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The idea that he might
ever have guessed Holly had a crush on him mortified her, because she knew that
wasn’t a big girl’s place, drooling over men as panty-wetting sexy as Dustin
Berg. So long as she never let on, so long as she came off as though she had
zero libido, she could avoid the agonizing awkwardness of Dustin realizing she
was attracted to him. Some men could be downright cruel when a curvy girl
presumed to flirt or even entertain a secret crush. Not Dustin, she suspected,
but still….

Dustin, as though
sensing Holly’s building skittishness, straightened over her. God, those
shoulders, even under the layer of heavy black leather. He maintained a
powerful, looming presence still, just not quite so close. “Things only they
could see,” he repeated, pausing. “That’s a good way to put it. Maybe you
should bring him next time you run in the park. We could—.”

“I’m not keeping him,”
Holly blurted, panicked at the thought of Dustin seeing her in workout clothes.

Whenever she ran into
him on the trails, she always slowed down to a smooth walk and pretended to
check her pulse.
No jiggling in front of
Dustin Berg, please
. It was a thought that almost made Holly laugh out loud
at herself. But then a deep glumness set in again in Holly’s chest, as she
realized she’d cut him off when it had sounded like he was suggesting they do
something together. As she realized she had freaked out at the idea and had
shoved the possibility away as hard as she could. No wonder she was single,
between mooning over men like Berg and running away like a scared little girl
at the first hint someone might ask her out. Not that Dustin had been intending
to….

Holly frowned. “I mean,
he’s not my dog. He’s a stray, just huddled on the sidewalk.”

“You could keep him,
then. Copper Ridge is really good with their pet policy. But you don’t want
to?” Dustin was still petting the scruffy rump of the pup, who had finally
settled with his head nestled up under Holly’s full breasts. She tried not to
be offended by the dog’s utilitarian attitude to something as personal as her
chest or to let Dustin’s vaguely disappointed tone make her feel guilty.

“I work,” she said. “A
lot. There’s no one at home.”

There wouldn’t have
been anyone to take care of a pet if something happened to Holly, something
like the attack a few months back, if it had been worse. Just like there hadn’t
been anyone for Holly when her mother had died ten years before. No one to know
Mom wasn’t where she was supposed to be, except a daughter who didn’t want to
call for help after she’d seen ambulances take her grandparents away and never
bring them back, and after police had taken Dad away and never brought him
back, either. The idea of the runty little husky waiting by the door and no one
ever coming home to him, because there wasn’t anyone but Holly and no one to
know, made her queasy in the way only the smell of musty cardboard and bad
memories could.

“So what are you going
to do with him?” Dustin asked, rousing Holly from her private thoughts. She
started to answer, but she could only shrug, at a loss. “Here,” he said,
gathering the dog into his arms after a brief struggle with four gangly legs and
a stiff tail. “I’ve got a friend who works in a vet’s office. She can check to
see if he’s got a chip. If not, well, they get nothing but animal lovers in
their offices all day. Someone will want him.”

Holly stiffened like
the pup, robbed of his warm nook. “It’s not that I don’t want…. It’s just….”
Then, little by little, her shoulders sagged back down. “There’s no one at
home.”

“Yeah,” Dustin breathed
low, peering appraisingly at Holly, as though he suspected there was more
context at work in the statement than was immediately apparent. “Well, if you
change your mind, I’m sure she can keep him around at the office for at least a
couple of days.”

“Yeah, okay, great.
Thank her for me,” Holly said. Then she pulled her overcoat tight, despite it
being about a half-size too small, and folded her arms and braved the wind back
to her car. Without buying her groceries. She kept thinking of that little girl
and Dustin’s reaction to Holly not wanting—not letting herself want—to keep the
pup and wondering dismally whether Berg’s “friend” at the vet’s office was
another way of saying girlfriend.

CHAPTER
TWO

“Looks like she’s not
inviting us home to dinner anytime soon,” Dustin told the ratty pup in his arms
as they both watched Holly fleeing across the parking lot. “Fine by me,” he
added, grimacing, not meaning it half as much as he wished he did.

