He growled with predatory insistence, chest rumbling above me. “You are exquisite,” he said, moved inside me with power and potency that rid my mind of thought. The feeling was delicious, but the sudden mindlessness, the absence of fear or worry, was utterly glorious. There was no room for dread or disquiet in Ethan’s seduction.

Heat began to spread through my body again, a fast-blooming flower perched at the edge of spring. I tugged his mouth toward mine, teeth and tongue exploring and inciting. His huffing breaths, the cant of his hips, hinted at his own banked pleasure, at the control he rode so carefully. He was, I realized, waiting for me, pushing me to find that jewel of oblivion.

I meant to draw it out, to tease him with the rock of my own hips, the scratch of my nails across his skin. But yearning got the best of him.

“Now,” he said, a word that snapped through my body like an order. I dug fingers into Ethan’s back as pleasure blazed through muscle and across heated skin, blissful shudders rocking my body.

Ethan stiffened, called my name, the powerful and primal sound sending me flying again. He pressed his hand against my abdomen as if by touch he could quicken life there, fulfill by the strength of his determination alone Gabriel’s promise that we’d have a child. For a moment, we stayed like that, with the promise of the future between us.

And then Ethan pressed his mouth to mine, breathing still ragged. “That escalated quickly.”

I couldn’t help my very indelicate snort. Coming from a man who tended to eat pizza with a fork, it was surprisingly funny. “So it did.”

He turned onto the bed and stretched like a sated predator, but entwined our fingers together, keeping the connection between us. And as the sun breached the horizon, exhaustion draped my languid body like a quilt. My lashes fell.

“Tomorrow,” Ethan murmured, “we will hunt a killer. But for now, let us be still.”

Those words—“be still”—had been the first Ethan had spoken to me. They were often the last words on his lips before the sun blazed into the sky, just as, tonight, they were the last I heard before sleep claimed me.

4

“Mmm,” I said, eyes closed, smiling drowsily, the scent of bacon in the air. “I picked the right vampire.”

I’d thought I was alone, that Ethan was in the kitchen preparing breakfast. I nearly jumped when I heard his voice.

“I’m right here, Sentinel.”

I opened my eyes, found him a few feet away, pulling a belt through jeans¸ still shirtless.

“Bacon?” It was a query, an accusation, a wish.

“I believe the Pack is making you breakfast.”

That had me sitting up and grabbing clothing to change faster than most things would have.

“Should I be insulted that you’re so eager to enjoy another man’s pork?”

I leaned out of the bathroom, toothbrush mid-swipe, and grinned. “Ethan Sullivan, did you just make a joke?”

He hadn’t, at least from the look on his face. But I wasn’t threatened by the possessiveness in his eyes.

Because bacon.

“You’re the only man for me,” I assured Ethan when I’d pulled on my leathers and boots in preparation for a night of investigating. I’d hoped, of course, I wouldn’t need them on our “vacation,” but I’d packed them just in case. Good thing I’d been a little paranoid.

He scanned his phone as he waited for me to add the final touches, glanced up with moderate amusement. “You say, as you’re putting on lip gloss.”

“It’s lip balm, because you’ve chapped my mouth with your kisses, sir. And I’m attempting to represent Cadogan House with class and charm.” Which is why it had a pale pink sheen. Or that was my story, anyway.

Ethan snorted, and when I put the balm on the counter, he whipped an arm around my waist and pulled me toward him. “Use your class and charm, Sentinel, which you have in spades. But don’t forget that you’ll be sleeping in my bed—and only my bed—come morning.”

He kissed me again, mooting application of said lip balm.

***

Nessa’s guesthouse had become a den of wolves. Quite literally.

Gabriel hadn’t traveled lightly to Colorado. There were at least a dozen brawny NAC shifters milling around the living room, stretched out before the fire in leather jackets and boots. Some of them had dewy beers in their hands; others held playing cards. I guessed their chromed bikes were probably parked in a tidy row outside, or at least the ones who’d been in driving distance.

And what, I silently asked Ethan, would Nessa think about this?

I suspect it’s better she doesn’t know.

I waved at them, followed Ethan to the kitchen, found Gabriel Keene on a stool at the island, beer bottle in hand. He was tall and broad shouldered, as befit the alpha wolf, his hair, not unlike Rowan McKenzie’s, a mix of gold and brown. His eyes were golden, like very expensive whiskey. He wore jeans and a gray V-neck T-shirt, one boot propped on the rung of the stool beside him.

I didn’t see his usual companions, his wife, Tanya, and young son, Connor. But he had brought a friend. The Pack’s enforcer, Damien Garza, stood in front of the stove, deftly flipping a small sauté pan, the smell of meat wafting deliciously into the air. Damien was tall and lean, with tan skin and dark, deep-set eyes that seemed to take in everything. He wore his black hair to his shoulders, his face unshaven, which added a dangerous appeal to his immaculately carved cheekbones and generous lips.