Miguel had wanted to give her everything: a home, children, meaningful work they could do together—and yes, the wolf. He’d wanted to share the power and beauty and soul of the beast with her.
Now, she seemed to want only this—a kiss.
Then he’d give her one.
Her lips settled on his from above, light as a snowflake falling, but the impact went through him like an avalanche. His pulse raced as he tried to stay ahead of the seething need to dive into her, to lose himself in the elemental, life-or-death awe. He’d always needed her as much as air or water or food.
Slowly, he slid his hands up around her nape, searching for the tight knots of muscle to either side of her spine where she’d always carried her tension. She might be taller than him, even have a few pounds on him, but he knew the secrets of her body.
Or he had at one time…
Ah, there it was, still, coiled tight as rattlesnakes against the winter cold. She moaned low in her throat when he dug the pads of his fingers into the knots, and finally she bent her head, giving him access. The gesture—much to his delight—left her mouth slanting more deeply over his.
Her scent washed over him. The smoky aroma of cinnamon, the sweeter musk of vanilla bean, the sharp bite of cayenne—she was like his very own mug of spiced chocolate, a tribute to kings, a gift from the gods. And he had trekked across dangerous ground to find her. He cupped her face in his hands as though she was a precious objet d’art, something he might break or lose if he wasn’t mindful.
So soft. Her full, silky skin was tinted with some tropical oil. Along with the lingering taste of the salty tear, he envisioned a remote Baja beach. They’d never had a honeymoon…
Her tongue flicked out to touch his, and every nerve in his body lit up like rare summer lightning. He dragged in a hoarse groan, drowning in the scent and taste of her, nearly forgotten in their years of estrangement. Desperation and yearning gripped him almost as tightly as the lust.
He had to make her believe. After all the years of trying to show her, from a distance, how sorry he was, now he could only hope she’d feel it in his touch, hear it in his sighs, see it in the shivers that danced across his skin when she splayed both hands across his pecs. He knew she must understand the ardent pounding of his heart underneath her palm, must know how much he longed for this, for her. The wolf didn’t have words, and he wasn’t much wordier himself, but surely she must know that though the years alone had piled up like snow on Mesa Diablo, what was underneath was unchanged, bedrock strong, forever.
When the kiss finally broke, their ragged gasps traded back and forth, his breath into hers, hers into his. The knots in her shoulders had smoothed like kneaded dough, but now her lips were puffy, their natural coral hue blushed as glossy and bright as the carmine-red tiles.
Though not quite as swollen as his erection.
Angling his hips to avoid the obvious, he let his shaking arms slide down her shoulders to link his hands loosely at the small of her back. Tracing the curves of her body only made his cock harder, and unless he went and stood on the other side of the island again, no way was she missing his painfully obvious craving for her.
Her hands slipped down too, until her fingers crooked in the waistband of his jeans, and when she licked her lips, just the flitting glimpse of her pink tongue sent another surge of blood pulsing through his groin.
The tiny bells over her breasts chimed again as she took a shaky breath. “Miguel. I’ve done everything I could to forget you, but everything I have came from you: this house, the boys, the work…the other thing sharing my body.”
Again, her words ripped through him. “Solange—”
Her fingers curled into his Levi’s. “So make me forget how lonely I am.”
***
With a rasping curse, he hauled her into his arms.
Solange had never minded that he was smaller than she was. When her high school girlfriends had been sighing over bland blond beefcake, she’d fallen for quick, dark intensity. In retrospect, his effortless strength should’ve given her pause, but at the time, she’d been delighted with how easily he’d held her when half the football and basketball teams couldn’t outlift her.
Of course, those boys had been merely human, and Miguel Domingo had always been…more.
When he swept aside the Tupperware and boosted her onto the island, she sensed the surge of the beast in him, its power and hunger unmatched.
Except by the rush in her own blood.
She wanted him, the same breathless, wild way she’d wanted him when she’d been a silly teenager. Even though she knew better, the thrill in her bones was irresistible. Sinking her fingers through the silvering at his temples, she swooped down to kiss him again.
Santo Domingo, was it heretical to need this? But she’d denied herself for so long. Surely one night wouldn’t make her a monster.
His mouth parted recklessly wide beneath hers, and the click of their teeth and wet tangling of tongues reverberated through her, magnifying the pulse of desire in her core. She squirmed on the butcher block counter, pricklingly aware of his hips pressing between her spread knees. It had been so very, very long…
The bells on her sweater rang as he grabbed the hem. But instead of ripping it off her as he once would have, he paused. The little bells fell silent, the only sound their seesawing breaths.
