Early Tuesday morning

It was after three in the morning when Zach gave up trying to sleep and made his decision. Meggie might never forgive him, but he hadn’t realized how awful it would be with her gone. He was certain she’d changed her mind, that she didn’t want to marry him.

He had to know.

He threw some clothes in an old backpack and was on the road before four. He turned off his phone because he knew if Meggie called she’d be totally pissed off to find out he was heading for Feral Passions.

There was always the chance she’d be glad to see him—at least, that’s what he was banking on, but he missed her so much he’d be happy even to have her yelling at him.

Except Meggie didn’t yell. All she’d ever done was love him with the kind of love he’d never known in his life. Certainly not from his parents. No, he loved his work, he was successful, and unlike his father, he hadn’t had to act like a bastard to get here, but he could trace his growing success to the day he hired Meggie. She’d taken one look at his cluttered office and laughed. Damn, he missed her laugh, and it was only Tuesday. She’d left Sunday morning.

The woman was going to think he was certifiable. Maybe he was.

The hours passed quickly, but the closer he got, the more nervous he was about showing up unannounced in the middle of Meggie’s bachelorette getaway. What if he pissed her off enough to cancel the wedding?

He really didn’t want to think about that. Not at all.

He was going to have to … he was almost to Weaverville. The resort was close, and … a flash of brown, big and lumbering and fast raced across the road in front of him.

Bear! He hit the brakes, turned the wheel into the spin, missed the bear, but overcorrected, skidding in loose gravel on the side of the road. Brakes screeched, and his arms locked up as he struggled to hold the car under control. One tire went off the edge of the road, he hit the berm, and his BMW went airborne, flipping end over end before rolling and then sliding on the passenger side through brush and boulders until one much larger than the trusty old Beemer stopped him.

Stopped the car, and stopped Zach. He had a moment of abject clarity, knew the airbags—more than one—had deployed.

After that, nothing more.

Dar rolled over in the big, comfortable bed, expecting to find the wolf beside her. Instead, it was Lawz lying there, propped up on one elbow, smiling at her in the darkness. They’d made love for hours, slow, lazy love after the first rush of need was soothed, and then they’d talked. He was an engineer—she hadn’t expected that for whatever reason—and he told her about building bridges and various structures around the North Coast.

He didn’t live here all the time, but a job had been delayed, so he’d come home to help out at Feral Passions. He said he was glad he had or he’d never have met her. She’d laughed and said what a flatterer he was, but then she’d told him about her job as a television weather reporter for a cable news show, how she’d grown tired of the infighting among the employees, the petty politics that kept things so stirred up. They’d talked about what kind of job she could do if she lived here in Northern California, but it was all dreams and fantasies woven of moonbeams.

As insubstantial as the moonlight filtering through the window blinds, reflecting off the corner of his eye, his white teeth, giving him a ghostly but totally sexy look.

Everything about Lawz was sexy. Never, not since she’d first given it up—and that was most definitely not consensually—to her older brother’s best friend when she was fifteen years old had she ever experienced true lovemaking the way she had with Lawz.

That meant that ten years of bad to mediocre sex with various and sundry males had been wiped away in just a couple of nights with the man she was lying here lusting after. Again. How many times last night? She’d lost count.

Didn’t matter. She wanted to add to the number. She reached for him. He gently trapped her hands over her head in one of his. “It’s the middle of the night,” he said. He tapped the end of her nose with his finger. “Why are you awake?”

“Because you’re here.” She tried to kiss him. Teasing, he pulled just out of reach. “I was sleeping with a wolf.” She tugged her hands. He held on. “When did you change?”

“You keep saying that. I’m not a wolf.” He leaned close and kissed her.

