Passions Recalled: Forbidden Passions, Book 2

Dedication

To all the great friends who help me with this journey called writing and especially Crystal Jordan, co-author extraordinaire and our marvelous editor, Bethany Morgan.

Chapter One

She pinched her nipples, squeezing her eyes against the image that insisted on popping into her mind to superimpose the nice, safe one she tried to cling to. With a repressed growl of frustration, she slapped the mattress with the flat of one palm. She just wanted to get off, needed to release weeks of built-up sexual tension. Was it too much to ask to get to do that and not be overwhelmed with memories? She opened her mind and stared at the ceiling. Would it matter if she came seeing his face? No one else would ever know about it, after all.

Sighing, she gave over to the need, to the desire she’d never admit to feeling to anyone but herself, and sensation shot straight to her core. Both hands returned to her breasts, cupping them, squeezing and plumping before reaching for the hard tips. She imagined Jason’s face, tense with lust and longing, as she remembered his fingers. At once strong and gentle, coaxing and demanding.

Groaning, she released one nipple and reached for the vibrator. It was always like this. No matter who she met, no matter how much she willed it otherwise, her body only came alive for one man. A man who didn’t want her, who’d rejected her. She gulped back a sob, but didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop the want roaring in her mind. To come. To feel something. To
live
again. It was a false little fantasy she’d created here in her lonely bed, but right now with the desire raging through her she didn’t care. She’d save that for later. The self-recriminations, the fear that she’d never love or respond to any other man.

Enough, Celeste. Enough
.

She flipped the switch to the on position, sighed as the toy slid easily into her pussy. It almost felt like he was there with her, stroking her, thrusting into her. Her cunt grew impossibly slick and her fingers closed convulsively around her nipple. She swiveled her hips upward, as if meeting him move for move, and then releasing her breast, reached for her clit.

Her first touch was soft, hesitant. She wanted to draw out the pleasure as long as possible, but even that gentle touch made her pant, the lust building. Jason would not be reluctant if he were there touching her. His fingers on her clit would be strong, insistent. Pressing harder, she slid her finger back and forth over the hard nub. She imagined him,
felt
him, leaning over her, his fingers guiding her to orgasm, his cock thrusting home.

She could have wept from all the emotions consuming her, but the orgasm tightening her body prevented it and took her over. She exploded, splintered apart. When her mind came back together, she curled into a fetal position and cried herself to sleep only to be awakened by a shrilly ringing phone and the demands of her family.

Celeste Lykaios drove as fast as she safely could in the pelting rain. Hurricane Iris may have been sweeping up the Gulf, but this, the remnants of Hurricane Helga held fast in the Tennessee mountains, unwilling or unable to release the fury of the warm Gulf waters. Irritable and leery of the harsh weather, she rubbed a wadded-up T-shirt against the fogging window. What was so important her stepfather insisted she drive from Atlanta to Chattanooga in what looked like Noah’s flood revisited? She sighed. It didn’t matter. Her fear of storms was irrelevant in the face of family obligation and need. When the werewolf clan Alpha called, everyone ran. Including their human sister, Celeste.

Thank God, she was close. She shuddered as small hail began to hit her window and wind rocked the car. How bad must it be down on the Gulf when these storms rolled onto shore? How did anyone stand to hang around and ride that out? She knew a lot of people did—they didn’t call them hurricane parties for nothing. If a person could watch from a safe place she could see the appeal in it, had even had a taste of it herself. After all there were few forces on earth more massive, more awe inspiring, than a hurricane.

The streetlight illuminating the turn off to her parents’ appeared in the gloom, and she sighed in relief, the knots in her stomach beginning to loosen. Almost there. Almost safe back in the arms of her family. If she felt some small twinge for something else, some wistful longing of things past, it was only normal with this storm raging around her, right? Her palms grew slick with remembered fear, her stomach once again heaving, betraying her terror of bad weather. Only a year ago a sudden summer storm just like this one took down the small jet she’d been a passenger on, and she’d barely survived the trip to the ground. All her naïve youthful hopes had crashed and burned with the plane. Life hadn’t been the same since.

