Come Moonrise (10 page)

"Come back to bed and think with me."

Was he serious?

She looked down his body and almost choked
on her outrage. "You’re excited."

"That surprises you after last night and
today?"

"You just got through telling me that I’m
the last woman in the world you would have chosen for a mate and
you expect me to welcome you into my body?" she asked in angry
amazement.

Was he crazy?

"I didn’t say you were the last woman in the
world I wanted. And you can blame this," he indicated his hard-on,
"on the fact it’s our first mating and the approaching full moon.
My animal instincts are in the fore right now."

"There’s a full moon every month and if what
you told me is true, you’ve never succumbed to it in this way
before."

"No, I haven’t." He looked like he expected
that to mean something to her and reached for her.

She backed up toward the bathroom. "Forget
it."

He frowned. "Damn it, Frankie..."

She glared. "You can stop
swearing at me
wolf-man
! I hurt and you can take all the credit for that just like
you want me to take all the blame for us having sex. I need a very
long, very hot bath. I don’t suppose you lit the water
heater?"

"Early this morning. The water should be hot
by now." He had the grace to look consternated. "Are you sore?"

She turned toward the bathroom. "Yes."

"I’m sorry."

"Aren’t we both?" The pain in her heart was
a lot worse than the ache between her legs.

"I could join you."

The man was pure Neanderthal and brain-dead
in the emotional department too. "I want you in my bath like I want
a root canal right now."

"Are you sure about that?" Oh, man, even
feeling the way she did, that voice was an invitation to
decadence.

Nevertheless, she turned to face him again,
about falling on her backside when she realized how close he’d come
without making a sound. "Positive. While I’m sure your precious
femwolf, Olivia, would have withstood a night like last night
without the slightest discomfort, I’m just a lowly human and my
whole body hurts."

He cupped her shoulders and rubbed her neck
muscles with his thumbs. "I could give you a massage."

She shrugged him away,
unwilling to accept anything from him right then...even comfort.
"You can keep your hands to yourself. If you wanted post-coitus
lovey-dovey, you shouldn’t have been so quick to point out I’m
everything you don’t want in a mate. Believe it, or not, that kind
of talk has a very dampening effect on a woman’s affectionate
nature. I’m sore and I’m angry and I’m taking my bath
alone
."

He stepped back, his expression going blank.
"Fine."

But it wasn’t fine and she wasn’t sure how
it ever could be. She reached the sanctuary of the bathroom, then
slammed and locked the door.

How could she have believed one night of
ecstasy would be worth this kind of pain the next day? But then she
hadn’t expected things to turn out like this...for them to be stuck
together in a lifelong mating he didn’t want and blamed her
for.

No, she never would have expected that
outcome in her wildest imaginings.

***

Ty paced the outer room, his beast fighting
with his man. Damn it. He’d hurt her. He hadn’t meant to. He should
never have made love to a human this close to his change.

His unruly body still wanted her and it was
taking all his self control to stay out of the bathroom where the
water conspicuously was not running. Was she in there crying? He
couldn’t hear any sniffling, but Frankie had always cried
silently.

He wanted to comfort her, but she didn’t
want him anywhere near her. She’d made that clear. And he couldn’t
blame her. He’d given her none of the soft words and affection a
woman expected after the kind of lovemaking they had shared.

But he’d woken that morning hard, aching for
her and furious at how easily she had circumvented his will.

His lack of control the night before had
lacerated his pride far more than the realization that Olivia would
run alone, rather than with the pack to avoid mating with him in
the fur. She’d realized his intention and acted to circumvent it.
Or, she’d simply wanted to avoid any mating which would have been
damn hard with so many wolves in the pack still single and her in
heat. She knew as well as he did that her instincts would have been
to seek out a mate herself.

The fact he had planned to be that mate,
even if it meant fighting another wolf for her was now a moot
point. And right now, Olivia’s actions and motivations were the
last thing he needed to worry about.

He’d been unable to restrain his desire for
Frankie and would spend the rest of his life mated to a human – the
one thing he’d been determined not to do. The wolf in him did not
take defeat well. He reacted like any predatory animal when
challenged, he struck out.

The soreness between her legs wasn’t the
only pain he’d given her and his beast was actually glad he had
drawn emotional blood. It needed recompense for his defeat, but the
man inside him felt like the jerk she’d called him. He’d hurt one
of the most treasured people in his life and he hated knowing
that.

He was furious with himself and the beast in
him that had prompted sexual demands that left Frankie's body sore
and words that had hurt her.

He was such a prick.

But he wasn’t entirely sure
he really was
her
jerk like he'd claimed.

She’d said she was his last
night, but she hadn’t been acting like his this morning. And
yesterday she’d told him she didn’t want to be his friend any more.
She’d been prepared to cut him out of her life.
Just like a human
. He couldn’t help
but notice she hadn’t said she would marry him either.

She could walk away, but he couldn’t.

That made him feel helpless, which in turn
infuriated him. A furious werewolf on the verge of the change was
not the best companion for a tender hearted woman who was soaking
away the pain of an overzealous mating.

According to his father, it was always like
that the first time. Ty had never known anything approaching the
pleasure of being inside his mate and if he didn’t get away from
here and her scent that permeated the cabin, he was going to go
seeking that pleasure again.

It was less than an hour until the full
moon. He had to go, for her sake as well as his own. She’d be okay
until he could send rescue. There was plenty of wood and food in
the pantry.

As he moved toward the bathroom door, the
water started to run finally. He waited until it turned off again
and then knocked.

"What?" She sounded surly.

Once again he wished he could fix it and
make her okay with everything. He hated being at odds with his best
friend, but he was more likely to make everything worse if he tried
to talk to her again in his present state. His wolf wasn’t ready to
tuck tail and submit to a destiny he hadn’t chosen with the grace
she needed.

