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  Ainsley had always been shy about her body, but somehow she didn’t care tonight. She could tell by the way he was drinking in the sight of her that Julian was not disappointed.

  “Beautiful girl…”

  Her whole body responded with a wave of desire. As he took of his Breitling and unbuttoned his shirt, her wolf tilted up its head and howled in frustration. Ainsley caught her breath but managed to stay in the moment.

  Julian was gorgeous. He had a ballet dancer’s physique- thin but powerful and lightly muscled. She stepped toward him and he froze as she traced her fingers across his chest and nuzzled his tiny nipples. When she caught one in her teeth and caressed the tip with her tongue he let his head fall backward in pleasure. Then he wrapped a hand in her hair and pulled her away.

  “Easy,” he said, as he unbuckled his belt and let his pants drop to the floor, then pushed her into the bed on her back.

  She lay back, praying for control, as her wolf threw itself at the bars, and Julian turned off the overhead light and removed his socks, underwear and shirt and placed all his clothing on the chair in the corner. He left on the lamp by the dresser.

  In the dim backlight, his silhouette looked timeless and youthful. She could see his cheeks swell as he smiled down at her and she couldn’t help smiling back.

  He fell to the bed, pushing her thighs apart and crawling up between them. He fed on her neck for a moment, then her mouth again, licking and sucking her tongue until she could barely breathe.

  His hand found a breast and plumped and kneaded gently. She arched into him and he let the pad of his thumb graze her nipple. Again, her hips bucked up against him. She could feel the length of his hard cock against her belly. Her insides clenched pleasurably.

  He pulled away from her mouth only to descend upon her breasts again. Ainsley bucked her hips against him urgently, growing impatient. He pulled back and smiled, then he drew a trail of light kisses lower, right to the edge of her lace panties.

  He slid his hands under her hips and pulled her to his mouth. She could feel his breath through the soft cotton. She was so wet she was sure he could taste her through it.

  “Oh my poor darling,” he whispered.

  She bit her lip to stop herself from begging him for satisfaction.

  He traced one long finger along her center and she was sure he could feel her open for him. He traced it again. And again. She could hardly contain herself. He dropped his head to mouth her through the fabric and she cried out frantically.

  He cursed softly, hooked his fingers under the lace band and slid off the last vestige of her clothing. Ainsley lay beneath him panting. She didn’t know what he would do next and she didn’t care, so long as he touched her again right away.

  Julian didn’t disappoint her. He pushed her thighs apart and studied her glistening pussy with ravenous eyes.

  All the better to see you with, my dear.

  One long finger traced a line down her and she could feel herself swelling and opening. He leaned forward, placed a hand on each thigh, and traced the same line with his tongue.

  Ainsley lost track of her own sounds. Julian caressed her with his tongue softly and slowly. He moved to her clitoris until her moans grew desperate, then he abandoned it to slide up and down soothingly.

  Ainsley tossed her hair against the pillows and tried to lift her hips up to meet his infuriating tongue. Her wolf was slavering and snapping behind the bars.

  Suddenly she felt one long finger enter her. Her pussy clenched around it convulsively and she tried to move her hips again for friction. Again his arm across her hips thwarted her and she moaned in despair as he eased his finger in and out unhurriedly.

  “Such a good girl, Ainsley,” he cooed approvingly. “Do you want to come for me now?”

  “Yes!”

  “I think we can arrange that,” he whispered.

  Suddenly his mouth was on her again, suckling and tugging on her clit as his finger hooked a spot inside her she hadn’t felt before. The pleasure was blinding. Ainsley’s whole body went taut.

  Please don’t stop, please don’t stop, please don’t stop.

  She knew the moment before the orgasm took her that she was coming and nothing could prevent it. As the devastating convulsions wrapped her in their endless embrace she felt ecstasy and finally a woozy relief.

  Before the last wave of pleasure had left her Julian was tracing a path of hot kisses up her chest and taking her mouth in his. She could taste herself on him. Just as she began to explore his mouth he pushed her legs apart impatiently and nudged the tip of his cock against her drenched opening.

  She opened her eyes and saw he was looking at her with a desire that was almost pain. She tilted herself up to him and he eased himself into her with a groan.

  Once inside her he held her still for a long moment, then drew himself slowly out. Ainsley cried out at the emptiness and he growled and pushed in and out of her with hard, fast strokes. Her pussy clamped down on him and he grit his teeth and rubbed his thumb against her clitoris.

  Ainsley melted under him immediately again. He seemed to lose his resolve then and pounded into her mercilessly as she finished her second climax.

  Just as she was coming down she felt him swell inside her.

  “Ainsley,” he cried helplessly as he jetted and spurted inside her, grasping her hips and pushing himself in deep.

  When he was finished, Julian stayed inside her and rolled her over on top of him.

  “Thank you, Miss Connor,” he whispered. “That was almost as good as the Tolstoy debate.”

  She giggled. He stroked her back gently with his fingers. They both sighed.

  Ainsley wondered how she would get out of the sticky embrace and clean herself up without offending him.

