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"What time is it?" The question scratched at her dry throat.
Sitting up, she reached for the water flask thoughtfully within arm's reach and downed the entire content in a few gulps. She never ate much during her Heats, but drinking water lessened the more uncomfortable symptoms of headache, dry mouth, and stomach pains. After this flask, she'd request another.
Jake's sandy-colored brows lifted, either at her question or her guzzling of the liquid. "Midday." He hesitated, then asked, "How're you feeling?"
At the reminder, the Heat symptoms rose like steam from a boiling pot. Sweat beads broke out on her hairline, and a surging warmth toasted her cheeks.
"Like it's coming on again," she said, bashful at the remembrance of earlier.
Her swim had been a lovely reprieve from the invisible fire burning up her body, but it had been short-lived. Once the need overtook her, she'd been able to do little more than crawl onto shore and try to alleviate it.
But, for whatever reason, her own efforts hadn't been enough. Nothing like that had ever happened before. Although difficult and near intolerable, she'd always been able toattendto her Heat needs before. Living day in, day out with so many available Alphas, she had no shortage of chests, hands, faces, and forearms to fantasize about, no deficit of scents to tantalize her with, conjuring images of rolling around and rubbing herself against a solidly muscled male. Yet none of that proved sufficient to get her over the edge and bring the release she'd craved.
Desperate, Zorah'd allowed herself to revisit the memory of the night on the dock. Permitted herself to relish it in a way she hadn't in the days since its explosive happening. She remembered his lips on her breasts and that delicious, aching pull that shot straight to her core. She allowed it to carry her away, ecstatic when the thoughts harkened the elusive peak ever closer. But it proved insufficient and, therefore, even more hopeless. It was as if her body, having had a taste of Alpha attention, would no longer settle for anything less. Lying there on the beach, her skin and nerves scratched raw, she'd sobbed with the horror of the whole situation.
Until, like an angel, Jake arrived.
And then what he'd done... Zorah'd never been loved that way before. The novelty broke through the barrier and allowed her the climax she sought. And it had beenglorious.
"I'll need" — she gave him a shy look — "moresoon."
Jake's eyes flared with understanding, and a muscle in his jaw ticked, but he made no move toward her. "Why were you out there? And why hasn't anyone come looking for you?"
She raised defiant eyes. "My body felt hot, and I wanted a swim. I didn't plan to" — embarrassment flooded in, and she couldn't hold his gaze, instead flicking her eyes toward the open door and peering into the trees — "stay there. Like that. It just happened."
"Does the Pack know where you are?"
Zorah shook her head, her now-dried hair dancing over her upper chest, drawing her attention to the exposed skin. Oh right, she was naked. Her cheeks tingled, maybe a Heat symptom, maybe more chagrin, and she tugged the thin blanket higher. This wasn't her blanket, the one she'd brought to the lake; that one swayed on an improvised line strung across the cabin, no doubt still wet.
She ventured another glance at the immobile Alpha, reassured as the stern lines of his face softened. "They think I'm in the Heat Hut. No one was to bother me unless I hung a cloth on the doorknob. No one will know I'm here unless they barge inside."
He gave her a solemn blink. "You can stay if you want."
A different kind of pleasure flooded her, one having nothing whatsoever to do with Heat or sexual hunger. She studied the frayed blanket pooled in her lap, biting her lip to tamper the giddiness. She would stay, and they could do...more. Not stolen kisses on a half-sunken dock, but in a bed, in the light of day, so she could see his sun-burnished skin in its natural beauty and trace the strength in the muscles that had held her so tight. Her attention caught on the rudimentary pillow she'd been sleeping on, a coarse stuffed sack; it wasn't important except that it made her consider the rest of the bed.
The bed. Here, she could build a nest. Arealone.
The idea excited her. All hesitation evaporated, and she scrambled up onto her knees. In truth, the bed was little more than an improvised pallet with a worn mattress plopped on top of a low platform. Besides the ratty blanket she clutched to her chest and the pillow still sporting a dent from her head, there was a second pillow and another roughly folded blanket to the side. Definitely not much to work with and a far cry from the sumptuous nest-building she did at home. Then again, the threadbare items had one very enticing feature: they all smelled like Jake.
She tucked some hair behind her ear, swiping through moisture gathering along her hairline. "Do you have anything else? Any other blankets or pillows?"
Jake's face composed itself into baffled confusion. If she hadn't been so focused on getting this nest business sorted out, she might've commented on the way the expression erased decades from his craggy face.
"Uh" — his eyes swept the room, and he got to his feet — "I have my old sleeping bag here somewhere. Why?"
"I need it," she said quickly. "I need whatever soft things you have, for my nest. Blankets, pillows, soft, fuzzy things, cozy things."
Jake crouched and began digging through a pile of supply bags and knapsacks left in a corner by the to-be-built hearth. Still shirtless, he wore only a pair of low-slung pants that hugged his lean hips and backside like a caress. Damn those jeans, touching him in all the places she never had. Zorah's fingers curled with want.
She took a few deep breaths, the Heat's simmer starting to boil, and consoled herself.Soon, Zorah. Soon.He shifted on his knees, showing her the broad span of his strong back. An unrestrained gasp slipped out, and Zorah clamped her hand over her mouth.
She had not been prepared. Could she ever have been, though? What could've prepared her for the sight of a back striped and ravaged by crisscrossing scars from his neck down past his waistline and into his pants? Some were little more than raised, thickened lines, but others were deep, ugly gouges spanning several sickening fingerbreadths. Regular, intentional wounds that had no origin other than cruelty.
How had she never noticed? Memories shuffled through her mind. For the swim lessons, he'd come shirtless, but it had been dark, and she'd never thought to examine his back too closely. The day by the lake, with Nico... No, he'd worn a shirt that day. The night on the swim platform, she'd touched him, but too overcome from the kiss or too alarmed by Colt's appearance, she hadn't discovered the thickened irregularities in his skin.
Oh, Jake...Zorah's heart splintered into a thousand bloody shards. What other secret wounds did his silence and reserve conceal?
Jake's face jerked over his shoulder, catching her open-mouthed gaping at his back. His expression hardened as he rose to his feet, a rolled-up blanket clenched in his white-knuckled grip. He tossed it toward her, but she made no move to catch it, letting it land with a soft bounce on the mattress.
