Dani knew she didn’t have very long before Cole got free, and since her goal wasn’t to avoid him, she headed straight back to the cabin.

The entire race northward she fought the urge to dive into the nearest snowbank and roll like an excited cub. Everything had gone better than she had hoped. Her sister was happy and safe, and while she hadn’t so much as come out and said it, Dani was sure Amanda was either going to take back leadership of Kodiak Island, or she’d find the next best person.

Neither of whom were Dani, which was all she cared about.

Maybe that was a little selfish, but at the same time, she didn’t think so. The years while Amanda had been gone, Dani had done her share of helping their Nana. The old woman hadn’t been the nicest of mentors, which was probably why Dani had been so attracted when Charlene stepped into the picture.

Charlene, who expected her back in a mere three days.

Dani took a deep breath and sprinted at full speed north to the cabin. After her little tie-him-up trick, she was pretty sure Cole would be hard on her heels. She fully intended to be ready for him.

In fact, she made it into the cabin in good enough time to get the fire going, have a shower and gather a few things in case they got hungry after they finished their exertions. Because Dani intended on burning a whole lot of calories as soon as the gruff wolf arrived. Three days meant only two nights, and she was going to make the most of them.

The only thing she regretted—once again she’d had to dig into the tickle trunk for clothing. The options were getting worse, and the best she could come up with this time was an oversized flannel shirt, the tails hanging nearly to her knees.

She pulled an old National Geographic off the shelf and sat on the bed, quilt pulled around her as she waited for her wolf to arrive.

It was nearly seven p.m. before heavy footfalls smacked into the wooden boards outside the door. “It’s unlocked,” she called. “Don’t break it again.”

The door swung open slowly, and Cole stepped inside. Framed by the doorway, he was a picture of masculine perfection, naked.

Which just made that perfection all the more perfect.

She grabbed hold of a pillow and squeezed it in front of her, sighing happily. “You made it.”

He stepped forward, dark eyes glittering at her like daggers. “You have a very strange sense of humour, little girl.”

Uh-uh. None of that. “I thought we had agreed to stop it with the little-girl bullshit. I’m twenty-one, I have an international driver’s license, and I can climb the outside of just about any building.”

She pointed to the chair beside him where she’d tossed a pair of pants and a shirt for him.

He dragged them on. “I don’t know that’s a list of job skills you’d want to mention at your next interview.”

“Can you at least acknowledge the fact I’m a grown woman?” she demanded.

Cole plopped into the chair, leaving a whole lot of distance between him and the bed. Dani eyed the space sadly, but they probably couldn’t have sex nonstop for the next three days. Not without a whole lot of chafing.

“You’re a grownup.” He sounded a little defeated as he admitted it. She watched him carefully as he lifted his gaze to meet hers. “You said we met under the strangest of circumstances, and you’re right. We can put some of that behind us, although for the record? You want any of the equipment from the shop, you’re welcome to borrow it, but I appreciate being asked first.”

That was far more reasonable than expected. “Okay.”

Dani tossed aside the pillow and the quilt and wiggled to the edge of the bed. She plopped onto the floor and headed to the side where there was a pot of water waiting to be put on the stove.

She pulled out the chair kitty corner to him at the table and settled on it, curling her legs underneath herself. A strange awkwardness hung in the air she hadn’t expected. Not after those steamy kisses they’d shared. Not after he discovered that she hadn’t been lying about who she was.

You’re still lying about who you are, her bear pointed out.

Not completely, she insisted.

Cole reached forward and caught hold of her hand, and her heart skipped a beat. “We need to start again. But not completely, because I like what I’ve found out about you so far.”

He likes me. He really likes me. “Oh?” she asked as casually as possible.

Cole stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. “You’re brash and bold and sexy as sin. And determined—did you really track your sister to Whitehorse and then up to Chicken?”

Dani nodded.

He made a face. “This isn’t another poke at your age, but you seem awfully young to have those kind of skills. The tracking, and the scaling large buildings, and the breaking into secure office spaces and blocking security cameras.”

Oh boy. This conversation was coming a whole lot sooner than she had expected. “There wasn’t a lot to do on Kodiak Island except study.”

