her cheeks. “Maybe that’s what your beast is afraid of? That if you tame her and heal the rift that the curse tore between you, that part of you will be exposed and hurt?”

“I don’t know.” A breathy little sob escapes her. “Maybe.”

“Then she needs to know that you’ll keep on protecting her. That you’ll never have to expose that part of yourself to anyone if you don’t want to. That if you do show it—like you’ve done with me—it’s only because you’ve made a choice to share yourself. And that your choice won’t be taken away. Even on the full moon.”

Which all sounds easy. But I bet isn’t easy to truly believe.

Though she seems to be trying to. Alicia gazes at me with her green eyes softly glowing. Then she kisses me. So sweetly, so hopefully, the salt of her tears infusing the heat of her mouth.

And Christ, I need her. Need her to know how she’s everything to me. Need to show her right here and now.

But there’s something else I want to show her first. Something I don’t think she’s seen yet.

Never breaking our kiss, I carry her into the house, up the stairs. This is a trek we’ve made so many times the past few weeks, ending up in the bedroom. This time I head past her bedroom door, stopping in front of the big mirror that makes the hallway look twice as long. The gold in my eyes is sparking bright—and I know she’s seen that every time I’m inside her. Every time I kiss her, touch her. My fangs and claws, too. Because with her, I don’t even try to hold them back. I don’t hide anything. And she doesn’t with me, either.

But I don’t think she knows how much she shows me.

She gasps as I set her down on her feet, then go to my knees. Her fingers twist in my hair. “Ranger,” she says breathlessly, then cries out when I cover her pussy with my mouth.

So goddamn sweet. My hunger for her never ceases. Every slick of my tongue just makes me crave another lick. Every time she moans, I just want to hear another. And when she comes, Christ—when she comes, it’s only sheer fucking willpower that stops me from eating her up all over again.

With my hands clamped on her hips to hold her upright as her thighs shake through her orgasm, I tease her pulsing clit with the tip of my tongue before rising to my feet again. My cock’s aching to be inside her. But not yet.

Instead I pull her back against my chest and face the mirror, telling her gruffly, “Look at yourself, baby. Just look at yourself.”

Red hair wild. Green eyes shining. Fangs visible through her parted lips. Nipples pebbled beneath the borrowed T-shirt. Claws at her fingertips.

“You know what I see?” My fingers dip down between her thighs to gently stroke through her wet folds because I can’t fucking help myself. “I see a woman who’s sharp and sweet and vulnerable and sexy and brave and so strong. And I love every part of you. What about you?”

“Oh, Ranger.” Her breath shudders, tears glimmering. “I love every part of you, too.”

“I know, baby. But do you love every part of you?”

She goes utterly still. Those glowing eyes take a long survey of her reflection. Not just seeing the fangs and claws and hair, I know, but looking deeper.

Then a trembling smile curves her mouth. “I…think that I do.” Tears slip over her cheeks even as a happy laugh escapes her. “I really do.”

As she damn well should. I spin her around, and the glint of gold in the mirror isn’t from my eyes as I bend my head to kiss her, devouring her sweet lips. She feels it, too—the chain that just appeared around my neck.

Gasping, she pulls back to examine it. Made of gold, each link solid, but so light I can barely feel it. And long, too. One end trails to the floor and into her room, like a leash on a collar. A leash that connects me to her bed. The end of the chain is wrapped around the leg of her bed frame.

Well, hell. I sure as fuck wouldn’t mind being tied here for eternity. But as soon as I accept her, as soon as I give myself to her, it’ll be gone—and her beast will be tamed. So I’m not wasting any time.

Neither is Alicia. Suddenly grinning, she grabs that leash and tugs me toward the bed. “Let’s go, Ranger Ranger.”

No need to tell me twice. I shed my jeans on the way, then grin when she swings me around and shoves me backward onto the bed.

“Don’t be scared,” she teases, climbing over me on all fours, kissing a trail up my thigh. “I’ll be gentle.”

Oh Christ, and she is. So damn gentle that I nearly go mad. So careful with her fangs as she licks and sucks on my cock. So mindful of her claws as she strokes me with her hands, until I’m hoarsely begging for more, because my need for her is ripping my control to shreds.

