Her face flushed with color, and her fingers grew still.

“I have to admit I’m a bit surprised. But not in the least bit… unwilling.” When she didn’t respond, he thought he’d scared her off, that she hadn’t had that in mind, that she was only curious about Sam and Silva’s situation. He had to admit that because she was newly turned, werewolf relationships might still be a mystery to her. And he felt a bit of a cad, believing she had wanted him.

She didn’t say anything for so long and was so still—barely breathing, her heart still beating at an increased cadence—that he wasn’t sure how to rectify the situation.

Before he could speak, she whispered, “Someone might hear us.”

If he could have, he would have whisked her away to somewhere private, away from Darien, his own family, and the world. But, if she was willing… hell, who was he not to satisfy her cravings?

That’s when he rolled her onto her back and captured her mouth with his, intending to kiss her so thoroughly that she wouldn’t be able to make a sound. The only thing he regretted was that they didn’t have time to luxuriate in the feel of each other, to make the experience last.

But she seemed to be of like mind and parted her lips for him, opening to the curl of his tongue as he seduced hers with his, her fingers sifting through his hair, his hands holding her face in place, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. A soft moan escaped her throat, spurring him on.

Feral and ardent, from the moment their lips and tongues touched, he felt his blood sizzle with heat and desire. His arousal pressed against her waist, and she released his hair and swept her hands down his naked back, skin to skin, her touch leaving a fiery wake in their path. With his mouth greedy on hers and her response just as fiercely passionate, he felt her nipples beneath her cotton T-shirt bud against his chest, hard, tantalizing, aroused.

He meant to move aside her so he could cup a breast and feel the delectable nipple, but she spread her legs, and he found himself resting between them, a dangerous invitation to sex and consummation and mating.

And for the first time, he truly wanted it. With her. For all time. But she wasn’t ready. Not yet. Maybe never.

Her lithe body arched beneath him, pressing against him to solicit his touching that most intimate of all spots. He swallowed a deep-seated groan and tried to keep his thoughts intact. No consummation. Just pleasure, even if it killed him.

He moved over, straddling her soft leg, still trapping her, leaning against the mattress so he could pull off her shirt. And when he’d freed her of the fabric, he caressed her now swollen breasts, which were flushed, the nipples like dark cherries begging for a kiss. His tongue teased one, and she closed her eyes and clamped her teeth shut against another moan.

And then his fingers dipped into her sweet sheath, hot, wet, erotic, but he quickly silenced another of her moans with a deepening kiss. Her fingers dug into his buttocks still covered in cotton boxers, her body writhing against his fingers, arching, pleading for resolution. His fingers continued to ply her with caresses, stroking, then thrusting inside her, while he watched her shuttered gaze and parted lips, heard her shallow breaths, and felt her fingers clinging to him.

Unable to help himself, he rubbed the erection straining in his boxers against her soft naked thigh. Bone-hard, wanting, thrusting, he felt burned to the core by white-hot heat as he pressed for deliverance.

Carol absorbed every feel of him, from the way his fingers worked miracles on her nub to his erection thrusting against her thigh. God, she wanted him inside her where everything had turned to aching, molten lava. She craved release and begged for it, pushed him to hurry and finish it before she died an exquisite death from wanting. Without being able to hold onto the rising tide of pleasure, she came, the climax filling her with a rush of satisfaction, her breath ragged, her body hot and flushed and sweaty—and sweetly satiated.

Ryan’s face was dark and flushed, his breath hurried, his eyes smoky brown, and his heart beating as if he’d run for miles as a wolf. She exhilarated in the feel of his touch, his wildness, yet gentleness, too, the fact he wanted to pleasure her and would keep it quiet.

He was the hero of her dreams, the fantasy in the novels she so loved to read, the kilted warrior who’d somehow lost his kilt and wore instead a pair of boxers. Which wasn’t right. A Highlander went without. She slipped her fingers down his backside and underneath his waistband and squeezed his buttocks, soliciting a groan from his lips.

But then she tugged at his boxers, and he hurried to slide them off. Then he was all hers. She ran her hand over his rigid length and felt it jump in her hands, tightened and stroked and smiled as he reached up to kiss her lips. But he was already so primed that he couldn’t last. With another stroke, she sent him reeling, and he came. She continued to stroke and marvel in the way he reacted, his eyes clouded with lust, his body jerking with completion, his calling her name in a husky whisper as if she was the one sent to save him.