“Where did you find ninja training school on a remote island?” Cole asked softly. “Because you have a unique skill set, darling. And I’m a little confused.”

She was feeling confused as well, blood rushing through her as he continued to stroke her skin. That big, strong hand of his held her so gently, but the brushing back and forth was insistent and un-ignorable. He turned her hand over and rubbed against the inside of her wrist, and every single nerve in her body woke up and tingled.

She’d studied anatomy. She was sure there was no direct connection between her wrist and her clit, but at that moment she wouldn’t lay odds on it. “I can’t talk about it,” she confessed in a moment of weakness. “Kind of like you can’t talk about your ultimate destiny.”

Cole snorted. “Touché.”

He lifted her hand in the air so he could press his lips to the inside of her wrist. As if he’d triggered a bomb, something streaked up her arm and into her chest, heat expanding as he kissed and then licked and then put his teeth to her skin and nibbled.

“Cole?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Since there’s a bunch of things you can’t talk about, and there’s a bunch of things that I can’t talk about?”

He tugged her closer, working his way up her arm to the inside of her elbow. “Uh-huh?

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk. Maybe we should just—you know.”

He caught her by the hips and lifted her into the air as if she weighed nothing. He lowered her to his lap, dropping her arm over his shoulder as he dragged a finger down the side of her throat and along the V-opening of her shirt. “You think we should you know…? Well, that’s pretty open to interpretation.”

Dani was suddenly tongue-tied. She’d never been reluctant to talk about sex before, but now it seemed nearly impossible to get the words out. “I want to…”

He undid her top button, stroking his fingers back and forth over the top swells of her bare breasts.

Oh boy. Dani swallowed hard. “I need to have you…”

Cole undid another button, his gaze fixed on her body. “I need to have you too.”

The words whispered from him as if they’d been dragged reluctantly, but at that point she didn’t care because he’d undone another button. Enough to push aside the fabric so it fell off one shoulder, exposing her breasts. His fingers caressed in a slow figure eight, around the outside of one breast then the other, slowly closing in on nipples that had tightened into sharp peaks.

He pushed the shirt the rest of the way off her shoulders, and it pooled around her waist, a pile of fabric warmed by her body, barely covering her hips and pussy.

“So beautiful,” he murmured, touching her with reverence.

Dani was kicking herself for having provided him with a shirt. “You need to get naked,” she whispered.

“Later,” he promised, and it was a promise. She could tell from the tone and the heavy need that rumbled up from his chest. But it wasn’t something she could lock him down on because he was adjusting her in his lap, lifting her so her breasts were in line with his head.

The smile on his face was very gratifying.

Dani stroked her fingers through his thick hair as he brought her closer and wrapped his lips around a nipple. Moist heat enveloped her, and when he sucked, pleasure tugged from her breast to deep inside her core.

He nipped, and her fingers tightened involuntarily, pulling at his hair. Cole growled, a fierce sexy sound, and something inside Dani melted. “I like that,” she admitted. “I like everything about what you’re doing.”

Cole sucked extra hard for second before pulling off, her breast escaping with a pop. “Good. Because I don’t intend to stop any time soon.”

Talk about best-laid plans. While Cole had totally intended on coming back and dealing with Dani, including having sex, he hadn’t expected for them to fall into bed.

Stop thinking. Keep doing, his wolf ordered.

Okay, so the beast was right. There were some things that were simply natural for shifters, and wanting to get down and dirty with their mate was at the top of that list.

Didn’t mean that’s what he should be doing, considering everything else they needed to talk about. But no, the whole “hey, by the way there’s a prophecy laid on me that as soon as I find my mate we’re supposed to take off and head north, possibly for the rest of our lives” didn’t seem the thing he should be tossing unexpectedly at someone who was basically a princess.

The kicker was he had no way of stopping this from going forward. Facts were facts. They were mates. They would be mated. And the prophecy would roll forward, with or without their cooperation.

She had to go with him, and that was the part that was threatening to tear him apart. Now that he found her, now that he’d had a little time to deal with the fact that she was young—he didn’t want to let her go. But he didn’t want her forced into anything. At least he’d had years to get used to the idea of being under the ultimate control of the universe.

