Cassie closed her eyes and breathed inward, curled back into a child's pose stretch, and then exhaled long and deep. The tranquil music filled the small interior of the cabin as she pushed through the last fifteen minutes of a yoga workout. Her muscles were relaxed, and the negative tension was non-existent. The windows were propped open and crisp mountain breeze blew inward and against her bare skin.

The yoga workout was only meant to aid as a distraction to what was really going on with her body. Last night had been rough for her. She couldn't believe how tempting it was to offer herself to Luke. Hell, she still craved his touch. She had tossed and turned all night in bed with nothing but arousal pulsing between her legs and the "love mark" heating up on her skin.

She continued the workout routine until someone knocked on the door of the cabin. It didn't take long for Cassie to guess who was at the door. She hadn't been expecting Luke's presence this early. He had called earlier that morning, claiming he needed to run an errand up the road. She had wondered all afternoon if that had only been an excuse because he wanted to avoid another episode of what had happened last night. She didn't know if she should be mortified of him seeing her sweaty and overworked or if she should be thankful that she wouldn't miss his visit this time.

"Luke, is that you?" she yelled out over the music and toward an open window.

"Yeah, it's me."

"Come on in," she instructed, and then raised her hands upward to give her forearms a good stretch.

"It's locked," he yelled back.

Cassie chuckled. "Don't act like you don't have a key."

She heard him turning a key in the lock at the same time she grabbed a towel. After lifting herself up on her feet, she met him in the foyer. She dabbed at her damp skin and pushed some stray curls back from her forehead.

His mouth was slightly open as he assessed her from head to toe. "Wh-what have you been doing?"

"What does it look like? I was exercising. Why else would I be sweating?"

He closed the door and dropped his keys on a console table. "When I talked to you earlier you said were going to be working on an article today. By the way, people do sweat from doing other things besides exercising."

"Well the place is virtually spotless thanks to the excellent cleaning company you have, so I wasn't cleaning. And I don't have a boyfriend and a certain someone ran off last night, so I wasn't exactly having sex—which is unfortunate. What else is there?"

She threw him a teasing grin.

The beginnings of a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "You have a whole lot of sass for being such an innocent, petite lady."

"I'm not always innocent. Only when I want to be."

"And how's that working out for you?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I tend to get what I want most days…except for last night." She threw him another accusing look before saying, "Oh! I wanted to ask you something." She dashed over to the office desk where she was looking over some files earlier that morning. As she shuffled through a small box labeled lost and found items, she asked, "Any word on if your Alpha will meet with me?"

"That's one reason why I stopped by. He wants to meet you," Luke said with a nervous expression settling over his face as he watched her shuffle through the box.

"Good. I hope I won't be too much of an inconvenience."

"No. Not at all." Luke shook his head. "Believe it or not, you could be the key to saving a whole lot of shifters."

"I hope so." She scooped some items out of the box to move her search along faster. "What else did you stop by for?"

"Oh yeah…I tried calling your brother but he must be stuck in meetings or something. I met the roofing construction guy at the cabin. I have the estimate. I just need Neil to look it over and approve."

"I'm sure he'll call back soon. My brother and cell phones don't mix. He drops and loses them all the time. Oh, here it is!" She held up a credit card and pushed it across the desk. "Sorting through the lost and found box was one of the projects Nessa was working on before she left. It's strange. The credit card has the name Nessa Lombardi on it. There's an emblem in the right corner that clearly means she identified herself as a shifter. I've seen these before." She peered up at Luke who's expression had gone completely blank. "Was your niece a shifter?"

Luke didn't speak and he kept his gaze on the credit card for the longest before stuffing it down into his front pocket.

"She was looking for this. I think she lost it last year," Luke said.

"Luke…" she said, interrupting the uncomfortable silence between them. "You didn't answer me. Was that intentional?"

Luke sighed deeply and pulled an empty chair. He didn't move the chair behind the desk. He positioned it so that nothing was between them. Their knees were almost touching. His attention was hers. His gaze held a high level of sincerity.

"Cassie, some things are better left uncovered. You won't always like what you find."

"Don't you think I know this by now?" she asked quietly. "I wouldn't risk my life to uncover things that don't matter to me. This case mattered to me. It still does. And I'm asking you this for a reason."

"Of course…" He settled back in his chair.

"You know who I am. You knew from day one that if I had any doubt or any questions that I wouldn't stop until I knew what every little clue meant. If you wanted this to be a secret from the world—"

"Not from the world." He shook his head.

"From me?" she asked.

"Not intentionally."

"Does my brother know?"

"Know what?"

Cassie swallowed. "That you're a shifter?"

"He doesn't," Luke confirmed. "My bloodline hadn't been outed as shifters when Neil and I went to school together. I mostly lived as a human until the fire took my brother. I finished my last year without having to change my status at the Dean's office. After that, Nessa, Henry, and I made the decisions to come out as such. We anticipated it would affect the business in some way, but we were surprised to find that it didn't affect our profit margins by much. We're pretty established in the lounging business though."

"Well, that's also because your kind has been accepted into our society by everyone with the exception of a few bad apples," Cassie offered. "I'd be wrong if I said I understood why you kept it a secret from everyone for so long. I haven't experienced what you have so I don't know what being a shifter in a predominantly human world is like. I just know that it doesn't change the way I look at you. I'm just mildly curious about your way of life."

"Just mildly?"

"That was an understatement," she replied. "You know, I was wondering why most of your storage sheds had a change of men's clothes in them."

He grinned. "A little nuisance of being a shifter who prefers to travel on foot. We can shift with our clothes on but it's not very comfortable."

Cassie's mind went back to last night and the way he'd kissed her so thoroughly…and then left her. Why did she feel like such a whore for wanting something so badly and not being able to have it?

"About last night," she started. "I'm sorry for causing you to almost break your promise to my brother."

"You don't have to apologize," he said. "I overreacted. In fact, I should have stayed."

"I guess you think I'm some loose woman addicted to sex or something." She sighed.

He shook his head. "No, that's not what I think. I just think you're perfect and have your whole life ahead of you and I don't want to ruin any chances that you might have a normal life."

She blew outward, shaking her head. "But that's my decision to make, but I see you've already made yours."

"Cassie…"

She rose from her seat. "I need to take a shower. You said the Alpha will meet with me, right?"

Luke nodded. "He'll arrive in a couple hours."

Before Cassie could slip past him, he rose too and caught her by the arm. He touched the mark on her neck.

"What's this?"

"You kissed me there, remember?"

His eyes narrowed and his brows furrowed.

"Oh, now you have amnesia," she exclaimed, trying to pull away.

"It's not that, Cassie." He swiped his thumb across the mark again. "I didn't put this there. It was there before I kissed you."

She looked at him perplexed, and then she felt her eyes widen when she realized what he might be inferring.

"No. Just no." She shook her head. "I haven't slept with anyone in almost a year." She pulled her arm away. "I'm glad you stopped by to give me a heads up about your Alpha. Now, I'm really going to go take a shower. Should I call you before I come over?"

Luke took her cue and rose from the chair. "No need. Just come right over. I'll be on the back patio, so if I don't answer the doorbell just come right on in.”

"Will do."

Cassie turned around and took her hair down from the high ponytail on her head, letting her tresses cascade down over her shoulders. She didn't have to look behind her to know that Luke stared at her retreating backside, but she did anyway. Even from across the room, she could sense the hunger emanating from him. Too bad he wouldn't act on it the way she wanted him to, but she was having fun teasing him anyway. She grinned at him and slipped inside the bathroom, leaving him standing aloof in the center of the cabin.