Her eyes are glowing bright when she finally moves higher, straddling my hips but not yet taking me inside. Instead she leans closer, kissing me before whispering, “How much of me do you want, Travis Ranger?”

“All of you, Alicia.” Emotion raw in my throat, I catch her face in my hands, my gaze burning into hers. “And I give all of myself to you. Forever, if you’ll take me.”

And my woman is so beautiful when she does. Rising up, hands braced on my chest as she welcomes me into the heaven of her body. I don’t even know when the chain vanishes. All I feel is her, all I see is her. A wildfire above me, blazing so hot, welding together everything within her that was torn apart.

She takes me, then takes me with her when she comes, her pussy gripping me so tight. And her kiss afterward echoes everything her body just told me, long and sweet and slow.

When she finally raises her head to look down at me, her lips are red and swollen, her fangs gone, her eyes no longer glowing. Yet she is, with the happiness I can see and smell coming off of her.

Because she tamed her beast. But it wasn’t only me who had to accept and love that part of her. She did, too.

“You’re all right, then?”

She nods, a dazed and wondering look in her eyes. “I don’t feel much different. But also…I do. And it’s as if so much I knew—but didn’t know that I knew—just opened up inside me. Such as how to transform without hurting. I simply don’t fight it.”

“That’s damn good.” I brush her hair back from her face. “So you want to go outside, turn into werewolves, howl at the moon?”

A giggle ripples through her, but she shakes her head. Her gaze drops to my mouth. “I’ve got a better way to pass the time tonight, Ranger Ranger.”

Yeah, she does. A hell of a lot better.

But I still make her howl a couple of times.

10

ALICIA

I WAKE up to the soft rustle of Ranger pulling on his Forest Service uniform shirt—though earlier than usual. The sky outside is still dark. Then I smell what woke him.

Smoke.

I sit up. “You’re going?”

“Yeah. Depending on how this goes, it might be a few days before I’m home.” He leans in, kisses me. “I want you to gather up everything you can’t easily replace—photos, documents—and take them to the house in town.”

Dread clutches my stomach. “It’s that close?”

He glances toward the window, which looks out over the hills behind our farmhouse. And the sky is still dark…but with an orange glow in the distance. “If the wind picks up in this direction, I’ll be evacuating everything on this side of town. You will be all right, baby. But we can’t be too careful about the rest.”

Heart thumping, I nod. “Okay.”

From downstairs, I hear the sound of a door opening and closing. Then Brandon calling out, “You ready?”

Ranger cups my cheek, his dark eyes searching mine. “All good?”

“Yes.” I turn my face and press a kiss to his palm. “Be careful.”

“I’ll be all right. It’s everyone else we ought to worry about. Make sure your phone’s charged and the volume up. They’ll be sending out emergency alerts. If they send the evacuation notice, check in on your neighbors, make sure they got it. You’ll be safe, even if you’re the last one out.”

Because I’m impervious to fire. “Got it.”

He kisses me again, hard, before leaving. I send a message to Samantha, find out she’s already been pulled in for an extra shift. Then I start packing up the contents of our safe and our photo albums before carrying them out to her pickup. It’s not yet dawn when I make the first trip into town.

After returning to the farmhouse, I begin packing up my closet—not because it might burn. But because I don’t want to wait any longer before starting my future with Ranger.

Of all things that I thought taming my beast might mean, I never expected this sense of…peace. Not quiet, because nothing inside me is quiet. My emotions feel as huge and as loud as they’ve always been.

But only yesterday, I was thinking that meeting Ranger and Brandon had helped me become comfortable in my own skin again. Yet there was no “again.” I’ve never been comfortable in my own skin. Not when I was a little girl. Definitely not in high school. Not later.

After college, I became more comfortable. Yet never truly so.

Not until last night. Now I feel truly comfortable in my own skin. As if no part of my physical body is an enemy anymore—and as if there’s nothing within myself that I need to fight.

And I didn’t realize how exhausting battling myself was. Until now, when I’m not doing it anymore.

I make a few more runs between the farmhouse and town, keeping an eye on the smoke in the distance, a yellow cloud so thick that the sun is just an orange dot. They’re evacuating residences farther down the highway, and trucks loaded up with household belongings are creating a logjam of traffic on the main street.