Had the pack not
assigned him to watch her, Dustin would have stayed as far away from Holly
Parker as humanly and inhumanly possible. She was too curvy, too luscious, too
infuriatingly aloof, too much of a challenge for the wolf inside him. And she
was damn near too much for the tenuous remains of his self-control.
She smelled
, for
chrissake
.
Not only like she was wolfkin but of wild lavender and cedar, like she’d been
rolling naked in it. And the images that went along with that fucking thought!

Breathe,
two, three, four
. Berg automatically defaulted to the
meditative breathing technique he’d been practicing the last few weeks, as the
hunger to turn and to hunt and to mate had gotten worse. The
wilding
was getting worse, getting
closer, claiming a little more of his humanity with each turn and clawing at
him when he refused to shift. Hours of meditating, miles of running, adding
pounds by the dozens to the weights at the gym all just maintained the status
quo, the constant simmer of hunger and the low growl of the wolf just waiting.
Volunteering to work in town, away from the pack, to scout varg leads and keep
an eye on Holly or others like her…. Well, it just wasn’t helping the way he
thought it would.
Breathe, two, three,
four
.

And no matter how much
he tried, whenever she was anywhere around him, Dustin couldn’t take his eyes
off Holly. Walking, getting into her car, she held her shoulders back so stiff
and straight, as though that was going to keep those curves of hers from
rolling and swaying seductively, temptingly. He sized her up like the predator
he was, more so day by day.

They were playing the
same game, Dustin and Holly, but only he acknowledged it. She really seemed to
think that coming off cool and unimpressed was going to fool him into believing
she wasn’t attracted to him, but her pussy wet itself for him whenever they
were together, whenever she was within reach. He could smell that, too. And
that made the wolf inside him rise up as wild and rampant as she made his cock.
Lucky for Dustin his black leather coat hit him just low enough on his thighs
to hide the demanding bulge.

For his part, Dustin
had tried not to flirt at all at first, then only as much as was necessary to
warm Holly up enough that she’d let him get a little closer to her, to her
life. Now, after eight months of living two buildings over from her and
watching the woman trying to pretend she wasn’t half as wild or passionate as
he knew her to be, the long stares and accidental caresses were the only
pressure valve he had to keep himself from putting her face-first against a
wall with her arms held above her head while he mounted her for all they were
worth.

Dustin growled under
his breath at that thought, his groin throbbing. The husky whined and looked up
at him, head tilted in question. “You wouldn’t understand. You’re too young.
And you’re a dog.”

No, there was no
special telepathic link,
canis
lupus to
familiaris
, wolf to dog, and the pup sure as hell didn’t
know English. So the husky, yawning and then licking his narrow muzzle, ignored
the wasted taunt and Dustin’s frustration.

The
were shook his head and turned toward the supermarket entrance. “I suppose
you’re going to get hungry before morning. Steak for me and kibble for you.
Let’s keep that straight.” Dustin carried the pup with him into the store. The
first clerk to notice started to say something about animals not being allowed,
but a steady stare, a growl so low and soft it didn’t really consciously
register with her, and a quick wink from Dustin ended the matter. If only Holly
was as easy to manage.

That thought stuck with
Dustin as he finished his shopping and headed back to the townhouses, north
side of town, the end with the money and the parks and all the woodsy
landscaping. It was the next best thing to actually living in one of the
national forests north and east of the city, where the arid inland valleys of
California gave way to the Sierra
Nevadas
, condos and
abnormally green golf courses disappearing in favor of rich red earth and loam,
trails and remote cabins.

All the photos on
Dustin’s mantle, above the environmentally friendly gas fireplace he never
used, showed him surrounded by giant redwoods. Not in that godforsaken
Eastville
trailer park at the base of the foothills, but
swimming at Shafts Lake with Ron when Dustin was just fifteen, or hiking with
Martin and Tate about twelve years back, right after he’d turned eighteen and
gained full status with the pack. Not a single picture included his jailbird
brothers or his drunkard redneck daddy. The pack brothers who’d taken him in at
fourteen, those were the only family he cared to acknowledge.

