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  “Oh.” Sound reasoning. Too bad reasoning goes out the window when any one of these gorgeous men touches me.

  “I would also regret it for the rest of my life,” he says, meeting me with sincere, burning eyes. A shudder goes through me, down to my toes. An electricity that seems to run between us at all times. A magnetic pull drawing me close, wanting me to meld my curves to his hard muscles, wanting the alpha in me to meld with the alpha in him. I try to remember to still breathe.

  “Why would you regret it the rest of your life?”

  “You’re pack. It’s my job to protect you.”

  My spirit sinks. Just pack. Like everyone else. I don’t want to be protected by the alpha. I want to be loved by him. “Not good enough.”

  “I would care for you. Protect you. What more do you want? What aren’t you saying?”

  “Something I shouldn’t have to say. Something you should already assume.” I take a deep breath and try to tamp down on the vulnerability rising in me. “Something you should feel.” I raise my eyes to his and see confusion mixed with desperation mingling in his features. “Is there anything you feel that you haven’t said?”

  “I say what I feel,” he says. “Always. Why would I hold something back?”

  I shrug. “That settles it. Anyway, I’m going back to the house.”

  “Watch out for Hawthorne. He’ll probably make the next move,” Rafe says, folding his arms and following after me. “It’s like they think we’re keeping score.”

  “We are, sort of,” I say. “But I will. Mainly because I’m hoping to get some art done today.”

  “Art? You still doodling?”

  I grit my teeth. “It’s not doodling. And yes, still ‘doodling’. Just another way you never understood me.”

  He shrugs. “You could help me understand you.”

  “You arrogant… that’s not my job. I have three suitors trying to understand me. I don’t have to coax one along.” I face him, hands on hips, buoyed by the sunlight and the wonderful morning I’ve had with Lindon. My confidence is at an all time high. “You know, Rafe, if you really want to be alpha, you might want to forget about being alpha.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning your whole life you’ve been stuck in this fatherly role that takes care of everyone, planning for it, doing anything for it. Which is great, but, it’s not sexy.”

  He frowns again. Even his frown is sexy, as it makes him look intimidating and tall and intense. I want to run a hand through his dark, silky thick hair. No, I want to pull it. Yank on it as he rides on top of me, bringing me to heights of pleasure that…

  He lets out a snort of laughter as a blush moves over my face.

  “Look at me that way and I’m going to think you want me to end this competition right now…” he says, amusement mixing with lust in his eyes and the quirk of his mouth. The flash of one fang.

  I stomp a foot and turn away. “You couldn’t anyway.”

  He catches up in an instant, pulls me against him, and rests his sharp canines against the sensitive part of my neck above my shoulder. He gives me a ticklish kiss, moves up and flicks my earlobe with his tongue, and my knees nearly give out under me. The mating urge comes roaring to life, and I almost turn in his arms and beg him to take me. Instead I take a deep breath and try to calm down, and he laughs and pulls away, leaving me shaken.

  He gives me a cocky glare and walks on ahead of me to the mansion. “Less fatherly alpha, huh? Less responsible caregiver?” he says over his shoulder. “I can do that.” He winks at me and keeps walking, leaving me standing with my jaw open.

  Oh gosh, what have I done? Somehow, I’ve made him even hotter.

  Chapter 5

  I follow him back to the mansion in a huff, rubbing a hand over the part of my neck that he licked and teased, trying to remove the tingling burn that begs for more, the weakness in my legs and elsewhere.

  When we go into the house, we split off in different directions. I go to my room and open my suitcase and take out a sketchpad. A nice large one, and a pencil set with erasers, and head back out into the back yard. There’s a beautiful patio out there and I pick a chair and lean back in it. I’m nicely shaded by an awning stretching out from the house, and I set my sketchbook on my lap to try and decide what to draw. Maybe the trees, or the lands around the mansion. Maybe the house itself?

  Rafe’s eyes enter my mind. The wolf version, and the human one. I’d love to draw him, but I know he’d never sit still for one. I admit as a girl, I once snuck in on him sleeping, sketched him in a book so I could look at it sometimes.