She actually tasted the lie. “I’m not going to argue with you, Lawz. Didn’t I tell you that no one can lie to me? I’ve got like an inner lie detector that tells me when someone’s not telling the truth.” He raised his eyebrows, and she shook her head. “I know you’re not being truthful, but it’s okay. I can understand the need to keep something like that private, and I would never dream of telling, but I don’t want you to think I don’t know. I do. Actually, I find that it’s really and truly …” She gave a low, sexy hum. “Provocative, tantalizing, and extremely sexy.” She leaned close and kissed him, loved the way he groaned into her mouth and wrapped his arms around her. Now that her hands were free, she cupped his head in her hands.

He rolled her to her back and covered her like a warm blanket. Neither of them had gotten around to putting clothes on. He rolled his hips, nestled between her thighs. Studied her.

“I wish …” He shook his head and shrugged. “There are some things I can’t change.”

She smiled at him, loving the weight of his legs covering hers, the way the rough hair on his thighs softly abraded the sensitive skin on hers. She reveled in the warm press of his belly against her middle and the jut of his cock between her thighs. “Sort of a werewolf code of honor?”

He stared at her so intently, she wondered if she’d gone too far.

Finally, he glanced to one side, exhaled noisily, and then focused on her face again. “Yeah,” he said. “Sort of.”

“That’s all I need to know.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself close enough to kiss him. He nipped at her breasts, the line of her ribs, the taut skin at the juncture between neck and shoulder, each tiny bite a sharp pain he soothed with his tongue.

When he entered her, the hard length of him filled her so exquisitely she felt tears prickling her eyes and trickling from their corners into her hair. She seriously wondered how she would ever let him go. They made such a flawless rhythm together, yet she knew this was nothing more than a vacation fling. That’s all it could ever be with a man who wasn’t really a man, but she’d never forget him, never get over him, and she was positive she’d never find another man nearly as wonderful as Lawson Jakes.

The tempo of his thrusts changed, short and fast, deep and hard, until she was gasping for air, whispering his name, so close and yet not close enough with that tiny tickle of arousal slowly growing and expanding, curling her toes and sending hot chills across her skin. He changed the angle of his hips, sliding across her clit on every stroke until the shivers all ran together and her muscles tightened, inside and out.

She flew, crying out, weeping with the frightening power of her climax, her fingers digging into the taut muscles of his shoulders, her legs clamped tightly around his waist.

He held his weight off of her, but his arms trembled, and his head hung low to her breasts. They stayed like that for a long moment, both of them sucking air, bodies sated for now, hearts still thundering in the aftermath of what felt like a nuclear explosion—or something really close.

Finally, he grasped the condom around the base of his cock and rolled to one side, slid out of bed, and went into the bathroom to dispose of it. When he got back to the bed, Dar was sitting up, leaning against the headboard. He crawled into bed beside her and pulled her into his arms. She went willingly, feeling unaccountably sad that this couldn’t possibly last, but she still snuggled against his damp chest. He’d sweated even more than she had.

She ran her fingers through the happy trail beneath his navel. “I don’t remember you even putting that condom on. Thank you for thinking of it, because I sure didn’t.”

“I had it on when I woke you.”

“You woke me? I thought I just woke up.”

He grinned at her and kissed her. “You did, after I tickled your nose. Then I sort of tweaked your nipple, like this.” He demonstrated.

Laughing, she batted his hand away. “No wonder I woke up. You realize it’s only four in the morning.”

“I know, but I needed you. Hoped I could convince you what a great idea it was.”

“You were right, but damn, I’m so easy.”

He laughed. “That you are. It’s one of your finer attributes.”

Her hand slipped lower; she wrapped her fingers around his penis and stroked him. He was actually flaccid for the first time in a long while, but his shaft reacted to her touch, quickly filling her hand as it grew engorged and erect.

He sighed. “Now look what you’ve done.”

She smiled sweetly and turned him loose. “I was merely proving to you that you’re easier than I am.”

He didn’t say a word, but his fingers slipped between her legs and gently stroked. Her clit was still sensitive from her orgasm, and her inner muscles clenched in reaction to his touch. In what seemed like merely seconds he took her to the edge and held her there, whimpering with need, begging for him to finish, to set her free.

