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“Evening,” Timber said with a scowl.
Lyra’s heart was beating like a drum in her chest, watching him remove his obscenely large jacket and the strain over his shirt as he hung it in the closet with his back to her.
“How was your day?” she said, voice surprisingly mousey.
“Long,” he snarled. “Ran all the way to Canada and back. I’m running on empty.”
Lyra blinked heavily, realizing what she had just heard him say. He kicked off his boots, and she closed the book on her lap.
“Drove, you mean. You mean youdroveto Canada and back.”
Timber wasn’t in a playful mood, confined to scowling and already stomping down the hallway with a thick air of irritation.
“No, I ran. Barefoot. Now I need to hibernate for a week.”
He trampled down the hallway and went into the bedroom, shutting the door loud enough to potentially wake a sleeping Marigold. Lyra cringed and waited, but there was nothing.
She left the book on the couch as she stood, running her hands through her hair and leaving them to settle on the back of her neck. She had heard what he’d said, twice. And he wasn’t saying it to tease her. He was dead serious.
But then there was the burning attraction. She could either go to bed, slide her hand down between her legs, and summon a vision of his touch, or she could have the real thing.
Desire pulsed through her loins like a beating heart. She looked at herself in the mirror over the fireplace, catching her own bedroom eyes and groaning.
She had brought a sexy little slip with her from home. Why? She hadn’t known. One of those …maybe I’ll need it, but I doubt itsituations. But there she was, in the home of a bear-like man whose body she needed to destroy her own.
Lyra would let him rest for now.
NINE
TIMBER
Timber could barely recall what he had said to Lyra before his head hit the pillow. His feet ached from the long chase to the border and then back again. Despite its strong shifter status, his body craved rest as much as it craved the very thing that had caused such a stir inside his normally settled belly.
He thought he had been dreaming when she first walked in. He had been in bed for what felt like forever, his mind and consciousness encased in a warm blanket of darkness. His eyes fluttered open, awakened by the soft closing of his bedroom door.
“I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Lyra. Her voice, as gentle as a butterfly's wing, soared to him in the black. He squinted, slowly adjusting to the curvy, voluptuous outline that stood next to the bed. She was floating like a siren in the seas, beckoning him with her wares.
“Hmm, not at all,” he murmured. “Are you all right?”
Lyra chuckled, the song a sweet melody. Her outline began to sharpen as his eyes adjusted to the dimness; she was barely wearing anything, merely a thin silk slip.
Timber nearly lunged at her when he realized he could see her breasts through the gown, nipples erect, pink, angular, and delicious.
She had her hair down, set free from its usual tight bindings. It was longer than he suspected, flowing over the tops of her unencumbered breasts. Her fingers were long and slender, her waistline and hips in the shape of a vase. She was robust like Aphrodite, waiting for him on a cloud.
Lyra said nothing as she came to him, sitting on the side of the bed. Her hand crawled toward him, resting it against his wrist.
“Marigold is asleep,” she whispered. “when I came in here, I wanted to make sure to ask you a vital question.”
His cock rose to attention beneath the covers. He slept naked, so it pushed up against the comforter that covered him. It was titillating, knowing there was but a single boundary left between their completely naked bodies.
He focused on her, her dazzling eyes looking over the seductive tilts of her eyelids.
“Ask me,” he murmured.
She hesitated for a moment, then her voice returned to its husky, jazz tongue lilt.
