Solange skidded to a stop at the door, her pulse hammering. They’d made it, just as the dark closed around them.
But…oops, no thumbs.
Miguel reached past her, in his upright shape, and unlatched the door. “Oh, that feels good,” he sighed as the warmth swirled out like a welcome. “C’mon.”
She padded after him, her paws tingling as if the red Saltillo tiles were flames, and the wolf danced sideways.
He slanted her a look. “Want to run some more?”
She sneezed at him. With a crooked smile, he led her to the master bath and started filling the big old clawfoot tub.
When she tilted her head at him in question, he explained, “It’ll help your return to be warm and…human again. Come here and I’ll lift you in.”
With another huff, she backed up a step. Or the wolf did. She wasn’t quite sure.
Not looking at her, he poked through the jars on the ledge beside the tub. “French lavender? Japanese cherry blossom? Turkish fig? Huh. Now I’m hungry.”
She—or was it the wolf?—studied the lean stretch of his muscles as he bent across the tub. Against the white ceramic, his flushed skin was as coppery as the sun faces he designed. The steam coiled around him like a lascivious tongue.
Er, was her own tongue hanging out?
Without really thinking about it, all four of her feet bore her to his side. He reached over to bury his fingers in her neck fur. “I like the way you smell now,” he murmured. “Sage and snow.”
She rested her chin on his thigh, inhaling. Her chest felt tight from the unaccustomed exercise but loose from the mineral-tinged steam. The welcoming heat spread through her, but her nerves seemed to shiver with anticipation. How could she feel two ways at once?
The wolf left her, ghosting away like a cold breath on the wind.
Which left her kneeling beside Miguel, her chin still on his thigh, and the musky scent of his wolf in her nose.
Wolf…and his arousal.
His hand on the back of her neck tightened, just a little. Just enough to trigger a jolt of desire shooting down her spine. When she looked up at him, his dark eyes glinted—melted chocolate flecked with gold—and her blood ran thick and molten.
Curling her hand behind his knee, she leaned closer, not that there was any room left between them. She traced her fingertips higher on his thigh, and his erection surged.
But he grasped her wrist, stopping her. With a light twist, he turned her hand palm up, and she winced at the sight of abraded skin and embedded sand.
“I didn’t even notice,” she said. “How did I miss that?”
“Get in the tub,” he said, his voice husky. “Let’s make sure you didn’t miss anyplace else.”
With slow hands that made her heart beat faster, he cleaned her hands and feet. He used every jar on the shelf, filling the soft air with exotic fragrances.
But all she breathed was him.
He tsked. “You stepped on a thorn.”
“Guess I need to toughen up.” She tried to smile, but it slipped away when he gave her a sidelong glance, those dark lashes making his gaze mysterious. She looked away. “Or…really, that’s never been a problem for me, has it?”
So gentle she wanted to cry, he eased the splinter from her heel, soaping it well. She knew shifters healed quickly and easily; so why did the hurt seem to go deeper than one little thorn?
“I don’t know what you feel,” he finally said.
Letting out the breath she’d been holding, she admitted, “I want to feel you.”
Thankfully he’d only filled the tub halfway.
When he joined her in the bubbly water, she laughed, and the happiness fizzed in her veins like bath bombs.
“What do you want to smell like?” She rubbed against him. “French, Japanese, or Turkish? Oh, and I also have Tahitian florals. It’s like a winter getaway. Where do want to go?”
“I want to be right here.” He nuzzled into her neck. “Wherever you are.”
They sudsed the water into a mountain of bubbles—and lost most of the water—before they rinsed off, and he bore her, still dripping, to the bedroom.
“My feet are fine,” she protested.
“They are,” he agreed. “They carried you all this way. Let me carry you this little bit.”
She gripped him tight when he went to lay her down. “Stay here.”
He climbed up over her, pressing her back into the pillow with the force of his kisses until she had to twine her arms behind his neck just to hold on to the spinning world. The winter night fell fast, and she hadn’t turned on the bedroom lamp, but the Christmas lights she’d strung along the hacienda wall reflected off the adobe in a warm glow like summer.
His hands weren’t slow now, and neither were hers. She traced the lean lines of him—the ropey muscles, the strong fingers that molded iron and her with equal ease, even the sleek stripe of hair below his navel leading to the eager jut of his cock. Every line like a mark on a map that led her back to one place.
Here, with him.
He spread her like an X across the rumpled quilt, stretching her arms to the sides, his hips splaying her thighs wide. With a long, slow thrust, he pinned her, and the sensation went deeper than her core. Every muscle clenched, holding him, and with a groan he sank hard into her slick flesh. With each pump of his body, he let out a sexy little growl to match her breathless gasps.