  I had such a crush. I flip to a clean sheet of paper, hoping I’ve grown up enough to not be quite so silly about him. I really did feel something with Lindon today, so maybe that’s a sign that I’m opening up, no longer the little fangirl following Rafe around, waiting to be noticed as more than potential mate.

  The backdoor opens and shuts, and Hawthorne comes out, looking resplendent in a blue linen shirt over a white tee and tight, gorgeous jeans. His tan body and chestnut hair catch the sun in a gorgeous way, and his honey brown eyes lighten to almost an orangey amber color. He has long, dark lashes, and they blink at me as he walks over, giving him a heavy lidded sort of bedroom stare.

  Hawthorne has always been beautiful, with big eyes that the others swooned over when he was a pup, and silky fur in a unique color. Not as striking as Lindon, but just handsome and unique in his own way. And confident. He sits on a chair next to me, and I can feel the chemistry in the air change.

  I like the way his white tee is tight to his chest, but his linen shirt ruffles in the breeze. It’s a light, muted blue color that perfect sets off his skin and hair. I skim his chest, looking at defined pecs, large muscles on his arms. I can see the two parts of his bicep, he’s that toned.

  I tap my pencil on my sketchbook and try to remember what I was doing.

  “Whatcha sketching?” he asks.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  He relaxes on the chair with his arms behind his head and I eye him warily.

  “What?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

  “Are you going to try something?”

  He grins. “Do you want me to?”

  “No,” I say snippily, because I don’t like the want that is already rising in me at the sight of that confident smile. “I’m busy right now.”

  “I thought so. I just wanted to see what you were doing out here with your art.” He gives me a pleasant grin. “I always liked your art.”

  “Thank you,” I say, oddly warmed by the statement. I didn’t really think anyone paid attention to it. I start sketching a tree, but Hawthorne starts to hum and it throws me off. “Can you be quiet?” I ask nicely.

  “Oh, sorry. Bored. Can you draw faster? I want something to look at.”

  That’s Hawthorne alright. Spoiled. I guess in a way he’s the opposite of Rafe. I eye him again, thinking of the other night. Was he really trying to warn me about being alone with wolves, or was he just taking advantage of an opportunity alone with me? I fill in the details of another branch and then look over at him again.

  He grins. “Want to draw me?”

  My heart thumps. I’ve never gotten to draw any of them. Wolves don’t sit still well. “Can I?”

  “Of course,” he says, looking wolfish. “But what do I get in return?”

  “In return?”

  “Obviously. Do you know how hard it is to sit still when a hot she-wolf is staring at me?”

  “It’s hard for you to sit still in general,” I say.

  “I know, I don’t know how you do it.”

  “When I’m drawing, I’m not really that in touch with my wolf side.”

  “That’s too bad,” he says, “I’m always in touch with my wolf side.” He stands and strides to my chair. Before I can get off, he plants a knee on one side of me, keeping his other foot on the ground as he leans down to put a hand on either side of my head. I set my sketchbook to the side so it doesn�
��t get smeared.

  “Hawthorne…” I say, giving him a warning look.

  “Just a kiss,” he says, leaning in close, trapping me against the soft cushions of the lawn chair.

  My body heats up in response and I grit my teeth. “Just one kiss? Can you stop after that?” I don’t know why I’m asking him that. I don’t know if I can. I look up at his perfect lips in that boyishly handsome face, see his features coming alive with wanting, and the wolf in me responds. I can’t even remember why I wanted to draw anything right now.

  “Can you?” he asks. Bingo.

  “I can,” I say, trying to regain my composure. I focus on a tree I can see over his shoulder. I want to draw, draw. “And then you’ll let me draw you?” I ask.

  “Sure,” he says. “When I’m satisfied. Deal?”

  “Wait, I…” But he lowers his head to mine, lets his lips hover over mine, just waiting there, poised over me, a hair’s breadth away. If I talk, our lips will touch. If I say anything, it will start, and I don’t know when it will finish. “Just a kiss,” I say, letting my lips brush his. They’re soft and warm. With a growl, he closes the distance, locking his lips on mine and closing a hand in my hair. I forgot I left it down.

