Unbearable Desire: Lone Pine Pride, Book 4 Page 5

  “Well, yes,” she acknowledged with a grin to lighten the words. “But I don’t want to be that woman, carrying that bitterness around inside me.” Another long draught of beer slid smooth and luscious down her throat. “I feel like we never got to know one another properly. We never got past the distraction of our first meeting to become friends.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “We’re friends?” she challenged, not sure why she felt the urge to push back against him like this. She was usually so good at getting along with people, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from prodding at this big old bear.

  “I know you,” he stated as if the words were fact. “And I think you know me too.”

  “You know me?” Skepticism coated the words like molasses.

  “I know you know the name of every cub born in this pride since you got here. I know you almost never speak up during pride meetings, but when you do everyone listens. I know you like books and movies that make you cry, and you can’t resist angel food cake though you don’t really like chocolate.”

  She tucked her chin, studying her beer. He’d been paying attention. She didn’t like the weakness that made her feel so foolishly good at the idea that he did know some part of her.

  “I know you would do anything to take the pain away from another person, even if you’re beyond exhaustion and know it might hurt you—because you know you are strong enough to take it.”

  She looked up at that, startled. Not that he knew she would heal anyone, but that he understood why she would push herself and take so much onto herself. Because she could take it. She was so small in her human form, few people saw her strength—but he seemed to know it was there. He saw her, this big grouchy bear with the soul of a romantic.

  His eyes sparkled. “I know you’re beautiful when you’re looking at me like I’m crazy.”

  Her face flushed, she struggled to remind herself that he wasn’t flirting. The big old idiot probably didn’t even realize his words could be interpreted as compliments.

  There was something different about him today. Lighter and somehow more focused. The way he looked at her…

  Lucienne. She needed to remember Lucienne.

  “So why the pitcher?” she forced herself to ask, going for a casual tone. “Are we celebrating?” She could celebrate with him. She was the bigger woman. She could overcome her jealousy and toast the fact that he could be with Lucienne now. She could, dang it.

  Hugo tipped his head, considering. “Yeah. I think we can call this a celebration.”

  She would not be bitter. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” He lifted his glass. “To Greg and Lucienne.”

  She frowned, her own glass hitching to a stop en route to tap against his. “What?”

  “May Lucienne and Greg have a long and happy life together,” he said, the words firm, his eyes carrying some fierce resolve that Moira couldn’t quite interpret.

  Was he really saying what she thought he was saying? He was choosing not to pursue Lucienne? “That’s what we’re celebrating?”

  “You were right, you know.”

  She shouldn’t ask. She felt like they were slipping down a path that was entirely too familiar, but she heard herself saying, “About what?”

  “What you said yesterday.”

  “I said a lot of things.”

  His lips twitched in his brown beard, but then a searing sobriety entered his eyes. “You do deserve someone who values you.” He didn’t move, but suddenly the world seemed to narrow, as if it was closing in around just the two of them. “I’ve always valued you, Moira.”

  She was afraid to believe him, afraid to believe this moment might be for real. “What about Lucienne or no one?” she asked, the words a bare whisper.

  He leaned forward then and she matched the movement as if hypnotized. “Eleven years is a long time. Maybe I changed my mind.”

  His mind or his heart? Moira looked down at the pitcher. Déjà vu all over again. She was about to make the same mistake she’d made a decade ago. She could feel it rising up in her, tipping her toward disaster. She could tell herself she didn’t want him, tell herself that his broad shoulders didn’t make her hands itch to grip them and his gleaming eyes didn’t draw her in like the world’s sexiest tractor beam. She could lie to herself. But it was late and the beer had loosened her hold on her denial and he was so close and warm and damned if she didn’t want him more than she wanted the cold dignity that would be salvaged by walking away.

  She could regret this tomorrow. Tonight she wanted to be foolish. She wanted the mistake.

  Warm invitation lit his gaze. “Why don’t we move this conversation to my place?”

  Chapter Eight

  Doubt returned in a rush the second they walked through the door to Hugo’s bungalow. She hadn’t been in here in over a decade. Not since she’d first arrived at the pride, back when she’d stupidly thought they would be on a non-stop express to happily-ever-after. And here she was again. Battling hopes she had no sense entertaining.

  Hugo’s warmth pressed against her back as he stepped into the room behind her, the sound of the door clicking shut unnaturally loud to her ears.

  “Nothing has to happen tonight,” he murmured, clearly picking up on her sudden misgivings. “Or ever, if you don’t want it to. Maybe we should just be friends for a while—”

  She could see that future. The sensible future. They would go back to their usual awkwardness with one another. Trying to ignore the attraction between them even as they tried to ignore their stupid, complicated past. Until all she could feel when she looked at him was the effort of trying not to feel everything he made her feel.

  In some ways it would be so much easier. So much safer.

  She didn’t want safe. She didn’t want another decade of pushing down emotions she didn’t want to feel.

  She wanted this. She wanted now. She wanted risk and folly. She may not be a fighter, but she was brave. She was strong. And she wasn’t going to make the head choice at the expense of her heart anymore. Even if her heart was wrong and foolish and setting itself up for a vicious break. No. She wasn’t holding back anymore. She wanted to feel, even if it hurt.

