The room was cold and she didn’t want to leave the warmth of Tom’s embrace, the comfortable mattress, or the heaped-on blankets and comforter.

Maybe he had stolen the covers in the middle of the night, and she’d planted her whole body against him to ensure she got her fair share of the blankets.

Whatever banged outside—Tom had said it was a broken window latch on the shutter—did it again on the other side of the cabin. She wondered if it had done that all night long and she had slept through it, or if the wind had picked up again and was blowing something around.

Tom groaned and rubbed her arm in a loving way, then kissed her on the forehead. He was awake. Had he been all along and waited for her to stir, not wanting to disturb her? Or maybe the noises outside had startled him from his sleep.

She looked up at him. He studied her, his dark amber eyes roaming over her face from her forehead to her eyes to her chin, assessing her.

She parted her lips to tell him that she hadn’t meant to be crawling all over him in the middle of the night and to apologize. Just as quickly, he kissed her on the mouth, silencing her, making her forget what she had in mind to say.

She gave in to the kiss, the sweet, loving, gentle way that he had with her as if he was afraid she’d break apart. “I’m okay,” she said, and his mouth curved up against hers.

“Yeah,” he said, and deepened the kiss. “Better than okay.”

Their tongues teased and tangled as he stroked her hair, his fingers combing the strands in a caring manner. She could feel his erection hard beneath her belly and knew this had to stop, but she didn’t want it to. Yesterday, she could have been dead, just like the men who had taken her hostage.

She wanted this. She wanted him. A family. A pack. Was she crazy?

Who wouldn’t want this?

She’d managed to survive so many near-death experiences at the hands of wolves that she felt she had a guardian angel watching over her.

Whatever banged outside did it again. Tom didn’t appear to be in any hurry to check it out, despite it being light enough to see now. He quit kissing her, his hands still stroking her hair, his eyes open as he considered her. “Beautiful.”

She gave a soft, ladylike snort and tried to move off him, but his arms quickly wrapped around her back, and he held her tight. “Your forehead looks better. The area around the bandage is a little yellow and green, but the color doesn’t look too bad on you.”

“Yellow doesn’t look good on me.”

He laughed. “You look fine to me.” He sighed, not loosening his grip on her like she thought he would. “This feels just right. I don’t want to leave the bed. It’s too cold out there.”

She smiled at him. She loved this side of him. So he wasn’t all alpha after all, or he would have taken charge, had the fire going, fixed coffee, and checked to see what made the banging noise. “You don’t expect me to bring you breakfast in bed, do you?” she said.

He grinned at her.

She felt her whole body flush with heat. Why was it that men always thought of sex?

He still didn’t make a move to leave the bed.

“You’re not a late riser, are you?” she asked.

That got a chuckle from him.

She shook her head, placed her face against his chest, and let her breath out in a heavy sigh. “Your family will be worried about you. Then they’ll come up here and find us in bed together and…”

“They’ll know we’re smart and kept each other warm during a blizzard.”

“I’ll have problems going home,” she said, thinking again about her ID.

“Good,” he murmured against her hair.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. You won’t be able to tear off so easily.” He moved his hands over her hair again. “I don’t want you going anywhere until we resolve this.”

“And I have no say?” She wasn’t upset about it. If he was right, she wanted to learn the truth, too.

“Sure you do. You can tell me if you like tea or coffee for breakfast. We’ve also got cereal and powdered milk.”

“Tea, eggs, and steak.”

He laughed. “Demanding wolf, aren’t we?”

She snuggled against him and smiled.

“So tell me about this brother of yours.” Tom stroked her hair as if trying to coax the information out of her.

She was silent, her smile gone. “Elizabeth, tell me.”

“Half brother,” she said, her voice hard. “Sefton Wildwood, a pure-blooded red wolf. After his mother died, his father mated my mother. Everyone in the pack was upset with my father. Sefton and Uncle Quinton were even more furious when my parents had me. They wouldn’t accept my mother or me, so we lived away from the pack.

“Years later, Sefton fell in love with a she-wolf from another pack, but when she learned he had a half sister who was half coyote, she shunned him, called off the mating, and said he was tainted by association. Sefton tried to kill me then. My father came to my rescue and beat him off me. My uncle tried to murder me, too, and almost succeeded. Then my parents were mysteriously murdered, my mother first, then two days later, my father.”

Tom barely breathed.

“Uncle Quinton was tired of the shame my father had brought to the red pack.” She rolled off Tom and onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.

Tom moved onto his side and slipped his hand under the flannel shirt she wore and stroked her belly, reassuring her, telling her he would have been there for her. That he was not the same as the men in her family.