Page 35 of The Mating Need
“When I take you, we’ll have a long time for me to do to you the things I’ve dreamed of for a while. There’ll be no rush. Only us, naked, nothing betweenus.”
Jenny’s pupils dilated. “Troy, you make me want to get naked.Now.”
He sighed. “That makes two of us, darling. But I can wait. Good things are worth waitingfor.”
Rubbing a hand over the bristles on his chin, he ruefully wondered how cold the shower was in this place. Might help with the rising heat in his groin. He had no intention of dozing off with a hard-on.
Troy watched her yawn. “Big day. Go upstairs, get somerest.”
“What aboutyou?”
“Tomorrow I have an early day. Have to help Darius with a group of tourists who want a trail ride into themountains.”
“Tourists? You mean Skins? Aiden allows humans on thisranch?”
Judging from her tone, he got it. She didn’t think the Lupines here were as wild and carefree as theyseemed.
“This is a working ranch and one of the things Mitchell does is trail rides for Skins. During certain days and never during a fullmoon.”
He winked at her, but Jenny did not smileback.
“Jenny, there’s no such thing as a pure Lupine pack anymore. We all have to make adjustments to living in the Skin world. If you’re still searching for that Lupine utopia where everyone runs around in wolfskin and lives off the land, I doubt you’ll find many packs. Except inAlaska.”
He really hoped she wouldn’t entertain going that far to get away frompeople.
“It’s not that, Troy. Not anymore.” She frowned. “This feels like a good place, Troy, but there’s still something here I can’t place. That evil stone I destroyed earlier… it felt like a test. As if someone were trying to infiltrate the ranch, and seeing where the weaknesseswere.”
Troy had to know. If anyone had seen what she had done… “How did you destroy the stone, Jenny? The same way you hurt those Skins in the darkalley?”
Her mouth opened. She rubbed her arms and did not look at him. Troy went to her, cupped herchin.
“It’s your business and yours alone. But I don’t like Tristan sniffing around here because if anyone saw what you did and told the Silver Wizard, he could take you away.Permanently.”
She shivered as he stroked a thumb across her wobbling lower mouth. “I saw you react to him. Guess you’ve had your own troubles with thatwizard.”
“He can vaporize you, Jenny. Not one to be trifled with. Put as much space as possible between you andTristan.”
“What did you do to know so much abouthim?”
Those big blue eyes looked at him without guile or deceit. Troy debated telling her, and gambled. Talking about the wizard and what he’d done made his erection shrivel faster than a coldshower.
“You know I have a past, Jenny. Haven’t shared the bad stuff because you had baggage enough of your own.” He gestured to the sofa and they both sat uponit.
“I told you I was left without a pack when my family moved to Europe and I didn’t want to go with them. That’strue.”
He stared down at his hands. Long fingers, elegant, and more suited for piano playing than being a boy, his mama once said, laughing as she would wipe his hands after he played in the mud or got into some minortrouble.
When he turned fourteen and all the changes began, she no longer laughed or wiped his fingers when he came into the house, stomping off mud or dirt. Instead she looked at him the way the rest of his familydid…
Withfear.
“It’s also true that they asked me not to go with them. When I made my first shift into wolf, my true nature came out. I’m not an ordinary Lupine, Jenny.I’m…”
Troy took a deep breath. “Feral. It’s why the Meadowrunners really threw me out. Not because I became violent and broke their laws. It’s because they hired the wrong Lupine for the job. They needed a security guard who would dole out a little fear. Not turn into a feral wolf who could rip out a throat in secondsflat.”
He didn’t want to talk about it. But Jenny slid her hand over his, her skin warm and her expressiontrusting.
“I don’t see you as feral, Troy. You’re pure wolf, through andthrough.”