How pissed off was she going to be that her future was not hers to decide?

That was one reason why he was avoiding the conversation they had to have. Or maybe he was holding off talking because she was the sexiest woman he had ever seen in his life, bar none. Partly his wolf talking, perfection in his mate was a beautiful, glorious present from the mating gods, but it was true.

Now, with her in his lap, once again settled against the rigid rock that his erection had turned into, she was all softness and sweet-tasting skin. He licked up and around one of her breasts, savouring her moan of pleasure. A far better music than what had been pounding in the background earlier that afternoon as she’d tied him up.

She’d tied him up. Cole chuckled. Damn, she was good.

But him—he was good as well. In fact, he planned on being downright brilliant when it came to driving his mate mad with pleasure.

He stood, moving toward the bed with her in his arms. He adjusted his grasp so the fabric that had been tangled around her waist slid over her smooth hips all the way to the floor, leaving her naked. Cole lowered her to the mattress, following after. Covering her with his body as he took her lips again.

Sweet seduction responded as she played back using her lips and teeth.

Dani curled her fists into the fabric of his shirt and tugged. “Off,” she demanded.

It was bad enough she’d taken her lips from his, but she was right. They didn’t need any more interruptions, and clothes were definitely going to get in his way. He pulled back far enough to reach over his head and jerk the shirt forward, stripping it over his head. Her hands were on his hips, pushing at the top of his pants, so he rolled to one side and shoved them off, shaking his ankles until the fabric flew through the air to land on the floor.

Then he was back over her, slowly lowering himself, inch by delicious inch as their skin made contact. Scalding hot—not just skin, but some kind of other connection igniting between each part as they touched.

His chest and her breasts. Their bellies. Their hips, her thighs sliding open as his cock nestled happily against the heat of her sex.

Dani lifted her legs and wrapped them around his hips, and as he put their lips back together, Cole rocked. Just an inch or two, but enough that her wetness coated his cock.

The shivering began in his forearms, travelling up his biceps as he held himself at a point of being barely in contact. He fought to not crush her under him, to not drive his hips forward and bury his entire length with one thrust.

Dani cupped his face with her hands, her lips sweetly moving against his. Dancing princess kisses over his face while he thought filthy thoughts.

He tightened his control. He nipped at her lower lip, then savoured the little gasp that escaped her. “I’m going to eat you up,” he warned. “I’m going to lick you, and taste you, and bite you everywhere until you come so hard you can’t move. I’m going to make you mine in every way possible. Yes?”

He dragged his teeth down her neck, resisting the temptation to snap.

She arched under him, pressing herself closer as if begging for it. “Yes.”

So he did. Kissing her body, along her collarbone. He stopped at her breasts again because they were impossible to resist. He cupped a hand around her rib cage, trickling his fingers to her belly button. As he moved his kisses lower, his hand forged ahead, sliding between her legs—God, those legs—to torment her. Fingers sliding through wetness, one side, then the other. A slow circle around her clit without ever touching the hard nub.

She’d buried her fingers in his hair and was trying to tug him lower.

Cole stabbed his tongue into her belly button and laughed.

Dani cursed. “Tease.”

He slipped a finger into her, moisture easing his way. “I’m in charge, but I promise you’ll like it.”

She moaned, the sound increasing in volume when he slid in farther, curling his fingertip against the front of her sex. He pulled back and she protested, but when he went to add a second finger Cole hesitated.

She was tight. Very, very tight, and even with how wet she was, she tensed as he slowly pushed the wider girth of two fingers into her.

Cole kissed the top of her mound, slipping his fingers into his mouth to get them extra wet in case he was mistaken, but again as he pressed in, she squirmed in discomfort.

His fingers were wrapped by her body like a too tight glove. He dropped his forehead to her belly and took a deep breath before lifting up and waiting until she met his gaze. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”

She bit her lower lip then tried for light and perky. “I’ve had lots of orgasms.”

“On your own.” He slowly slid his fingers out.

“Please don’t stop,” she begged, curling up and catching hold of his hand, trapping it between her thighs. “I want this. I want you.”