He kissed her as if he never wanted to stop, his tongue again stroking hers, his hand caressing her jaw, her throat, her breastbone, her breast.

And then he groaned one last time, collapsed beside her on his back, and pulled her into his arms. They lay together in perfect bliss for what seemed like an eternity, floating, satiated, and warm in each other’s embrace.

“Have fresh sheets?” he finally whispered, his voice hoarse.

She frowned. Getting sheets out of the linen closet in the hallway adjoining the other bedrooms would be difficult to do without alerting anyone.

“In the hallway,” she whispered back.

He smiled, kissed the tip of her nose, and yanked the covers aside. “I’ll get them.”

She prayed no one would question him if he got caught.

“He was sleeping with her last night,” Tom said, his tone angry as he talked to someone downstairs in the great room of Darien’s home.

Ryan smiled and held onto Carol tighter in the bed in her guestroom. After a long night of whimpers and struggling against unseen forces and the most wondrous sex, Carol had finally settled down into a deeper sleep.

And yeah, he was sleeping with her—or trying to, anyway. He wondered now if the way she’d whimpered through the night, half-waking from nightmares, had occurred on other occasions. Was that what had been keeping her awake nights? But every time he had tightened his hold on her, she had relaxed and fallen into a more restful sleep. He didn’t need to stay up all night sitting in the recliner, not when he was able to wake at the slightest indication of trouble and shift quickly.

The nightmares she was experiencing gave him even more of a reason to stay with her like this, wrapped around her like a cocoon surrounding an awakening butterfly. A nearly naked butterfly, her T-shirt drawn midway up her waist, although he’d pulled it down for her a couple of times during the night. Until they’d pleasured each other in wild, abandoned, almost consummated sex. If she’d given him the go-ahead, he might have let his other head rule his actions. But now she again wore her T-shirt, and he his boxers, in case anyone dropped in to check on them.

“Hell, Tom, what did you expect from an alpha male leader? That he’d sit in the recliner dutifully? On the other side of the room?” Jake responded finally.

“Darien said—”

“Our brother can boss around our own people just fine. Others also. But Ryan, if you haven’t noticed, doesn’t take no for an answer. And he plays by his own rules.”

Ryan could almost hear the smile in Jake’s response. And for the first time, he noted Jake had called him Ryan, not McKinley. Even though alphas might not like having to butt heads with others, they still respected each other for having the gumption to stand up for what they felt was right. Had Ryan felt that Carol would have been more comfortable alone in bed, he would have sat in the recliner all night long. But he knew better.

She’d needed someone’s comforting touch. If not his, someone else’s. And he sure as hell hadn’t wanted it to be anyone else’s. If any of the beta males had stayed with her and insisted she consummate a relationship while she was half drugged, she might be a mated wolf by now. Not that he had any ready knowledge about what the bachelors were like deep down, but he didn’t trust any of them where Carol was concerned.

He ran his fingers through her soft hair, luxuriating in the silkiness. Until last night, when she had talked about the ordeal she’d been through with the psychiatrist— and even her own family not believing her—he hadn’t realized how having psychic abilities could have been a problem for her growing up. Now that she was also one of the werewolf kind, she had new problems and more adjustments to make. Neither of which he could comprehend like someone who was forced to live like this.

“He’s not right for her,” Tom persisted. “He doesn’t believe in her abilities. Hell, she deserves someone who knows just how special she is.”

That Ryan could agree with. She was special all right.

“Did you see the way he kissed her? Danced with her? If you want a chance at her, you’d better make your move.”

Tom responded, “I haven’t had dreams of her.”

Silence followed.

Dreams? That was another thing Ryan hadn’t believed in. The notion that someone dreamed about mating with the one that fate had chosen for them. Dream mating was something that Darien and some of his family had supposedly been cursed or gifted with. So now Tom thought that dreams would reveal the one for him also?

Pure nonsense.

“Darien might have had the ability, Tom. You can’t believe you will, too.” Jake’s tone was conciliatory, which surprised Ryan.

He hadn’t heard Jake speak like that to his brother since he’d been around the two of them. But he’d heard Jake didn’t believe in dream mating either, at least as far as it would involve him.

Someone paced. Then Tom said, “So why don’t you make known how you feel about Carol?”

Jake gave a short laugh, but it sounded forced, unnatural. “Seems I’m too late.”

“You can’t mean Ryan. Carol needs to stay here. For Lelandi. Carol’s one of our pack. She belongs here with us.”