He finally broke free from the kiss, saw the tears in her eyes, and gave her another heartfelt embrace.

In pack-leader mode, Darien said, “I know it’s late, but we need to talk.”

Jake slipped his hand around Alicia’s with a firm possessive grip and led her to the love seat where they sat down together, thighs touching. But it wasn’t enough. Jake wrapped his arm around Alicia and pulled her against him, wanting to feel her warmth and breathe in her heady fragrance, to enjoy the softness of her body against his, to know she was truly all right and wouldn’t leave him again.

He wanted to tell his brother to hurry up with the questions because Alicia would be his mate tonight, but he held his tongue. She needed to see the workings of a viable pack, and Jake butting heads with his brother wouldn’t help her cope.

Darien took Lelandi’s hand and sat with her on one of the couches while Tom sat on a wide-winged chair. Darien kept his hand on Lelandi’s, resting it on her thigh. For the first time since Jake had lost Alicia, he felt comfortable seeing the intimacy Lelandi and his brother shared. But it was only because Alicia was with him again. He wondered how Tom felt being the odd man out, but his expression remained neutral.

“So what are we up against?” Darien asked Alicia.

***

Alicia honestly didn’t know what to think. After all the questions Darien had asked her, and all the questions she’d asked of him, no one in Jake’s pack, nor Jake himself, seemed to have known of Ferdinand Massaro or his brother, Danny, or Mario and his thugs.

Which meant? Jake truly had been interested in her for herself when he first caught sight of her in Breckenridge.

Lelandi patted Darien’s thigh. “It’s very late, and I’m exhausted. Let’s go to bed. If you have any more questions, you can ask them tomorrow.”

Darien looked from her to Alicia, then to Jake. Alicia wasn’t certain, but she thought some unspoken communication was going on between the two brothers. She and her mother had been capable of giving each other a look, a subtle raise of an eyebrow, or slight gestures to send each other some secretive message or another. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that special connection she’d had with her mother until she saw the nonverbal communication pass between Darien and Jake. If she ventured a guess, Darien was warning his brother against her.

Darien had nothing to worry about there. She’d already had two failed marriages. She wasn’t about to embark on a third with Jake or anyone else, for that matter. So big brother didn’t have to worry about her blemishing the family tree when they were all born lupus garous and her werewolf abilities had come about because she’d been forcibly bitten.

Lelandi said, “Jake’s always an early riser and makes a delightful breakfast.” She suddenly flushed a brilliant red, quickly said good night, and hurried off with Darien, his arm wrapped around her waist. He chuckled low next to her ear and kissed her there.

Tom gave Alicia and Jake a nod, then headed up the stairs after them.

As soon as they were all out of sight, Alicia said, “Your brother seemed concerned about me.”

But Jake didn’t seem interested in any further conversation. He cupped the swell of her breast in an unassuming manner and captured her mouth with his in a totally assuming way. His tongue demanded entrance as his hand hovered near the tip of a breast that was already swelling and tingling in anticipation.

His eyes were closed as if he was memorizing the feel of her, the taste of her, the scent of her, just as she was of him. Her tongue flirted with his, and he took charge and dove deeper, the pad of his thumb barely touching the tip of her breast. When she moved into his mouth as his tongue caressed hers, the erotic sensation set off a firestorm in her belly. He groaned with need.

“Alicia,” he said, sounding damned desperate.

She threaded her fingers through his hair, wanting him as she’d never wanted any man before he’d come into her life, but—

She pulled her mouth from his, saw his eyes glazed with lust, and worried that she’d shift in the middle of making love to him. She was burning up, just like when she’d shift. His hands cupped her face, and he leaned down to kiss her again as he trapped her against the soft cushions of the sofa.

She put her hands on his chest and said, “No,” against his mouth. “We can’t.” Her voice was breathy and barely there.

His actions seemed to be on auto drive as he again tried to kiss her.

“No,” she said louder and kept her hands planted against his chest.

She seemed to break through his lust-filled gaze as he looked down at her inquiringly. “Alicia?” His voice was thick with need.

“We can’t.”

His hands dropped from her face to her shoulders, and he rubbed them lightly. “What’s wrong?”

“Your brother doesn’t like it that I’m newly turned and would become part of the family like this.”

“Nonsense.” He leaned down to kiss her, but she held him at bay again.

