A howl rose nearby, and I smiled. Matt was here with me. Where he belonged. I cupped my hand to my mouth and howled back to him. Then, I began to run.
Almost immediately, I heard him coming. Until his beast’s panting breath was right behind me, his energy reaching to engulf my fleeing form.
I frowned. Something was different. By now, I knew Matt’s energy like I knew my own, and something about his was subtly altered. And for some reason, an image of Talakai kept flashing through my brain.
No matter. It was Matt, and that was all that counted.
I ran as only a dream body could run, my legs carrying me swiftly along the small game trail. It sloped upward, and I knew the plateau lay just ahead.
I ached to make love to my man beneath the moon. My legs pumped faster until my feet were but a blur.
I burst free from the trees and onto the short grasses and mosses amid smooth stone. I ran to the boulder that rose above the canyon, and spun.
Matt slid to a halt no more than ten feet from me, his nostrils shooting twin plumes of steam and his fur glinting gold in the moonlight. Was he bigger than he’d been before? His shoulders were now level with my own. But in a dream, anything was possible.
I spread my arms and imagined my clothing falling away, leaving me as naked as him beneath the stars.
His eyes blazed emerald at me, and then, oddly, metallic gold. His bones began to shift beneath his skin, and the man emerged from the beast.
He was gorgeous, my Aussie wolf. As he rose on two legs, the moonlight added definition to every sculpted muscle, dancing along the broad shoulders and powerful arms. I raised my hand to the new scars on his shoulder and was surprised when he flinched.
“I don’t mind scars,” I told him. “They add character.”
“They add something, all right,” he agreed, folding a hand behind my head and pulling me into him. He buried his nose in my hair, and breathed deeply. “All day, I’ve been dying to do this.” He twisted his body so that only his left side stayed near me, while his right hand ran along my jaw and down my throat, then below my collarbone to tease my nipple. The touch remained light, like a feather, but when I tried to step closer, aching for pressure, his other hand tangled in my hair, holding me back.
As he moved his fingertips slowly, oh so slowly, over my skin, he often kept them poised just above me, so I sensed only his heat. It raised me to an exquisite level of awareness, not knowing if he was going to actually touch me. Within seconds, I was panting for it. Shaking. How could he bring me to this level while barely touching me?
He turned his head so that his breath gusted through my hair. “I’ve never been lonely, Angel,” he whispered into my ear. “But from the moment you danced into my dreams, you were all I wanted. And I want to show you just how much I love you.”
He flicked a finger over my nipple, and I gasped as lightning shot straight through me. He chuckled low in his throat and dropped to his knees, replacing his fingers with his tongue.
Flick, flick, with his warm wetness, and then the merest hint of tooth over flesh rendered hypersensitive by his phantom touch. I jerked and moaned as his tongue and teeth continued their dance. My knees buckled, and he helped them along, bringing me to his level, and then cradling me for a moment before laying me down.
He spread me out on the moss-covered stones and leaned over to kiss me. I ran my fingers over his chest, tracing the hard ridges of muscle lower, and lower. But before I could do more than touch the rigid, quivering flesh, he captured first one wrist, then the other, pinning them to the ground above my head as he trailed his hot tongue back to my breasts. He smoothly held me with one big hand and let the fingers of the other lead the way, doing their torturous gossamer touches until they drifted over my belly. And then with a single, smooth motion, they sank into the silken folds between my legs.
I was already panting for him, and as he expertly swirled and stroked, I arched up into his touch, fighting his hold. He rumbled a laugh and pulled his fingers free—no! I wanted them there—to shift his hold on me, separating my wrists and bringing them close to my hips. Then he bent to plunder my depths with his tongue.
Our link dissolved into white static. I uttered noises I’d never before made, writhing as he teased and tormented. I was desperate for him, and just as I was about to start humping his face, he pulled away.
When I yanked hard against his hold, he pulled me up, releasing me to cup a hand beneath my buttocks and hoist me against him. I wrapped my legs around his hips as he kneeled, and I reached a hand for what jutted between us.
Silken skin over steel, quivering with need, the tip glistening in the moonlight. I swirled my fingers around the swollen head, then stroked down, and he groaned, a deep, ratcheting sound of desire that set me aflame. His hand tightened on my butt, lifting me high, holding me teasingly above him while his breath hissed through his teeth.
I squirmed in his grasp. “Dammit, Matt,” I moaned.
His fingers relented, and I slid him home.
For just a millisecond, we froze with me wrapped around him, and then I began to move. Not just up and down, but tilting and swiveling my hips, tightening those secret inner muscles until all the breath left his body.
And in that instant, the link swept me up in everything he was feeling.
My tight heat stroked him to the very edge, and it took me with it. Tighter and tighter, sensation so extreme I couldn’t breathe. His clever fingers slipped between us to stroke, once, twice, three times—and I shattered. He howled as he came with me, pulse after pulse surging through him to me and back again, my cries echoing across the plateau.
My eyelids flickered open. Matt’s broad shoulders were silhouetted against the moon—and for a moment, it was as though he had wings. Glistening gold, they arched over him. But then they were gone, and I reached up to place my hands on either side of his face.
He stiffened, but it was only a dream. We were safe. His eyes gleamed at me, emerald and gold overlapping, as he thrust gently in the last throes of ecstasy.
Then it wasn’t me I saw, but rather Talakai, strung up for the pleasure of a monster. Then Jacques, impaled by a sword. And Sebastian, running with us. Me, when Matt and I had first met. The airport. His brother, working side by side with him as they gathered cattle. And an older man, with Matt’s long mouth and expressive eyes. But those eyes were filled with rage, and Matt looked up at him from the height of a child. The belt, rising above him, and falling, burning pain across his shoulders—
