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Repressed grief burned through him and for the first time since he’d come home to find her gone, he let it burn.

CHAPTER FOUR

Olivia didn’t wake up until late that afternoon. She checked her internal clock and realized she’d slept eleven hours.

A wonderful aroma of meat cooking on an outdoor grill greeted her. Her stomach rumbled.

Was Zane her kind of man, or what?

She blinked against the fading light. But what was a vampire doing outdoors barbecuing at dusk? Maybe there was something she didn’t know about him after all. Huh.

She turned on her back and saw that a tall stack of her clothes sat on small dresser outside the bathroom. It meant several things. First, that Zane had arranged to bring her clothes here, to what she knew to be a fairly remote mountain location. He’d also given someone permission to break into her house and rummage through her closet. But he’d been damn thoughtful in the process.

She stretched as she rolled out of bed, feeling deliciously sore in well-used places. She hadn’t had this much

sex, all in the space of twenty-four hours, in a very long time.

As soon as she was showered and dressed, she walked out onto the deck and saw that the tree house complex included at least five small dwellings, each with ramps leading to the next. The pitched roofs showed in patches through the almost bare deciduous trees and the occasional pine. Dark brown shingles covered the sides of each dwelling, broken up by a fair amount of windows.

Situated at the highest point, the bedroom porch had a view that went on for miles. Because the porch faced east and the sun was almost down, the vista of several mountain ridges was cloaked in a deep purple haze.

As she looked down, she could see the complex had been built on the side of a ravine. By the number of narrow trails along both sides of the stream below, all kinds of wildlife must congregate in the area.

She sniffed the air, her shifter senses separating the many different smells. Zane appeared from the large house to the left, the biggest of all the treehouses. He bore two platters on one arm and two mugs hooked in his free hand.

The coffee smelled like heaven.

She met him halfway down the ramp and took the plates from him.

“Thank you. I had the worst image of these fine steaks and eggs splattered over the walkway.”

She lifted one of the plates to her nose and drank in the aroma. “And you charred them perfectly.” She smiled at him over her shoulder.

He grinned. “Somehow, I knew that’s what you’d want, and the eggs are barely cooked.”

“The shifter in me is starting to love you a lot, you know.” Maybe she shouldn’t have said those exact words, but what the hell, it was true. He seemed tuned into her species. “Oh, and thank you so much for having my clothes brought here.”

When she settled into one of the two wood chairs on the porch, he put the mugs on the table between them and sat down. She passed his plate over. “I love it here,” she announced, unsure why she’d blurted it out.

“I thought you might. This is a wild place, and very much like you.”

“It’s my shifter-ness.”

“And did I tell you how much I love that part of you?”

“You’ve known me exactly one night and you already love something about me?”

He searched her face. “You find it hard to believe? Well, tell me what the shifter in you loves about me.”

“Easy question, but with more than one answer. You’re a man’s man and almost six-foot seven-inches tall. On the beach, when I nipped at your heels, you took off after me and I got the distinct impression you loved the game. But I think mostly I love just how much you look after your realm the way you do.”

He held her gaze for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Let me return the compliment: I love your hair, your beautiful green eyes, and that you’re so physical.”

She shook her head. “But don’t get used to this. I wasn’t kidding when I said I wasn’t a relationship kind of woman.”

He chuckled. “No problem. I’ve promised myself that until the Invictus are gone, I’m riding solo.”

“Then we understand each other.” She looked at him over the rim of her mug.

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