Darien frowned at him. “I’m serious about this, Jake.”

“Your concern is duly noted. Is that all?”

“Jake…” Darien’s tone was consoling.

Jake didn’t need consolation. He needed to see Alicia again, craved seeing her, and had to find out what had happened to her over the past seven weeks. He had to be sure she was truly safe and well.

Jake nodded. “I know my place, Darien. I know what I can and can’t do. See you in the morning.”

His heart warring with his mind, he left Darien’s office and headed for the stairs. He was past ready to move out.

He hated that a dream could make him crave someone so badly that she’d keep him up half the night. Hated that he couldn’t have her in the flesh the way he wanted.

She was pregnant. He just couldn’t believe it.

In his bedroom, he jerked off his clothes and dropped them on the floor. He glanced at the polished top of his dresser—at the copper hair clip that had bound Alicia’s satiny curls when he had made love to her in the forest in Breckenridge that one day—the only physical evidence he had connecting him to her.

He yanked his bedcovers aside. No matter how much he told himself it was insane, he climbed into bed and waited for her—with wretched eagerness and abject desperation.

***

She had it bad, Alicia thought, as she pulled off her clothes in the scroungy motel room—the only motel she could find in the tiny town of Crestview—and laid her things neatly over a chair. If it hadn’t already been so late and she hadn’t been afraid she wouldn’t find another hotel with a vacancy in another town, she’d have driven on.

Right now, all she wanted was to be with the man of her dreams, but she had a job to do—relocate and start her life over.

She couldn’t risk any of Constantino’s cronies catching up to her if he thought to get revenge for her turning him in. In the future, until she could figure out another way to make a living, she’d go after only bail bond jumpers with non-Italian names, to stay on the safe side. And only work during the day, although she’d shifted some during the day as well, so that wasn’t a guarantee of anything. But she hadn’t realized that the moon was nearly full, and she suspected that’s why she’d felt a sudden need to shift.

Hating that she would be driving right past Silver Town tomorrow and beyond without a word to Jake, she wondered if there was another route she could take.

Jake! She meant to at least call someone in Silver Town and leave a message that she was alive and well. But when she pulled her cell phone out of her purse, she flipped the phone open and recalled that the battery was dead. She had to charge it. She started the charge and glanced at the room phone. If she couldn’t call him on her phone after taking her shower, and it would have been charging for an hour or so, she’d make a long-distance room call instead.

Then with her lavender shampoo and tangerine body wash in hand, she walked into the grungy bathroom. The grout in the floor was no longer white but a dirty gray, rust stains lined the sink from a perpetually dripping faucet, and the shower curtain was covered with a light sheen of soap scum, but the floor of the porcelain tub seemed clean enough. She turned on the water, waited for it to get hot, then slipped inside to shower.

She soaped up her hair with the shampoo, wanting to wash away the past few weeks’ events, going back to when she’d been doing damn well. Her hands stilled in the suds on top of her head where she’d piled her soapy hair. When the men had come to kill Ferdinand at his townhouse, she’d smelled the cologne of the man who’d entered the bedroom where she’d hidden under the bed. Ferdinand had already bitten her by that time. And her sense of smell had been highly attuned. A wolf’s sense of smell. Would she recognize the man’s odor again?

She groaned. If he did come to get her, she’d most likely recognize him because of her enhanced sense of smell and know she was a dead woman before the deed was done. Some help that would be.

She rinsed out her hair, grabbed her bottle of peach body wash and poured some on her hands, then slathered her whole body with the silky, fragrant wash. It helped disguise the unfamiliar, unwanted odors in the bathroom and hotel room.

After towel drying her hair and body, she stalked back into the bedroom, unzipped her bag, and drew out a silky blue nightie. She pulled it on, then climbed into bed and slipped between the harsh sheets. She was glad they smelled of bleach and not the last occupant’s odor. Sometimes to save money and to avoid the work, the hotel staff didn’t bother to change the sheets between customers. Not that she’d let them get away with it.

Woe to those who didn’t have a wolf’s senses and couldn’t detect such a thing. On the other hand, there was something to be said about the old adage—Ignorance is bliss.

She closed her eyes, wanting to welcome her dream lover into her arms, and waited. Breathless with anticipation.

The first time he had come to her, she had known it was just a dream. Very, very real, but just a dream. And she loved conjuring him up, loved making him come to her. He was every bit as much an addiction as chocolate—the really rich dark kind.