He thrust two fingers deep inside, and her body exploded.

Screaming his name, she flew. His laughter was its own music.

Tuck held Elle in his arms, his lips buried in her burgundy hair, their bodies sweaty and sated from the most amazing sex he’d ever experienced in his life.

She hadn’t forced the issue, but it was obvious she’d figured them out. He hadn’t had a chance to get together with the other guys and Trak, but they needed to talk. Had to figure out how to deal with this, because it was either the best or worst thing that could happen.

He thought of what she’d asked him, wondered if she’d been serious. He was taking her with him later today when he did his rounds in town, and he’d remind her of what she’d said, that she was interested in working for him as his assistant. Practically speaking, he really did need an assistant. One who could heal broken bones with her touch? Invaluable.

One who made him laugh, who was luscious and so damned sexy she made him ache? Absolutely priceless.

_____________

Jules awoke to a subtle but unfamiliar buck and sway, the bed doing its own rhythmic dance powered by both Manny and Drew. She lay there with a half smile on her lips, un-self-consciously stroking between her legs as she watched the two men making love beside her.

Drew lay on his stomach, his face turned toward hers, his smoky-blue eyes closed, long, light brown hair curling softly around his face, and a smile on his very kissable mouth. Manny covered him, his hair, longer and darker than Drew’s shielding his face, the muscles in his arms knotted with tension, his muscular ass and strong thighs driving his rather large cock slowly and surely into and out of his partner.

He was so big, she was secretly relieved they hadn’t wanted her to try that kind of sex last night. One baby step at a time, and having Drew sucking her nipples and Manny doing the same to her clit was just about as outrageous as she’d been ready to go. At least today.

She might be a bit more adventurous by tomorrow.

She certainly couldn’t have imagined herself lying in a big bed next to two truly stunning men as they had sex with each other. Not only that, but giving herself pleasure—in full view if they chose to look—and doing it without guilt. That hadn’t even been on her radar. But last night? That hadn’t, either. The two of them had made her come so often and so ingeniously for hours that she was actually sore this morning, but it was a soreness she wouldn’t trade for anything. She’d discovered that Drew really, really loved her large breasts. He’s spent hours showing her just how much, and with Drew concentrating on all her erogenous zones above the waist and Manny on the ones below, she’d had an experience unlike anything she could possibly imagine.

She’d actually teased Manny, told him his tongue should be licensed. Just thinking of the ecstasy she’d experienced, what he’d managed to wring from her with his lips and teeth and tongue—and some rather ingenious use of his fingers—sent a fresh rush of moisture flowing between her legs. Well, that sensual memory and the current hot visual of two extremely luscious men treating Jules to her very own adult feature film.

These last couple of days had been filled with firsts. She’d never been the adventurous type, at least according to Andrew. But after they were dating and already intimate, he’d dropped the biggest relationship bomb ever, the fact he fully expected to share multiple sex partners and an open relationship with Jules.

That had been the beginning of the end, as far as she was concerned. And when she’d accused him of infidelity during that same conversation and he’d hit her?

She’d quit her job and Andrew the sleazebag dentist the same day.

Oddly, she didn’t have a problem at all with Manny and Drew, but they’d merely offered her a fun week at the resort, not teased her with a lifetime commitment that meant absolutely nothing. Though she had to admit, after last night, both Manny and Drew meant something to her.

No woman could spend hours so intimately connected with two hot, fun, intelligent, thoughtful men and walk away unscathed. She would miss them. Miss the woman she became with them. She didn’t even want to think what it would be like when she and the girls drove away on Saturday, but she knew it was going to hurt.

That was okay; it would be worth the pain. They were worth it.

And so was she.

