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  Shelley still had her fingers laced around his head. His hair wasn’t long enough for her to grab, or she’d have torn it out with her frantic grabs as he switched from one side and back to the other.

  “So good.” She moaned out her satisfaction, and Chase’s cat purred in response.

  “So tasty,” Chase noted, sadly abandoning her breasts, but looking forward to his next course.

  He skimmed her belly, unable to maintain his slow pace. Especially when he got a peek at the lacy thing covering her mound. “Sweet mercy, woman. Now that’s a pretty surprise.”

  Shelley opened her thighs wider, allowing him to slip between her legs. “Girlie bras aren’t good for hiking, but my panties can always be fancy.”

  “Like you better with no bra anyway, but these I approve of.”

  He pressed a kiss to the tiny bow at the top of the sheer fabric. So sheer he could already see her dark curls under the material. He could smell her arousal. Could barely wait to taste her on his tongue.

  But those panties? Damn.

  Chase sat back. “Roll over.”

  Shelley struggled up on her elbows and frowned in confusion. “What?”

  He forced the words out again. “Roll over.”

  Even in his ears his voice sounded harsh and rough. But hell if he wasn’t about to lose it. And when she drew in her legs from where they’d been spread around him, tucked herself into a ball and rolled to present her ass, he held on by a thread.

  The thin lace ribbons wrapped around her hips like tiny delicate tattoos. Barely there pencil marks on a page. There was a teeny triangle of fabric just at the small of her back then the thin ribbon dropped to disappear between her ass cheeks.

  “Oh God.” Chase caressed her skin as gently as he could, but his hands trembled as he fought for control.

  Shelley twisted her head to stare at him, her upper body supported on her arms, ass higher than her shoulders. Her eyes flashed with fire. “You don’t have to wait, Chase. I want you. Need you.”

  He clutched the edges of the ribbon but managed to stop from snapping the material off her. She wouldn’t have a lot of clothes in that bag. He couldn’t trash them. He couldn’t.

  She somehow grabbed hold of one side, pulling the fabric free from his fingers and tugging the lace down her thighs.

  He was trapped. Caught in a place between giving to her and just bloody well taking. “Sorry, darling, I can’t…”

  She left the panties bunched around one knee and resumed position in front of him. That position that turned his mind to mush. “Don’t stop. Please.”

  Chase rubbed her ass cheeks, wondering at his incredible luck. “Shell…”

  “Fuck me, dammit. You need a written invitation?”

  The forceful command nearly broke his final restraint. Only hell if he’d fuck her now. Yet. He slipped to the floor, grabbed those soft hips and yanked her to his mouth.

  Shelley screamed as he pressed his tongue into her depths, tasting and taking her into his system. He licked and teased, circling her clit, swiping along her labia. Returning again and again to her wet opening and fucking her with his tongue.

  She couldn’t move, couldn’t resist. He had her suspended in the air, and all she could do was accept the pleasure.

  “Chase. Oh yes, there. Right there.”

  Chase smiled against her body as he flicked her clit with his tongue, lapping her up like a full meal. Only this was better because food didn’t wiggle and quiver with happiness. Didn’t sigh and moan. Didn’t scream as it was consumed.

  She climaxed, a rush of wetness meeting his tongue as her passage attempted to grasp hold. He had something much better for her to be squeezing, and Chase dropped her hips in near desperation. Unzipped and hauled out his cock.

  He forced her farther onto the bed and levered himself over her in a flash. His shaft lined up, his hands wrapped around her hips. Instead of slamming into her like he wanted, he moved slowly. Used her hips to drag her backward as he tilted forward.

  The sight of her body wrapping around his dick and taking him in blew what little was left of his mind.

  She was still squeezing inside, whether her climax or intentionally, and he swore at the incredible sensation. His groin met her ass and they both froze for a split second.

  Then there was nothing left to restrain him. Chase drew back and thrust forward, her wetness easing his passage. He kept his hips going but skimmed his hands upward, leaning over to press a kiss to the center of her back. She turned her head to rest her cheek on the bedspread, a smile lighting her face.

  He rocked again, harder this time, and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “So, so good.”

  So, so close to exploding. Chase couldn’t decide what to look at. Her content expression, the point where his cock slid into her body. A gentle brush of fingers hit his balls, and he gritted his teeth.

  “That’s it, darling. Play with that pretty clit. Make yourself come again.”

  She nodded. Continued. Grew tighter and wetter, and between the moans and heat and sight, Chase toppled off the cliff of control. He slammed into her hard enough to shake his sturdy wood bed. Leaned over and grabbed her shoulder with his teeth. Nipped and bit and chewed on her as his hips pistoned, and she writhed under him.

  She cried out a second before he’d been about to give up and come first. Chase buried himself as deep as possible, then it was impossible to tell if it was him losing his load or her dragging it from him. Connected and yet independent, like two miniature tornados impacting and blowing each other apart.

  His arms and legs shook, and when she collapsed to the mattress he followed, unwilling to leave the warmth of her body. He kissed the spots he’d left on her skin. The bites and teeth marks, small bruises on her upper body. “Damn, I worked you over hard.”