She breathed in the stale air, the smell of bleached sheets, the faint odor of cigarette smoke in what was supposed to be a nonsmoking room, the dustiness. Felt the scratchy sheets against her bare skin and the equally scratchy comforter decorated in brown palm trees that probably had never been washed, noted the picture of palm trees nailed to the wall—and wondered if the Colorado motel owner fantasized about having a resort in Florida. She hated not being in her own bedroom on her comfortable saggy mattress, the sheets super soft, and having her pillow, too.

But she was afraid if she returned there for very long, they’d catch up to her. If she could, she’d clean out her bank account, give notice, take as much from her apartment as she could fit into her car, and leave the rest behind with no forwarding address. Although she’d worked hard to afford her furniture, and she hated having to abandon it.

Sometime during the night, as the heat of the day subsided and a dry coolness filled the room, she began to slip off to the world of sleep.

Vaguely she became aware of another presence in her room.

At first, a peculiar sense of recognition washed over her, reassuring her that she was safe, that whoever or whatever she was sensing wouldn’t harm her.

Then she saw him, materializing in the darkness like a shadowed lover. Distractedly, she remembered the phone call she hadn’t made. Damn. Tomorrow, first thing.

Jake approached, and she forgot everything else but him.

Advancing, his hair the color of rich, dark-brown earth after a summer rain, his eyes of the same shade and darkly intense, his masculine lips curved up faintly in the hint of a smile, he moved toward her in a slow, methodical, predatory way. In the past few weeks, when her world seemed only to be spiraling downhill faster, only Jake had made her life bearable after that fateful night she’d been turned. And she wanted him at night, every night, for as long as she lived, which might not be very long the way things were going.

Naked, he flexed his muscles, stood a little taller, and saw her and only her. Still covered in the comforter up to her neck because of the chill in the air, she gave him a refrained smile back. It was always the same. An acknowledgment that they were here in concert for this, but no wild throwing themselves together in the heat of the moment. Deep down, she felt it was because she feared that if she did leap from the bed and jump into his waiting arms, he’d just vanish. Poof. And never come again.

So she waited for him, waited for his large capable fingers to pull back the comforter, to feel his hands lifting her gown off her. He always started with his gentle, then urgent strokes, his lips and tongue teasing her, his mouth on her breast.

But this time he seemed hesitant. She frowned a little. He couldn’t leave her now. Not when he was the only bright spot in her life. A too-real figment of her imagination.

He raked his fingers through his hair. She parted her lips as if to speak. She never had spoken to him before. Had never needed to. Didn’t think she really could. But he seemed so unsure, as if he was reevaluating why he was here.

He couldn’t. He was here because she made him come. She pulled her arms free from the comforter and was about to stretch them out to him, to encourage him to join her. How could he come to her and then decide he couldn’t do this?

And then he sighed, although she never could hear sounds in her dreams, except for the blood rushing in her ears, her own panting breath when he stroked her into submission, her heart beating wildly. Her smile widened.

But he didn’t smile back. Still reserved, she thought. Still bothered by something. Yet he approached her with an aggressive stride, yanked the covers aside, and stared at her belly, the pale blue gown she wore having risen to her thighs. Her naked legs didn’t hold his attention, but his gaze focused on her waist. He slid the silky fabric up her thighs, past her hips, higher until her belly was exposed, then kissed her there. She wasn’t sure how to read his actions, but then she reached for him, spread her legs willingly, opened herself to him, and encouraged him to join her.

He climbed onto the bed, situating himself between her legs, but kept his weight off her as he tackled her mouth with his. His kiss was hard and fierce, his jaw lightly whiskered and rough. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear she’d have whisker burns on her cheeks after they made love. His tongue dove into her mouth, impatient, impassioned, and she met his craving move for move. God, he was beautiful and she desired him with all her heart.

“You’re the only good thing in my life,” she mouthed against his lips, wishing there could be more to their relationship than this.

He paused, staring at her with such intensity that it was as if he’d truly heard her words and felt her sentiment, and then he kissed her hard again. His hand encompassed a breast, fondled, and stroked, caressed her nipple with the pad of his thumb, teasing the tip, which was tingling and aching with need. Her breasts were slightly tender, fuller, more sensitive to his touch. Then his mouth moved down her throat, and he brushed his lips across her sensitive skin, licking her there. He seemed desperate with wanting her, just as much as she felt about him. His hand stroked her deeply between her legs, where she was already hot and wet and swollen for him, her core aching with such an intensity that she could barely last.