Jules knew, with a clarity that shocked her, that that was the most import ant thing that had happened to her, being loved by two men, laughing with them at silly things, feeling so comfortable in her own skin. Without doing or saying anything specific, they’d given Jules back to herself, the woman she’d lost when Andrew turned on her.

All they had done was treat her with respect—more than that, they’d openly worshipped her body. To them she wasn’t heavy or “matronly,” as one jerk had described her. She was voluptuous and full-figured in all the right places, and she knew they meant what they said. When they’d looked at her, touched her, tasted her, they’d done it with hands trembling with desire, with lips parted, and hearts pounding.

Because of her, and because of them, all of Andrew’s hateful words had turned to so much dust. She pursed her lips and blew softly, and like that, he was gone, along with the ugly things he’d said. The pain he’d inflicted. The terrible words and cruel acts that had begun to define Jules in spite of her awareness that the man was a jerk, that he should have no power over her.

Well, obviously he had, because the lightness she felt now hadn’t been part of her for a long, long time, and she gloried in her newfound freedom to be.

To be Jules again.

Her fingers were slick with her arousal, her heart pounding in her chest as she watched the two men, recognized the tension, their muscles taut with impending climax.

She raised her head. Drew’s dreamy blue eyes were open, and he watched her. Without thinking, she moved closer and offered him her breast. He latched on to her nipple, groaning, gently squeezing her full curves with one big hand as he sucked her sensitive nipple tightly against the roof of his mouth with his tongue.

She felt the pressure like an electric shock running from nipple to clit and back again, two powerful erogenous zones connected by hot, wet suction and pure sensation. Drew slipped his hand between her legs and gently moved her fingers aside, thrusting into her moist heat, taking her closer to the climax hovering so close.

Jules arched her back, pushing her hips closer to Drew, and at the same time slipped her hand beneath his belly, found the thick length of his cock trapped against the sheets and circled him with her fingers.

He groaned and turned just a bit so that she had better access. Manny grinned at her as he continued thrusting slow and steadily into his partner. “Good morning, Jules.”

So polite. She giggled. “Good morning to you, Manny.” She squeezed Drew’s cock, and his hips bucked. “And to you as well, Drew.”

He turned her nipple free, licked the tip, and said, “Good morning, Jules.” He glanced over his shoulder at Manny. “We’ve created a monster.”

“Damn, I certainly hope so, because she’s absolutely sensational like this.” Manny winked at Jules and grabbed Drew’s hips, lifting him to his knees so that his balls hung down between his legs and his cock angled up toward his belly.

Fascinated by Manny’s easy strength and the pure carnality of the scene, Jules slipped beneath Drew’s flat belly, took his cock in her hands, and angled him down to her mouth. This was something Andrew had insisted she do. She’d hated it. For whatever reason, she couldn’t wait to taste Drew. She wrapped her fingers around the thick base and licked the ruddy tip, tasted the salty-sweet drops of fluid coming from the dark slit, and decided it wasn’t bad at all. Then she sucked him deep into her mouth. She’d heard of women swallowing a man down, but that was going to have to wait for the next lesson. Instead, she concentrated on the last few inches of his erection and the smooth glans that filled her mouth.

She still had one free hand, and with that she cupped the wrinkled sac between his thighs, rolling the two round testicles carefully between her fingers. He groaned, and his hips jerked forward as Manny picked up the pace. She was glad she had her hand around the base of Drew’s erection, because she would have had to swallow a lot more of him than she was ready for.

His balls drew up close to his body, and she stretched her fingers between Drew’s legs to reach Manny. The moment her palm cupped his lightly furred sac, he let out a strangled cry and thrust his hips forward. Drew’s hips jerked. He tried to pull out of her mouth.

She held on to Drew, held on to Manny’s balls, and swallowed Drew’s release as fast as she could. And the one thing she wished was that someone, somewhere had thought to get film of this, proof that she was not nearly the prissy female Andrew had called her.

