Then she was coming, pleasure bursting through her, the climax deep and satisfying.

  In one fluid motion, he pressed his erection into her, deeper, until he could go no farther. He held himself still, gave her a cocky smile that she loved, and then began to thrust.

  Nate was glad Kayla wanted to make love before they went swimming because every time he saw her naked, this was just where he wanted to be with her, bringing each other to orgasm, loving every bit of each other in a carnal way. He’d waited so long for this, and he would never get enough of her.

  She bit his lip gently, then licked his lips and thrust her tongue into his mouth, making him nearly come, he was so close to the precipice. Damn, she was hot.

  She moved her hips in conjunction with his thrusts, making him penetrate her even deeper, and he moved her legs over his shoulders and dove in even more.

  “Oh, yes!” she cried out.

  He smiled, their hearts pounding like crazy, in sync, their blood pulsing like fire through their veins. He was glad they had waited until they’d been sure about each other, but he was even more glad they’d finally come to this—mated bliss.

  Her sheath was still contracting and clamped down on him in an erotic way, then releasing. He loved it, loved her, and the way she made him feel like someone so special in her life, just like she was in his.

  He was holding himself still, holding on to the moment, and then he began to pump into her again until he could hold back no longer and spilled his seed deep inside her. He continued to thrust until he was done. Then she slipped her legs off his shoulders. He settled between her legs, just hugging her close, just loving on her, kissing her.

  “Better than a swim?” she asked, kissing him back.

  “I was so glad you wanted to do this first.”

  “You might have been too worn out after the hike and then a swim.”

  He smiled at her and nipped her chin gently with his teeth. “I would never be too worn out for this, no matter what other activities we pursue.”

  “Okay, good. That’s just what I wanted to hear.”

  For a long time, they just lay together like that, him not wanting to let her go, her hugging him and seeming to feel the same way. He didn’t want to squish her for too long and finally kissed her cheek. “Are you ready for a swim?”

  “Yeah, before we end up taking a nap instead. I want to enjoy the great out-of-doors while we can before I have to shift again.”

  “A swim it is then.” He rolled off her and then pulled her up from the bed and into his arms to hug her again. “And then more of this.”

  She laughed. “Good. I’m glad we think so much alike.”

  They hurried to throw on their bathing suits and raced each other out the back door, running until they reached the water and dove in. This time they swam across part of it and then just played in the water after that.

  “I’m so glad you scheduled this for now when we can swim in the lake. If we’d come out here much earlier in the year, it would have been too cold. Much later, and it would have been the same thing. Right now it’s perfect,” she said.

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking. I wanted us to be able to do as much as we could out here—the hiking, swimming, running as wolves, just watching the sunset—all of it.” The water was warm and silky, but even better with Kayla in his arms as they treaded water and felt the warm breeze sweeping over them and the hot sun beating down on them.

  They would have their steaks for dinner, drinks while watching the sun set, play some dominoes, and then they were off for a run as wolves in the woods.

  That night after having such a beautiful day, Nate and Kayla had gone to bed and were cuddling, not drifting off to sleep just yet when they both thought they heard something moving around the cabin. Though it could have been just the rain, thunder, and the blowing wind.

  She kissed his chest. “Should we check it out?” She was torn between looking for whatever had made the noise and staying here and just enjoying snuggling with Nate in bed. She knew Everest had bonded out of jail and the others might have too, but they hadn’t heard a vehicle pull up. She suspected they wouldn’t come here again that soon after their last mistake in doing so.

  “Only as wolves. Our wolf coats will protect us from the rain, and we can move lower to the ground. But only if you think you can stay in your wolf coat while we’re checking things out.”

  She sighed. “I can. I think.” She wanted to go with him, to watch his back like she knew he’d watch hers. She didn’t want to be some helpless woman sitting in the cabin worrying about him.

  “Okay, let’s go check it out.”

  She loved him for knowing she could handle herself when she was a wolf and that he was only concerned that she might shift unexpectedly into her human form. But that wouldn’t be for a while, she thought. She got out of bed, and he joined her, pulling her into his arms and kissing her. “It’s going to be wet out there.”

  “Hmm, yeah, but you know if we don’t check it out, neither of us is going to be able to sleep.”

  “Yeah, that’s just what I was thinking.” They shifted, and then as wolves, they headed out of the cabin through the wolf door and found just what had disturbed them.

  A big, male cinnamon bear.

  It was the same bear they’d smelled before on a hike.

  They began chasing it off, growling and barking, and the bear loped off. They followed him for about three miles in the pouring rain before Nate bumped into her and indicated with his head that he wanted her to return with him to the cabin.

  She was ready, hoping that they’d chased the bear off for good. She hoped she could make it back to the cabin all right without shifting. She hadn’t planned to run for that long, but it felt good to run as a wolf and stretch her legs, especially when she was on a mission—protecting themselves and the cabin. But she hadn’t meant to go quite that far.

