Angela Knight - Over The Moon

There he'd been, pissed, nursing the ugly suspicion that Elena had played him, when she'd started talking about losing her mother and brother. Not to mention that prick daddy of hers. Those big green eyes had gone so sad, so lonely.

And Lucas's entirely justifiable anger suddenly hadn't seemed to matter at all.

Pussy.

Then like an idiot, he'd offered to rub her shoulders. Her back had felt so delicate under his hands, with those slim muscles coiled into knots of tension he knew must hurt like a son of a bitch. He'd started rubbing his thumbs over those knots, and she'd made that sweet, throaty moan in her throat.

Lucas had looked down and seen the pretty mounds of her breasts in that shirt, and he'd gotten so violently hard, he'd expected his zipper to bust.

So now they were going to have sex. Only in his case, he was afraid it'd be a little too close to making love.

Elena, on the other hand, was going to be working very hard at getting knocked up as part of a wild-ass gamble for all her personal marbles. He'd give the girl one thing: she didn't lack guts.

Man, he liked that about her.

You really are a fuckin' idiot . Lucas thumped his fist on the deck railing in irritation. He was going to screw around and fall for the little blueblood werewolf, despite knowing perfectly well she'd walk right out of his life.

And why shouldn't she? He wasn't Chosen. Hell, he was Bitten.

As Lucas had discovered over the last few years, most Direkind females viewed first generation Bitten with considerable wariness. For one thing, if one of the Bitten did something dumb and somebody decided he weren't fit to be Direkind, his local clan could take out an order of execution on him. No smart girl wanted to get mixed up with a guy who was halfway to a dirt nap.

Which was yet another reason Lucas could count the dates he'd had in the last few years on one hairy paw. No wonder his libido was all but drooling at the thought of Elena Livingston and her Burning Moon.

Pussy was a wonderful thing.

Too bad he had the ugly feeling this particular kitty was going to end up treating his heart like a catnip cat toy. He could almost feel her little needle teeth getting a good grip.

Dumbass.

Wrapped in a towel, Elena walked out on the back deck. And stopped dead as her Burning Moon hormones hummed in approval.

Lucas stood with his back to her, staring out over the yard. He wore a pair of red swim trunks, an obvious nod to her modesty. His back was breathtaking—a broad, well-muscled sweep from wide shoulders to a narrow, delightfully taut ass. His legs were long and powerful, dusted with dark hair, and his big feet were bare.

Elena's mouth went dry, and she swallowed, clutching the towel around herself.

"Better get in," Lucas said without looking around. "I don't know how much longer I can pretend to be a gentleman."

She laughed and dropped her towel, then stepped over the side of the hot tub. As promised, the water was delightfully warm and bubbling, and she sighed in pleasure as she sank down on one of the bench seats running beneath the surface.

He turned, his gaze hotter than the water as he looked at her. She was suddenly conscious of the pale upper curves of her breasts rising over the bubbling water.

Lucas started toward her, and Elena forgot her own modesty in favor of staring at him. The view from the front was even better. His pecs were wide, solid plates of muscle, and he was so lean, his abdominal muscles lay under his skin in sculpted ridges. When he braced his arms on the tub lip to boost himself over, thick biceps and triceps worked and shifted. Settling into the bubbling water with a sigh, he extended both long arms along the edge of the tub. Moonlight silvered them as he let his head fall back. "Man, I needed this. It's been a bitch of a day."

"And I made it quite a bit bitchier," Elena said softly. "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't intentional."

"No, but that doesn't change the fact that you're taking a big risk for me. And I'm grateful."

He shrugged in a lift of those breathtaking shoulders. "Comes with the job."

"Fighting Stephen isn't your job, Lucas."

"Somebody's got to do it." He spoke without opening his eyes. "The man's an asshole. I hate assholes."

She laughed despite herself. But as she sat watching him relax in the bubbling water, she realized he really could die in Monday's fight. Lucas was a big man, yes, but Stephen was no stranger to dueling; he had the advantage there. And a fight between Direkind males could be unimaginably vicious, in part because they could heal most injuries simply by transforming.

On the one hand, that meant Lucas could survive anything except a broken neck, decapitation, or ripping out his heart, as long as he could transform. But it also meant he'd suffer a lot more pain than a human would, because he could keep going when a human would simply die.

"You're thinking about this too much." He'd opened one eye to look at her.

"Just realizing I have no right to drag you into this."

He sighed and lifted an arm, inviting her to slide in next to him. "Come here."

Elena hesitated, then scooted across the tub to settle into the curve of that brawny arm. She rested her head against his wet, muscular chest, enjoying the hard heat of him.

"When I was a kid, my mother had a whole lot of lovers just like Stephen," he told her softly. "They beat her and they beat me. We got into the habit of going to a different ER every time so none of the doctors would realize she wasn't walking into doors, and I wasn't just falling off swing sets."

She lifted her head from his chest, staring up at him in shock. "Oh."

"Yeah. There were times I'd have given my left nut if she'd had the balls to call a cop."

In a flash, Elena pictured him as a thin, big-eyed child, bruised and nursing his rage. "How could she stand by while they hurt you?"

"She'd convinced herself she was either helpless or that we both deserved whatever they did to us. Depended on her mood which theory she went with." He laughed, the sound short and bitter. "When I was sixteen, she threw me out for kicking her latest boyfriend's skinny little ass. I was already six-one and a wide receiver on my high school football team."

"And not in the mood to take any crap."

"Not really, no. I bunked on my friends' couches until I turned eighteen and could enlist in the Marines. Did my tour, came home, and became a cop."

"What happened to your mother?"

"Lung cancer. Six years ago, before I became a werewolf." Lucas met her eyes and gently cupped her cheek. "The point is I know what it's like to be a victim. I know what it's like to be willing to do absolutely anything not to be hurt anymore. I know how fear sits in your stomach and goes acid until all you want to do is throw up."

"Yeah, I guess you do," she said quietly.

"I also know it wasn't easy to come to a stranger for help. Much less ask him to get you pregnant. I admire you for that." He stroked a lock of hair back out of her eyes. "So you have nothing to apologize for."

Elena blinked hard, feeling her eyes begin to sting. "Thank you. You don't know how much that…"

Lucas leaned forward and took her mouth. It was a slow kiss, just a light brushing of lip on lip at first, almost chaste. Elena sighed and opened for him. He made a soft, growling sound and deepened it, his mouth possessive and hungry as his tongue slipped between her lips in a teasing, wet stroke. He tasted of steak and beer, a rich, thoroughly male combination that suited him.

Deep inside her, something tight and frozen began to thaw, to bloom. She moaned and tangled both hands in his hair. He rumbled something and hauled her against him. Elena caught her breath at the feeling of his firm, hair-dusted chest crushing her naked breasts.