  The kiss keeps going, and when he pushes, I part my lips with a sigh, allowing him entrance. His tongue is deft and playful, not insistent like Rafe’s, but talented. I can feel it stoking the fire inside me and I wrap my arms around his neck as he comes fully on to the lawn chair with me, deepening the kiss and bringing his hand up along my side, down over my hips, to the button of my pants.

  “Hey, Hawthorne,” I say, swatting his hand away, but it comes back, holding my hip and playing with the button with his thumb.

  “You really want me stop?” he asks, hooking a thumb into my waistband and making me writhe in anticipation as a shock goes through me. He tugs a little on my pants, lowering them on my hips, so he has a little bit more of the sensitive skin on my stomach to play with. He splays his hand and I suck in a breath against his lips. He takes my lips again in a hot kiss, and his hands play with the button again, but I pull back, swatting his hand.

  “Yes, I want you to stop,” I say.

  He growls in frustration but pulls back slightly, looking down at me with desperate eyes. “Fine. But don’t you want to draw me?”

  I blink. Oh yeah, that’s what this was about. My body forgot and my brain flew clean away the minute his lithe form captured mine. “I don’t know.”

  “Just be good a little longer…” he nips my lip and flicks the button on my jeans open deftly without even looking. I gasp in surprise but he stifles it with another rough kiss, one that silences my objections along with any noise I could make, and I struggle for a moment before melting in to the kiss.

  A little longer couldn’t hurt, I think, holding the sides of the lawn chair as he moves his mouth to my neck, sucking and licking the skin there.

  “I promise it’ll be worth it. I’ll sit still as long as you want.”

  It’s not even about that anymore, but I lean my head back, lost in a fog of lust as he moves down to place a kiss at the top of my breasts. I don’t know what it’s about, I just know that I’m caught in a whirlwind, one I don’t want to break out of.

  Well, part of me, but I can barely hear her over the roar of my hormones.

  Rafe was right, this was a dangerous idea. One where it’s too easy to be swept away.

  “Hawthorne,” I say weakly, trying to think of something that makes sense here. “I don’t…maybe we…” Stop hormones. Shut up. “Don’t make me call Rafe.”

  Hawthorne pulls away, a slightly offended look on his face. “Aspen, you don’t need to call Rafe. If you don’t want me to keep going, you can just tell me to stop.”

  I bring a hand up to caress his hair, move a loose lock of his forehead. I do love Hawthorne, in a way, it’s just not the way he probably deserves. I should have known not to play games with alphas.

  He looks over my face, confusion plain in his features. “I just don’t get it. Your body responds to me. Today, the other night. I know you’re attracted. You want me. What’s going on? What’s the hesitation?” It’s just like Hawthorne to be frank like this.

  I try not to blush under the scrutiny of his gaze. No matter how I think it over, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with Hawthorne, it’s just that he’s not…Rafe.

  I put a palm over my face, ashamed to be so irrational about the whole situation. If I really just wanted Rafe, then I should have probably just told him and tried to work it out, not made everyone compete just to boost my own ego.

  But a part of me really did want one of them to convince me that they could mean just as much to me as Rafe does.

  “It’s Rafe, isn’t it?” Hawthorne asks. “Why don’t you just tell him that?”

  “It’s not…it’s complicated.”

  “It’s not really. I can read you like a book, Aspen. I know there’s no problem with the physical aspect of things between us, so that just leaves problems of the heart. And right now, it looks like unrequited love.”

  “I know,” I say. “I’ve got it bad.”

  “Now that I think about it, it makes sense. I think a part of me always knew you were crushing on him.” Hawthorne sits back and the sun glints off the reddish hints in his brown hair. “I guess I thought maybe that had worn off. I mean, why else would you run away from us just to avoid being mated to him?”

  I blink a few times, wondering if I should explain, if Hawthorne would even understand.

