Staring into emptiness, he ignored the warning of his own words. “When the chorus is ended, you return to the rendezvous site hungry and wait for another day.”
Cooling water lapped around them as Joey slid her palms over his thighs, raising goose bumps. “I can feel it,” she said softly, “as if I had done those things.”
Luke nuzzled the nape of her neck. “Because of what we are,” he whispered, “we are blessed with two worlds. The true wolves live in innocence, even when they kill. But they are helpless to control their world or fight it when it breaks the pattern and turns on them. We have the ability to choose our destiny, to run as wolves but not be bound to the harshness of their existence. It is the gift we have been given. Not to use that gift…” He broke off when her fingers came up to grip his forearms with desperate intensity.
“I’m not ready.” Her breath shuddered. “I’m not ready to be what you are, Luke. Not yet.”
He soothed her with his voice and hands while her trembling subsided. “Don’t be afraid, Joelle. There will be all the time you need to accept the gift and make it a part of you.”
“And if I can’t accept it?”
Her question made him close his eyes. This thing, this one thing, must be her choice. He had taken too much from her already.
“No one will force you, Joelle. You must want the change to make it happen. Only you can control it.”
That much was absolute truth, and he savagely rejected the powerful desire to release her from her fears and make her want it, as he had freed her of the demands of past and future. To know and feel what she was, and never to have her run beside him—that would be a loss and a tragic waste, but not beyond bearing. Not as long as she stayed with him.
He knew his words had penetrated, for her body loosened again, sliding along his until the water almost touched her chin. “Thank you, Luke,” she murmured. “For explaining and for understanding.”
The stab of guilt he felt then pierced his heart. She believed she had something to thank him for. In her innocence she trusted him. She had given everything, and he had taken what she offered and gone beyond to steal what she did not yet know how to give.
Suddenly the savage pain of his thoughts twisted within him, and he felt his hands moving down to her hips, sliding up to her waist with an urgency impossible to deny. He knew it when she came to full awareness, her nipples already hard as his hands closed over her breasts, pulling her against his rigid flesh. He growled her name into her neck, biting her there not quite gently, hearing her gasp and knowing it was excitement and not fear by the heat of her body when he touched the place he longed to possess.
She gasped again, hard and ragged, when he pulled her up with him, the water streaming in rivulets over her tantalizing skin. He pressed into her softness as he licked the wetness from her shoulders, her neck, the delicate and sensitive flesh that trembled under his tongue. When he turned her in his arms and sucked the drops that clung to her nipples, she arched against him and cried out, burying her fingers deeply in his hair with a frenzy that matched his own. She wanted this, without gentleness, as he wanted to take without asking. Her breasts rose and fell sharply as he stroked them, drawing the water away until none remained, following the curve of her body to her belly as he lifted her. Her thighs clenched around his hips, silken bonds that claimed him as he cupped the sweet curve of her buttocks in his hands.
Her body was like fire when he thrust into her, one hard stroke into her molten core. She flung back her head and clutched his shoulders, moaning as he carried her across the room and through the door, so deeply inside her that he could not conceive of withdrawing. But his body was demanding release, and so he moved, he watched her face, eyelids fluttering, lips parted in passion, her breath coming hard and fast in time to his driving rhythm.