Last Wolf Standing (17 page)

Reaching out to take the shirt from him, Torrance grinned at his teasing comment and turned toward the bathroom, only to spin back around, and the question just fell from her lips, surprising her as much as him. “What does it mean, being a life mate?”

He paused in the act of pulling off his T-shirt, a stunned look in his dark eyes. “Where did you hear that?”

She lifted her brows at his disgruntled tone. “Where do you think?”

His breath made a soft, whistling sound through his teeth as he pulled the shirt over his head. “Jesus. I need to muzzle that jackass.”

“Don’t you think you should have told me?” she asked, trying not to drool over the sight of his naked chest—but damn. He was, without a doubt, the most breathtaking thing she’d ever seen. Harshly, ruggedly beautiful, his body reminded her of an ancient Celtic warrior, scarred and bronzed, rippling with muscles and power, formidable in size and strength. He simply stole her breath.

“I was going to tell you,” he said through gritted teeth, looking adorably irritated…and maybe even a little bit embarrassed. He lifted one arm to rub at the back of his neck, muscles bunching, and her mouth went dry, while a hazy, sumptuous swirl of desire poured through her belly and limbs, making her all quivery and warm. She was melting inside, like taffy left out in the scorching heat of the noonday sun. “But I’m still trying to figure out how to explain it.”

He sounded nervous, which made her want to smile. “Can you at least try? I mean, what are we supposed to do? What happens to us? Is it just based on a physical attraction or is it more than that?” She paused, working up the courage, then softly asked, “Are we meant to fall in love eventually?”

“We stay together, forever. Get married, have a family. But it’s a chemical thing. Metaphysical. Whatever you want to call it,” he muttered, blowing out a harsh breath, clearly uneasy with the conversation as he emptied his pockets, dumping the contents on top of his dresser before sitting down on the side of the bed. “Love has nothing to do with it, which is just as well, since I’m not wired for it, anyway.”

Torrance didn’t understand why those words held such destructive force for her, but they did, slamming into her stomach with a heavy weight of disappointment. “Right,” she murmured, pulling her gaze away from him. “I guess I should have expected that from a guy like you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that we’re strangers thrown together because our bodies like each other,” she offered with a small shrug, wishing she’d never started the conversation. She’d have been better off not knowing. “I don’t know why I thought it would get…emotional. Just forget I said it, okay?”

“Not likely,” he grunted under his breath.

She ignored that, and though she meant to turn around and get the hell out of there, she heard herself say, “So it’s supposed to affect both of us?”

“Are you trying to say you don’t feel it?” he snorted, the rude sound grating on her last nerve.

“No.” She sighed, wondering why these things kept flying out of her mouth and at the same time trying to ignore the effect of his half-naked bod on her pulse rate. She was trying like hell not to ogle him, but it wasn’t easy. “I’m just saying that if it’s a Lycan thing, why is it affecting me? I’m not a…”

“Monster?” he supplied, the cut of his mouth grim as she jerked her gaze back to his. He looked hard. A little angry. Vulnerable? Which made no sense, since he had all the power here. Didn’t he?

“I wasn’t going to say that,” she whispered, hating the vicious tangle of emotions winding her into knots.

“Just because you’re human doesn’t give you an escape route,” he said, turning his attention to unlacing his boots. “Believe it or not, we’re more the same than we’re different. The same way it hits me, it hits you. You just don’t know how to read the signs as well. Your sense of smell isn’t as sensitive or highly developed. But, you’re still going to feel the effects, Torrance. And the longer you fight it, the more you’ll suffer.”

Yeah, she could believe that. She was suffering right now—breathtaking swells of desire rolling through her, sizzling and sharp. With wide, avid eyes Torrance gave in and moved her greedy stare down the strong column of his throat, across the broad, beautiful expanse of his chest. Oh, man, talk about a delicious visual exploration. She felt like a glutton seated at a Roman banquet. Her gaze kept going, discovering the rugged scars that slashed across the dark perfection of his skin, hating that he’d been hurt, the pain that he’d suffered…but profoundly proud of the signs of his courage and valor. He led the hard, brutal life of a warrior, and yet, he could be tender, too, and the combination was devastating to her senses.

