I can stand. I can walk. I am free.
It seemed only natural that Morgan should come then, to share her triumph. Completely right that he should walk up to her—his feet bare, trousers half-buttoned and shirt open at the neck—and kiss her.
This time… oh, yes. This time it was real.
Morgan had carried the memory of their one previous kiss for weeks, obsessed with an impulsive act he should have dismissed a moment after it was done.
Now he knew why he had been unable to forget it. Her mouth opened under his so sweetly, with such trust, that he knew she had been thinking of it, too. Wanting it as much as he did.
But it hadn’t been mere desire that had driven him that final step. He had been running… running as he always did when the company of others became unbearable. Especially the company of this woman. He had found little peace in the outing, for he had not been alone.
Somehow she had followed him. He had become aware of her presence as the first hint of false dawn seared the edge of the sky, outlining the jagged, snow-topped profiles of the mountains. The silence had been absolute. One minute he ran alone, and the next he felt her by his side, a ghost-wolf, racing him as he raced his own fears.
He had known it was impossible. She was not really there. But her spirit had come to him, as the Indians said sometimes happened in the night. She had challenged him on his own ground, unafraid. And he had sensed that there was more to this vision than a dream they both shared.
As the stars faded overhead, he doubled back on his tracks and loped to the ranch, not knowing what he might find. No one stirred on the grounds or in the house when he entered it. Up the stairs he had run, soundless, to the door of Athena’s room.
And there she stood—stood, in the center of the carpet, on her two legs. Her face bore the look of a startled deer. Then she began to shake, and Morgan felt the mingled fear and triumph as if it were his own.
Triumph, and pride. Pride in her, in the achievement she had made against all the odds. Deep and unexpected joy that she could be whole, and free.
He did not question. He went to her, took her in his arms, and kissed her.
This was a kiss as the other had not been—lingering, ardent, and shared with equal fervor. In it Morgan poured all the desire he had kept so tightly sealed away, unfettered by Athena’s new strength.
She could do more than stand. Her arms were strong and sure about his neck. The she-wolf who had run beside him was present in full measure, and her teeth locked on his lower lip with a ferocity for which he was unprepared.
The wolf in him cried out for conquest. He explored the velvet interior of her mouth with flickers of his tongue, and then deeper thrusts. She seemed ready to devour him. If she had never kissed a man before that night in her bedchamber, she learned very quickly.
It was as much the werewolf blood that sang in her heart as it did in his own. Powerful, undeniable attraction. The wolf she could not be while bound to her chair had awakened to all the possibilities of liberation.
He gathered her thick, loose hair in his fists and pulled her head back, kissing and nipping her bared neck. She hissed with pleasure. A distant part of him wondered at so vast a change in her, and cast the thought aside.
Take her, the wolf demanded. She wants you. You want her. Nothing else matters.
No one would see. No one need know. A single frenzied coupling, and he would be gone again with none the wiser.
Gone? Did he think he could run from such a binding? Once it was done…
As if they were truly of one mind, they drew apart at the same moment. Athena was panting and flushed, her lips slightly swollen, her eyes vivid, more golden than green or brown. She swayed. He caught her again and carried her to the bed.