“More,” she begged. Begged, damn it, while her wolf howled and her legs tightened around his waist.

  Sex as she’d always known it was a game, a short-term distraction. Sex was supposed to be about her toying with a man who might satisfy her for a little while.

  Then this must not be sex, her wolf growled.

  This was all-encompassing. Breathtaking. Soul-wrenching. This was pure emotion, knocking reason aside and stealing her control.

  Luke’s eyes flashed, telling her it was the same for him. A first. A last, maybe. A totally new sensation. He slowed just long enough to pull her hips high, and she practically sang as he thrust into her again.

  Yes was the only word she could manage, so she panted it. Screamed it. Scratched it into his sides as he pounded into her again and again.

  “Yes,” she moaned when she thought it couldn’t get any better. But then he pushed even harder, and the wave inside her crashed, toppling her over the edge.

  She cried out, shuddering with a mighty orgasm.

  He grunted and tipped his head back, going perfectly still as his own release hit.

  Mine, her wolf howled, relishing the hot burn of his come deep inside her body. Mine. Mine. Mine.

  “Yes,” she panted, pretending yes meant Oh, that’s good and not, Yes, he’s mine. But the line of meaning kept blurring, even in her own mind.

  “Whoa,” she whispered, going limp all over.

  “So good,” he murmured as they lay close and sweaty on the bed.

  Sure is, her wolf hummed inside as Luke scrubbed his chin against her cheek, marking her as his.

  Chapter Four

  Luke panted into the sheets, unable to process any words other than two.

  Holy shit.

  He sank back onto the mattress, in no hurry to go anywhere or to think anything except holy shit over and over again.

  And, crap. Now he was snuggling against this woman like she was his goddamn teddy bear. What was he thinking, stroking her hair back to stare into her eyes and whispering her name?

  “Carly,” he murmured, again and again.

  Damn it, he never did that, because a name made a person real. A name gave a person meaning. A name was the key to a person’s soul.

  “Luke,” she whispered.

  She might as well have puffed into the glowing embers of a fire, because a wave of heat swept through his body. He hadn’t gone by Luke in years, and it made him feel like a different man. A better man, almost.

  A fucked-up man, he decided, cradling her body against his.

  Mine, his wolf growled. Just listen.

  Listen to her heart tap against his chest?

  No, dummy. Listen.

  He heard a whisper on the wind. A low sound that could have been a chuckle — or a warning. What was that?

  That’s destiny.

  Destiny?

  Destiny. His wolf nodded firmly. That’s destiny, telling us she’s our mate.

  The idea ought to have made him run for the hills, but all he felt was Carly’s sweet heat.

  She sighed, and he wondered if she’d heard it, too. But then she snuggled closer and shut her eyes.

  He did, too. Her hair was soft on his shoulder, her breath light on his neck. It slowed and evened out as she fell asleep.

  He counted to ten, figuring it was time to pull his usual trick — namely, easing out of a woman’s embrace. Step two would be to collect his things quietly, and step three would be to slip away. It was easier on everyone that way.

  But he couldn’t break away, not when he’d counted to ten or twenty or even one hundred. He didn’t want to break away or fumble his jeans on. He wanted to stay.

  And stay and stay and stay, his wolf agreed.

  Finding a willing woman was easy. But finding this sense of satisfaction or peace…not so much. This inner calm, this balance. Why rush away from this bliss?

  His own breathing slowed, and the time between beats of his heart quieted, too. His whole soul calmed in a way it hadn’t dared in years, and he fell asleep.

  A deep, drugged sleep from which he woke a few times — or dreamed about waking. Once, Carly woke him hungry for more, and he was happy to oblige. Another time, it was him, unable to keep his hands off her and waking her by mistake. One thing led to another, and they tumbled right into another sizzling round of sex. The third time he awoke, it wasn’t to do anything much but to stare into those amazing blue eyes. Well, he stared into her eyes. She studied his tattoos.

  Just about every woman he’d ever slept with did that, but Carly did it differently. She didn’t trace the ink so much as the space between the lines, and when she tilted her head, it was as if she could see past all those markings to the person he’d once been.

