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  “Mathis!” she gasped, tensing. Then she seemed to relax. Putting her arms around his neck, she pressed her face to his throat with perfect trust. God, she felt so right in his arms—so perfect, like she belonged there. “Mathis,” she whispered again and hummed contentedly, snuggling against him.

  At her soft voice and the sweet feel of her curvy body against his, an emotion rose inside him—something so huge it threatened to drown him if he named it.

  Mathis didn’t name it. Instead he held her close and just tried to let things be.

  They might not have sex tonight—or any night, he told himself—but he could at least hold her in his arms. For the first time in ten long, lonely years he would have a female to warm his bed and not just any female—Sadie. Sadie, who he was beginning to care about much more than he should.

  Mathis pushed the thought away. No more guilt tonight—he could save the self-recriminations for tomorrow. For now he just wanted to breathe her in, to fall asleep wrapped around her and know she’d be there when he woke in the morning.

  I just want to hold her, he told himself. Is that so wrong?

  And though a part of him insisted it was, he did his best to ignore it as he carried Sadie into his bedroom.

  Fourteen

  Sadie woke and stretched luxuriously, a feeling of well-being suffusing her entire body. She’d had the most amazing dream. All about Mathis turning into a huge prehistoric deer and giving her a ride . . . galloping through the forest on his back and then coming home and letting him taste her . . . his broad shoulders splitting her thighs wide, his mouth wet and shiny with her juices in the firelight as he licked and sucked and made her come over and over and over again . . .

  The snarl of a chainsaw cut off the pleasant memory of her strange dream and she opened her eyes to see she was in an unfamiliar bed. A huge bed with a forest-green spread—almost the exact same color as Mathis’s eyes.

  Sadie’s own eyes flew wide. It was Mathis’s bed she was in—she’d spent the night in his cabin! No, not just in his cabin—wrapped in his arms, his big body entangled with hers and his warm scent filling her nose. She could still smell that masculine spice but Mathis himself was gone.

  “Oh my God,” she murmured, sitting up and letting the sheet pool around her waist. The reality of the night before came crashing down on her.

  Her nipples were hard little pebbles in the chilly morning air and no wonder—she wasn’t even wearing the oversized T-shirt she’d had on the night before. Biting her lip, Sadie remembered that she and Mathis had decided it was best if she took it off, for maximum skin contact, so his scent could cover hers even more. She’d spent the night not only in his bed, but naked in his arms and she’d enjoyed every bit of it. Even though they hadn’t actually had sex, it had been delicious to feel his big hands exploring every inch of her body as she pressed shamelessly against him and he kissed her until she couldn’t breathe.

  That part, at least, hadn’t been a dream—Sadie remembered it too vividly and her mouth still felt tender from his rough, delicious kisses. Even after licking her to orgasm after orgasm on the couch, he’d still used his fingers to make her come several more times once they reached the bed. But though she’d begged, he wouldn’t let her return the favor.

  “It’s enough for me just to touch you and taste you, sweetheart,” he’d said. “If I let you touch me, I might get carried away. So just lie back and let me make you feel good.”

  God, what a night! Sadie shivered with the delicious memory and looked around, wondering where Mathis had gone. Her huge neighbor was nowhere in sight but at the foot of the bed was a pile of neatly folded clothes she recognized as her own.

  Sadie hopped up, thinking again how nice it was not to have any of the morning aches and pains she’d been subject to before her Rejuvenation began, and pulled on her panties and bra. She still felt a little sensitive between her thighs and her tailbone was sore but that was to be expected after all the riding she’d done last night . . .

  She frowned. Wait—did that mean the other things she remembered were also not a dream? Had Mathis really turned into a huge Buck and taken her for a ride through the forest before bringing her back to his cabin and going down on her for hours? But that defied everything she knew to be real. Was she going crazy? Or had she been dreaming? Or was the world far more magical than she’d ever known?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Pulling on the rest of her clothes, Sadie went in search of her neighbor slash Shifter slash lover . . . well, sort of anyway.

  She found him outside on the roof of her cabin wielding a perfectly enormous chainsaw. He was shirtless, his broad chest already lightly beaded with sweat despite the chilly morning air, as he sawed at the massive branch that had come down on her roof during the storm the night before.

  Sadie waved at him and he stopped work and took off the protective goggles he’d been wearing.

  “Hang on, sweetheart—I’ll be right down.” His deep voice echoed in the quiet forest and he came down the ladder he’d put against the side of her cabin. “Morning,” he said, putting down the chainsaw and wiping sweat off his forehead. “You get a good night’s sleep?”

  “I had a wonderful night. Er . . . a wonderful night’s sleep, I mean. ” Sadie felt a little shy. He was so big and half naked and muscular in the golden autumn sunshine it was hard to believe everything she remembered from the night before had really happened. Now that she saw him standing there in front of her, it seemed like it must have been just a really vivid dream after all.

  “Glad you’re well rested,” Mathis remarked, nodding. “Listen, your roof’s not as bad as we thought. The widow-maker made a hole all right, but then it mostly plugged it up. You don’t have much more than a puddle on the floor of your living room, and I’m pretty sure I can patch up the roof in a day or two with no problem.”

  This was all wonderful news, of course, but Sadie was so distracted she couldn’t concentrate on it.

  “That’s great,” she said faintly. “Thank you so much, Mathis.”

  “Welcome.” He smiled. “Oh, and your car’s out of the ditch too. I towed it out with my truck, first thing.”

  “Thank you,” Sadie said again. “You’re so thoughtful.”

  “I try.” He grinned. “Well look, I’d better get back to it. The sooner I finish up—”

  “Do you really turn into a giant deer during the full moon?” Sadie blurted out before she could stop herself. “And did you give me a ride last night or was that all a crazy dream? And did we really . . .” But she couldn’t make herself go on—her heart was pounding and her face felt so hot she was sure she was in danger of setting her hair on fire.

  Mathis looked at her intently, the smile leaving his face.

  “It’s all true,” he murmured. “Every bit of it, Sadie. I showed you my Buck last night and afterwards we did . . .” He sighed. “Things we probably shouldn’t have done.”

  “But we had to, right? To . . . to cover my scent, I mean?” she asked uncertainly.

  He nodded. “Yeah, but we can’t do it again. I . . .” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I can’t trust myself with you, sweetheart. Even just standing here talking to you I want you so much I can hardly keep my hands off you.”

  “I . . . I want you too,” Sadie whispered, looking up at him longingly. “But I can see why you don’t want us to, um, act on those feelings.”

  He sighed. “I do want to act on them—that’s the problem. Try to understand, Sadie—it’s not just the promise I made. My kind mates for life. If something happens, we can’t take another mate. We can’t form a second life-bond—if I tried and failed, I’d be damning you to a terrible fate. I don’t want that for you.”

  “A life-bond?” Sadie frowned. “What does that even mean?”

  “It’s the connection a Shifter has to his mate,” Mathis explained. “Makes them sensitive to each other’s emotions and needs—draws them closer together. Helps them track each