She fumbled with the security chain and opened the door. “You can’t. I don’t even know what’s wrong with me.”
“I do.” Keith stepped through the door and kicked it shut with an absent gesture, his attention already focused entirely on her. He reached out a hand and held it a few inches away from her cheek. “The wolf is trying to escape.”
The desire to lay her cheek against his hand almost overwhelmed her, and she backed away from the door. “The moon won’t be full until this weekend.” Her legs hit the edge of the bed, and she sat, ignoring the yearning that flared within her.
“The moon forces the change,” he agreed, taking a step toward her. He dropped to his knees and slid his hands onto the bed on either side of her hips. “But the change doesn’t require the full moon. Until you learn control, strong emotions can bring her to the surface.”
“Oh.” The only strong emotion she felt at the moment involved finding out if his lower lip was as warm and soft as it looked. She realized she was staring, drew in a sharp breath and met his gaze. “What can you do?”
Keith closed his eyes, and in the next second, warmth surrounded her. Power built slowly in the room, an odd energy that tickled her skin and raised goose bumps on her arms. Something inside her reacted to it at once, and she leaned closer to him.
The energy wrapped around her, calming the tension in her belly. A small noise escaped her as she nestled her face in his neck and inhaled his scent, so different from her own and yet the same.
A soft tug of his hands brought her off the bed and into his lap. He slipped his fingers into her hair and held her face to his neck. “That’s right,” he whispered. “That’s right, Abigail. You can feel it, can’t you?”
She could feel him, and that was all that mattered. Abby arched against Keith and clutched his shirt, moaning her loss when he stopped murmuring in her ear. He was powerful, strong. She growled lightly and lifted her face to bite his jaw. I need you.
He stiffened, but didn’t pull away. He smoothed his hand over her hair and down her back. “You’re okay. You’re okay, Abigail.”
She panted against his skin for a moment, then froze. “Oh God.” What the hell am I doing? “God, I’m sorry.” She pushed away from his chest, her cheeks burning. “I’m sorry.”
Keith tugged her back. “Don’t undo everything I just did,” he ordered softly. “Relax. You need to relax.”
Even now, mortified by her own behavior, she wanted to sink her teeth into his skin again. She wanted to feel him inside her. “I need to get up, Keith. Really. I want—” She groaned and rested her forehead against his shoulder. “I need to get up.”
His breath feathered against her ear. “Don’t fight it, and it won’t overwhelm you. I can keep you safe.”
She didn’t doubt that. But if she gave in to the need tearing at her, she didn’t know what would happen. How far things would go.
Liar.
She knew. Even as her hands slid up his shoulders and into his hair, she knew. Her tongue snuck out to taste the hollow of his neck, and she moaned again and wiggled closer. “Yes,” she answered, though he hadn’t asked anything.
She kissed him.
At first he didn’t react. His hands stayed on her back, only tightening a little when her lips parted. She licked his bottom lip and went rigid when he stayed perfectly still. You’re an idiot, Abby. He obviously didn’t want to encourage her, and she’d both bitten and licked him in the space of a few minutes. She closed her eyes and sighed. “I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t.” It sounded hoarse, more growl than speech. His fingers skated up her back and plunged into her hair, and he tilted her head back. “Christ… Christ—”
Then he kissed her.
There was nothing hesitant or discouraging about the way he urged her mouth open and thrust his tongue inside to slide over hers. She shuddered and whimpered at the flood of sensation his touch unleashed. Under the civilized, acceptable veneer of passion, something in her thrilled at his loss of control.
He kissed her long enough to make her head spin and tore his mouth away with a low noise. He panted against her neck, his fingers still tangled in her hair, and she felt the power surrounding them. It felt right to be like this, straddling his legs with his hard c*ck grinding against her. To have his mouth on her neck, hovering over the vulnerable spot where her pulse beat erratically under her skin—
Keith pulled back, his expression pained. “You need to talk to Samantha.” He gripped her h*ps and lifted her as if she weighed nothing, depositing her back on the bed. “This—it can mean things you don’t understand. You need to talk to her first.”
She stared down at him, bereft, her body throbbing. “What kinds of things?”
He shook his head and rose to his feet. “I need to—” When he took a step back, she got the feeling he was fighting for the control to retreat. “I’ll go talk to Sam. She’ll explain.”