  “Luke,” she whispered then paused.

  He strained to hear what she might say next. Would it be, Luke, I’ve never felt this way before?

  Because damn, he sure as hell never had. So warm. So happy. So close to something great.

  Or would she say, Luke, we need to talk?

  Talking would be okay, too. Because he couldn’t decode the sparks in her eyes, and he was dying to know what they meant.

  “Luke,” she whispered as the first pink streak of dawn inched over her skin.

  He leaned closer, nodding eagerly.

  Her eyes flickered with some inner battle before she gulped and sighed. “I have to go.”

  His wolf howled as he forced himself to say, “Me, too.”

  But neither of them budged except for inching closer.

  “Soon,” she said, kissing his jaw.

  “Real soon,” he agreed, working his lips down the amazing curves of her body again.

  His wolf side took over from there, and all he could do was witness Carly come undone all over again. Just like him, damn it. Just like him.

  He didn’t remember who fell asleep first, but he knew who was the first to wake up the next morning. Carly. He could tell by the sound of her Triumph roaring down the road.

  “Whoa. Wait!” He ran out of the room just in time to see her rev the engine and whip around a corner, ready to burn up the road.

  No! his wolf cried.

  The roar of the Triumph’s engine faded before being erased by the rumble of an eighteen-wheeler that shot past, also heading north.

  He stood buck naked on the balcony above the bar, gripping the railing. Forcing himself not to take chase.

  What a woman, his wolf murmured in his head. What a night.

  He shook his head. What a foreign feeling not to want to let her go.

  He sniffed the air. Last night, each breath he inhaled had been cool and full of promise. Now the air was as parched and lifeless as the landscape.

  She’s heading north. The way we’re going, right? his wolf asked, full of hope. Far, far too much hope.

  He shook his head as if to clear his ears of the suggestion. What he really needed was to scrub his entire memory of her. He had to get his head screwed back on. He was a man on a mission, not some rogue just dicking around.

  There was so much more I wanted to do, his wolf cried. To say. To hear. To share.

  He headed back into the dim room and looked around, telling himself it was all good. Washing his face didn’t help, so he showered and scrubbed, too, trying to rub Carly’s scent off, because even the faintest whiff of it drove him crazy with a desperate need. When he stepped back into the bedroom to collect his clothes, he took a deep sniff in spite of himself, catching the last of her scent. Then he picked every item slowly off the floor. Jeans. Boxers. Shirt. Boots. Jacket…

  He looked around. Wait. Where was his leather jacket?

  Had he left it in the bar? In his sad excuse for four wheels? He checked all over for the only relic of his past he’d wanted to hold on to, then stood beside his truck, sniffing the breeze. Then he cracked into a wide grin, realizing where it had gone.

  Carly had taken it. He replayed the fleeting memory of her rounding the corner on her Triumph. Yeah, she’d taken his jacket — along with a piece of his heart. Which meant she wanted to hang on to the memory of their night, too.

  Then he caught himself. Damn. He needed to lose those memories, not hang on to them.

  He kicked the dirt, feeling an unfamiliar ache in his chest.

  The ache in my heart, his wolf sniffed.

  Well, maybe that was a good thing. It proved there was something left of his heart after all those years of drunken brawls and battles for no particular cause.

  It hurts, his wolf complained.

  He paid his bill — because he really was turning over a new leaf now — asked for directions to Twin Moon Ranch, and headed north. A few miles later, he spotted the knotted old carcass of a tree that had been struck by lightning ages ago — the landmark he’d been told about. He pulled off the highway and slowed to a stop, eyeing the dirt road ahead.

  Should he, or shouldn’t he?

  Highway traffic whipped past, tempting him to zoom onward, too.

  If we keep heading north, we might catch up to Carly, his wolf urged.

  His grip on the steering wheel tightened. He sniffed the air for the scent of wolf, but the desert air was too dry. The stiff, prickly leaves of the surrounding brush swayed in the wind, teasing him.

