
Her wriggling had been to good effect; she was nude, he was nude, their clothes a tumbled heap on the
floor. Her soft skin made for an erotic contrast against the wool blankets, and for a moment all he could
do was stare. Her violet eyes were huge, dominating her face, the arched golden brows above them
making her look sweetly surprised. Her short hair was a delightful muss of tumbled blonde curls, curls so
light they were almost silver, and her limbs were slim but strong-looking. Her nails were short, almost
brutally so, and he had time for a quick, analytic thought: They're short because she bites them all the
time. He wondered what a cookie this cute had to worry about. Men probably fell over themselves trying
to take care of her.
Then she opened her arms and he fell into her embrace, and that was the end of his analysis. For the first
time in years, thoughts of vengeance fled his mind as he buried himself in her creamy softness.
Moira braced herself for the oaf's full weight, but to her surprise he caught himself on his hands and
came into her gently, almost carefully. His hand caressed her messy hair, and then his mouth came down
on hers, his tongue skimming across her teeth and, when she obligingly parted her lips, probing her
mouth. His taste overwhelmed her, all smoky masculine heat, and she gasped.
She'd never mated with someone who wasn't pack. This was partly out of self-imposed obligation to her
mother and partly out of pure concern. She had always, in some part of her subconscious, worried about
hurting an ordinary man. And really, wasn't that her problem? She had promised her mother she wouldn't
mate into the pack . . . but couldn't bring herself to mate with an ordinary human. Now here she was,
buying time, and he didn't seem so ordinary, this man, and his hands, what his hands were doing, that
didn't seem all that ordinary eitherrrrrrrrrrr . . .
"Oh!" Her hips bucked. He moved, kneeling beside her, and his thumb settled back atop her clitoris, his
fingers spread and resting against her thighs, barely touching, almostnot touching, but moving so slowly
and delicately that she could almost . . . feel it . . . and it was driving her crazy. Meanwhile, he had
reached for her breast, was pinching her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, hard enough to almost
hurt. Between the throbbing of her nipple and the light, delicate, feathery touch between her legs, she was
halfway to a climax. Ridiculous! He'd been touching her for less than a minute. She wasn't a goddamned
windup doll. She didn't evenlike him. She didn't even . . . she didn't . . . she . . . she felt a flood of heat
between her legs and reached out.
She found him, hard and hot and long, and squeezed, and his eyes tipped up and he stared blindly at the
ceiling, the muscles in his neck standing out in rigid relief. He turned his hand and his thumb was now
wiggling inside her.
Moira reached for him again but he kept that maddening distance, almost as if he were afraid to be too
close to her. She opened her eyes wide, and in the afternoon light had a postcard-perfect look at him, at
the way the light bathed him, made him seem more tan than he was. She could see the muscles moving
beneath his taut flesh and, reaching up, felt the tension in his abdomen. He was holding himself back,
rigidly so, and she wondered why. She could smell his urgent lust and it kindled her own; she knew he
wanted to shove her down and bury himself inside her until they were both screaming. So why did he
hold back?
More, she wondered how she could have gotten caught up so quickly in what had started out as a
stalling technique, an act she had been prepared to dislike, or at least find dull.
He smiled at her, reached for her, cupped her chin in his hand. They stared at each other and Moira
forgot to breathe, so amazed that there could be such a tender, perfect moment between strangers.