My wolf is silent. The same terrifying contentment from the Railhead—settled, still, home. She’s found what she wants, and she’s not going to explain herself.
“Yes. Fuck yes!” I grind out past gritted teeth. He grunts each time he bottoms out, and the sound is raw and bestial in a way that pulls at the deepest part of me.
The orgasm builds in layers. His thumb finds my clit and works in tight, knowing circles while he drives into me, and the dual sensation—his cock filling me, his thumb on the spot that makes my toes curl—winds the pressure so tight I can’t breathe. Then it breaks. I come in a full-body contraction that rips a cry from my throat. I bury it against his shoulder, teeth on his skin, tasting salt. My pussy clenches around him in rhythmic waves that pull him deeper.
He lasts another thirty seconds. His thrusts go uneven, his breathing ragged, and then he buries himself to the hilt and comes with a sound that vibrates through my chest. I feel him pulsing inside me. Hot. Deep. Stickiness that mingles with my own juices and drips from me.
We lie tangled in the back seat. Breathing hard. Windows opaque. The truck smells like sex and sweat and the chemistry of two people who’ve just done something they probably shouldn’t have.
My wolf is purring. An actual vibration in my chest; low, sustained, satisfied. The sound of a wolf who’s exactly where she wants to be.
I hate it.
He lifts his head. Looks at me. “Come home with me.”
I should say yes. Every selfish part of me wants to… his bed, his warmth, hours instead of minutes. And the operative in me calculates the access: his house, his unguarded conversation, what he might say in the dark when his defenses are down.
That thought disgusts me even as I think it. Using his bed for intelligence. Using sex for the mission.
But then… he’s a Forrester. A purist. His pack toasted to keeping thingspure and strongwhile I smiled and ate theircornbread. Whatever sympathy his grief earns him, he’s part of a system that considers my bloodline a corruption. I shouldn’t feel guilty about a man who’d turn me in if he knew what I carry.
My wolf disagrees. Loudly.
“I can’t,” I say. “I’ve already let this go further than I should have.”
His expression shifts. Not hurt; disappointment he’s trying not to show. He nods. Pulls back. The separation, when he slides out of me, leaves a physical absence that makes me want to pull him back in.
We dress in the cramped space. He hands me my bra from where it got wedged behind the headrest. I find one of my boots under the passenger seat. The mundane logistics of reassembly after sex… they shouldn’t feel intimate, but they do.
He walks me back to my truck. There’s no way we could go back to the barbecue now without everyone knowing exactly what we just did. We don’t talk much. His hand brushes against mine, and I don’t take it. My wolf wants to. I don’t.
He rests his forearm on the roof of my truck and peers in at me once I’ve climbed into it. Engine running. The dashboard light catches his face.
“Willow.”
“Yeah?”
“This isn’t just—” He stops. Starts over. “Whatever this is. It’s not casual for me.”
I should dismiss it. Should reinforce the wall, keep the distance, protect the mission.
Instead, I say: “It’s not casual for me either, Conner.”
Which is the most dangerous truth I’ve given him yet. I don’t look back at him as I drive away.
My head is still spinning when I get back to the motel. I get out. Walk to the motel door. Try to pull myself together before opening it.
Briar is awake. Of course she is. I swear the woman doesn’t sleep. She looks at me—flushed, mussed, smelling like him—and yet again, says nothing.
I go to the bathroom, strip, and step into the shower. Wash my face, my arms, my chest, between my legs.
I just fucked a Forrester purist in his truck fifty yards from his pack’s compound, and told him it wasn’t casual.
What the hell were you thinking, Willow?
I leave the shower, dry off, and pull a robe around myself. Then I check the ward I set around our room when we first arrived. A basic perimeter. Nothing elaborate, just a thin line of magic designed to alert me if anyone crosses the threshold.
It’s still holding.