I am strong. He sees my strength even as I fall in the snow, unable to go another step. He sees it as I throw the match on the van and watch everything I ever knew go up in flames.
He is furious over what my father said. He wants to punch him. He wants to torture the sheriff, wants to rip out the throats of the other men who tried to hurt me.
He wants me. He sees how I move, how I think, hears me talk, and all of him burns to claim me as his own, to show me just how devoted he’ll be to me every day that he is graced with my presence. He’ll show every inch of me, every second, every minute, every hour he can. He wants me crying and screaming and moaning and gasping. He wants me to tell him how I can’t take anymore but that I want him to never stop loving me. He wants me curled up into his body afterward, safe and warm, sweaty and sticky, so he can hold me through the night for the rest of his life.
I felt his stress over taking care of his pack. I feel his relief that they are all safe, that the borders are protected and the risks are low. I sense his fear that one day, those he loves and protects could get hurt, and his determination that he will be there to do what he needs to do to protect everyone.
He has dark shadows. Ugly shadows. He is violent and dangerous, full of sharp jagged edges that know how to slide and dice and hurt and kill. He is heat and sparks, sexy and seductive. He’s filled with passion and excitement and the intense desire to fully bond with the shifter he is meant to share his endless energy with.
A small part is warmth and light, a part he hasn’t fully explored yet, a part that has grown since he found me. He will do what it takes to claim me, to make me his forever. Even if it involves deception. Even if it involves pushing boundaries. Never anything against my will unless he truly believes it to be necessary to protect lives. But he will also do what it takes to make sure that I know that he is mine forever. A true partnership.
He was exactly what he said he was. He is no Sheriff Whitmore, and I can’t help but feel ashamed that I ever said such a thing.
“Cara,” a voice says, and like someone spinning a faucet valve off, the waves of emotions suddenly stop and I am in his arms. “Cara. I’m sorry. It’s too much right now for you.”
“I need to sleep.”
I don’t need to be connected to him to know that I just hurt him deeply. He opened himself up to me, and I cut him out. But all he did was loop an arm around me, and helped me to my feet. Guided me to the master bedroom. Took me to the walk-in closet, showed me where the hidden entrance was to the secret basement, told me that if anything happened I was to go down there and not wait for him. And then I was in bed, surrounded by the most luxurious sheets I’ve ever been cocooned in, and felt lonelier than I’d ever felt in my life.
Outside the room, I heard the scraping noise of a sofa getting pushed near the door, so that he could stand guard against those hunting us… and I drifted away, feeling the slightest bit less alone than the last time I went to sleep.
***
“Keep running,” the sheriff called out behind me, closing in quickly. I skidded sharply to one side, paws scrabbling against the frozen ground. I’ve never run faster in my life, but there’s something heavy around my neck. The necklace. Fear bolted through me—Wyatt can’t find me. I fall snout over paws, scrabbling at my neck, trying to be free…
Strong hands grabbed mine and I bolted upright, gasping and panting. I’m in a pitch-black room and a huge form looms over me, pinning my arms down.
I screamed.
“Cara, wake up.”
Wyatt. I was in the hideaway cabin, miles away from civilization, with a man who could turn into a wolf, who thought I could turn into one too, and that we’d live happily ever after as wolf people.
“It was just a dream.” I told him, as much as I was telling myself.
“I heard you screaming and you were clawing at your throat…” He sat on the edge of the bed and, ever so gently but oh so firmly, tucked his hand under my chin and tilted my head back so he could examine my neck. It stung, but there was no bad pain as he gently maneuvered my head from side to side and up and down. “No permanent damage. You scared me there for a moment. What happened?”
“Nightmare. I was being chased by the sheriff and… the necklace was on my neck. I needed to get it off.” I needed you.
I sat up a bit more and got a look at him and what he was—or rather wasn’t—wearing. Jeez, I needed a bucket full of ice if I was expected to share such tight quarters with a shifter like this.
Before, when he had clothes on, I could feel the ripped body underneath. Now that he was just wearing shorts… he looked even more delicious than I could have possibly imagined, with all sorts of fascinating scars telling stories up and down his chest, his arms, and who knew where else.
“The sheriff isn't going to find you.”
I scoffed, the moment broken. “You don't know that.” Then my eyes widened. “You telling me he's dead?”
“I'm telling you that people will only get to you over my dead body. And there is no way in hell I am losing to that piece of human shit.” He looked dangerous. Hot and dangerous. Sexy and dangerous.
And to think that the steam room was still just one small doorway away…
I could tell the second that he sensed my shift in interest when his eyes darkened, and the fingertips that had been so caring on my skin changed. Became sensuous, demanding. Before they were there to sooth my pain, and now his touch ran over me, stroking across the planes of my face with something very different in mind. His fingertips trailed up my jawline, traced my eyebrows, teased my eyelashes, stroked along my lips like a man determined to memorize every single piece of me. The heat, the sensual tension that never truly went away, built swiftly between us until each second spun out into an eternity where there was just the two of us in this room with his touch warming me from inside out.
Then he sighed and pulled his hand back. I felt the loss keenly, like someone had opened the front door and let the cold air pour in. “I didn't tell you to stop,” I whispered.
“You also didn't tell me to keep going. You've been through a lot, and there's no need to rush anything. You need to rebuild your trust, and I need to make sure that you're safe.”
“Are you saying that you don't want me?”
The look in his eyes answered my question. “I don’t want to make more of a mess of everything, Cara, but let me be perfectly clear. One day, you will be mine as much as I am already yours. And I don't want you to fear that. And when you are ready, you will come to me, and you will tell me so.”
“I don't know if I will ever be able to do that.”
He smirked. “Don't bet the farm on that.”
I laughed, surprised by how charming I found his arrogance. Usually it was a turnoff, but I think I knew this man better than I'd ever known anyone else. And to think that it's only been… “Holy shit, how long have I been sleeping?”
“About twenty hours.” He stood up, walked over to the windows, and pushed the blackout curtains open. Soft predawn light spilled in along with the sight of snowbanks piled so high against the cabin wall that I could see it against the bottom few inches of the windows. “You slept all of yesterday and then all through another night. You desperately needed it. It stopped snowing, but I will need to start digging tunnels in case anyone comes here. The snow will slow them down, but I don't like the idea of being trapped.”
“There’s always the basement.”
“Never, ever depend on only one backup plan.” He tilted his head toward the walk-in closet. “Do you remember the instructions I gave you yesterday on how to get in there?”