When she came, he was a half-step behind her, and the wild gush of his release only intensified the feeling rushing through her. She convulsed around him, arms and legs closing like a trap, and she kissed him so hard she tasted blood, just as she had all those years ago when the mating bite had bound them.
Collapsing back to the damp sheets, it was a long time before their breathing slowed. She lay with her head on his shoulder, her knee crooked over his thigh, their bodies fused with sweat and the lingering scent of Tahiti.
She traced one fingertip over the lines of him, as she had before, lingering over the moon tattoo centered on his chest. It was his pack affiliation, and the boys had the same. Eventually her grandchildren would also be marked, forever signifying their home with the wolves of Angels Rest.
She’d never gotten hers, of course.
At the sharp pang in her own heart, she hastily turned her attention to the unfamiliar ink on his wrist. She lifted his hand where it had been resting on her hip. The delicate roughness of his calluses sent a shiver over her skin as she rotated his hand as he’d done hers to check for wounds. The tattoo, in black and essence of moonstone, curled around his wrist, doubling back on itself, disappearing and reappearing in the glow from the window.
“It’s an S,” he said. “For Solange.”
Her curious caress stilled.
He lifted their joined hands and settled them over his heart. “The moon mark, my place in the pack, is front and center, but I keep it covered. This one”—he turned his face to kiss her crown—“this one I see all the time. First in the morning when I drink coffee, last at night when I turn off the lights, when I start a new sculpture or when I finish one. I see this twisting path and always I thought it might bring me back to you, someday.”
The breath caught in her throat. “Miguel—”
Below her clenched hand, his stomach growled like a…a hungry beast.
She blinked. “Really?”
His eyes widened. “Did I mention it was a really long, really twisting path?”
She slapped her palm lightly against his belly. “You’re in luck. I have a twenty-pound bird turning to turkey jerky in the oven and a garden’s worth of veggies.” Biting her lip, she glanced up at him. “Would you…like to stay for Christmas Eve dinner?”
“I’d love to.”
He carved the turkey for her, saving the tougher cuts for future enchiladas, but there was plenty for the two of them. Instead of eating at the table that she’d set the day before, they took their plates to the kiva fireplace. While she turned on the Christmas tree lights and spread a blanket in front of the brick hearth, he opened a bottle of wine and started a small fire.
They ate, replayed the rescue of their new granddaughter, talked about his last art show in LA and her new account with the dragon shifters in Vegas. With the wine gone, they made love as the last embers burned down though the adobe held heat forever.
When he carried her to bed—again; she could get used to this—he whispered, “Nochebuena.”
It had been a good night, but… “It must be after midnight,” she murmured. “Merry Christmas.”
***
She woke to the silvery morning glow of a winter wonderland.
And she was alone.
Holding her breath, she listened, but the hacienda was quiet.
Gathering the quilt around her, she padded down the hallway. The wine glasses they’d left on the hearth were gone, and when she peeked in, the kitchen was spotless. Even the turkey bones were nowhere to be seen.
A little tremor weakened her knees as she drifted toward the island.
The gleaming butcher block reflected the light bouncing from the snow that had fallen overnight. But a small circle of darkness rested on the rich wood.
She lifted the antiqued silver ring. The finely hammered metal was punched through with stars and almost completely cleaved in two by a curving S-shape carved all the way around.
Only a silver crescent moon wrapped around a tiny bronze sun face held the two halves together.
Of course it would fit perfectly, she knew, without even trying it on.
Leaving it on the counter, she went to the kitchen door and walked out into the snow.
The wall had blocked the worst of the wind, but little drifts had made fanciful mazes across the cobblestones, and everything looked new and strange.
But her gaze was focused past the protective adobe to the hills beyond. White snow and dark pine were a wild backdrop to the lone figure waiting there.
Always waiting.
The first time she’d changed for love. The second time she’d changed for life.
This time the choice was only hers.
She breathed in the bite of the winter air and dropped the quilt behind her. The wind whispered past her, a fierce and teasing caress, carrying his scent to her. A challenge, yes, but still her choice.
In one bound, she cleared the wall. As she raced toward him, she tilted back her head, her call spiraling out behind her in an iridescent ribbon of sunlight and tiny crystals.
He answered with a howl of joy, and when she joined him, their arched tails made a perfect dark heart against the snow.
***
Missed the stories of wolf-shifter twins Blaze and Easton? Find them at ElsaJade.com and may all your Christmases be wolfy!