Chapter 7

FINALLY THE NIGHT was over and Glory was able to start ushering all the crazy wolves out the door. 

The final group to start moving was, of course, Max’s group. Not that Max had spent any time with them that evening, since he’d dogged Glory’s footsteps all night long.

Pete was in the lead as they slowly filed out, and he stopped just short of the door and the entire lot of them turned to face Glory and Max.

Pete grinned at them. “You know it’s the full moon tonight,” he said.

“Really?” Glory said dryly. “I had no idea.”

“Ha, funny one.” Pete rolled his eyes. He glanced at Karl, Dan and Cole, who all grinned and nodded. “We were just thinking that it’d be a shame if you didn’t get to experience the full effect of the moon.”

Glory shook her head. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Pete.” Clearly, he was drunker than she’d realized. “Where’s Jenny anyway?” 

Pete waved a hand. “She’s waiting outside. She said to tell you she’s sorry.”

“Sorry?” 

Pete nodded. “Happy full moon, Glory!”

All four men turned, dropped trou and mooned her.

“Oh my god!” She clapped a hand over her eyes. 

So many hairy butts!

Max roared with laughter. 

“Max! You get pissed all night long at men who aren’t doing anything, but your freaky friends moon me with their hairy asses and all you can do is laugh?”

He just shook his head and laughed harder.

* * *

By the time they had the bar in order and cleaned up, Max was clearly agitated. He needed to run, but he’d refused to go without her, which was so sweet, Glory couldn’t stand it.

“Come on, Max.” She hurried out the door. 

The moment moonlight hit Max’s face, he transformed. The shift was as seamless as any Glory had ever seen him do. 

He was so gorgeous, in both his human and wolf forms. 

Smiling, she shifted too and followed him into the woods. 

They ran for hours, rubbing up against each other, chasing back and forth along his trails and hers, splashing through the river and even playing hide-and-seek a couple times. Of course, once Max learned that the only place Glory could really hide was high up in a tree, the game tended to end fairly quickly. 

Finally, after hours of playing and running through the night, the moon wildness eased off a little and they shifted back.

The moment they were human, Max pounced.

Though Glory had intended to take him back to her apartment at the end of their run, the moment they kissed, all those plans went up in smoke.

Instead, they ended up making love for the first time on the forest floor, which really was okay with both of them. They were of the woods and so making love there felt like making love at home.

“My sweet, Glorious mate,” Max muttered, making Glory laugh right before his loving made it impossible to breathe, let alone speak. 

After, she curled into Max, her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, out of breath and stunned at the beautiful and fierce wildness of their coming together. She lifted her head and stared into Max’s eyes, his beautiful, loving eyes.

“I can’t believe we waited this long,” she said, knowing it was all her fault. She’d resisted her mate for reasons she couldn’t even recall now. All her ideas about why they shouldn’t be together had blown away in the face of his fierce loving.

Max chuckled. “I don’t regret a single minute, sweet Glory mine. We came together in our own time, in our own way, and I love that about us. I love you.”

In our own time.

She’d said that very thing to Phoenix a lifetime ago. That if it was meant to be, she and Max would find their way together in their own time. 

“Max.” She blinked back tears of gratitude that their time had finally arrived. “I love you so much.”

Max’s arms tightened around her and he closed his eyes, then opened them just as fast, a fierce love blazing in them. “Our life is going to be beautiful. No.” He shook his head. “It already is beautiful.”

She kissed him again and there in the middle of the woods they both loved, they set fire to the world once more.

Hours later, with the sun shining high, they walked back to the bar hand-in-hand, stopping along the way to kiss and to cuddle and for another intense bout of lovemaking against a giant oak. 

They slipped into the bar and ran upstairs, tiptoeing past her brother’s apartment where they could hear the rumble of his voice and Phoenix’s giggles coming from inside.

Once they reached Glory’s apartment, they hurried inside and locked the door. It was Sunday and the bar was closed, so they spent the day in bed, indulging their passion and love for one another. They laughed and cuddled and wrestled and made love and ignored the outside world. 

When Travis knocked for them to go to dinner that evening, they both yelled at him to go away. 

Of course, he refused, but they ignored his knocking and bad-tempered roaring until eventually Phoenix came and dragged him away. 

Though not before the two of them had a loud argument about the mangy wolf taking advantage of his sweet sister, which just made Max laugh and Glory roll her eyes. 

What had her idiot brother expected? 

She was gratified to hear Phoenix demand that very question as their voices faded down the hall.

Max, of course, thought it was hilarious and his grin was so sexy and beautiful, Glory had to kiss it right off him. They wrestled back and forth across her bed, kissing and petting and loving one another.

Max muttered something about breaking the bed if they weren’t careful, and Glory laughed. 

“No worries about that,” she told him. “This bed was made for big-ass bears.”

Max grinned and rolled them so that he was on top again. “Not anymore,” he said. “It was made for a wolf and his beautiful bear-mate.”

The shenanigans have spread to Harry’s hotel in Amazed.

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