  Why bother stopping at a pack of strangers? And for what? Why was it so important to say thank you to a man he’d never met?

  He gritted his teeth. Because it was the right thing to do.

  The dirt road to the ranch twisted and turned, hiding the future from him, and Carly’s voice whispered through his mind. Why turn over a new leaf?

  Yeah, his wolf demanded. Why?

  He didn’t really have to change. He could just head to Colorado and…and…

  And look his family in the face? No, he had to see his plan through. And it all started with this small step.

  “All right, already,” he murmured to himself, forcing his eyes ahead.

  The truck groaned over the bumpy dirt road, urging him to turn back. But as powerful as the pull north was, the pull toward the ranch was even stronger. As if fate was leaning in, saying, You really need to go this way.

  The truck rattled onward for a couple of miles, and he wondered who the hell would live way out in the middle of these scrubby plains. His home territory in North Ridge, Colorado had been remote, too, like most wolf packs preferred, but it was surrounded by thick woods, mighty mountains, and roaring rivers. A beautiful place.

  The morning air wafted in through the open window, trying to convince him that Arizona had its own brand of beauty. A harsher, edgier kind, with red rock mesas and rolling hills. A breeze ruffled the scrublands. A brown bird flitted between the bushes then disappeared. When he slowed down to lurch over a gulley, a sprinkle of red against dun-colored earth caught his gaze — a row of tiny red flowers hung like upside-down tea cups from a single stem. The kind of flower he’d be tempted to pick for Carly if he ever got to see her again.

  He gripped the wheel a little harder and shook his head. “Focus, damn it. Focus.”

  The road forked, then led over a dry creek and finally under a timber gateway hung with an honest to God old-fashioned cattle brand — two circles, overlapping by a third.

  “Twin Moon Ranch,” he murmured, taking a deep breath.

  The place had developed quite a reputation over the past few years. The new powerhouse among shifter packs in the West, everyone said. Even the rough, tough drifter pack he’d led had kept a respectful distance from the place.

  He parked his truck just outside the gateway and slid out, careful to keep his hands in plain view.

  “Hello?”

  The ranch was quiet. Eerily so.

  Two rows of false-fronted buildings hemmed in a wide, dusty lane. A pinto stood tied to a hitching post, quietly swishing its tail in the shade of mighty cottonwood trees. Brownish-green leaves rustled overhead, and that was about the only sound except for the hurried footsteps of a kid who’d bolted the second he spotted Luke.

  “Hello?” Luke called.

  It was just like one of those Wild West movie scenes when a stranger arrives in a town and finds the place quiet. Too quiet. Luke looked around, half expecting a dozen cowboys to come rushing out, each aiming a Colt .45 at his head.

  Footsteps sounded behind him, and he whirled.

  Chapter Five

  “Howdy,” a voice rang out. The voice was friendly but guarded; chipper yet wary.

  Luke turned as a man stepped out from between two buildings. A man nothing like what he expected, because he didn’t look so much like a cowboy as a surfer dude with scrappy blond hair and a million-dollar smile.

  “Can I help you?” surfer-dude asked.

  Can I help you? had What the hell are you doing here? coded between the lines, but the guy seemed to be withholding judgment. For now.

  “Luke Brandstetter.” His tongue nearly tripped over the sound of his own name.

  “Cody Hawthorne,” the man said, shaking Luke’s hand with a tight grip that said, I’d love to trust you, but I don’t. Not one bit. Then he smiled in a way that meant, Don’t take it personally.

  Luke immediately liked the man. And hell, he was impressed that the guy hadn’t already called out half a dozen thugs to back him up.

  Maybe the new haircut was working. Or maybe this guy was just supremely confident in his own fighting skills. Either way, Luke wasn’t here for a fight, and he made that clear, keeping his hands loose instead of locked into fists.

  “I’m looking for Kyle Williams,” he said.

  Surfer-dude — er, Cody — looked him up and down. “And what would you want with Kyle?”

  He took a deep breath because, whoa — the moment he’d been thinking about for a long, long time had finally come. The first step on the long road home.