Then she wiped that thought from her mind. He was not going to show up and ruin the most amazing wake-up call she’d ever gotten in her life. Besides, she hadn’t done this to show Andrew anything. No, she’d done this entirely for herself.

Breakfast was a little late this morning, though from the satisfied looks on everyone’s faces, time obviously wasn’t an issue. Meg had slept really well. She’d fallen asleep missing Zach and awakened with him in her thoughts, but the big gray-and-black wolf with soulful brown eyes sleeping beside her had kept her from feeling lonely.

It was the weirdest thing, though, that when she’d wrapped her arms around the wolf and gone back to sleep for a little bit longer, she’d felt as if she were holding on to Trak. She had no idea why the beast reminded her of the man.

Think of the devil …

“Good morning, ladies. Do you have everything you need for your breakfast?

Elle slipped into her seat and glanced at everyone’s loaded plates. “I have to ask, Trak. Are we eating low-cal fried potatoes and nonfat bacon?” At his stricken look, she laughed. “Didn’t think so.” She loaded up her fork with part of her omelet. “That’s why this all tastes so good.”

“C’mon, Trak.” Meg was having trouble not laughing at the look of relief on his face once he realized Elle was teasing. “Do any of us look as if we worry about calories?”

“None of you looks as if you need to worry about calories.” Laughing at himself, he shook his head. “But before I step in it again, I wanted to let you know that the guys and I have a short business meeting this morning, so you’ll be on your own for about half an hour. Are you okay with that?”

“I think we can take care of ourselves for a bit.” Meg took a sip of her coffee and glanced at Dar. “You look like you’re really trying to get into trouble, Ms. Ahlers. What’s going on in that devious mind of yours?”

“Well …” Dar dragged out the word. “I wondered if we were allowed to gossip about the help while they’re off meeting somewhere.”

Trak winked at her. “Good gossip only. We’ll be at Growl, the bar you passed on the way in. It’s our unofficial clubhouse slash office. We try to meet weekly to go over the upcoming schedule, so if you need us for anything, just pick up the phone in the office and hit the red button. It’s a direct link to the bar.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I should be back by ten.”

“Sorry I’m late.” Trak stepped into Growl and headed for the coffeemaker behind the bar. The guys were all sitting at one of the large poker tables, but cards were the last thing on anyone’s mind. “The girls are having breakfast, and I told them how to get hold of us,” he said. “So what’s the status? Do they all know what we are? And if so, are we screwed, or is it going to be okay?”

He pulled out a chair and sat.

Tuck shrugged his big shoulders. “Elle knows. Yesterday, when we hiked up to Blackbird? Along the way, she heard a fawn in distress and insisted we stop to check on the sound. I really didn’t want to do it, figured if the thing was hurt badly and I had to put it down, it would ruin the week for the women.”

“So what’d you do?” Lawz sipped his coffee, and if Trak knew his brother, this was at least his fifth cup of the morning.

“I didn’t do a damned thing. Elle healed it. Said she’s got the same gift her grandmother had, and she just knelt down by that little fawn and knew by touch that it had a badly cracked left front radius. That’s the one in the lower part of the leg, in front of the ulna. Can’t leave an animal like that on its own in the wild, but she blew on it, and the critter relaxed, and then she cupped her hands around it, and I swear I could see light glowing between her hands. That’s what she was doing when you got there, Lawz. She’d told me she didn’t want anyone to see, but after about twenty or so minutes, she sat back and said it was fine.”

“Was it?” Trak wasn’t quite sure where this was leading, but …

“Damned right. Little guy got to his feet with help, but he put weight on it, and the mother came out of the woods to feed him. That’s when Elle told me to get back a ways, that the deer could pick up the smell of the wolf on me.”

“Shit. What’d you say?”

“I denied it, of course, but later, we talked, and I asked her why she thought I smelled like a wolf. She said that the wolf in her bed had reminded her of me, and when she hugged the wolf while she was falling asleep, she realized he smelled like me. Then she said that all of them are special in one way or another. Lawz, did you know that Dar can always tell when someone is lying?”