“So…when you…I mean…” she stammered awkwardly, until she finally just made herself say, “Do you…have sex…like…”

He choked back a coarse laugh under his breath, his broad shoulders shaking. “Like normal people?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” She frowned, her frustration mounting as she lifted her gaze from his chest to glare at him. “Stop putting words in my mouth.”

He held her stare for a moment, looking as if he was carrying on an internal debate, then finally said, “Sex can be dangerous, which is why a Lycan has to learn control. It’s hardest for a pure-blood. Their beasts are more…feral. Less easily managed. Not a problem when sleeping with another wolf, but it can be tricky with a human partner. If he’s too rough and she bleeds, the beast can awaken…and bad things can happen. So, you learn to control it.”

“How did you learn to control yourself?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

“My older brother and my dad,” he rumbled with a low laugh, as if he were recalling a funny memory. “I swear they lectured me until I thought my head would explode, but I listened.”

He slipped off the boots, bent to pull off his socks, then turned his head to stare at her through the thick fringe of his dark lashes, a reddish brown hank of hair falling over his forehead. She wanted to walk over to him, reach out and brush it back, just so she could touch him. “Have you ever had trouble controlling—”

“Naw, I’m a half-breed, remember?” he cut in. “I have better control than most Lycans.”

Control. Right. Torrance figured she could probably use some of that at the moment, since her gaze had fallen back to the mouthwatering territory of his six-pack abs. She licked her bottom lip, spellbound, unable to look away. Bombs could have started falling from the sky, a modern-day blitzkrieg in the mountains, and she’d have still stood right there. Heck, she probably wouldn’t have even flinched.

“Torrance.”

“Yeah?” she rasped, forcing herself to drag her focus back up to his face. She got there just in time to see the corner of his mouth twitch. “I’m trying to respect your no-sex policy here, but if I’m going to keep my hands off you, then you’ve gotta stop looking at me like that.”

“I’m trying,” she whispered honestly, making his shoulders shake with a quiet laugh, followed by a groan that was low and throaty…and sexy as hell. “I’ll just go, um, grab my shower.”

“You do that,” he grunted, falling back to the bed as he threw one perfectly muscled arm over his eyes…and she could have sworn she heard him chuckling as she hurried toward the bathroom.

Torrance opened her eyes to the moonlit darkness, a stifled scream burning in her throat—and found herself lost in warm, chocolate-brown, a stare so hot, so possessive, her breath caught with a little hitch.

“Why are you holding me?” she demanded hoarsely, aware that she was wrapped up in the unyielding strength of Mason’s arms.

“Damn it, don’t look at me like that,” he growled under his breath. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’ve been asleep for a few hours but started having a nightmare. When I tried to wake you up, you latched on to me. I wasn’t trying to grope you in your sleep.”

“Sorry,” she whispered, suddenly realizing that she had her nails imbedded in his biceps. His powerful arms, capable of so much strength, held her carefully, his hands stroking softly against her back in an offer of comfort.

“You okay?” he asked, his deep voice gentle with concern.

“I…I don’t know,” she answered honestly, shivering not from fear, but the slow burn of desire in those mesmerizing eyes. Uncomfortable with precisely how comfortable she felt in his arms, she tried to move, shifting away from his body, but he tightened his hold and kept her in place.

“Shh…” he whispered, “don’t pull away from me, Tor. I won’t hurt you.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” she said thickly. “It’s just an automatic response. The dream…” She closed her eyes, remembering the horror of her nightmare—Simmons’s heavy weight holding her trapped, his meaty breath in her face—and her lashes grew damp with silent tears.

“Don’t cry, baby,” Mason groaned, the words rough as he pressed the warmth of his mouth against the corner of her eye, kissing away the tears. “These nightmares of yours, will you tell me why you have them?”

“Why do you want to know?”

