His beard scraped her chin as he closed the distance between them with a shuddering groan. He kissed the way she’d seen him live, reckless arrogance and power and an intensity that bordered on intimidating. Lips and teeth and his tongue stroking her mouth until she parted her lips, then surging forward to taste and take, his hunger and satisfaction twisting between them on the threads of her empathy.
She wasn’t prepared for the depth of her reaction to his satisfaction. Beyond the undeniable physical pleasure of the kiss was a whole world of intimacy, a power she’d flirted with but never really embraced.
She could give him everything.
More, he’d take it. There could be no doubt of that, not with his desires laid bare before her, the hot need for her pleasure dwarfed by the steely craving to be the only one who provided it. Nothing tentative there. Nothing tentative about the way he teased his tongue against hers, his pleasure spiking every time she moaned and arched closer.
It had to stop, even if depriving herself of his touch drove her mad. Carmen turned her head to break the kiss. «Oh God.»
«Shh.» He pressed a kiss to her temple. «How’s the wolf instinct feeling now?»
Curiously silent, all things considered. She’d expected that part of her to be feral, riled up and ready for a ride, but everything in her that still strained toward Alec’s touch was entirely human. «Quiet.»
«She knows she’s safe.» The whispered words stirred her hair. «She ran. I caught. Claimed. Won’t be the last time she pushes a challenge, but it might not be so bad next time.»
She bit her lip to hide a smile. «You’re still convinced that’s all it is? That I wouldn’t usually try to get a rise out of you?»
«Maybe not all of it.» He nuzzled her cheek, working his way down until his teeth closed lightly on the line of her jaw. «In a week or two this magic should settle down, if we’re lucky. Or Jackson will find a way to break it sooner.»
«You make it sound so simple.»
«It’s not our first crisis. Don’t think it’ll be our last, either.»
«It’s mine.» Her life hadn’t been easy, but most of the pain she’d had to deal with had been emotional. «Nothing about my family has ever made me feel endangered before.»
His body went tense beside hers, the fingers at her hip digging in for a heartbeat before his hand relaxed. «I’m sorry. I remember what it feels like the first time.»
Pain accompanied the words, an agony that almost sickened her. Her first thought was to shut it out, but that would mean shutting Alec out, and she couldn’t. So she took a deep, shaky breath and watched his face. «What did they do?»
He rolled away from her, landing on his back with his hand still above her head. His fingers curled around hers, an almost compulsive, instinctive movement, and that pain tightened, turned to a free fall of loss. «My cousin killed my wife. Because she was human.»
There was nothing to say, no questions to ask. Prejudice had cost his wife her life, and Alec had been left to deal with an aftermath full of pain and emptiness. That wouldn’t change now, no matter how hard anyone wished.
Nothing to say.
Carmen squeezed his hand. «Tell me about her.»
«Her name was Heidi.» The corner of his mouth quirked up. «Remember how I said my friend Karl fell in love with a cowgirl from South Dakota?»
«I do.»
«Yeah, the cowgirl was on a date with me when that happened. The worst first date in the history of men and women, and Karl stole her out from under my nose. Guess she felt guilty, because a few months later she introduced me to one of her friends from college. An art major who liked to make sculptures with a blowtorch.»
He already looked lighter somehow, less bowed by guilt. «She sounds like a badass.»
It made him laugh a little. «Only if you pissed her off while she was holding the blowtorch.» His smile faded. «She made it easy to walk away from the supernatural world. To just forget it was there.»
Except it always was for someone like him, no matter what, and his renewed guilt proved he knew that. «I’m learning now that you can’t walk away from something that’s part of you.»
«No, you can’t. You can hide from it for a while. You can tell it to fuck off…» His thumb stroked her wrist. «It’s in my blood. It’s in your blood. Maybe I just hate thinking that me and Heidi might not have lasted. Feels too much like saying I didn’t love her enough.»
«You tried,» she said firmly, «and you were happy, right? Beyond that, who knows what would have happened?»
«No one, I guess. No one ever will.» His arm looped around her, as if he needed the comfort of her touch. «My cousin never gave her the chance to walk away from me. He thought I should thank him for that.»
It was barbaric. Unfathomable. She wanted to scream at the injustice of it, but all she could do was stroke her fingers over his skin. I’m sorry. It wasn’t enough, but she murmured the words anyway.
Alec’s voice dropped to a rough whisper. «It was a while ago. My cousin went to ground afterwards — even my family couldn’t condone what he’d done. He was a member of a pretty radical group. They thought changed wolves were making us weak, that no shapeshifter should have the right to squander our precious blood on anyone who wasn’t born to the gift. Humans were a thousand times worse.»
«I understand.» Hadn’t Cesar demanded that Carmen’s father abandon her mother for the crime of being a psychic, a human? And what might he have done if Diego had refused?
«The supernatural world is fucked up. All we can do down here is… I don’t even know. Pick up the pieces?»
«I think so.» She was living proof that avoidance only worked for so long, and it certainly never changed anything. «Did you find him? Your cousin?»
«Yeah. With Jackson’s help.» She felt his subtle withdrawal, though his fingers stayed on hers. «I found him, and all the people who’d encouraged him. Who’d been terrorizing other people. And when it was over, I was that crazy bastard no one wanted to piss off.»
Carmen reluctantly slipped her shields back into place, sat up and leaned over him. «And that’s why everyone but Kat tiptoes around you.»
«That’s why.» The corner of his mouth kicked up in a tiny, morbid smile. «Plus all the crazy things I’ve done since.»
«Crazy things?» The urge to kiss him again almost overwhelmed her, so she climbed to her feet and held out her hand. «Surely tackling women and kissing them stupid qualifies, so I won’t argue.»
He accepted her hand, but rocked to his feet with effortless grace without her help. «Nah, that’s on the tame side. Last year I kidnapped a Conclave member’s kid in someone else’s truck.»
Carmen laughed helplessly. «Somehow, the fact that it was someone else’s vehicle makes it sound crazier.»
«He wasn’t thrilled at the time either, as I remember.»
«The owner of said truck, or the person you kidnapped?»
«Neither, I guess.»
«Uh-huh.» She hadn’t released his hand, and now she tugged him toward the path. «Let’s go have a beer.»
«In a second.» He pulled her back and turned her, raising both hands to her shoulders. «You seem steadier today, so I want to try something tonight, after dinner. I want to try to guide you through the change.»
«I told you — I don’t feel that different.»
«Then nothing will happen.» A hint of sadness wreathed the words, perhaps explained by those that followed. «And then you can go home. Get back to your life.»
She would never be the same, even if the magic he spoke of came to nothing. Not after the way he’d kissed her. «I don’t live on another planet, Alec.»
He shrugged and turned back to the path. «I do. A planet where angry shapeshifters kick my doors off their hinges and people need kidnapping and saving and killing. There’s always something.»