  Sex was lovely in the moment but if you thought too much about all the bodily fluids it was not very nice.

  “You know,” he whispered. “I love cuddling but I’ll be happier when I have fresh linens for you to sleep in and I’m not so sweaty. Would you mind if I showered?”

  Ainsley smiled a genuine smile.

  “Me too,” she said. “Meet you back here in fifteen minutes?”

  “It’s a date.”

  She headed up to the second floor bathroom as he went to the first floor. By the time she was showered and back he had changed the sheets and had a fresh T-shirt laid out for her as well as a pair of Calvin Klein boxer briefs. She slipped into them and then into Julian’s arms. He wrapped a sheet around them.

  For a long time she lay against his chest, listening to his heart beat lazily.

  She was sure he didn’t actually expect her to stay the night. It was time to let him off the hook.

  “Julian, this was lovely, but I should probably head back now. I have a long day tomorrow. I’m sure you do too.”

  She waited for his weak argument, masking a secret relief. She didn’t get it.

  “That is a dreadful and unthinkable idea. Ainsley Connor, go to sleep immediately.”

  She was too tired to argue. She fell asleep with his hand softly grazing her back. Her last waking thought was to hope absently that she wouldn’t drool on his chest as she slept.

  Chapter 21

  At about 2:00 AM, she woke with her heart pounding.

  Sometimes this happened. It was her wolf. She had restrained it too much tonight. The wolf always liked to run in the night and now it was insistent.

  Ainsley eased herself out of Julian’s embrace and pulled a scented note card and pen from her purse.

  Thank you for a lovely evening, she wrote neatly. I’m sure we’ll see each other around town sometime. –Ainsley Connor

  It was a non-committal note but she didn’t want to show her hand too much. And besides, something about all this felt like it was too much, too fast.

  She slipped out of his T-shirt and shorts and put on her own things. Her poor dress. She was really going to have to go shopping tomorrow.

  She headed out into the woods at a s
wift walking pace. By the time she got close to home she was trotting. Once the wolf got going it liked a long, loping stride.

  Ainsley was a little worried about what that might look like if she bumped into anyone in town in the middle of the night. Though what anyone who wasn’t a wolf would be doing out at 2:00 AM in Tarker’s Hollow she could not begin to imagine.

  As she pulled out of the woods behind her parent’s house she immediately sensed that something wasn’t right.

  Then she saw it.

  The back door of the Connor house was wide open. Ainsley Connor did not leave doors open. A shiver went through her and her wolf’s hackles lifted.

  She slowed her pace and her inner wolf pricked up its ears and lifted its nose to the breeze.

  From inside the house, she heard a tremendous howl.

  Episode 2

  Chapter 1

  Ainsley sprinted across the open space between the woods and the back of her house, following the sound of the howl. Anger ripped through her body, bringing her wolf dangerously near the surface.

  Who would dare invade her family home in the middle of the night?

  The howl told her it must be a wolf. Given their obsession with lineage issues, maybe it was finally time for her to pull rank.

  Someone was going to be sorry.

  She bounded up the back steps two at a time and burst through the open kitchen door.

  A familiar smell hit her nostrils as her feet touched the linoleum floor. Before her eyes could adjust to the deeper darkness, she felt the presence of a wolf. She froze in her tracks and let her eyesight shift, the wolf’s form taking shape before her.

  The creature was enormous, even on all fours it was almost as tall as she was, and black as night. Heat radiated off its form in waves, along with an ineffable, spicy scent.

  Behind him a second wolf, nearly as large, had startled at her entrance. It crouched, chest near the floor, silvery paws splayed on the linoleum. The muscles in its legs coiled like steel springs, ready to launch the beast in her direction.

  Fuck.

  Ainsley’s breath caught in her lungs, her anger giving way to fear. Maybe this was a mistake. She had expected normal, dog-sized wolves. These must be something different. They made the dire wolves on Game of Thrones look like lap dogs.

  She wouldn’t get this big if she changed, would she?

  She locked eyes with the magnificent black wolf. Their amber depths enveloped her; they seemed almost familiar.

  Who was he?

  He blinked and stepped toward her. The gorgeous mantle of his ebony fur was almost hypnotic as it shone and winked in the moonlight filtering in the kitchen window.

  Before she could take a step backward, he began to change. In one fluid motion his hindquarters dropped, his neck lifted, paws and tail disappeared, and before her stood a man.

  A naked man.

  The dim light played off his chiseled body, accentuating the contours of each muscle. Though he was smaller than his wolf, he was enormous. Again, Ainsley’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes moved back to his.

  Fuck again.

  It was Erik.

  Erik Fucking Jensen.

  Erik Fucking Jensen in her house.

  “What the hell, Erik?”

  “Ainsley, thank god,” he took another step toward her. His expression was awash with relief.

  Ainsley’s whole body shook. Anger at the intrusion was layered with sudden arousal from the sight of his glorious naked form. Her wolf was very close to the surface. Just under her skin, ten thousand cells hummed and prickled dangerously.

