slapped his ball cap onto his head and grabbed for his keys. His face softened when he saw my own tight, distressed expression. He kissed my cheek.
I whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“If you need anything, anything at all, you call me. I’ve seen my sisters pregnant enough times to know the drill. Even if you just need Saltines at two in the morning, you call me, got it?”
I nodded. Alan gave me a brief hug and let himself out.
At the sound of the door shutting, I sighed, scrubbing my hand over my face. “That went well.”
I gathered the dirty plates and dumped the wine into the sink. I turned on the shower and let it beat over my neck and shoulders, which seemed to have been clenched since Alan first kissed me. How could that have gone so wrong so quickly? I wasn’t exactly caught off-guard by Alan’s interest, but I thought I’d sent clear signals that I wasn’t available. I found myself analyzing every little detail of the night, everything I said, everything I did, to try to find something that Alan might have interpreted as a “go sign.” Maybe I shouldn’t have let him into the house in the first place. Maybe I should have started ignoring him the moment Cooper left, to prevent this sort of thing.
When the hot water ran out, I pulled one of Cooper’s shirts from my closet, wrapping myself in his scent, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the dresser mirror. My eyes were red and puffy from crying. My face was paper- white. I looked like one of those vengeful ghost characters from an Asian horror film.
“Pathetic,” I grumbled. I dragged a quilt from the bed and padded out to the front porch. I settled into one of the Adirondack chairs Cooper and I had picked out and stared up at the sky. It was a full moon, watery silver light washing over the yard, the trees. The air was soft and as warm as it could get at night in Alaska. Oscar settled at my feet, standing guard against feral squirrels. I tried to think of something calming. I closed my eyes, listened to the trees rustle, and thought about sleeping out under the stars on that horrible camping trip. The more details I tried to recall, the more real the picture became. I focused on the smell of singed marshmallow and woodsmoke. I felt strong arms wound around me and the warmth of the fire against my face. I heard a branch crackle under pressure from the flames.
And then another.
My eyes popped open. That wasn’t my imagination. I’d really heard that. I sprang to my feet, quilt puddling around my ankles.
“Cooper?” I called.
For a moment, I thought I’d miscalculated, that his presence was only imagination, a pretty story I told myself to ease my hurt feelings. I feared that there was something else in my woods, the thing that Cooper was afraid of. And I was standing defenseless on my front porch in a T-shirt and my underwear.
In the distance, I heard paws beating against the ground, underbrush whipping against whatever was running toward me. I saw the glint of moonlight reflecting off blue-green eyes before I saw his face. The blurring transition of wolf to man no longer shocked me. It was as much a part of him as his smile or the smooth golden skin that was so clearly defined in the pale light as he stepped out of the edge of the trees.
I sprinted toward him. I’m not sure what Cooper was expecting, but I doubt he foresaw my right hook landing against his jaw. Several things happened at once. I shouted “Ow!” and shook out my smarting fist. Cooper yelped and cupped his hand around his face. I used my good hand to continue Cooper’s well-deserved whoopin’.
“You asshole!” I spat. “I can’t believe you did that to me! How could you?”
I smacked his shoulders and chest over and over, growling, “Stupid! Thoughtless! Arrogant! Moron! Werewolf!” with each blow. He let me rage against him until my arms were weak and my head was resting against his neck. He picked me up and carried me toward the house, murmuring apologies and pressing kisses on my jaw, my chin, my mouth.
Cooper opened the door and slammed it behind us. He carried me to the spot in front of the fireplace where we’d made love for the first time. There were no flames in the hearth, but I didn’t miss the gesture: time to start over. My shirt had been discarded somewhere near the door, and my panties were an unmourned casualty.
Cooper grabbed my hips and pulled me toward him, wrapping my legs around his waist while he ran the tip of his nose from my temple to my navel, kissing and licking my overheated skin at every step. He smelled of man and woods and animal. His hair seemed shaggier, falling over my eyes as he kissed my eyelids, the bridge of my nose, the curve of my jaw. He buried his hands in my hair, pressing his face into the wild, dark strands. “Missed you,” he growled. “Missed you so damned much. Love you.”
His mouth traveled from my neck to my ankles, stopped to nip and lick at my collarbone, my belly button, my hip bones. He blew a teasing hot breath between my legs before darting away and pressing kisses on my thighs.
His lips skimmed back to my breasts, lavishing attention over one tight, oversensitized nipple and then other with his tongue. He pinched them gently between his teeth as I writhed under him, slipping his mouth over the curve of my breast as I wrapped my fingers around his warm, hard length. I guided him toward me, but he pitched his hips forward and slid inside me, strong and sure. My body welcomed him back, pulling him deeper with warm, steady strokes. I felt moisture seeping down my thighs as we rocked our hips together. Cooper’s hands kneaded my ass, my hips, keeping me moving in time when I was too lost to keep up.
“Mine,” he told me, making me convulse around him like a velvet-covered fist.
Just as he reached his climax, Cooper’s irises seemed to darken and expand, closing out all of the white. Teeth bared, he threw his head back with the final thrust and clamped down on my shoulder, just where it met my neck. I shrieked at the intrusion of teeth against my flesh, but Cooper held me fast against him. My hands batted ineffectively at his shoulders as my skin tore like paper under his mouth. This painful, alien sensation sent me toppling over the edge of sanity. My pulse jumped, my breath caught, and all of my muscles seemed to contract at once, shuddering through the most powerful orgasm I’d ever had. As I shook and screamed, Cooper gathered my fluttering wrists with one hand and used the other to slip soothing brushes along my brow. I felt a trickle of blood down my back as Cooper’s head fell to rest against mine.
Our breathing slowed and he rolled off me, gathering me to his side. Once I’d regained use of my arms, I reached out and smacked the side of his head.
“Ow!” he cried.
“You bit me!” I groused, pressing my hand to the wound. “Again!”
He flushed with guilt but kept a defensive note in his voice. “It’s a good thing! It means you’re mine. The scar is a public declaration. It means you’re my mate. It means no other wolf can claim you. It means you’re under my protection and the protection of my pack . . . if I had one.”
“Like a pimp.”
He made a sour face. “It’s no different from me peeing on your doorstep.”
“You peed on my doorstep?”
He winced. I don’t think he realized how gross that sounded until he said it aloud. “Right before I told you I couldn’t see you anymore.” His expression was alternately sheepish and defensive. “I was marking the territory. It keeps other predators away. I had to keep you safe somehow. You stumble into the path of pissed-off grizzlies, for God’s sake.”
Suddenly, my hand snaked out, and I hit him again.
He winced. “Ow! What was that for?”
“Apparently, I’m still a little mad at you.”
“Mo, I’m sorry if it hurt—”
“Yes, Cooper, that’s why I’m mad, because you bit me.” I snorted.
“—but marking you is best for the baby,” he insisted.
My shirt slithered out of my hand. “How did you find out?” I whispered.
“Well, my mom sort of tracked me down and proceeded to beat the ever-loving hell out of me until I admitted you were the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And that I would have to be an idiot not to run back to you and beg for forgiveness. With the understanding that she plans on beating me at regular intervals just to keep me on my toes. She’s had some sort of violent epiphany, I think.”
I lay back, feeling as if all of the air in my lungs had been pulled out. He knew. He knew, and he didn’t say anything? Shouldn’t that have been maybe the second or third thing he’d said? Maybe right after “Missed you so damned much,” he could have mentioned “Love you, and I’m so sorry I ran off and left you to suffer through your first trimester alone.” How would I know now? How would I know whether he wanted me for me or because he felt he had no other choice?