He gazed up at her, his eyes shining like tempered chocolate, his dusky cheeks almost as dark with a needy flush. “Solange, is this what you want?”
When they were younger, he hadn’t asked. He hadn’t needed to. She’d jumped him with an eagerness that would’ve earned her a year’s worth of Hail Marys in the confessional. Except she hadn’t gone back to church to reveal her sins. Couldn’t, not when she’d given him her body and her heart.
And given the wolf her soul.
She could never stop herself from burning for him.
So she peeled off the sweater herself, turning it inside out so no church bells could peal a warning, no censorious googly eyes would watch them. The sturdy white cotton bra she revealed was too damn virginal by half, but too late.
Not that it seemed to matter. If anything, his eyes brightened even more. Or…was he…crying? A sick rush of embarrassment jangled through her, but before she could cover herself in shame, he dove forward to bury his face against her belly. It wasn’t the cheerleader stomach she’d had before. Now it was a middle-aged spread, not to mention a post-feast bloat, atop the stretch marks of twins.
She put her hands on his lean shoulders, to push him away, but the hot gust of his exhalation across her skin, his fingers gripping her hips hard, made her moan. So long with no touch but her own, no breath but the wind through her bedroom window late at night, open to the desert…
He kissed his way up across the scars, a swirl of tongue around her navel, another kiss atop the curve of her belly. Then one nip between her breasts and the clasp of her bra parted.
With a deep groan, as if it was the hardest thing he’d ever done, he paused again. His panting breaths feathered across her nipples, and they stiffened to aching peaks. “Solange,” he prodded. “Do you want this?”
“Yes,” she said in a ragged whisper. God help her. “I never stopped wanting you.”
He waited another heartbeat, his eyes closed, and she wondered what was going through his head. She knew what was going on in his pants…
When his eyes opened, the deep, warm brown was ringed in the hammered gold of the wolf.
The thrill that went through her this time was tinged a darker red than passion. The predatory obsession prickled the tiny hairs across her body, a threatening tingle.
Her beast, rousing from its long sleep. Hungry.
It should’ve been terrifying, but she wasn’t the naïve girl of so long ago. The wolf’s appetites didn’t seem as scary as they’d once been.
And anyway, Miguel was offering himself up as a willing sacrifice.
She flattened her hands on either side of her against the smooth butcher block and boosted her butt off the counter. “Take off the pants,” she demanded.
“Yours or mine?”
“Both.” She wiggled her hips. “Me first.”
That grin—still so familiar after twenty years—flashed white and hot. “Always, mi vida. Always.”
My life. She refused to let the words touch her. Twenty years ago he could’ve told her everything, but he hadn’t. Anything he said now was just loneliness and the pain of the mate bond stretched to the breaking point. He hasn’t spoken then, and she wasn’t listening now.
Not listening, just feeling. He stripped her of her trousers, white grandma panties, novelty Christmas socks, and soft ballet slippers in one move so tidy that the pile he left at the base of the island was better than when she folded her own laundry. She lounged back with one hand braced behind her, eyeing him as he stepped out of his own Levi’s with less grace, hopping on one foot before he faced her again, his engorged cock pointing the way.
She cranked her jaw to one side. “You look the same after all these years,” she said, not bothering to keep the accusation out of her voice.
“I’m not the same,” he assured her. “Can I show you? May I touch you?”
She frowned, not sure what to make of this Miguel, whose ropey muscles quivered like the hunting male she remembered but whose gaze on her changed body was more steady than ever. She knew wolves didn’t stalk and pounce from behind like the big cats, nor overwhelm with massive force like the bears. No, the wolves chose their prey and pursued with unwavering commitment until the end.
She shuddered to be the focus of such devotion. “Yes.” Her voice was stronger this time. “Touch me.”
He cupped his hands behind her knees to part them. For just the briefest moment, her nerves froze and she resisted his tug. Instead of pulling, he let go and skimmed his fingertips up the insides of her thighs. The feather-light sensation unzipped her hesitation, and he stepped up between her spread knees. His lean body was no particular stretch for her, but the heat and closeness of him—especially that part of him—melted the last of the struggle inside her.
His hands kept going, whisking past the needy center of her, up over her belly—the stroke as ephemeral as the shadows of ravens’ wings gliding over the mesas and valleys. At her breasts, as his fingers spread wide and touched down, he inhaled a ragged breath.