  Erik’s eyes went from relieved to hungry in an instant. His lips parted. The golden haze began to form around him.

  She shook her head and tore her gaze from his to prevent calling his alpha. As she lowered her eyes they dragged over his stiffening cock, which was pointed at her like an arrow. She didn’t know they even made them that big.

  He lifted his nose in appreciation.

  Then he recoiled.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Had he smelled Julian on her? She froze.

  “Ainsley, Jesus. How could you?” He sounded utterly betrayed.

  She couldn’t respond. Her head was pounding. Her senses were still filled with his scent and his warmth.

  “You have one responsibility - to mate with a male from the pack. That’s IT. The whole town is full of good men, men who care about you. And you choose to fuck around with a goddamned human?”

  His words hit her hard. He wrung each one from his mouth bitterly.

  She bristled. She could understand why he would be upset if she was out chasing a husband. Maybe. But she was just a young woman, enjoying herself – it was none of his business. Why was he so upset?

  Oh god. Was he jealous?

  She sought his eyes again without thinking and found them burning in accusation and something else.

  Erik’s closeness and nakedness hit her again. His smell was intoxicating, and he was warm as the sun. His dark, too-long hair dripped with sweat. Again, she felt a primal pull and his skin began to glisten.

  Not again.

  Before Ainsley could tear herself away, the silver wolf was between them and the contact was broken.

  Erik snarled, but the silver wolf only butted its massive head against his shoulder and continued to pace.

  Ainsley shook the cobwebs out of her head.

  “Other than breaking into my house and nosing around in my personal life, what do you want?”

  Erik drew in his breath with a hiss.

  “We were going for a night run – just like you. We saw your door open. But there were no fresh tracks or strange scents. We thought something might have happened to you.”

  Oh.

  “Do all wolves run at night?”

  “That’s the first thing you’re worried about?”

  “I, I was never sure why I wanted to run at night.”

  He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

  “Ainsley, you really don’t know what’s going on here, do you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Cressida, check out upstairs, just in case.”

  The silver wolf growled and trotted away.

  Chapter 2

  Ainsley kept her gaze averted. She couldn’t afford to take any chances now that their chaperone was gone. It seemed she was developing a hair trigger with this alpha drawing thing.

  “May I?” Erik gestured to a box of her father’s old jeans on the table, waiting for GoodWill.

  Ainsley nodded and smiled to herself. When she heard the hiss of his zipper she looked up carefully.

  The jeans hung low on his hips. Her father’s physique had been quite different from Erik’s. She tried and failed to ignore his rigid abs, bulging biceps and the wide planes of his chest. There was something to be said for manual labor.

  “Tea?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “So what’s really going on? Please enlighten me. I don’t see how an inn and a highway are really going to change the way of life in a town as old as Tarker’s Hollow.”

  She busied herself washing out the old copper kettle.

  “Do you know how the pack works?”

  She shook her head and waited for him to get sarcastic.

  “Okay, well, the alpha is the leader,” he began softly. “He sorts out minor disagreements within the pack, monitors concealment within the greater community and plans the future of the pack. More importantly, though, he protects the pack.”

  “What do you mean protects?”

  “I mean he protects the pack – he has to be strong enough to fight off any threats.”

  Wow. She tried to picture her dad fighting anything more than a stack of books. There really was a lot about him she never knew.

  “Is that why Mr. MacGregor told me he wouldn’t be a good alpha?”

  “When did he tell you that?”

  Ainsley was instantly embarrassed.

  �
�When I was home for the funeral he came over to talk about buying the hardware store. He told me he was the beta and he asked me to stay here and choose an alpha…”

  Oh god, she couldn’t.

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him that I chose him.”

  Erik made a choking sound. Ainsley whipped around to see him hiding a smile behind his hand.

  “Did he..?”

  “Yes, he did,” she said crisply, turning on her heel.

  Erik began to laugh. It was genuine, without malice. Ainsley focused primly on filling the kettle.

  “Then what?”

  “He stopped it, thank god, I didn’t know what was happening. He told me that I’d have to mate for life for it to work and that my father had someone else in mind for me.”

  Shit. Double shit. Triple shit. Fuck.

  “Who was that?”

  She couldn’t admit that it was him.

  “What kind of tea do you want?”

  “Whatever you’re having. So who did your dad want you to choose?”

  “Erik, I don’t think it matters, seeing as I’m not going to do it.”

  “If it doesn’t matter, then tell me.”

  “Clive Warren,” she said before she could stop herself. She turned to see if he would believe her lie.

  “Clive Warren, really?” Erik looked disappointed. “I guess he’s a nice enough guy. He certainly is strong.” There was a faraway look in his eye.

  Ainsley almost felt guilty.

  “Yes, but it doesn’t matter how nice he is because I’m not going to,” she forced herself to say it, “mate with him. End of story.” She turned and reached for the mugs.

  He laughed again and the warmth of it was comforting.

  “Anyway, Ainsley, the beta assists the alpha and also keeps an archive of the pack’s history and bloodlines. He’s generally not an alpha-type.”

  “So pick someone else!”