The sound of a plastic
garbage can being turned on its side in the kitchen reminded Dustin he had a
four-legged guest. “Steak for me and kibble for you,” he repeated as he scooped
the willful pup up out of the pile of trash it had strung across the tile floor.
The husky looked unrepentant with the clear wrap from the steak packaging
hanging out of its mouth. “Right, then, you look for something else to tear up
so I don’t feel half as bad about taking you to see Laura tomorrow at the
vet’s. Maybe we’ll even get you shots.” The pup reared back in Dustin’s arms
and kicked frantically to be set down, as though it understood that word. “And
I’ll get rid of this.” Dustin held up the trash bag and shook it at the puppy,
who retreated a few feet from the noise before forgetting what it was running
from and sitting down to scratch its ear instead.

Out on the front step,
pulling the door closed softly, Dustin paused and listened. A normal human
couldn’t have heard it, but he had, plenty of times. Sometimes he caught the strains
of blues singer Nina Simone or maybe Ella Fitzgerald playing on the stereo and
winding out from a cracked window in Holly’s townhouse. One time she was
humming along, a sound so sweet and wistful that he’d felt it not just in the
heat of his groin but as an ache deep in his chest and the back of his throat.
He understood that sound of longing, felt it every moment he was separated from
his pack—but he also knew what was going to happen if he didn’t keep his
distance.

On the way to the big
garbage bin by the mailboxes, Dustin passed Holly’s townhouse. Hers was the one
with all the lights on, the pale blue one. She looked so good, so soft, when
she wore light blue, Dustin thought to himself out of nowhere. Over the hedge
and the patio fence, he saw her sliding glass door was gaping a few inches. It
was cold outside for that, but honestly she burned food a lot. Girl was sexy as
hell and could not cook to save her life. No smell of burned pasta tonight,
though, and no music. Dustin shook his head at himself realizing he’d been
hoping to see her dancing by herself again in the living room with a glass of
wine, but better he didn’t. That night he had damn near hopped the patio fence.

Long, silky straight
brown hair, and light cinnamon brown eyes. Full round breasts and hips to
match. And that goddamn scent of lavender and cedar. Dustin could practically
smell her.

No practically about
it, he realized as he came around the corner of Holly’s townhouse and strode
directly into the voluptuous wolfkin.

“Oh, fuck.” Holly’s
eyes got big, and she put her hand over her mouth. For the language and the
trash bag split open on the paved walkway, she murmured, “Sorry.”

“
S’okay
.
You’re
kinda
cute when you cuss.” It was a struggle
for Dustin, groin instantly straining and burning, not to confess that he just
plain liked the way she sounded when she spoke
before
she thought, without filtering, unguarded. He wanted to hear
her say it again while she was underneath him, along with a lengthy selection
of other delectable syllables women only tended to say when they were about to
be overcome by an orgasm. And then to feel her nails in his back and hear her
growl….

Dustin’s carnal revelry
subsided when he recognized the quiver that passed over Holly’s plush lips, the
slight shiver along her shoulders. She was wearing just a blue, zipper-front
track suit, no coat, hair loose, probably coming back from the bin herself, but
it wasn’t the kind of shudder that came from being cold.

“You okay, lupa?”

She wasn’t looking at
him, head down. “Yeah, I’m just….” Then she raised her face, her bright honey
brown eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”

More than he should
have. “What’s wrong, Holly? Bad day?”

Whatever was really
bothering her, she shrugged it off. “Long day.”

Long life, her tone
said. “Yeah, I know.” And he did. Dustin knew all about Holly’s background,
from growing up with a father who thought drinking and armed robbery qualified
as vocations, to losing her grandparents and her mother before she was even a
teenager. He knew about the were attack—the varg attack—almost a year before
and that fact that she was very likely working for an Agency cell, considering
the people who had approached her soon after that bullshit report she’d filed
with the police. No mention at all of the fact that the man who had “mugged”
her in that parking lot on her way home had been a shifter. But Dustin and pack
leaders Ron and Eric had seen the hospital file and the photographs of the bite
wound on her left shoulder. “I know,” he said again, but he couldn’t convey to
her how true it was, how sincere.