Right. Get over it already, Celeste.
If wishes were fishes her mother would say, and she’d be right. All the wishes in the world hadn’t done her any good then. She forced Jason from her mind, ignoring the tiny voice saying to give up the effort. No matter how she tried, he was never far from her thoughts, lingering like an unhappy poltergeist.

She turned down her street and watched for the house lights in the distance. When they appeared she released a pent up exhalation of tension, but it was quickly followed by anxiety. What was so important she had to come out now? Had to drive two hours in this nightmare?

Her gaze swept the driveway when she pulled in, mentally noting which car belonged to whom. Her half-brothers, her stepbrothers. The trucks, the SUVs, the odd little compact hybrid that would always stand out. No clan members. Whatever the big‑ass hurry was, it really was family business.

She grumbled as she parked. They could have at least left her a spot near the door. Squinting through the rain, she considered trying to haul her purse and overnight bag out with her, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. Then she’d be soaked along with all her things, and she probably wouldn’t sleep here anyway. The house was too crowded, the people in it overprotective to the point of coddling.

Derek, her friend and date if an occasion demanded one, didn’t know she was in town, but she was sure he’d welcome her. She scowled at the rain that battered her windshield. She’d called to tell him she was coming up, but he hadn’t answered the phone or returned her calls. With a mental shrug, she pulled the door handle. She’d catch up with him later.

The rain drenched her as soon as the door was open a crack. She lunged out, flinging it shut behind her and sprinting for the front door. Inside the foyer she slipped off her jacket, shook off the rain, and hurriedly used the towels her mom had left on the bench to clean the mess. She heard low, angry voices in the living room, her mother’s and stepfather’s, with the soft timbre of one of her brothers thrown in here and there. Straightening her spine and adopting the neutral mask she’d perfected after years of dealing with werekind, she marched into the room.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, silence reigned. Not a good sign. She hoped she was wearing her objective journalist face as she approached and embraced her mother. They’d always been a united front, the two female humans in a house full of male werewolves. It took feminine solidarity to confront this much testosterone. Miranda hugged her to her side, not releasing her when Celeste would have stepped back, and gave her a tight smile. Something whooshed out of Celeste when she saw it. Some foreboding that she was really going to hate hearing whatever was coming.

The males in the room were tall, hulking. Brooding, which was so out of character she felt a real tinge of fear rise in her throat. Had someone died? Had the Wolf Council passed judgment and someone she knew was going to die? Derek immediately came to mind, and she shoved the thought away—down deep where it didn’t worry. Surely not. Not her Derek, the friend who’d gotten her through Jason’s betrayal, the only person who’d been brutally frank with her about the condition of her body, her face, in the hospital.

“What’s going on?” she asked when, after several minutes of silence, it became clear no one was going to start. She turned to Michael, her stepfather, and met his gaze. A definite no-no when dealing with the clan Alpha. But he was also Dad, and she was human. No mating, no marriage that put her under anyone’s control. She was an adult and technically no longer under the rule of clan law. Besides, she could feel her mother’s agitation, and it made her less inclined to deal with the werewolf’s archaic attitudes. Usually so much aggression on the part of a female would have raised his hackles. He was the acknowledged leader of clan and family. When he lowered his eyes and turned his head, she knew she was in real trouble. Her famous intuition was screaming. This night would change her life in ways she’d never imagined. Forever.

Tomas, one of her younger half-brothers and the family business heir apparent, stepped forward.

“Remember a few months ago when we were discussing the new timber mill?”

Arching an eyebrow, she crossed her arms over her chest. Of course she did. Her financial instinct was legendary in the clan. So much so she was always consulted on all business matters, and it had led her to endorse the new venture. She was sure the new mill would be a success and, if it went according to plan, it would also be environmentally responsible. Was her intuition wrong? It had only been wrong once, and majorly so then, but she pushed that thought away. She was positive the mill was a good investment—she’d helped research it herself.