Abby watched in shocked silence as he turned and walked out, closing the door quietly behind him. After several minutes, she crossed to the door and slid the chain back into place. Her hands still shook, and she couldn’t quite wrap her brain around what she’d just done.
She’d been half a heartbeat from dropping her robe and begging him to f**k her. Not make love to her, not even have sex with her. Fuck her. Hard, claiming thrusts, maybe against the wall…
She banged her forehead against the door and groaned. She could have an orgasm by herself and take care of the sexual tension still twisting her, but it wouldn’t calm her need to feel Keith’s body wrapped around hers, solid and warm.
Oddly, though she felt even more nervous and out of sorts now than she had before, the painful energy had disappeared. In its place was a strange sort of satisfaction, as if the wolf inside was simply biding her time.
Keith slammed through the door to the bar and ignored the startled looks from the people spread out among the tables. He ignored Carl and his questioning eyebrow, ignored the beer Stacey held out as he passed, ignored everything except for Gavin and Sam, who were seated at their usual table on the slightly raised platform that would have served as a stage if anyone had ever performed there.
He stopped just short of the platform, his height putting him on eye level with the alpha pair. Sam tilted her head to the side and studied him. After a moment, she sighed and drained her beer. She brushed one hand over Gavin’s arm as she rose to her feet. “I suppose it can’t wait until tomorrow now, can it?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Gavin agreed, his expression bland. “Be safe, baby.”
Sam trailed her fingers up her husband’s arm and across the back of his neck as she moved around him. “Keith, you should go wait in the office, honey. Unless you really want to have this conversation with everyone in town watching.” Her gaze drifted past him, and Keith stiffened, sure that everyone in the room had just turned abruptly away to study their drinks.
It wouldn’t matter where they had the conversation. The gossip in the tiny town broke the sound barrier most days. Still, he shifted his gaze to Gavin’s, pleading silently with his alpha.
Gavin rose and glanced sternly around the bar. Then he nodded to Keith. “Let’s take a walk.”
Keith followed him outside. Gavin spent a few seconds studying the sky and started toward the center of town. “What’s the problem?”
He made a frustrated noise, hating Gavin a little for forcing him to speak the words when they both knew what was wrong. “I can’t handle it. You need to get another enforcer in here to look after them. Carl or Mac.”
“Carl or Mac,” he echoed, scratching his chin. “They’ve both got a lot on their plates right now. I’ll see if Mitchell’s got some time.”
The growl escaped him before he could stop it, which had been Gavin’s intention, he supposed. “Sometimes you’re sort of an a**hole.”
“Mac is married with three kids and Carl just took a mate.” Gavin stopped in the middle of the street and arched an eyebrow at Keith. “So they’re safe. Joe’s a good Guide, and the ladies like him. Not so safe.” His tone both dared and invited disagreement. “It’s a duty he enjoys. One you’ve been avoiding.”
His hands curled into fists. “Yeah. Because I’m not good at it.”
“Walk away,” Gavin urged quietly. “I’ll put someone else in charge of her safety, and we’ll find another wolf to guide her.”
Walk away. The man could think rationally, could accept he might need to do just that. The wolf, though… The wolf was hungry, and not for prey. “I don’t know if I can.” It was a confession and a plea for help, rolled into one.
The alpha swore. “Dozens of women, Keith. Since you’ve been back, dozens have passed through here, and you haven’t looked twice at any of them. Now you want me to—” He swore again. “What happened before you came to the bar?”
Keith squeezed his eyes shut and fought against the strength of his memories, of Abby’s scent, her soft, desperate noises, and the feeling of her body under his hands as she begged him for things without saying a word. Only the knowledge that she didn’t know what she was asking for—begging for—had made it possible to back down.
He cleared his throat and tightened his fists until his fingernails dug into his palms. “She was losing control. She was thirty seconds away from a forced change. I had to help her.”
Gavin’s nostrils flared. “So it’s already started.” He headed off the street, toward his house, and beckoned for Keith to follow. “You couldn’t give Kelly up after her Initiation. What makes you think you can do it this time?” He shot him another dark look. “Or are you thinking that far ahead?”
He hadn’t been thinking at all. Her pain, her need for someone strong enough to calm the wolf inside her… Oh, he’d been tempted in the past. His instincts had clamored for him to take any number of newly made wolves under his protection, to teach and guide them. To use his strength to shelter them.