He tipped her chin up with the edge of his fist in time for her to see the deep look of tenderness that melted into his eyes. “Because I want to know you. Understand where you’re coming from.”

“I don’t think it’s from any one event, just a bunch of things all thrown together,” she finally told him after a still moment of silence. “My mom had this thing about dragging her little girl off to gruesome horror movies so that she wouldn’t have to go alone, whenever she was in between boyfriends, which was often. All she had to do was flash a smile, and they would let her take me in with her. I started getting easily frightened, and a few of her boyfriends thought it was funny. They got a kick out of trying to scare me. One of them even went so far as to make clawing sounds on my door at night, growling and snarling and making these eerie howling noises. He’d think it was hilarious when I freaked out, and my mom would yell at him. But she never kicked him out for it.”

“These boyfriends,” he rasped, a savage look of fury etched into his features, “they didn’t…I mean none of them ever…”

She gave a little shake of her head. “No. Nothing like that. They just enjoyed scaring me. And I was so jumpy, it was easy to do. By the time I was a teenager, I thought having nightmares was just…normal.”

“I’d like to get my hands on them. Give ’em a taste of their own medicine.”

“Oh, man, I’d pay to see that.” A small bubble of laughter broke free from the tightness in her chest, and he smiled at her. And just like that, Torrance felt a hunger for him unlike anything she’d ever known. There was a distant voice in her head warning her that this wasn’t a smart move—but she didn’t want to listen. She didn’t want to hear any reasons why following through with this piercing urgency to get close to him wasn’t a good idea. Shoving that irritating voice into the back of her mind, Torrance slammed a door on it and gave herself up to the desire rushing through her veins.

Feeling as if she was falling into another dream—this one urgent and sweet and intense—Torrance pressed her palms flat against the firm, scorching-hot surface of his chest. His heartbeat vibrated beneath her touch, healthy and strong, while his ribs expanded with his slow, deep breaths. She flexed her fingers, enjoying his sharp intake of air, the way he went silent and still beneath her touch, savoring her effect on him, marveling at its existence. There was hardly any give at all to the resilient muscles under her trembling fingers, and her body hummed with pure feminine appreciation.

Pushing a wavy strand of hair back from her cheek, Mason cuddled the side of her face in his rough palm, a tremor shivering through his hand that made her breath catch. She lifted her gaze and absorbed the stark, masculine beauty of his features in the ethereal beams of moonlight spilling through the bedroom windows—from the sensual, evocative shape of his mouth and the high cut of his cheekbones, to the sexy creases that crinkled at the corners of those mesmerizing eyes.

His body rustled against the soft, sleep-warm sheets as he propped himself up on one forearm and stared down at her, his thick bicep bulging beneath his dark skin, her head cradled in the crook of his arm. “If you don’t want me to kiss you again,” he warned her in a silken, seductive rasp, rubbing his thumb along the edge of her jaw, “then you need to tell me now, baby.”

Torrance curved her hand around the back of his strong neck in answer, his skin hot to the touch, and with a deep, husky moan, his mouth touched hers. Like a match set to gasoline, the attraction between them burst into an explosion of hunger and need.

Mason pressed her back against the bed, covering her with the decadent warmth of his upper body, his mouth hovering over hers, so close…so deliciously close, it made her writhe with the urgent hunger twisting beneath her skin. She wanted him so badly that she ached. Wanted more of his heat—more of the heady, beautiful taste of his mouth that made everything deep inside pull tight…tighter. It was too much—and not nearly enough.

“More,” she moaned, blinking in surprise at the breathy demand as it spilled past her lips, urgently aware of the impossibly hard, thick erection pressing against her thigh, the thin cotton boxer shorts he wore all that separated her skin from his.

He lowered his head and his low laugh rumbled against her cotton-covered nipple, sexy and rugged—full of pure raw, male desire. “Don’t rush me, Tor. I want to take my time savoring you,” he whispered, exploring her ribs as he pushed the shirt out of his way, stroking a thumb over the velvety indentation of her navel.