As I reach home, my phone rings. Maria—who was supposed to be leaving on her camping trip today. Unless they cancelled.

I hit the speaker. “Hey! Are you—”

“Oh my god. Alicia, thank god.” The panic in her voice freezes my gut. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of anyone but the circuits are busy. So don’t hang up.”

“I won’t hang up. What’s going on?”

“We left early this morning, heading up to Cougar Ridge. We didn’t realize… Oh god. Until the smoke. And then the sparks flying everywhere. We’ve been trying to drive out, but there’s a tree on fire across the access road and we can’t get the camper around it. And everything behind us is burning and the smoke isn’t too bad inside the camper yet and—” She stops herself as hysteria begins rising through her voice. I hear her take a deep, shuddering breath, then say more calmly, “The kids are really scared, Alicia. Can you contact Samantha? Tell her we’re stuck out here?”

“I will.” Cougar Ridge. My gaze swings out to the hills behind my house, shrouded in thick smoke. Maria’s only a few miles from here. “I have to hang up, but I swear to you—help is coming. Okay?”

“Okay.” Her voice trembles and rips up my heart. “And just in case…I love you.”

“I love you, too. But help’s on the way. So just hang tight.”

Heart thundering, I disconnect and try the emergency number. Then Sam’s phone. Then Ranger. All circuits busy.

Shit shit shit. I look out at the hills, then think about how fast my beast’s form was all the times I went looking for Ranger. A second later, I type out a message to him.

Alicia: Maria’s trapped on Cougar Ridge. I can’t get through to anyone. I’m heading out there. I love you.

I’m pulling off my shoes when my phone chimes with a message notification.

Ranger: Text me when you’re done. I love you, baby.

Ranger: Also just got word of two hikers up on that ridge. I’ll tell them a search and rescue is on the way.

As if he doesn’t have a single doubt that I can accomplish it, and that I’ll be safe. I grin and shove my shorts down my legs. Now I’m only wearing one of Ranger’s giant shirts. And the transformation into my beast’s form is almost like breathing—so smooth, so easy, so natural.

Just like loving a man with sparks in his eyes and charcoal in his voice.

TWO NIGHTS LATER, I’m in the farmhouse kitchen, sharing a block of Neapolitan ice cream with Samantha when Ranger comes through the door—and heads straight for me.

“You’re so damn brave, baby,” he growls softly.

I leap into his arms, my mouth finding his. He smells like smoke, and soot smudges every visible inch of his skin. Only two hours ago, I looked and smelled the same. Now the fire’s mostly contained. Not out yet. But not spreading.

And Ranger’s finally home again.

Dimly I hear Brandon tell Samantha, “Rumor is, there’s a Bigfoot running around, tossing burning logs off the road and rescuing people.”

“But she has little feet,” my sister says.

“Probably not so little when she’s seven feet tall— Hold up. Why is there only vanilla left? And how the hell did you two dig out the chocolate and strawberry all the way down on either side?”

“With grit and determination,” Sam tells him.

When I laugh at that answer, Ranger grins against my lips. “You had the chocolate?”

Because he can smell it on me. Taste it on me. “I did.”

My sister licks the last of the strawberry from her spoon. “Mom used to be the vanilla.”

“Then I guess I’m the mama bear now.” Brandon hauls out the chair beside her, then steals her spoon. “You want some of this, brother?”

Ranger doesn’t answer, just begins carrying me toward the stairs—the sparks in his eyes telling me he’s hungry for something else. He has my panties torn away by the third stair, his belt and pants unfastened by the top.

But he comes to an abrupt halt just inside my bedroom. And I’d forgotten how empty it is. The bed’s still here, but almost everything personal of mine is gone.

At his searching glance, I tell him quietly, “It’s all at your place.”

Eyes narrowing, he pushes me back against the wall. “Our place.”

“Our place,” I agree breathlessly as he lifts me.

Then he’s deep inside me, so deep, pumping his thick cock into my drenched heat, stretching me so deliciously that I whine and push back against him.

“Two days,” he snarls. “Only two days, baby. And it felt longer than the whole fucking year without you.”