  “Oh,” he says, rubbing his chin. “I get it. You have some misguided ideas about romance and you think Rafe is incapable of meeting them.”

  I nod. “I know it’s silly. But I just want…”

  “To be wooed,” he says. “But just by Rafe?”

  “No, I guess I really was hoping someone could make me feel like he does. Really hoping it didn’t have to be him.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t,” Hawthorne replies, flashing a wolfish, playful grin at me. “Maybe it’s just gonna take time for one of us to show you.” He has that look again, the one that says I’m little red riding hood and he’s getting ready to devour me.

  “Hawthorne…”

  “Seriously, give me a chance,” he says. “A real chance.”

  “I’m trying, but…”

  “But what?” He blinks long, reddish lashes over his warm, light brown eyes.

  “But I’m not going to change just by you making out with me,” I say. “That’s just not going to happen. That isn’t how Rafe won me over, so it won’t be how you win me over.”

  “Hm,” he says. “I thought that was the key to winning a she-wolf over. At least you can’t question my prowess that way.”

  I laugh. “Hawthorne, I don’t question your prowess at all. I do question whether you can win my heart though.”

  “A valid question.” He reaches for my hand and raises it to his chest, places it over his heart so that I can feel the soft muscle of his pec. “But can’t you hear that you’ve already won mine? Can’t you feel what you do to me?”

  I listen, with my keen ears and my hands, to the rapid beat of his heart, the adrenaline of the moment, the scent in the air after we’ve been making out. It makes me want to run in the forest, climb mountains, play in streams. It brings out the wolf in me. It’s Hawthorne’s wolf, telling me that he’d build me a home, that we’d have fun together. Perhaps just his vision of the future, what life would be like together.

  There’d be pups, with chestnut hair and my gray eyes. It’s not a bad version of the future, it’s just… My hand falls away from his chest and his eyes study mine.

  “Not enough?” he asks. “Could I never be enough?”

  “I just need more time,” I say, putting a hand to his well-loved face. “I’ve only been back a couple days, and before that, we were only friends. I’m attracted to you, I really am, and I can envision a future with you, it’s just that—”

  “Just that
it’s Rafe you want.”

  “He has a head start,” I admit.

  “I’m going to catch up,” Hawthorne says, leaning over me and kissing me lightly on the tip of my nose. I giggle and then he places a much more serious kiss on my forehead, holding my face in both his hands as he does it. It’s affectionate and romantic and makes my heart warm and happy. He may not even realize that he’s doing it, but it’s totally the kind of thing I’m looking for.

  When he pulls back, his eyes are hot again, but his expression is soft. “Did you still want to draw me?” he asks.

  “I guess so,” I say.

  “Now that I think about it, you’ve never drawn any of us. None of us would ever sit still.”

  “Yup.”

  He takes a deep breath and avoids my eyes. “If I really think about it, you’ve probably always wanted to draw Rafe, right?”

  “how did you know?”

  “Of course you would,” he says. “Everything means more, when it’s the one you love.” He gives me a look full of meaning and I wince at the fact that I can’t respond to it in the way he deserves. Not yet, anyway.

  “I’m sorry, Hawes.”

  He shakes his head and waves a hand at me as he stands. “I’ll tell you what. That’ll be my first present as your suitor.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll get Rafe to pose for you.”

  “And how are you going to do that?” I ask. “Especially when he’s competing against you and more likely to do it for himself than for you.”

  “Easy,” he says, striding lazily back to the house. He opens the back door and gives me a grin. “Rafe might be the biggest, but he’s not the fastest. Or the trickiest.”

  I try to puzzle over what that means, but before I can figure it out, Hawes has disappeared.

  “Be careful,” I say quietly, though I know he’s already gone. I pick up my abandoned sketch pad and flip to the page I was on, trying to forgot Hawthorne’s kisses and sweet words and the guilt I feel for not being able to put all of my friends on the same page emotionally. I look out over the landscape again, wondering what to draw. As nice as it was of Hawthorn to offer, I don’t think there’s any way in hell that he’ll actually succeed in getting Rafe down here.