He wanted her too, and he was going to have her, but this meant rutting like an animal was really out of the question. He struggled for control, focusing on giving her what she needed. “I promised you an orgasm. You’re going to get it.”

Her fingers relaxed, tension draining away as she stroked his hair. The heat in her eyes scalded him, and he adjusted position, pressing her legs farther apart as he settled between them. Then he tore his gaze from her begging plea and turned his gaze downward.

Pretty curls covered her sex, and he moved slowly, stroking them apart with his fingers. The heady scent of his aroused mate tangled him up as tightly as the duct tape had hours earlier.

Cole traced his tongue over her sex. Up one side, pause, a solid lick over her clit, using the roughest part of his tongue he could and enough pressure that her hips wiggled. He placed his fingers over her hipbones and pressed her to the mattress. Then he did it all over again. A tease, a hesitation, a firm stroke to put the taste of her into him so he would never forget, never get her out of his system.

He didn’t want her gone. He wanted to soak in her. To roll in her and cover himself with her scent until she was him, and he was her, and the two of them had created their own unique combination so everybody who met them knew that she was taken.

Mine. Urgency grew rapidly.

A low moan drifted from her, higher now and then quieter, staccato gasps as he lapped three times rapidly. But as he played with her pretty pussy, tongue stroking over and over, he carefully replaced his fingers. Only to the first knuckle, over and over until her body softened and he could stretch her.

The torment of going so slow—if he were a younger wolf he wouldn’t have been able to stand the demands. As it was, he was pushed to the limit, but seeing Dani in immense pleasure was worth it.

A slick of sweat formed on her skin. She cupped her own breasts and he reached up to help. Pinching a nipple between thumb and forefinger, he multitasked with licks and thrusts, and enjoyed the sounds escaping her lips as he drove her closer and closer to the limit.

Pushed her until she toppled over, a cry of pleasure from her lips shooting through him as if she’d speared him. The sweet heat of her body pulsed around his fingers, her hips rising against his mouth as he doubled down. Forcing pleasure upon her. More, and more, until she was not only moaning but screaming. His name. Swear words. His name again, louder this time.

Cole played until the aftershocks refused to come, which meant a long, long time, because every additional lick, every slow movement of his fingers made her rise up and damn near levitate off the mattress. His control was a thin line, growing weaker, but he held on. Somehow. Not for much longer.

“Oh. My. God.” Dani breathed out long and hard, reaching for him and tugging at his shoulders as if she wanted to pull him over her. And he wanted that, damn he wanted that but—

He gave in for one second, covering her again so their bodies were all but intimately connected. Taking her lips in a kiss that feverishly attempted to meet his unmet needs. She tried to tangle her legs around his hips again. Tried to pull them together, but he resisted.

Slowing her, easing her. Stroking his hand along the side of her face, and then her neck. Down her torso until she was soft under him, nearly purring as he petted her.

He pressed one final kiss to her lips. One to the tip of her nose. She giggled, squirming as he lifted up to kiss the center of her forehead and then, before she could protest, he rolled off. Limit reached. The animal crying for release, while the man held it together with barely restrained power.

She stared after him, confusion slowly working through her haze of pleasure. “Where’re you going?”

He forced his feet to keep moving. “I’ll be back. Need fresh air.”

Silence for a second. “What?”

What he was doing was getting himself some room. Room to breathe, because she was his mate, and yes, she was an adult. She also wasn’t ready for him. Not for how much he needed her, and with his control teetering on the edge, this wasn’t the time to explain.

He pushed through the door and into the falling snow, stepping forward even as she crawled out of bed to follow him. He shifted in mid-run, managing to keep from tangling his feet together as he switched from two to four limbs on the ground.

Cole ran.

He wasn’t running from her, he was running so he could come back. So he could be who she needed him to be, not some wild creature who would take her without thought or care, but who could take her like a mate. As someone who thought she was the most important thing in his life, and the most precious thing.

She needed to be protected and cared for and all the things he was completely incapable of doing at that moment because wild need had caught hold of him and the beast was in control more than the man.

He raced into the snow.

Somewhere out there was his control, and until he found it, Dani would have to wait.