Forever. It felt like forever. “I missed you, too,” I tell him, clinging to his shoulders, licking his throat, kissing his jaw. “So much.”

“And you were alone through so goddamn much.” With a growl, he pins me against the wall and fucks me harder, my breasts bouncing with each thrust. “Your first change. Your first run. And I wasn’t with you in that fire.”

“I was okay.” And he’s here now. Oh god, he’s so here. Driving that massive erection so deep, filling all the empty, aching hollows that his absence left inside me.

“I know you were. But I missed you. And I need you, baby.” He takes my lips in a rough kiss. Then another, scorching and wet, before angling me up higher, pumping deeper with long strokes that send pleasure bursting through me in white hot flashes. “I need you so fucking much, Alicia. It should scare you how much.”

“You don’t,” I pant, then nip the side of his neck, wrapping my legs tighter around his waist when that teasing bite makes him snarl and buck his hips against me, harder and harder. “You don’t scare me at all.”

With Ranger, my world is filled with the opposite of fear. Only hope. Only love. Only joy.

Only ecstasy, as he fills me over and over. I cry out against his neck as the heat and tension and need all begin unraveling inside me, as his heavy grunts become faster, more erratic. The edges of the world blur as the bliss sharpens, and there’s only Ranger now, only Ranger harshly growling my name, the hot and wet sounds of our frantic mating, the salt of his skin beneath my tongue. Then the world splinters and I cling to him, his solid body my only anchor as an orgasm shatters my senses into razored shards of pleasure. Ranger’s groan is a tortured rumble against my ear, and he drives into me for two more hard pumps before stilling. His mouth captures mine as his thick cock pulses deep inside me, claiming my lips as if he would possess my very breath, though I’m already all his. Even the beat of my heart is only for him.

As my shudders ease, Ranger breaks the kiss—but only barely. A mere breath separates us as he says, “I want to be married by next week, Miss Simmons.”

“Sounds good to me, Ranger Ranger.” Fingers buried in his hair, I hold him tighter. “Afraid I’ll run away if you don’t lock me down?”

“No, baby. I just want the whole damn world to know you’re mine. So you won’t be Miss Simmons much longer.” The sparks flaring through his eyes glow bright. “If you ever tried to run away, I’d simply hunt you down.”

Oh. I never had any intention of running away…but that sounds kind of fun. Breathlessly I ask him, “What would you do when you caught me?”

“One day, you’ll find out. But not tonight,” he says with a kiss, then begins carrying me across the room. “Because before you can run, first I’d have to let you leave this bed. And I’m not doing that for a long damn time.”

That sounds good to me, too. Though I’m already wondering how far I’ll get before he finds me…and fucks me.

Oh god. “So I just have to wait until you let me go?”

“Let you go?” He pushes me onto the bed, pins my hands over my head. “No, baby. I’m never doing that.”

And he doesn’t.

EPILOGUE

RANGER

ONE YEAR LATER…

THIS TIME, I’m the one being hunted. Alicia’s gotten better at it. She’s had plenty of practice learning to be quiet, to stay downwind while I’m tracking her. Now she’s turning all of that knowledge around, seeking instead of hiding—though the last few hunts, I suspect that I only found her so quick because she wanted me to.

It’s the same reason that I step on a twig now.

The moon’s high and full, but that’s not why we’re out here. Alicia has complete control. It’s been a couple of months since we’ve done this, though. Not since Alicia got nervous about transforming while pregnant, even though it’s safe. So this is the first time since our baby girl was born, and only because Samantha volunteered to watch our little Emma so that Alicia and I could have a date night.

And we can do dinner and a movie at home. So this is our favorite kind of date.

We’re up in the hills behind her old farmhouse. The fire that raged through this area did some damage, but although the scars are still visible, the forest is already recovering and regrowing. Green grasses blanket the clearing where I’m waiting. Wildflowers perfume the summer air. Seedlings sprout between burned tree trunks. I’ve heard and smelled plenty of deer and other wildlife—most of them quiet and still now, because they’ve also gotten a whiff of Alicia and me. But our only prey is each other.

A burst of movement gives away her location. Not hiding anymore.

So the real fun can begin.