  They were loping toward the cabin, and she suspected they still had another mile and a half to go when she felt the urge to shift. No, no, no! She didn’t want to shift right now. Not with that far to go through the woods. Not with it being this cold out at night.

  She hesitated, and Nate had to turn around. He stopped and looked at her, a question in his expression. He raised his brows and appeared to suddenly realize what the problem was. But she finally got the urge to shift under control. Sometimes now she could use mind over matter, and it worked.

  She dashed off again, but this time he followed her so he would notice if she needed to shift; he didn’t want to accidentally leave her behind. She appreciated his concern for what she was going through.

  For a while, she was able to put off shifting, but then she felt the urge strongly again. Heat poured through her muscles, but she kept running, trying to reach the cabin or at least get as close to it as she could. Running through the woods naked was going to be cold and wet!

  She let out her wolf breath. She still wouldn’t have let Nate go by himself to check out what had been moving around outside the cabin. And she was glad they had found the bear and chased him off a long way from the cabin. Of course, ideally, she wouldn’t be shifting out in the woods.

  Then she stopped, figuring they were about a mile from the cabin. She shifted and started to walk as fast as she could, but she had to watch where she was stepping so she didn’t injure herself. At times like this, she really appreciated when she was in her wolf form. Before she could look around and see where her wolf mate was, he was human and naked, sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her.

  “Ohmigosh, Nate. You don’t have to carry me.”

  “Are you kidding? You have to keep me warm.”

  She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You were perfectly warm in your wolf coat.”

  “Yeah, but this is just too nice.”

  “Ha!” They were both dripping wet, but she had to admit it really was a much nicer way to go than her walking the rest of the way. “But hey, if you get tired and need me—”

  “To carry me?” Nate asked.

  She smiled and snuggled tighter against him. “I was going to say ‘to walk.’ You could get into your wolf coat, run home, and bring my clothes with you.”

  “I won’t leave you alone in the woods, naked, without a lick of protection.”

  She sighed. “All right. But if you get tired, let me know. I don’t want you to be all macho and—”

  “Wear myself out?” He chuckled. “Not happening. I could walk a million miles carrying you in my arms. It’s my pleasure.”

  “How far do we need to walk? I’m sorry. I was thinking about a mile now. We should never have chased that bear so far away while I was having shifting issues.”

  “We were having the time of our lives. I only indicated that I believed we should return to the cabin when I thought we had chased him far enough that he might stay away.”

  “And you figured I might need to shift.”

  “Yeah, but we were having fun, and that’s important too. And truly? This is fun too. But I agree with you, honey. I think we have about a mile to go,” he said.

  The rain was still pouring down on them, the lightning flashing all around them, the thunder rumbling overhead.

  “That’s the same bear we smelled earlier,” she said.

  “Yeah, it sure was.”

  “Good. I’m glad we don’t have a whole slew of them to worry about.”

  “Me too.”

  They finally reached the cabin, and he set her down on the porch, shifted, and ran through the wolf door. He quickly unlocked the back door for her. She came in, and he locked up. Then they hurried to take a hot shower. She figured they’d just warm up, clean up, and return to bed to sleep, but showering with him was never conducive to sleep, and after washing up, they began making love in bed instead. Now that was the perfect way to get back to sleep on a wild and exciting bear-chasing night.

  Chapter 22

  The next morning, Kayla and Nate got up late again, loving these lazy mornings after such wild days and nights. They decided to take a walk through an area they hadn’t checked out before and spied something unusual. When they partially unearthed it, they realized it was an illegal old moonshine still with rusting copper barrels and tubing near a stream.

  They laughed about that and continued on their way. About a mile from the cabin, Kayla saw an unusual purple plant and was going to take a picture of it but then realized it was the peeling from some unusual fruit instead. Purple with long spikes. She didn’t know what it was. Neither did Nate.

  He got on his phone and Googled it and found it was a kiwano, horned melon. He laughed. “I thought it was something alien growing out here.”

  “Me too.”

  They continued to hike until they reached a boulder the size of a house split in two, the path going between the two halves. “This is really cool.” She took pictures of them standing in between the two boulders. “Glacial age, betcha.”

  “Yeah, for sure.”

  They finally returned to the cabin and went swimming first. They showered and made grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches for lunch, made love to each other, and then napped. When they woke, it was another trip to the lake for swimming. For dinner, Nate was grilling chicken wings, and she made mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans.

  This had been another perfectly fulfilling day.

  “You know, I might have planned our activities for the most part while here, but you did an outstanding job on planning meals,” she said.

  “Thanks, I just thought of what we both liked and what would be easy for me to grill.”

  “Well, everything has been delicious.” They really did complement each other. “Hey, did you want to just take a walk tonight? Not as wolves? Hopefully the weather will hold out.” She ate another chicken wing. She felt she could eat a couple dozen at a sitting all by herself, they were so good.

  “What about your shifting?”