“What about it?”

She had an urge to push her palms against her ears, certain the news was bad. Michael stepped into her line of sight. He took a deep breath, visibly steeling himself against his own words.

“We needed a loan for the project.” He paused. “I took out a mortgage on the land.”

Closing her eyes, she sucked in a deep breath. Held it until she saw spots behind her eyelids. Clan land. Family land.
Her
land. The only thing she had left of her human father bartered in a business deal?

“And?” she asked, knowing there was more. Knowing there was worse.

“There was a balloon payment due last week. We didn’t make it.”

“Can’t you negotiate an extension?”

He grimaced, blushed a little, and she arched her eyebrows again wondering what the hell was going on and if it was going to take her all night to drag it out of them.

“Normally we could,” Tomas said. “But Jason won’t listen to reason.”

“Jason?”

All of the blood rushed from her head, and she swayed, throwing up a warning hand when her brothers rushed to her side. Her Jason?

No. Not my Jason. He didn’t want me.

For him, for better or worse was only an issue when it was better. She bent over and gripped her knees, sucking in big gulps of air. How long had she lain in that hospital bed and waited for him to come? And he never had. It had been hell. While her family hovered and fretted, her body broken and bleeding, the man who was the center of her universe had suddenly become a figment of her imagination.

She looked at her mother, studied her face. She’d paled to an unnatural whiteness, her eyes pinched with anxiety, and something else occurred to Celeste, something worse. Jason was a wereleopard and her father
hated
leopards. The animosity between the leopards and wolves, the hatred went back so far no one even remembered how it had started. Nor did they care. It just was. Leopards and wolves, enemies forever. She couldn’t believe they had taken money from Jason. Had gambled and lost her father’s land. Anger poured through her as she slowly straightened.

“Why?” she ground out through clenched teeth. What would make Michael desperate enough to go to Jason for cash? “Why would you accept his money? Why would he refuse to negotiate?”

Fighting the tears that threatened to flow freely, she added in a harsh whisper, “My father’s land…”

The spot on her shoulder where Jason had marked her a year ago burned, as if protesting her anguish. She rubbed it absently while she waited for an answer. Michael noticed the movement and moistened his lips.

“We lied,” he said baldly into the tomblike quiet of the room. “I lied.”

She frowned and waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she asked, “About what?”

“I insisted you leave Refuge Resort because I thought you were getting too close to…that leopard.” His distaste was palpable. “I didn’t know he’d bonded with you until much later.”

So what? What did that have to do with Jason’s obvious dislike of her human frailties? She fisted her hands, trying not to remember how naïve she’d been. For years she’d been a freelance journalist, mostly for werekind publications, but occasionally she sold a piece to a human magazine. Last year her focus had been on the ancient rivalry between the wolves and leopards. They’d been created in opposition. To reward Leonidas of Sparta’s courage against the Persians, Artemis had granted all his descendants the ability to change into a leopard. Not to be outdone, Zeus had granted the same abilities but in a different form, wolf, to the descendants of King Lycoan.

It was her extensive writing credits which had convinced Hector Leonidas to let her go to the Refuge to research. Who could have predicted she’d meet his oldest son and lose her mind? Oh, but the things the man could do with his hands. And his mouth. Wow, was that mouth talented. Her fingernails dug into her palms.
Focus, damn it.
She wasn’t stupid. She may be human, but she’d grown up in the werewolf clan. She knew he’d mated her, and knew he didn’t give a damn about that. He’d found it so easy to walk away, she’d often wondered if he’d only done it to escalate the feud between the two species, if he’d done it purely to piss Michael off. Maybe that was why her father had taken Jason’s money. It didn’t have anything to do with her after all, she thought bitterly. She was just a pawn in the ongoing war between the wolves and leopards and so was her land.