She’s so damn quick, sleek and gorgeous in the silvery light. Her fangs gleam, because she’s already laughing even as her powerful body springs toward me, a leap that carries her from the edge of the clearing and might have bowled me over if I didn’t catch her, spinning her around and lowering her to the ground on her belly. Her claws rip out chunks of soil at first, trying to regain the upper hand—then abruptly she shifts to her human form, laughing wildly.

“You cheated!” Smaller now, she almost slips away before I catch her again, my giant hands gripping her hips. “You’re supposed to run!”

Yeah, I’ll never be able to play this game right. Not if running takes me away from her. Growling softly, I nuzzle aside her tumble of hair and nip the side of her neck. Her laughter abruptly fades into a small moan, and her fingers curl around fistfuls of grass.

“Ranger,” she whispers, arching her back as I lick my way down her spine. Lower. Her body trembles when I urge her onto her knees, the sweet fragrance of her arousal filling my senses. Breathlessly she tells me, “Oh god. You’re so dirty.”

Fuck yes, I am. Because it only takes a few long, rough licks before she’s squirming against me and crying out. I get her good and riled up, then I start eating her pussy like I’m meant to, sucking on her clit and feasting on all the wetness that her need is providing to me. So hot and sweet. I’ll never get enough of her. Not now, not ever.

She chokes out a scream into the ground when she comes, her body shaking wildly. With her arousal still heavy on my tongue, I kiss my way up her spine. “You look ready to be fucked, baby. Is that what you want now?”

“Oh god. Yes.”

I grip my thick cock, slicking the head through her glistening folds. “Then you show me how you want it.”

Panting, she widens the spread of her knees, deepens the arch of her back, inviting me into her sweet heaven.

And after two years, I still don’t know what I did to deserve this. My shy little teacher, so vulnerable and so wary…yet trusting me. Giving herself to me. Loving me.

She cries out when I push deep, surrounding my erection with lush heat, then she moans before rocking back against me. Needing more. I’ll give it to her. Give her everything.

Wrapping her hair around my fist, I pull her head back and capture her lips, capture her moans with every hard thrust that stretches her pussy around my swollen cock. I get my free hand down between her thighs and my fingers stroking her clit, knowing that it’s too much but that she’ll take it, and go fucking wild on me. And she does. Christ, she does. Writhing and grinding herself harder onto my shaft, fucking herself onto me until she abruptly stiffens, her pussy locking me in and squeezing so goddamn tight that her clenching inner walls suck the self control right out of me. Grunting, I battle the hot surge of my own orgasm until her grip eases up, then drive into her tight passage with hard, fast strokes until I can’t fucking hold back anymore, can’t do anything but mindlessly pump my cock into my wife’s perfect cunt, spilling hot seed with every thrust before finally ramming deep and coming so goddamn hard I nearly black out.

But not even the most incredible fuck in the world will ever make me lose sight of my wife. I collapse onto the ground beside her and pull her over for a long, sweet kiss. She grins up at me before pillowing her head on my shoulder, both of us lying in the grass beneath the full moon.

“This was fun, Ranger Ranger,” she says with a sly glance up at me, teasing her fingers through the hair on my chest.

I rumble out a laugh. “Yeah, it was, Mrs. Ranger.” And our date’s not over yet. “My mom’s coming up for another visit. So we’ll ask her to look after Emma so we can do this again.” Samantha’s always willing but she works most nights. “Or Brandon, too.”

Alicia’s head shoots up and she looks at me, frowning. “Brandon?”

Ah, shit. I forgot to tell her. “He finally answered one of my e-mails. He’s heading back this way to see the baby. And says he’s staying this time.”

Alicia hides her troubled expression when she lays her head down again. Because…well, I don’t know what the hell happened. Except about two weeks after our wedding, Brandon just took off and disappeared—leaving behind his clothes, his wallet, and some claw marks gouged into the wall outside Samantha’s bedroom door.

Alicia’s sister is real hard to read sometimes, but hurt smells like hurt. And although Samantha acted like nothing happened, she was hurt bad.

I know Alicia worries about her. Just like she is worrying now.

Smoothing my hand down her hair, I tell her, “It’ll be all right.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t know Samantha like I do. Leaving was the very worst thing he could have done. And then to stay away so long?”