  She laughed, shaking under him. “I don’t mind. Really. Holy moly that was good.”

  He tilted them onto their sides, still connected. He stroked his fingers over her back, gently. Unable to stop touching.

  They had a long way to walk in the morning, but it was early still. He figured at least once more before dinner was possible. Probable.

  “Again?” he asked.

  She squirmed until she faced him, the mischief in her expression all the answer he needed.

  Again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The taste of bacon, eggs and what was possibly the strongest coffee she’d ever had in her life lingered on her tongue as they hiked into the bush.

  Chase had woken her at five, his head buried between her legs. It wasn’t a bad way to face the dawn, even if she’d sworn they only turned out the light fifteen minutes earlier after he’d fucked her on top of the back of the couch.

  If she kept smiling this hard all day, her cheeks were going to ache. For whatever reason there had been none of the usual shifter mind-games dancing through her brain as they’d worked each other over. And over. And over again.

  Maybe she’d totally given up on ever triggering her wolf. Maybe knowing Chase’s mixed ancestry had allowed her to subconsciously cross him off the list of potential people to help trigger her wolf. Either way, all she knew was by the time the lust had run its course, or they were both so sated they couldn’t move, they also couldn’t stop grinning at each other like fools.

  Now if she could just figure out what was wrong with him, things would be awesome.

  Other than that part inside that wondered how this one-night stand they’d begun would end.

  “Stream ahead,” Chase warned. “Hop on my back and I’ll carry you across.”

  Like hell he would. “You forget you’ve got a mess on your shoulder, mister? I’m not going to cling to your back and make it worse.”

  Chase stared her down as she stepped to his side. “Didn’t seem to stop you from clinging hard last night.”

  Wolves don’t blush at the mention of sex. She reminded herself of that, but it didn’t seem to help. “I avoided touching your injury. Not
possible if you’ve got—oh…”

  He did it again. Snatched her up as if she weighed two pounds and settled her and her pack into his arms. “There we go. Now don’t wiggle.”

  They were already five feet into the creek, and while she wouldn’t have minded wet feet, she didn’t want a wet ass again. “Bastard. You had planned that all along.”

  “Arguing takes too much time.”

  “It’s called discussing, not arguing,” Shelley protested.

  He snorted and kept walking, swaying as he found footholds on the bottom of the rocky streambed.

  Shelley wrapped one hand around his neck carefully to try to help balance them. “Spring flood waters done for the year?”

  “Late. This area doesn’t see much change, and the one river we need to worry about has a cable car to use for the crossing, so we’ll be fine for this stretch of the journey.”

  “Cable car? How’s our shadow going to use that?”

  Mark in his wolverine form had been keeping pretty much out of sight. She’d only spotted him one time because Chase had silently lifted an arm and pointed. Mark sat along the hillside in full view, probably a deliberate announcement of his presence.

  “He can swim. Or he’ll shift, and go hand over hand. We don’t have to worry about him. Pretend he’s not even there.”

  Shelley nodded, instead looking into Chase’s face.

  His square jaw had thicker stubble on it now. Darker than the hair on his head, it emphasized his strength yet made his lips seem softer and fuller than any man had a right to own.

  The corners of his mouth tilted upward. “You looking for something, darling?”

  Her grin matched his. “Not at this minute, but eventually, yeah.”

  He took his focus off the shoreline for a brief second to wink at her. “You’re addictive. Can’t tell you how much I enjoyed last night.”

  “And this morning,” Shelley teased. “I’m not complaining either. You’re a generous lover, Chase. Thank you.”

  He lowered her to the ground, making sure she’d gotten her balance on the round river rocks before releasing her. He stroked her cheek again, that totally soft motion with the back of his knuckles over her skin. It felt like a kiss with his fingers.

  He coughed lightly. “Mind if I ask a couple personal questions?”

  Shelley joined him as they headed up the riverbank toward a section of open grassland where it would be easier to walk. “Let me guess. You want to know if I can play the piano.”

  Chase snorted. “If that’s a polite way of telling me to mind my own business, we can talk about other things. I just wondered about your wolf. I understand about things not working right—I offer my contrary cross-natures as an example.”

  She didn’t really know where to start. “I’m half-blood. My dad is full wolf and fell in love with a human woman in Whitehorse. Mom already had a little girl who was two when they got hitched.”

  “That’s Caroline?”

  “Right. I was born a couple years later, so there’s four years between us, and neither my dad nor mom had any troubles with the pack until I arrived. It was as if I…was wrong, and all the wolves could sense it.”

  Chase pointed to a rock outcrop, and they moved together to have their first break of the day.

  Shelley drank some water and nibbled on chocolate as she considered what she wanted to tell him. Chase waited patiently, the silence between them far more comfortable than it should have been. Then again, that was part of Chase’s charm. He didn’t seem to need to fill the air with noise.

  She stared at the creek not far from them, its low rumble a soothing sound that carried clearly on the still air.

  It was time to leave some burdens behind. As often as possible, she wanted to drop and discard the things that were holding her back.

  Bitterness was the first that needed to go.