“He gave you a look,” she insisted.

Jake frowned at her, appearing puzzled.

She said in exasperation, “He gave you a frown, telling you to watch yourself with me.”

A slow predatory smile curved Jake’s mouth. “He wanted me to take it easy with you because you’re newly turned. He doesn’t know anything about our nighttime fantasies.” He lightly pinched one of her nipples through the T-shirt and bra. “Which bra are you wearing?”

“What if I shift in the middle of making love?” she asked, frowning.

“You won’t.” He drew her T-shirt partway up her tummy and slid his hand underneath the fabric, feeling first the underside of the lace bra, then higher to the swell of her breast, feeling her exposed breast, his touch making her blood heat and her skin tingle with an aroused sensation.

He smiled in a way that looked inherently smug and immeasurably pleased. “You’re wearing the push-up bra.”

Jake kissed Alicia then—melting away the pent-up frustration of not finding her for so long, the unwavering need to know she was all right, that she was with him again. Holding her, touching her, overpowered any sense of renewing their acquaintance at a more leisurely pace. Hell, from the beginning, he hadn’t been able to restrain that need to have her now and fully.

Her mouth was instantly pliant when his lips pressed gently against hers as he tried his utmost to coax a willing response instead of battering down the defenses she had initiated.

His tongue briefly licked hers, his fingers threading through her thick hair, cupping the back of her head, pressing her body against the couch. “I’ve dreamed about you like this ever since you vanished from my life.” He kissed her again, this time conquering and possessing, her lips and tongue drugging him.

She responded in such a way as to prove she craved his touch as much as he wanted hers. Her fingers clutched at his back, pulling him against her, and her insistent, frantic touch was just as needy.

Dragging his mouth away from hers with the utmost willpower, he huskily said, “Let’s take this upstairs.”

“They’ll hear us.”

“They won’t.” He took her hand and pulled her from the couch. “I thought I’d lost you for good until you came to me in the dreams.”

“I wanted to be with you so badly,” she admitted, and Jake swept her up in his arms and carried her up the stairs to a bedroom of dark, rich burgundy.

He caught her astonished look at seeing the photographs of predominantly purple wildflowers on the walls.

“I love it,” she whispered.

He pulled away the bedcover. “If it wasn’t so late and I didn’t think you were a bit tired, I’d take you to the lake where we could do some skinny-dipping.”

She laughed, the first true expression of happiness she’d made since they’d found each other again.

Fully clothed, he laid her down on the mattress, then pressed his body against hers onto the soft bedding. He fanned his fingers over her nipples in that delicious way that made them tighten with need.

He smelled so good, like the pines that they’d run through as wolves, when he renewed his probing of her willing mouth with his insistent tongue. His arousal pressed hard against her parted legs, and she stirred against him, rubbing him, inviting him in.

“Alicia,” he mouthed against her lips, his hand sliding up her T-shirt and pushing down the lace cups of the push-up bra. His hands swept over her breasts gently, almost reverently. Her fingers slid up his T-shirt and combed through the dark hair on his chest, more desperate than anything as she felt the muscles flex beneath her fingertips. His warm breath tickled her breasts, caressing the flesh, his hot tongue teasing a highly aroused nipple. He rubbed his erection against her thigh as if showing her just how turned on she’d made him.

Fire consumed her as she tugged at his shirt to get it off. And when he yanked it over his head, he was again kissing her throat, his hand pressed gently down her belly, slipping under the waistband of her jeans and lower until he was stroking her through the red satin panties.

She writhed under his fingers’ skillful touch, tugged at his belt, which he quickly jerked free, then pulled her hand across his rigid length and pressed hard. She caressed him through the soft jeans, and he quickly yanked off her T-shirt as if he’d lost any restraint he’d managed to have until now. Until he saw the red lace push-up bra beneath her breasts, now reddened from his lightly abrasive two-day growth of beard and all the kissing he’d been giving them. He unfastened her jeans and pulled them off. Then he removed his own jeans in haste.

She tsked as she saw his nakedness.

He smiled. “I was in a hurry to rescue you.”

“I nearly died when you came for me as a wolf,” she whispered.

“It was the only way I could catch you.”

But then he feasted his eyes on the red bra and the red silk panties, groaned in needy approval, and slipped her panties off.

She felt irresistibly beautiful to him, loved and desired, just as much as she felt about him.