Lawz nodded. “Yep. Found that out the hard way. Tuck’s right. Dar knows, too, though I haven’t confirmed her suspicions.”

Trak groaned.

Tuck shot a quick grin his way. “Elle asked me not to say anything about her power and promised not to say anything about me turning into a wolf, though she did give me permission to tell you guys about it. I told her I couldn’t say anything about the other until I’d talked to …” He paused, sighed, and said, “She interrupted me, said she guessed I meant until I talked to Trak, since she’d already figured you were the pack alpha.”

“What the fuck? But how?” Now that was a first.

“She said she felt it, that there was a sense of leadership about you, and that it was obvious the rest of us deferred to you. I made some quip about it being impossible, and she just said that yeah, about as impossible as her healing cracked bones with her hands.”

Before Trak could come up with a response, Drew and Manny looked at one another and added, “Jules has us figured out, too. She doesn’t act like it’s any big deal, just that it’s who we are. I don’t get it. You’d expect most women to get all freaked out, afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.”

“Then they all know. I don’t know about Meg, but those girls share everything. She’s probably finding out now. Shit.” Trak buried his head in his hands. They’d never imagined anyone figuring them out. Not like this. They’d interacted with humans for years, had dated women, gone to school with them, worked with them, and to date, the only one to have guessed their long-kept secret had been Cherry, who had done it based on eye color.

They’d thought she was merely an anomaly, because she was just so damned smart, but obviously, a lot of women were too damned smart nowadays.

“Okay, next step,” Trak said. “Are any of you hoping to ask any of these women to be your mates?”

“Elle’s mine whether she knows it or not.” Tuck laughed at that. “She’s absolutely mine. I’m taking her with me on my rounds in town today, see how she likes it. She’d already asked if I needed an assistant, so I know she’s ready to move up here if I give the go-ahead.”

“What about you, Lawz? Do you think Dar’d be willing to give up her job in Portland?”

“I don’t know. I’ve dropped hints that I’d like for her to move to the area, see where things take us. I can ask her outright.”

“Okay. You’ve got time. Give it a couple of days, get to know her better. Manny? Drew? What about you two? Are either of you thinking long term with Jules?”

Manny glanced at Drew. “I have been. Not sure about Drew, and while we’ve been lovers off and on for years, not sure if he’s interested in a role as a co-husband.”

“Actually …” Drew blushed.

Blushed? Trak raised an eyebrow. “Drew?”

He glanced shyly toward Manny and then looked away. Manny stood so fast he knocked his chair back. “C’mon, Drew. We need to talk.”

Without even acknowledging the other guys in the room, Manny grabbed Drew’s hand and dragged him out of the bar.

Trak sat back in his chair while Evan righted the one that Manny had knocked over. “Well,” he said. “That was interesting.” He glanced toward the closed door. “My gut tells me that you need to come clean with your women, but impress upon them the importance of secrecy. At this point, that’s about the best advice I can offer, but if the four of you, and that’s including Manny and Drew, work this out, that leaves just Evan and me in search of women, and we’ve got three more weeks of guests before we shut down for the season.”

Lawz leaned back in his chair. “What are we gonna do with the place afterward? We’ve put in a really nice lodge, and we’ve made a killing on it in just this one year alone.”

“That we have. We’ll think of something. It’s too nice a facility not to use it.”

A car pulled up in front. Evan walked to the door to see who it was. “Hey, it’s Cain and Brad and Cherry. They’re back!”

“Thank goodness.” Trak shoved his chair back and stood. “Maybe Cherry’ll have some kind of idea on how to get us out of this mess.”

“Or maybe Cain will.”

Tuck winked at Trak, a not-so-subtle reminder to cut Cain some slack.

Trak smiled and nodded. “Reminder understood,” he said as his longtime nemesis walked into the bar.