  “I heard he killed Greer Steton of North Ridge pack.” Luke just about spat the name out along with the bitter aftertaste it brought.

  Cody Hawthorne tilted his head. “Greer Steton was a bastard son of a bitch who didn’t deserve the title of alpha. You got a problem with that?”

  No, he didn’t have a problem with that, except for wishing he’d been the one to do the deed. “That bastard son of a bitch, Greer, killed my father. My uncle. My older brother.”

  As he said the words, images he’d locked away years ago came flooding back. He saw the slow, torturous deaths of his loved ones, strung up as a warning to anyone who dared to stand up to Greer’s despotic regime.

  He remembered it all, right down to his mother screaming, Run, Luke. Run!

  Just thinking about it made him sick. He’d wanted to stand and fight with the others, but he’d been only fourteen.

  Run, Luke. Run.

  He swallowed hard. Yes, he had run. Long and hard until he was miles from North Ridge. He’d eked out a living on the streets until he fell in with one band of rogues — then another, and another until he saw himself as one of them and not a member of a once-proud pack brought to its knees.

  He cleared his throat and blinked into the sunlight filtering through the trees. He’d been running for too many years. Blocking out the ugly parts of his past — especially the ugliest part, which he couldn’t even bring himself to say. Not to this stranger. Not here. Not now.

  “I came to thank Kyle Williams for killing Greer.” The memories put a shake in his voice, so he coughed and made sure the rest came out firmly. “That’s all I want here. Just to say thank you. Then I’ll be on my way.”

  Cody’s gaze softened a bit. Did he know the horrors Greer had inflicted on the wolves of North Ridge pack? Could he imagine what abuses Luke’s mother and sister had been subjected to?

  “Then you’ll be on your way where?”

  Luke very nearly retorted with a None of your goddamned business, but he reined it in. This was day one in his new life. He wasn’t a rogue any more, which meant he had to ask nicely for what he wanted instead of just taking it.

  “North Ridge.”

  Cody’s eyes narrowed. Could a guy from a quiet backwater like Twin Moon Ranch understand what it was like, coming from a messed-up place like North Ridge?

  “And what exactly do you plan to do there?”

  A good question. Luke wasn’t so sure himself. The oldest of his uncles had been alpha of North Ridge pack until Greer came along, and Luke sometimes found himself entertaining notions of taking on the role himself. Over the years, he’d worked up the hierarchy of the rogue pack until he was top dog. He’d whipped a scrappy band of rogues into an organized and relatively civil group of drifters. Oh, they had their wild ways, but the meaningless violence and random attacks were a thing of the past.

  So, yeah. He could lead a pack. But did he want to?

  He cleared his throat and kept his answer as vague as his plans. “I just want to help get the pack back on its feet. To do what I should have done years ago.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Find my mother. My relatives. Help them get their lives back together.” He shrugged, trying to push unfamiliar emotions away.

  A long, quiet minute ticked by in which Luke didn’t trust himself to say much else. He’d forgotten how much the memories hurt. Forgetting — or pretending to forget — was so much easier, but he’d done enough of that.

  Cody nodded. “Tell you what. I’ll walk you to Kyle’s house myself.”

  And off they went, a couple of wolves — perfect strangers who had no real reason to trust each other except the honesty in each other’s voices — strolling side by side like that happened every day.

  Which was crazy because, in most places, shifters didn’t welcome strangers onto their home turf. They didn’t help them come to terms with their own demons. At least, none of the shifters Luke knew. Not the wolves, not the bears he’d met, and definitely not the cougars.

  Luke looked around. Maybe these wolves were different. Maybe they valued peace along with prosperity and defending their home turf. Maybe this place was as special as the rumors said.

  Cody led him past tidy homes and stepped over an irrigation ditch gurgling with water that nourished lush lawns. The winter sun shone, and it was nippy at this high altitude, but it still felt good to walk in the shade. People waved at Cody and gave Luke polite nods. Two little girls whizzed by on bikes, and a big black dog loped after them with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.