"Charles?" she said.
"Hmm?"
She moved, but with his head down he couldn't tell if she'd turned away or toward him. There was a tentative-ness in her voice, and Brother Wolf, the canny old hunter, told him to keep his head down and his body relaxed while their prey came to them.
"Does it bother you?" she was whispering.
He considered all the things that might be bothering him, but couldn't come up with one appropriate to this situation. "Does what bother me?"
"Tonight." Pause. "Me. My wolf." And then she didn't say anything more.
It was enough. She was talking about their earlier lovemaking. How to answer? I'll take you any way you come to me-how about now-didn't seem quite the right response.
"Does it bother you?" Charles asked.
A soft thump, thump, thump, and subtle vibration told him that she was tapping her fingers on the bed. Then the bed bounced as she sat up. He turned his head so he could open one eye and look at her.
She was naked. Some of the movement had been her pulling off the last of her clothes. As he watched, she reached out with her hand, leaned forward, and touched his bare back. She just held her hand there. As she sat there, her pulse rate picked up until he could see it beat in her neck-and it wasn't passion.
"Bad thoughts?" he asked.
She nodded. "It's over. Done. Has been for a long time. Why does it still have such power?" The hand on his skin fisted, pulled away, then landed back where it had been, fingers widespread.
Words. He wasn't good with them. But he'd try. "It's not over in your head. And that's all right, Anna. Don't expect it to be over and done so fast. It's like... like the silver left in my wound. It needs to fester out-and sometimes it'll feel worse than the original wound did."
"If I let the wolf in," she said a little bitterly, "it's not a struggle at all."
"Wolf is emotion: needs and now," he agreed. "She doesn't care about the past as long as it doesn't affect now."
"She knows you won't hurt us," Anna said, sounding frustrated. "I know, too, but it doesn't help. She can reach out and take what she wants."
He rolled over, taking his time in the doing of it so he wouldn't startle her. When he finished he was a foot closer to her and could look at her without getting a crick in his neck.
"And do you want me?"
She'd pulled her hand away when he'd moved, and now sat straight-backed and stiff. Something started to change...
"Not your wolf," he said. "Do you want me? Or is it only the wolf."
Was she only doing her best to live with the creature inside her? Giving it what it wanted? That was what his father did with his mate. Wolf to wolf they were tight as any mated pair he'd ever seen-man to woman... they did not match. He didn't want that for Anna.
He didn't think Anna disliked him, didn't think everything between them was her wolf. But even the possibility of it was searingly painful.
"I want you," she told him with a thumb at her chest. "I do." Then she gave him a little rueful smile. "So does she."
He went back to his original question, then. It was very important that he know the answer to this one. "Does it bother you when your wolf initiates our lovemaking?"
She dropped her eyes, not from any desire to submit, but as a human impulse to hide what she felt. "Not the way you mean," she said finally.
"And how do I mean it?"
She gave him an exasperated look.
"I'm not playing games, Anna," he told her, holding her gaze when she would have dropped it. "I need to know how to handle this. I need to know more."
"You are asking if I'm entirely willing to have sex when she starts things." Her voice was brittle with the embarrassment that colored her cheekbones.
"That's what I'm asking."
She swallowed. "Yes." And then said, in a rapid pace, like a balloon deflating, "I think I give her the idea in the first place."
Relief washed through him. Anything else he could work with. Anything. "So. Does it bother you when she initiates lovemaking in the way you mean it?"
She gave a snort of laughter. "Sorry. But it sounds stupid when you put it that way." She dropped her head, then lifted it, tossing her hair back and showing him her face, bright with embarrassment and heat. "It bothers me that she can do it without me. But I can't touch you-naked skin to naked skin-without a little help from her."
"Ah," he said. "So let's try a little play time and see if, with my cooperation, instead of hers, you can get results."
She blinked at him. "What? It's four in the morning. You're going to have to speak in shorter sentences that make more sense."
He lay flat on his back, lifting his chin in a submissive pose he'd only ever offered to his father before. "Here I am," he said. "Stuck tight." He flopped his hands as if his wrists were tied to the mattress. Wiggled his feet. "What are you going to do with me?"
***
SHE stared at him. Submissive? Charles? But that bared throat was still there. No threat. He couldn't have made her believe with words that he wouldn't hurt her, because she already believed the words. But his body was telling her the same thing-and that she trusted right down to her bones.
Because she trusted, she was able to move closer, until her knees bumped into his body. She put her nose against his throat and he moved to make more room, even when she opened her mouth and let her teeth rest against his skin.
Under her tongue, his pulse began to speed up. Not fear-she smelled his arousal, and the sheer, unadulterated call of that scent loosened something inside her, making her moan in pleasure. She licked the side of his neck, appreciating the taste of salt and man, appreciating the freedom he'd given her to touch and taste at her leisure.