  “There’s one more in our family. Kent arrived three years later, and he’s fine. But I got picked on by the pack kids. As a half-blood there was no way I could shift until I became an adult anyway, but even back then they all seemed to sense I wasn’t right.”

  Chase growled. “Nothing wrong with you. People who would pick on a kid for something that’s not their fault—they’re the ones that ain’t right.”

  Shelley nodded. “I know that now, but try telling that to an eight-year-old who doesn’t get invited to any birthday parties. And the kicker was it didn’t matter that there were humans in my class who shouldn’t have had any reason to hate me. They picked up on the clues of the pack kids and followed their lead.”

  She reached down and grasped a handful of small stones, tossing them as she continued to speak. “Our pack had lost our Omega, so there was no one looking out to keep the emotional side of the pack in check. When I turned eighteen I guess everyone figured I’d be so grateful to be triggered, all kinds of offers came forward.”

  Chase sat beside her, thigh touching hers. “After years of ignoring or hurting you, they offered to have sex with you?”

  She shrugged. “They’re wolves. You know the whole shifter attitude toward sex is a lot more casual, other than between mates. They couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to accept their oh-so-generous offers.”

  He breathed out slowly, his body rigid beside her. “Fucking bastards.”

  Shelley snorted. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I said to them. The son of the current Alpha didn’t like it much.”

  “Shit.”

  She sighed. “That was the beginning of a lot of chaos. I ran as soon as I could. Headed south and got myself registered for vet school, working and taking classes part-time. The rest of the family stuck around for a few years, until my dad found a job outside the north and moved them all. After I left there was a huge uprising in the pack, and someone took out the Alpha. Pretty sure that made me the most notorious girl in the territory for a while.”

  He threaded his fingers through hers and hung on. “By ‘took out’ I hope you mean slit the asshole’s throat.”

  “Well, aren’t you the most lovely bloodthirsty fellow? I don’t know. There was a change of leadership, and from what my sister said, there’s been another. Evan isn’t that kind of Alpha. Not at all.”

  “How a shithead like that got into power and let you suffer…” Chase rose to his feet and stomped away, dragging a hand wildly over his head.

  “Hey. It happened. It passed. I’m fully of the look-forward mentality now. Which is why I came back.”

  Chase eyed her from a distance. “But you tried to trigger your wolf when you were down south?”

  Sheesh. Cheeks flaming hot, she forced herself to answer. “Yes, Chase. I had sex with shifters when I was in school. And they all hoped they would ‘be the one’ to magically flip my switch, but it always failed. After a while I stopped letting them sniff around because, frankly, having someone constantly checking how you feel while you’re doing the deed kills the mood.”

  He nodded once before grinning. “I’d feel sorrier for the bastards, but their loss. You’re a hell of a package in bed.”

  Shelley laughed. “And you, Chase, are not like any shifter I’ve ever met. Last night did you even think once that maybe you’d be the one to push the right button for me?”

  “I thought about it the entire time.”

  What?

  Chase leered at her. “Oh that button. No. Sorry. Thought you were talking about that sensitive button between your legs. Too interested in fucking your brains out otherwise.”

  It was impossible to hold on to the hurt of the past when he stared at her with that fire in his eyes. Even if this relationship between them was only for the next couple days, Chase had already pushed a few right things for her, and Shelley was so grateful.

  Chase ignored his desire to call it an early night, continuing to hike long after he’d liked to have stopped. Caving to the urge to set up the tent would mean he could explore Shelley all over again.

  One night hadn’t been enough.


  But they might be able to find the puma who had sliced and diced him with a single night out if they kept moving for a little longer, especially if the man had switched camps, which was highly likely. The idea of heading back to his comfortable bed and his cabin tomorrow for more romping motivated him in part.

  His aching shoulder provided the rest of the incentive.

  He’d had cuts and bruises before—all shifters had, especially an outcast like himself. Shifter metabolism didn’t mean instantaneous healing, but more rapid than the average human. Complications like his were extremely rare. The kind of pain he was experiencing was unique, something similar to the descriptions of blood poisoning he’d heard. Strings of heat and the occasional sharp dagger-like blows he felt made him more concerned now than he’d initially been when Shelley expressed confusion over his injury.

  So he marched them across the deserted territory with brief stops for lunch, snacks and a dinner that left a lot to be desired.

  One more hour and he’d give in. Maybe two. If they hadn’t found the miner by then, they’d break for the night before swinging around to the second camp in the morning.

  “Chase? I need to stop,” Shelley called.

  He stepped to the side of the trail, eyeing the terrain. It wasn’t the best place she could have selected. “Now?”

  “Unless you want me to pee my pants.”

  She was getting blunter, which was a good thing, he supposed. “Now is fine.”

  She dropped her backpack before giving him a dirty look and heading off the trail toward the bush.

  “What’s that for?” he shouted after her.

  “Damn boys and their bladders. You think we can all drink two liters of fluid and keep it in.”

  He turned his back as she found a bush to squat behind. He had been forcing the liquids on her as they hiked to make sure she didn’t get dehydrated. “You forgot to mention the bit about how unfair it is that we can pee standing up.”