Taking his sweet damn time, like he always does. This time, he might have waited too long.

But although my brother might take a while to get around to something, he’s also as stubborn as fuck. So if he’s on a path back to Samantha, she’s going to have her hands full.

“It’ll be all right,” I tell her again. “No matter what happens. And, hell. It might be fun watching them butt heads.”

A little giggle shakes through her before she sighs deeply and says, “I just want everyone to be as happy as I am.”

“You’re happy, then?”

Her green eyes shine up at me. “Completely. It didn’t end up being much of a curse, did it? Here I am, with the most amazing husband, the most beautiful daughter, with the best family and friends. I couldn’t ask for more.”

My Alicia wouldn’t ask for more. Which is why I’ll keep giving it. “And you know what I think? You aren’t happy enough.”

She laughs. “No?”

“Nah. Not yet. But I’ll spend my whole life getting you to that point. While you’re making the world a kinder, better place for our kids—and while I’m making sure there’s still a world for them to live in—all that time, I’ll be making you even happier. No matter what it takes. I’ll do it.”

Those glowing eyes are glimmering now, too—with happy tears, and her scent filled with so much love. “I believe you will.”

“Because I will,” I vow to her.

“And I’ll do the same for you.”

“You already have, baby,” I tell her and she laughs again.

“So you haven’t made me happy enough yet, but I’ve made you happy enough?” She bites her lip in the sexy, teasing way she has. “I think that means I win.”

“Good.” I always want her to win. “Though if this is a competition, just remember who flew three thousand miles to get to you.”

She scoffs. “On a plane? If the nights were any longer, I’d have run three thousand miles to you.”

“How’s that?”

“During the full moons.” She lithely straddles my stomach, dragging her claws down my chest. “I used to make it all the way to Canada.”

I frown, not understanding. “You did what?”

“My beast would— I mean, I would try to get to you each time. So I kept trying to run to Alaska.”

My heart’s so fucking full I can barely breathe. “Each time, you ran four hundred miles trying to get to me?”

She nods, something so sweet and vulnerable in her posture now, as if remembering those long and painful months before she tamed her beast. “Something inside me must have known you would be everything to me. And how much I needed you. And how you’d become my whole world. Because I was willing to run across it to find you.” Those happy tears swim in her eyes again. “But you came to find me, instead. And loved me. And changed a curse into the most wonderful, incredible gift.”

My heart bursting open with all the love I feel for her, I sit up, cupping her beautiful face in my hands. My voice is hoarse as I say, “That was all you, baby. And it was me who was given something so damn wonderful, so damn precious. That’s you, and this family we’re starting.”

“We could spend all night arguing about who is luckier, then.” Her soft lips curve into a sweet smile. “How about we spend the time making our family a little bigger, instead?”

Hell, yes. That sounds like a damn fine plan. Not just for tonight, but for the rest of our lives.

So I drag her mouth to mine, and get started.

THE END

So…what’s going on with Samantha and Brandon? Their story, Sheriff’s Bad Bear, is available now! Discover more about their book and other related titles on the Werewolves & Berserkers page at my website, or turn the page for an author’s note and info about other titles from Kati Wilde.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Hey there, book lovers! Kati here, hoping you loved this romance as much as I enjoyed writing it! This is a story I’ve had sitting on the mental back burner for a while (no joke, I made the cover for it three years ago) but wasn’t quite sure when I’d get a chance to get to it.

The chance ended up choosing me! After finishing a long and difficult book, the general advice is to step away from it and work on something else before revising and editing. So that’s what I did after finishing the three year, stop-and-go process of writing Stone’s book. Pretty Bride was ridiculously over-the-top and a complete 180-degree turn from Losing It All, and then Teacher’s Pet Wolf was just sheer fun to write.

