abruptly and forced her hips to tilt upward until the base of his cock rubbed against her clit as he thrust, and Honor broke.
The climax seized her by the scruff of her neck and shook her like a disobedient cub. Her body clenched around him, milking his cock in hot, slick motions, dragging him into ecstasy behind her.
She felt the moment of his explosion and twisted her torso to the side, raising one arm to deflect his bite, catching it on the muscular flesh of her bicep, rather than on the shoulder where he’d been aiming. She heard his muffled roar, but his jaw had already clenched shut around her arm and he couldn’t pull away. He mouthed the skin as his body emptied itself inside her, a growl rumbling low in his throat. Honor hung there, pinned between the tree and his shuddering body for endless minutes until his tension eased.
He raised his head to glare at her, brown eyes still glowing an amber gold with the aftermath of his climax. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“You shouldn’t have tried to mark me.” She shivered, suddenly aware that they were all but naked outside in the stone yard in the middle of winter. Never mind that steam billowed off them in a hazy fog; she wanted her clothes.
“You are mine.” Logan shook her, staring into her eyes as if he could will her to agree with him.
“I don’t belong to anyone. Least of all you. I bear no man’s mark, and I intend to keep it that way.”
He snorted. “What are you? The Virgin Alpha? I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but your name isn’t Elizabeth.”
“It doesn’t need to be.” She shoved hard at his shoulders, and he grunted, but didn’t release her. “Let me go and get the hell off my property. We’ve said everything we need to say, and I need to go take a frickin’ shower.”
His jaw snapped shut, loud enough for Honor to hear the click. When he spoke from between clenched teeth, it sounded as if it came from a wolf’s throat, not a human larynx. “Not yet. I’m not done. You will be my mate, Honor. No matter what I have to do to convince you.”
He carried her to the floor of the clearing and went ahead with the convincing. All Honor could do was moan.
“This doesn’t change anything, you know.”
Logan sighed and stretched, shifting his weight partially off Honor’s limp body and onto the rough ground. “I never thought it had.”
He might have hoped, but he hadn’t really let himself believe any different. In the twelve hours or so that he’d known Honor Tate, he’d come to realize she could teach stubborn to Missy Winters.
Logan winced at the reminder of his own pack and why he’d come to Connecticut in the first place. It unfortunately hadn’t been to roll around the forest floor with the mouthwatering alpha of the White Paw Clan, but to decide if she had what it took to lead her pack. Something about which he hadn’t yet made up his mind.
“Just so we’re clear.” She pushed him off her, forcing him to roll onto his back so she could sit up and brush the bits of leaves and dirt from her skin. “Now when are you leaving?”
“Sometime next week. Just like I told you.”
She turned to him with narrowed eyes, an expression entirely different from the one she’d worn about ten minutes ago.
“Wrong answer. Try again.”
Logan shook his head. “Honor, I’ve been here for barely twelve hours and I’ve already seen you have to take down one male and had another all but introduce himself to me as alpha in your place. Do you honestly think —”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m just trying to point out that—”
She growled, low and vicious. “
Logan tightened his lips. “On my way here, a male stopped me. He didn’t tell me he was alpha, but he wanted to welcome me to the territory and clearly would have been happy for me to draw my own conclusions.”
She wasn’t even pretending it was a question.
“Darin Major.”
The tension popped like a balloon, huffed out on a bark of a laugh, and Honor returned her attention to searching for her clothes. “Darin. I thought I was going to have a problem for a minute.”
“You don’t think a male member of your pack assuming your position before outsiders is a problem?”
“No, I just don’t think Darin is a problem.” She met his gaze briefly. “Trust me, I know all about Darin and his delusions of grandeur. I can handle him. Even if he were to challenge me, I can take him. He’s not a threat.”
“The question isn’t just whether or not you can take him. Don’t you think your regional alpha would be a little bit concerned if the alpha of this pack couldn’t go a week without someone challenging for the position? Graham wants stability.”
“And I’ll provide it. In fact, why don’t you go tell your boss that right now? If you get on the road before noon, you can beat most of the traffic back to New York.”
Logan groaned and covered his eyes with his forearm. “Look, I think we’ve come to a Mexican standoff.” He shifted to look at her and tried desperately not to get distracted by the sight of her bare breasts and the marks he’d made on them, most of which were already fading. “You’re not going to change your mind about having me here, and I’m not going to change my mind about staying. So I have a proposal for you.”
“Does it involve you catching the next green light back to the city?”
“No. And that’s not just because I have lousy luck with traffic signals, either.” He saw her looking around for the remains of her T-shirt and felt a twinge of conscience. He handed her his mostly intact, if buttonless, shirt and watched her shrug into it. “I intend to stay until I find out what I came here to find out.”
“It doesn’t matter what you say. This pack is not going to change, and I’m not going to give it up and make a graceful exit no matter what you think your job is or what you decide is best for us.” She tied the ends of the shirt into a knot below her breasts and reached for her jeans. “You’re wasting your time.”
All of a sudden he realized she’d never been wearing a bra and his body responded in a pretty predictable fashion. He drew one knee up to his chest and rested his forearm across it. In spite of the pleasurable interlude they had just shared, he still wasn’t sure if it was safe to leave any of his body parts sticking out and vulnerable around this testy female.
“It’s my time to waste, but I don’t think that’s what I’ll be doing, anyway. But here’s what I’m thinking.” He waited until she fastened her jeans and turned to him with an impatient expression. “The full moon is in three days.” Along with the peak of her heat, but he wasn’t thinking about that, and he certainly wasn’t going to mention it. “It will be the first Howl since your father’s death. It would be a perfect opportunity for me to see the dynamics of the pack and to get the answers to the Silverback alpha’s questions. If you can put up with me for another seventy-two hours, I’ll leave after that without a fuss.”
“Why? Give me a good reason. I have every right to order a nonmember out of pack territory. I don’t have to let you stay.”
“You do if you want to avoid a clan war.”
He saw her pause, saw his words sink in and make her think. He kept his gaze level, but unthreatening. He needed her to know he meant what he said, but he didn’t want to come across as any more hard-nosed or unyielding than he had to. He walked a delicate tightrope, but his balance had always been good.
“Winters would really take it as far as a war? That’s insane. This pack isn’t big enough to make a difference to him. It shouldn’t matter to the Silverback who leads the White Paw, so long as they aren’t intending to lead it into his business. And trust me, I’m not. So why is this suddenly a life-or-death situation?”
“The White Paw pay fealty to the Silverback. It’s his job to care.”
“That’s bullshit. Even if it’s true, it’s bullshit. It’s his job to make sure my pack doesn’t pick a fight with his, reveal ourselves to the local human population, or otherwise compromise the safety of the larger Lupine community. Anything more than that is just someone with too much time on his hands and an overgrown side of