“Ah, I missed you,” he rasped.
“You missed this.” She cupped her hands around his, molding his fingers over her breasts which had expanded with the twins and never gone away. Miguel had always loved her breasts. And her ass. Well, he’d never ignored any part of her.
“This is you.” His golden-ringed gaze fixed on her. “I feel your heart beating.”
He raked his thumbs over her stiffened nipples and she inhaled sharply at the jolt of pleasure. “You still like that.” The male satisfaction in his voice was almost a purr. “Do you still want more?”
He had asked her that once, before she knew better—and then bitten her. But she supposed she couldn’t catch another wolf.
And she did want more.
When she arched into his grasp with a moan, he growled back. The callused pads of his fingers abraded her skin, igniting more electric bolts through her nerves and deep into her body. Even in high school, his hands had been work-roughened but so exquisitely clever, finding all her hidden sweet spots. She’d told him it was because he was going to be a famous sculptor someday, but he’d said it was because he was a soccer player and normally didn’t get to use his hands so he had to make up for lost time.
They had so much lost time to make up for in this one night.
Her knees tightened around him involuntarily, trying to hold on, but he wriggled loose, reversing the path of his kisses down to her navel. She gazed at him, her body alight with desire. Good thing she’d already waxed the butcher block…
When his hot breath huffed across the dense curls between her legs, she closed her eyes and let her head tip back as she angled her hips. “Yes, more,” she murmured, just in case he even thought of hesitating.
With another low growl, he dropped his head between her thighs and feasted.
From the first lick, she remembered how she’d gotten pregnant so fast. He’d seen her across that soccer field and from that moment he’d known her. He watched, paid attention, shadowed her as he would one of the players on the other team: mirroring the moves, angling toward the outside line, waiting to steal a chance. Of course she couldn’t hold out against him, much less escape him.
Not that she was going to make that mistake tonight. Her hand and her toys did the work well enough, but Miguel made cunnilingus an art. Each swirl and dip of his tongue stoked the flames of delight higher, melting any lingering resistance in her bones and eating away at the chill in her heart. He hummed low in the back of his throat, a ravenous sound that echoed through her, not just physically, but in her soul.
There was danger in temptation.
But she’d always known that, even before she knew about the wolf.
Without lifting his mouth from her slick folds, he skimmed his hands restlessly over her body as if he were molding her like one of his projects. And not one of the commercial designs he gave to the company, but one of the special ones he sold in the finest shops of Vegas, Santa Fe, and the rich ski towns. Yeah, she’d wasted precious cell signal looking him up over the years. Every flicker of his fingers over her quivering belly and her stiff, aching nipples chipped away a piece of the stone wall she’d honed for her protection, to keep the memories and loneliness at bay.
To keep him locked out. To keep the wolf locked in.
Her muscles shook with the onslaught, wanting his attentions to last forever but needing to reach the pinnacle he lifted her toward. When his hand slipped lower to tease her throbbing clit, she shattered.
With a broken cry, she clamped her calves across his shoulders, drawing him close as the orgasm seized her.
The aftershocks rolled on far longer than even her best vibrator set on high, leaving her sprawled limp as day-old kale across the cutting board. He must be so proud of himself.
But when he finally lifted his head (his tongue centered on his upper lip, not that it needed any more of a workout) his expression was as glazed as hers must be.
Maybe his vibrators weren’t good enough either.
She hooked her finger under his chin and smoothed her thumb across his wet lower lip. “Come up here before the glow wears off.”
“I’ll just glow you again,” he warned.
With a kick she couldn’t see at the base of the island, he boosted himself up while yanking her hips toward his. She let out a little yip of surprise and realized he’d pulled out one of the lower drawers and was standing balanced on the sides of the drawer box.
She laughed and spread her knees, balancing her heels deftly at the edge of the counter. “I may never cook on this island again.”
“Not without thinking of this.”
That truth should’ve shut her down. She’d fought twenty years to not remember. But her blood still surged with bliss, and when he rubbed the blunt head of his erection across her swollen clit, he might as well have struck a lighted match to a pool of kerosene. She pushed up into him, driving him deeper into her core as every nerve in her body ignited.
He braced his hands on either side of her, staring down with golden hunter eyes. And she knew he’d pursue her pleasure across however many years or obstacles she put between them.