Better to get out away from her until he
was.

"I’m leaving. I’ll send help as soon as I
can, but it’ll probably be moonset before I can talk to anyone.
Don’t get worried. Just sit tight, all right?"

The bath splashed like half the water was
sloshing onto the tiny bathroom’s floor and then the door was
yanked open. "What?"

He turned away from the view of her naked
body and the justified accusation in her gray eyes. "I’m
leaving."

"You can’t. It’s below freezing out
there."

"I’ll be fine."

"You aren’t superhuman."

"I’m a werewolf."

"But you’re not a wolf right now."

"I will be soon enough. You don’t have to
worry about me." It shocked him after all that had happened, all
that he’d said that she would.

He wanted to kiss her, but didn’t trust
himself to keep it to a simple kiss. Even though this lack of
control of his libido was to be expected right after mating and was
something most werewolves reveled in, right now he found it a total
pain in the ass.

He turned to leave.

"Ty!"

He ignored her and walked out of the cabin,
glad her naked state would stop her from following him.

She was smart enough to stay inside.

He hoped.

Just in case, he hung around the cabin,
watching for a good half hour, but the front door didn’t open and
he had to figure she’d stuck with her plan to take a long, hot
bath.

***

Frankie watched Ty walk out of the cabin
with a sense of disbelief that paralyzed her.

As the door shut she accepted he really was
simply going to leave her there...by herself...to wait for rescue.
The pain inside of her exploded in a blast of anger so intense, she
shook with it. He’d always been so darn pig headed and arrogant, so
sure he knew what was right for her.

"Ty McCanlup, you are going to hear about
this," she promised the empty cabin in a deadly voice he would have
shuddered to hear.

Because he would have known exactly what
that voice meant...just how angry she really was. And why would he
know it? Because he was her best friend, darn it! And she was his,
even if he hadn’t seen fit to tell her he was a werewolf.

She could still hardly take that fact in,
but no one except a totally insane person would have walked out the
cabin door in these temps unless he was...well a werewolf.

For some reason that acknowledgement cut
through both her anger and her pain. Ty was a werewolf and that
meant his responses, his motivations, his feelings were going to be
different from a simple human. Didn't it?

She started thinking like a woman smart
enough to get a degree in veterinary medicine. Looking back over
the last day and a half, she remembered more than just his
rejections. What about the kisses he'd given her...of his own
volition, the day before? The kiss at his house had not been
sparked by Olivia's rejection because he hadn't been rejected
yet.

He'd been acting possessive.

What did that mean? In the wolf world it
would have meant he had a tighter bond with him than simple
traveler on the same planet. Male wolves were possessive of their
mates, but they hadn't been mated yet. Which meant what? That he'd
had those kinds of emotions engaged already? After all, he was more
than a wolf, he was a man too.

Capable of feeling things a wolf would only
know on an instinctual level.

Ty said he had wanted to
marry Olivia, but he didn’t really
want
her...not like a man should the
woman he planned to spend the rest of his life with. He wanted
Frankie that way. No chance was hurt pride a strong enough
motivator for the kind of lovemaking they had shared. As relatively
inexperienced as she was, she still knew that.

And their lovemaking had
not been mere animal sex. She had felt too much and so had he. She
was fairly certain that his humanity had been fully engaged even if
he wanted to blame his wolf's instincts. He’d wanted her with the
kind of passion a man
in love
exhibits. Certainly not a platonic friend, a big
brother type or even a casual lover.

He’d marked her, inside and out.

He couldn’t have gone that deep into her
soul without letting her into his at least little way too.

He might think he had. He might have
convinced himself what they’d shared was nothing more than sex, but
the way he’d cuddled her close to his body when they were sleeping
was not about nooky. It was about tenderness and intimacy that had
nothing to do with putting Tab A into Slot B.

So, why was he so determined to deny the
depth of their feelings for each other? Why did he doubt her love
for him?

She thought back over their argument, or
conversation... Whatever it was. He’d gotten really squirrelly
every time the subject of her ex-fiancé came up. Come to think of
it, he had been the one to bring the other man into the
conversation, along with her other supposed lovers.

Why had he gone off on that whole tangent?
She’d sure never given him any reason to believe she had other
lovers. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was jealous. And
why not? He’d been a virgin...one mating, one mate. It probably
chafed him big time she’d shared her body with someone else before
him.

Well, he’d have to get over that if he
expected her to go through with this mating-marriage thing.

She had a hard time believing that was the
only thing that had him so uptight about what had happened between
them though.

He had a real thing about being mated to a
human, but it couldn’t be because it was a total taboo, or her
aunt’s great-grandmother (or whoever it was) could not have mated a
human.

One thing was for sure...Ty had a lot of
explaining to do when she saw him next. And she was not going to
let her fear of him not loving her cloud her ability to reason and
process data again.

She stepped into steaming water that filled
the old fashioned claw footed tub and sighed with pleasure as she
sank up to her chin.

Ty was stubborn, but she could be stubborn
too and she knew his weakness...her. Despite his rendition of jerk
male of the year just now, he hated to hurt her or see her hurt in
any way. That combined with the way he’d made love to her spoke of
feelings a lot deeper than friendship.

She soaked in the bath, refilling the hot
water twice, until her skin was wrinkly and the lingering aches in
her body were gone. She got out and dried off, still a little
tender inside, but she couldn’t do anything about that. She wasn’t
sure she wanted to.

As frustrated as she was with Ty, she
nevertheless experienced a primitive satisfaction at having her
body so blatantly impacted by his. It was like the scent she’d
woken to that morning. His fragrance on her body. She didn’t
remember that from post-coitus with her ex-fiancé.