  “I should be good. So I figured we’ll take a much shorter excursion than we did when we were chasing the bear.”

  “Okay, let’s do it.”

  They cleaned up the dishes after they finished eating, and before it got dark, she and Nate went hiking on one of the trails near the river—a short hike this time because of her shifting issues and also because the weather was so iffy. Storms were coming in after a while, or they’d stay out longer, but they wanted to see the sunset at the lake too. When they returned home, they wouldn’t have the view they had here.

  They were headed in a different direction than they’d gone on any of the other hikes, hand in hand, nuzzling, periodically kissing—a nice, leisurely walk, not like on the earlier ones where they were trying to get somewhere to see something in particular. She was so glad they were having such a great time despite all the interruptions in their vacation earlier.

  As much as she knew she shouldn’t be thinking about anything but just her time here with Nate, the news they’d heard about the housebreakers kept bugging her. “It’s so disappointing that those guys all lawyered up and won’t say anything incriminating about themselves. Which means they have to be guilty about more than just breaking into the cabin—and of course coming after us, though they denied they had done anything more than taking a walk after breaking into our place.”

  “Yeah, like any of us believe that when they were in full search mode. Not to mention they were armed and pissed off that we bit the tires on their truck and they couldn’t leave. At least when Everest’s father insisted that we were charged with cutting the tires, Peter proved that a wild animal had bitten the tires and ours too.”

  “True. Though I can’t imagine how breaking into our cabin, armed to the teeth, could be twisted around into us doing some criminal act against them.”

  “I know, right? That’s what Everest’s dad and his team of lawyers are all about.”

  “The guns they were carrying were all registered to their owners, so they couldn’t be charged on that, but one of the guns might have been used in the killing of Manning. The police wouldn’t know for sure because Peter and his men couldn’t find any bullets or spent casings. We thought a weaker link would come clean about all that had gone on, but Everest’s lawyers sure made certain they all kept their mouths shut.” That had really frustrated Kayla. “Money could probably get them all off any charges—even murder, if they were responsible for it.”

  “I agree, as much as I hate to think they’d get away with it.”

  “You’d think if they’re worth a lot of money, they wouldn’t be involved in an armed robbery,” Kayla said, then realizing right after she said it that it was silly. “Strike that. Rich people can be just as involved in criminal enterprises because they can never have enough money.”

  “Exactly.”

  She took a deep breath of the fragrance of pine and of the rain coming, centering herself in the woods, wiping these vile people from her thoughts. But the incident still came back to haunt her. She started thinking back to the black pickup that had nearly run into them as they were coming home from the Great Gatsby restaurant. “The black pickup—the one that forced us off the road and might have been involved in the jewelry store robbery in Green Valley—”

  “Yeah, Randy’s truck wasn’t the same one that forced us into the curb. His truck is blue. And Nicole and I checked to see what vehicles Phil’s friends were driving, but none were the same one as that one.”

  “What if Randy painted his pickup?” she asked.

  “It’s still not the right model.”

  “Oh, okay. The armed robber’s pickup maybe?”

  Nate nodded. “Hmm. Yeah, maybe. If we could just find it. Who knows though? It might have been a stolen truck and not even the armed robber’s.”

  “That’s true.” She glanced down at her hiking boots caked in mud. All the rain had turned everything muddy. She had splatters of mud on her legs too. They would have to really wash up when they arrived back at the cabin. “Are you worried Everest and his friends might return to the cabin?”

  “Or send someone else. A couple of Peter’s men are watching the road that runs past our place just in case though.”

  “I’m so glad we stayed here to enjoy ourselves.”

  “Absolutely. We could have gone somewhere else for the rest of our vacation, but—”

  “We wouldn’t have been free to hike like this in case I had to shift. And running as wolves might not have been as safe in places that weren’t part of our pack territory.” Though they’d had quite a few trespassers who had caused trouble during their stay. “Did Peter and his men look for the jewelry around the area where Manning died in the event he’d had it with him? Or the waterfall?”

  “Yeah. They scoured the whole area. They figure he didn’t have it on him when he swam across the river unless he did and lost it in the river. They searched the river too but couldn’t find anything. Though the current could have swept the jewelry away. And nothing else was in the stream above the waterfall.”

  She sighed. “That means his cohorts could still come back to search for the jewelry.”

  “Correct. Which is why we have more patrols out watching for trespassers. I’m sure people, other than the ones who were involved in the jewelry heists, will also be looking for the jewelry, though it’s stolen property so anyone caught with it could be in a legal bind if they try to pawn it. However, with the business of the insurance companies offering a reward for the return of the stolen jewelry, that can also be an incentive to come and search for it.” They kept walking, and he leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

  “Like it’s going to rain.” But she figured he sensed it too.

  “No, I mean about the shifting issue.”

  “I’m good so far.”

  “Okay, so we keep going then?”

  “Yeah, let’s do it.” She was having fun, and she didn’t want to end this too quickly. “Another half mile?”