After all, what did he have to lose?
Only the lake noises broke the quiet as they stared at each other, a few feet separating them. He couldn’t seem to move, to think, or to slow his racing heartbeat.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, feeling like a fool the moment the inane statement left his mouth.
“Go away.” Struggling to her feet, she wrapped her arms around her waist. “I can barely control my own body.”
“You don’t want this?” He had to ask, one last time to make sure. If she said yes, he knew he’d lose the battle, but if she said no, he’d be able to make himself leave.
No matter what narcotic influenced her, if she said no, making love to her would be rape.
“No,” she said, her full lips barely moving.
He didn’t trust himself to speak. Jerking his chin in a quick nod, he turned to go.
She didn’t try to stop him.
Involuntarily, he glanced back over his shoulder at the woman. Motionless, she continued to watch him, the early morning sun sending shafts of fire through her long, golden hair.
Gorgeous.Pushing the thought from his mind, he climbed in his boat, started the engine and shoved off in reverse, back into the water. There, he waited, watching until she half walked, half crawled into the cabin.
All appetite for fishing completely gone, body still aching, he headed back the way he’d come, toward home.
Close call.Taking a shuddering breath as the stranger’s boat pulled away, Jewel tried to move quickly for the house. Her shaky legs refused to cooperate. The best she could manage was a kind of crab-like scuttle. No matter. She’d make it. The ramshackle cabin wasn’t too far from the shore.
A fire raged inside her, a need and a hunger she’d come dangerously close to loosing on the unsuspecting stranger.
Hellhounds. Not only did he think she was a druggie, but some sort of nymphomaniac as well.
She told herself it didn’t matter. The only thing she could afford to worry about now was staying alive and being able to change. Anything else was small stuff, not worth the energy.
Still, the haunted look in his eyes, the raw need she’d seen in his face, lingered in her mind.
Why?
Because she recognized it. Identified and empathized with the emotion swirling inside him.
Proving again, she was a complete and utter fool.
Looking up, she saw he waited, watching her. Though water separated them, she shivered, turning on her heels and entering the cabin.
Once inside, she closed and locked the door, testing the strength of the wood and finding it lacking. Much too thin. She’d have to see what she could do about reinforcing it.
Right. As if any wood, no matter how strong or how thick, could keep out an enraged wolf. If Leo came looking for her, this cabin would provide no protection. No protection at all against an enraged shifter who enjoyed making her suffer.
Lucky for her, Leo was safely locked away in a maximum security prison and had no idea where she’d gone. She worried that since the guards didn’t know what he was, one day he’d escape. Though her body felt much the same as it did after one of his frequent beatings.
Exhausted, she dropped into a ratty old recliner that had come with the rental and closed her eyes. She still couldn’t change. Trying nearly killed her. What the hell had Leo done to her? At first, she’d suspected he was doping her with pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, an ingredient found in common cold medicine. The well-known remedy also suppressed the urge to change. Since she still wanted to change, longed to change, and couldn’t, she doubted he’d used that particular drug. It had to be something else. Long-lasting and deadly.
It had been over three months since she’d vanished. Drugs couldn’t stay in her system too much longer than that, could they?
She exhaled, still trembling, fingering her silver, wolf necklace for reassurance. She never took it off, not even when she changed. Luckily, it was long enough to make the change with her. The chain and charm were all she had left from the woman who’d birthed her and abandoned her at a fire station in a remote town in the Adirondack Mountains.
Pack took care of Pack, and one of the firefighters had brought the days-old baby home to his childless wife. They’d raised her as their own, teaching her Pack heritage and how to shape-shift into a wolf.
They’d become her family and she’d loved them with all her heart.
Shortly after she and Leo had married, she’d lost both her parents in a car accident. The day of their funeral had been one of the last times Leo had been kind to her.