  Moira spun and cut off his words with a kiss. His beard was soft against her chin, her cheeks. His lips were smooth and instantly firmed against hers, taking control, drinking in her eagerness and giving her back need. She’d launched herself at him and the heavy weight of his arms closed around her ribs, holding her steady against the barrel of his chest, her feet dangling off the ground.

  She shimmied, pressing the soft curves of her body tighter against the firm wall of his chest. Blood was rushing to her erogenous zones, sharpening sensation and making every curve feel luscious and feminine. She wanted his hands on her, shaping her, and then, as if he’d heard the request, they were. Big, strong hands roaming over her, even as he carried her over to the bed.

  She expected to be tumbled to the mattress beneath him and her breath hitched in needy anticipation of his weight driving her down into that softness—but he collapsed onto his back, pulling her on top of him so she straddled his chest, her legs spread impossibly wide over the breadth of him. His hands coasted up her thighs, gliding beneath her skirt and gently squeezing the flesh there, his thumbs teasing the edges of her panties, so close to the searing heat at the apex of her thighs. She broke the kiss, pushing up on him and gasped out, “Touch me,” in breathy demand.

  A low sound rumbled through his chest and she shivered even before he obliged, one thumb slipping beneath the edges of her panties and finding her slick and hot. “Hugo.”

  He hummed out another rumbling growl as his thumb rotated in a slow, torturous circle right there. She shuddered, biting her lip and fighting back the jerks of pleasure. God, if she came from just this, how desperate would she seem—

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nbsp; He reached up with his free hand, palming her breast, his fingers unerringly closing around her nipple with a pressure that streaked into her core and tipped her over into trembling release. His growl was pure satisfaction as he kept working her, milking her for a long, tripping slide from one shuddering orgasm into the next.

  She gripped his wrist, begging him to still. “Too much.”

  Sweat sheened on her brow and she was gasping and shaking from aftershocks when he withdrew his hands from her clothes and began systematically stripping her out of them. He slid her off him and she draped bonelessly on the mattress as he stood, methodically removing all his own clothing, unhurried, without taking his gaze from her for even a second.

  His passion wasn’t the quick burning fuse of youth, but the smoldering, erotic intensity of a man who knew exactly what he wanted—and she was at the crosshairs of that delicious, focused desire.

  He was still as strong as he’d been a decade ago, his chest still covered in a dusting of dark hair that narrowed to a trail across his stomach, leading to the promised land. His erection was as thick as her wrist and a ruddy dark rose, rising out of the thick thatch of brown hair—she hadn’t misremembered his size.

  Moira licked her lip, eyeing that length, wondering if she accurately remembered the taste of him, salt and musk on her tongue. Her body woke from its dazed satiation and she started to reach for him, but he caught her hands, using them to pull her up until the length of her front pressed against his. He lowered his head, eating into her mouth.

  He knelt on the bed, guiding her to straddle his thighs and then widening them to spread her open. His fingers slipped between them to test her readiness, one long digit spearing inside her and crooking to hit a spot that made her jerk in his grip before retracting and being replaced with two broad fingers, scissoring and stretching her. She reached down between them, wrapping both hands around the silky smooth hardness of his erection. She worked her hands together, drawing up to the sensitive head and rotating her wrists in a way that drew a grunted curse from her bear. He removed his hands from her and palmed her waist, lifting her, shifting her. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he positioned her above him and the blunt tip of him pressed for entrance.

  Her head dropped forward to land against his forehead as the intense, stretching pressure worked inside her, inch by inch. No, she hadn’t misremembered his size.

  Her hips started to cramp from the wide spread and she began to wonder if she was getting too old for this. Note to self, take yoga.

  “You okay?” he grunted, face ruddy and eyes gleaming near-black. Damn, the man was gorgeous when he was half-mad with lust.

  She nodded, but he must have been able to see the strain in it because he lifted her off him. She gave a soft cry of protest at the loss—but her hips would have moaned with relief if they could. He was arranging her, on her side, one leg stretched out, the other crooked over his hip and then he was pressing into her again and oh sweet stars it was so much better. Moira shuddered and gasped. He stretched her, but the pressure was sweet and dark, like berries and champagne on her tongue. The broad width of his chest loomed next to her and she ran her hands over it, stroking and massaging as he rocked deeper and deeper inside her in delicious little increments.

  When he was fully seated, she felt as much as heard his rumble of satisfaction. The tempo he set was slow, decadent, drawing each sensation into a luscious exploration. She shook with need, hungry for a more punishing pace, but he kept her there, on the edge of release until she felt like she would cry or scream. Then he rolled them, somehow staying seated deep inside her until she was pinned beneath him. Her thighs bracketed his hips as he added a little stir of hips to the end of each stroke and Moira’s mind went liquid—her entire being focused on that, right there, just a little more.

  “Look at me.”