That knowledge made her turn her face aside. Just beyond the tip of her nose, the taut muscles in his forearm clenched as he stroked himself in her wet flesh. She stared at the tattoo—one she didn’t remember—that encircled his wrist like a self-inflicted shackle. It was inscribed half in black ink, half in the moonstone marking of the pack. She couldn’t see all of the swirling motif—one of his stylized moon faces, maybe?—and when he dipped his head to nip at her breast, she arched back, losing sight of it.
She threaded her fingers through his hair, holding him fast, and clenched her inner muscles around him for good measure. He growled against her skin and lapped a wide circle around her nipple before sucking the distended nub past his teeth. She shuddered at the rough sensation and the shimmering fever left in its wake.
With each gliding thrust and every tender bite, he drove her toward another orgasm.
And toward an anguished realization that was as stark as the fresh black ink in his skin and equally enigmatic: She wanted this. After everything, knowing everything, she still wanted him.
And now she had no excuses.
Her spine bowed upward with the wild rush of release and she choked on a keening cry, frantic not to speak the words lodged in her throat. Seized by his own orgasm, he stiffened, the hard press of his straining balls jammed against her butt, his head thrown back in ecstasy. She stared up at him through a haze, blinking desperately to clear the tears before he noticed.
But he only folded over her with a grunt, without opening his eyes, still balanced precariously on the sliding drawer.
She held his dark head against her breast, their ragged breaths synchronized and slowing. He might be smaller than her, but he was just too heavy not to breathe in time with, she told herself. If she didn’t, his closeness would squeeze the life right out of her.
The thought sank into her like a sliver of broken glass, small but insidious. A cold thread of panic followed the path of that old wound, and she slid her hands to his shoulders.
Though she didn’t push, he angled himself upward, leaving them connected at their core.
His eyes still sparkled with restless gold, but the rich brown held most sway. “Solange,” he murmured. “Thank you for giving me another chance.”
Her fingers fisted against the strong bulk of his shoulders. “Oh, I wasn’t taking a chance,” she said in a flippant tone. “You were always good at this.”
A thin line furrowed his brow. “There’s more—”
“I think that’s enough for now,” she said in a quelling tone.
He flinched back as if she had struck him, pulling free from her body with a juicy pop. It was her turn to wince as the slick friction sent a little pain of loss shooting from her pussy all the way up.
Not all the way to her heart. No, not that far.
Stepping down from the drawer, he grabbed the novelty Christmas towel hanging from the handle of the oven behind him. The reindeer’s red nose lined up perfectly with the tip of his waning erection.
“Solange,” he said again, and she hated that her name sounded different in his mouth—sweeter, prettier, some version of herself she didn’t know. “It’ll never be enough. I came here thinking it was finally time to say goodbye, but… I was lying to myself. I thought I was willing to take the chance you’d tell me to leave. Now I want you to know; I will keep choosing you. Each and every time, no matter how far away you push me, no matter how many years pass, I’ll be here for you if you call.”
Her mouth twisted, not really a smile. “I don’t even have your number.”
He gave her a steady look. “You know that’s not what you need.”
She lounged back on the counter, too proud to reach for her clothes—not when she knew all her curves would jiggle when she bent down—but anyway, there was no cheerful holiday towel big enough to cover all her vulnerable parts. “It’s late, Miguel. Go”—she stumbled on the word home—“away.”
With a furious scowl, he disappeared under the edge of the island, out of her sight, and then just as abruptly popped up with his jeans in one hand and her tidy pile of clothes in the other. He put her stack on the counter next to her, not quite slamming since ballet slippers didn’t really slam. Damn it, she’d be up all night scrubbing this counter. “We can’t waste another twenty years,” he warned. “We shouldn’t wait anymore.”
She grabbed the sweater she’d stripped out of just a few minutes ago, clutching it to her chest, feeling as turned inside-out and every bit the bright, raw red—bloodied. “You didn’t wait,” she snarled. “You left.”
He stepped into his jeans and yanked them up so hard she was sure he gave himself a wedgie, though he didn’t bother buttoning them. “You told me to leave, back then, just like you did now.”
She shook her head hard, her hair flying in all directions. “You asked what I wanted for Christmas, and then you went out and you never came back.”
He raked his fingers through his own hair, neatly settling the tousled strands with one stroke that she envied. “You told me what you wanted. You told me you wanted to get rid of your wolf.”
She curled into herself, remembering the Christmas Eve spat so long ago. “I knew you couldn’t give that to me, no gift wrap, no shiny bows.”
He stared at her, his brown eyes dark and shadowed. “But I did.” His voice trembled. “Solange. I am your wolf.”