I’ve visited this world before, first with Beauty in Spring—that was a werewolf story with a strong fairy-tale sensibility, with most of the mythology simply serving as a base for the classic Beauty and the Beast framework. In High Moon, I got a chance to really expand that mythology and take a broader look at the worldbuilding with a longer story and big plot. But with Teacher’s Pet Wolf, I wanted to go smaller again, and focus on the romance and Alicia’s internal conflict. So all the books in this series have had a different tone and approach—and I love the way that makes writing each book seem fresh, and offers a new angle for me to tackle. And speaking of new angles…

If you’re wondering whether Samantha and Brandon get a book…yes, they do! It’ll be called Sheriff’s Bad Bear. If you’re wondering when it’ll be…I’m not sure yet! My ‘real’ job demands more attention from me now and then, and a few big projects are coming my way in the next twelve months. So what will happen is that I’ll either have time to write another short novel/novella in between those projects (Samantha and Brandon!) or I’ll finally get a chance to write the much longer story of the bride in the epilogue for The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride (that’s Elina, and she’s The Midsummer Bride.) So they’re both in the pipeline and I’m dying to get to both, but it all depends on how much free time I can get into my schedule, and whether other projects and deadlines pop up (like a Club themed novella).

So what’s coming up for certain? First is the ebook for The Midnight Bride, which was released in audio (and available to listen to for free right now through the Read Me Romance podcast!) That’s the story of Strax and Mara, Aruk’s brother and a woman who you briefly met in Pretty Bride. It’ll be in KindleUnlimited on September 9th, 2019, with a bonus epilogue that wasn’t featured on the podcast. It’s available for pre-order now, but if you plan to read through KindleUnlimited, unfortunately you can’t pre-borrow and have to click after it goes live. If you’d like to be reminded when it comes out, don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter! I never spam and only send out an email when there’s something worth sending an email about.

Afterwards is Losing It All, a Hellfire Riders romance (finally, hurray!) Stone’s book has been a long time coming, and it’s available for pre-order now — with the same note as above! If you intend to borrow, it’ll be available in KindleUnlimited as soon as it goes live, but you can’t pre-borrow.

So a lot to look forward to! I’ll cross my fingers that my project deadlines don’t run long and I’ll have all of it to you by the end of the year. As for me…I’m off to whip Stone into shape.

Happy reading!

Kati

ALSO BY KATI WILDE

(Except for Going Nowhere Fast, all ebooks are in Kindle Unlimited. An asterisk (*) indicates that a discreet print version is available. Visit katiwilde.com for more links and info.)

CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

GOING NOWHERE FAST

(new adult, enemies-to-lovers, road trip)

SECRET SANTA*

(holiday romance, office romance, down-on-her-luck heroine, dirty-talking-hero who is good with his hands)

ALL HE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS*

(holiday romance, grumpy detective living next door, rich girl who works in a morgue)

THE KING’S HORRIBLE BRIDE

(a modern royal romance)

THE WEDDING NIGHT (BEFORE CHRISTMAS)*

(lady billionaire, blue-collar hero, marriage of convenience, and a bit of holiday flavor)

THE HELLFIRE RIDERS MOTORCYCLE CLUB

THE HELLFIRE RIDERS: SAXON & JENNY *

(includes: Wanting It All, Taking It All, Having It All)

THE HELLFIRE RIDERS: JACK & LILY *

(includes: Betting It All, Risking It All, Burning It All)

BREAKING IT ALL*

(Gunner & Anna)

GIVING IT ALL*

(Saxon & Jenny)

CRAVING IT ALL*

(Bull & Sara)

FAKING IT ALL*

(Duke & Olivia)

LOSING IT ALL*

(Stone & “Cherry”)

THE DEAD LANDS

Barbarian Fantasy Romance

THE MIDWINTER (MAIL-ORDER) BRIDE*

THE MIDNIGHT BRIDE*

PRETTY BRIDE*

THE STONEHEART BRIDE*

Fantasy Romance

EVIL TWIN

WOLFKIN AND BERSERKER ROMANCE

BEAUTY IN SPRING

(a short Beauty & the Beast romance)

HIGH MOON

(a werewolf romance)

TEACHER’S PET WOLF

(a werewolf romance)

SHERIFF’S BAD BEAR

(a berserker romance)

UPCOMING ROMANCES

THE MIDSUMMER BRIDE

(a Dead Lands novel)

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Teacher’s Pet Wolf

1. Alicia

2. Ranger

3. Alicia

4. Alicia

5. Ranger

6. Alicia

7. Ranger

8. Alicia

9. Ranger

10. Alicia

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Also by Kati Wilde

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