  The rumbled command startled her. Her eyes were open—had never closed—but he seemed to have known the second she stopped seeing him, stopped seeing anything. When she refocused, his eyes were black and bright above her. A knot formed in her throat. Too much. It was too much. She needed the physical, the rush and the need, but this…the rest of it… Her chest ached. “Hugo—I—”

  He lowered his head, catching her mouth in a kiss that was no less seductive for being quick. Then he was above her again, gaze locked mercilessly on hers as he began to work her faster, harder, giving her that physical rush she needed but refusing to relinquish the hold he had on her gaze as he did.

  “Hugo,” she gasped again, but this time it was a different sort of plea. She teetered on the edge of perfection—and then she succumbed, her eyes closing, helpless to keep them open as sensation tightened and coiled into a sudden wrenching release that stroked through her senses.

  Too much. It was all she could think. He was too much. How could she keep her heart safe when he wouldn’t let her? How could she keep him at a distance when he knew exactly how to reach her? How could she resist this?

  He couldn’t blame the alcohol this time. They hadn’t had that much of the pitcher before they’d left the Lion’s Den.

  He hadn’t meant to sleep with Moira. But then he never meant things to go the way they went with her. He’d been so happy to see her in the Lion’s Den, so glad to have the chance to work things out with her after their confrontation in the infirmary. He hadn’t really thought beyond seeing her. If he had, he wouldn’t have thought of this.

  Not that he regretted it. He wasn’t such an idiot to regret anything that exquisite. But he had no idea what to do or say to her now. What if she asked him what it meant? He didn’t know where they were, where they were going, what she expected from him. His body told him this was good and he should stick around. His mind was screaming that he’d just fucked up and should run like hell—even though he was in his own bed.

  So he lay there, growing more rigid and uncomfortable as Moira’s breathing returned to normal at his side. The silence was beyond oppressive when she finally gave a soft huffing laugh. “Well, that was unexpected.”

  He grunted. Let her interpret that as she would.

  The bedsprings creaked as she sat up, shoving her curls into a somewhat less just-got-screwed-senseless hairstyle. From the floor, her phone chirped, saving him from whatever she’d been about to say next. She scrambled off the bed, dragging a sheet with her to cover all those curves. The sheet drew taut, snagged beneath his weight. He could easily have shifted, letting her have the cover, but he rolled instead, pinning the sheet more firmly and watching her half-covered limbs as she dug through the pile of her things on the floor in search of her phone.

  She didn’t seem self-conscious about the sex—not hiding from him or timid, just naturally modest. Was he overthinking things? Weren’t the women the ones who were supposed to freak out about what sex meant?

  Moira came up with her phone, lifting it up with a little sound of triumph. She studied the display and a frown wrinkled her brow as her fingers flicked over the screen to scroll through the texts. “I have to go,” she said without looking up.

  “I thought it was your night off.” He wasn’t sure why he was arguing. He felt like he could barely look at her for the confusion pureeing his brain, but he didn’t like the idea that she was fabricating reasons to get away from him.

  “It is,” she said. “But one of my patients—it shouldn’t take long.” Then she looked at him and he saw his own confusion flicker across her face. “Should I…uh…do you want me to call you when I’m done?”

  “Ah, yeah. If it’s not too late. Early meeting with Roman tomorrow.” Which was true, but it still felt like an excuse. Shit. He was forty-eight damn years old and she made him feel like a teenager fumbling through his first encounter with a girl.

  “Right.” She dressed in a hurry and he came to a sitting position, watching her. She was efficient, confident, this woman who had come apart in his arms. What di
d she expect of him?

  He’d told her that he wouldn’t be with Lucienne, but he still wasn’t sure his heart was free to love someone else.

  Moira finished dressing and crossed to the bed, dropping a quick kiss on his mouth. “Thanks,” she said. “See you later.”

  And then she was gone. Leaving him alone with his confusion.

  He needed to talk to Lucienne.

  Chapter Nine

  It wasn’t that late, only ten, but it still took several minutes before the door to the former-Alpha’s new house opened after he knocked. Lucienne stood in the doorway, her blonde brow wrinkled in a frown. “Hugo. Greg is up at the main house with Roman.”

  “Actually, I’m here to see you.”

  The frown intensified. Not surprising. He and Lucienne had avoided any sort of private contact for the last twenty plus years. Looking back on it now, he wasn’t sure if that had made the elephant that was always in the room with them bigger or smaller.

  “Greg said he spoke to you,” she murmured, without moving from her position blocking the door.

  “I’m not here to change your mind,” he assured her. “I just wanted to talk.”

  Her expression grew closed and wary, but she stepped back, opening the door farther to allow him to pass her into the living room. Unlike most of the houses on the pride, this one had multiple rooms—living rooms, bedrooms, offices—more in the style of the main house up on the hill than the little bungalows that dotted the pride lands.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked, always the consummate hostess.

  Hugo declined and trailed her deeper into the living room. Lucienne took a place at a high-backed chair that looked like it belonged in a man’s study and Hugo settled himself on the couch opposite her, bracing his hands on his knees. “You look well.”

  She flushed and frowned. “Hugo…”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” he protested. “I should be able to compliment you without the world falling apart, Luce.”