Tangle of Need

Chapter 27

RIAZ HADN’T SEEN Adria since the waterfall, so when he ran into her on the outskirts of the Pack Circle a week later, they both froze. Her wariness was writ large across the clean lines of her face before she blinked and wiped it away.

Edgy about his inability to control his touch-hunger when it came to her, he’d done his best to stay the hell away. But now she stood in front of him, and though her presence was nothing simple, nothing easy, he found he couldn’t simply let her pass. “Are you helping with the preparations?” Lara and Walker’s mating ceremony wasn’t for another week, but everyone was already gearing up for it.

“Yes—my trainees volunteered to do the setup.” She twisted what looked like a piece of twine around her index finger, offered him a guarded smile. “Walker and Lara’s ceremony coming so soon after Hawke and Sienna’s is going to be great for the pack.”

She was, he realized, trying to make conversation—distant conversation. And he knew this proud, strong woman wanted to erase the fragile tie created between them by those heartrending moments by the waterfall. Reining back the dominance within him, a part of his nature that fought to crash against her cool facade until it cracked, he glanced around. “Looks like you need a hand with the tables.”

An intent look, the scent of her a lingering caress. “Are you volunteering?”

“I’m yours to command.” Even though it would’ve been far more sensible to walk away.

A hint of true warmth in the luminous blue-violet. “Come on then.” Picking up a hand-drawn plan, she said, “Lara wants the picnic tables set up on the edges of the dance area, except for this section where the band’s planning to set up.”

“Got it.” About to conscript three of the bigger boys from her crew, he wrenched himself back just before he would’ve spoken. These kids were Adria’s. As a lieutenant, he had to support, not undermine, her authority. “Who can I have?”

An inscrutable look before she put two fingers to her mouth and whistled. “Israel, Charlie, Vincent. You’re with Riaz.”

After he’d given the boys a quick tutorial, Riaz’s team began to snap and screw together the tables and benches. Since except for the occasional event, most wolves preferred to sit or sprawl on the ground, the pack put up and broke down their outdoor furniture as needed. It ensured the forest remained as uncluttered and as untouched as possible, and with the separate components taking up very little room when stacked, storage space wasn’t an issue.

From what he’d glimpsed of the plan, Walker and Lara—or if Riaz had to guess, Lara—had decided on a night picnic, followed by a jazz dance. Soft glowing lights in all the shades of the rainbow would ring the area, the festivities kicking off soon after sunset. The early start made sense, since Walker had a young daughter and was basically Toby’s dad as well.

“It’ll be beautiful,” Adria said to him as he wiped his forearm across his perspiration-damp forehead a couple of hours later. “Suit who Walker and Lara are as a couple.”

Riaz had sent the boys off a few minutes earlier, when Adria dismissed the rest of her crew, and was now completing the final table with her holding the boards in place. “The check marks on the plan,” he said, twisting a rivet into place. “I couldn’t figure out what they were.”

Adria’s sudden laugh was husky and uninhibited. “Giant butterflies—Marlee’s contribution to the decorations. Sienna and Brenna have been conscripted into the task force.”

Man and wolf both chuckled. “Walker Lauren is not exactly the butterfly type.” The lone wolf in Riaz had recognized the other man as dangerous from the first.

“He’s a good dad.” Adria consulted the plan, made him move the table a few feet to the left. “That’s it. Thanks.”

Glancing up at the orange glow of the early evening sky, he said, “I might jog down to the stream, take a dip.” He needed to chill the embers in his gut, a dark, hot flame.

Adria frowned. “I didn’t know there was one nearby.”

“It’s about a ten-minute jog.” He described the sector, but the lines between her eyebrows didn’t disappear. “Come with me,” he said, clenching his abdomen against the continuing impact of her presence. “It won’t take long.”

Her reawakened wariness betrayed itself in the finest flicker of tension across her lashes, but Adria was a SnowDancer soldier. She gave a small nod. “Let’s pack up everything here first.”

That done, Riaz led her into the trees and toward the secluded area where the hidden stream widened into a cold, clear pool half hidden by the gnarled roots of two ancient trees before snaking away and underground again. Though his wolf knew Adria wasn’t his mate and the craving confused it, it clawed at him, wanting to lick up the taste of her. As a result, his jaw was a painful line by the time they reached their destination.

“No wonder I missed it,” Adria said, stepping in front of him and to the water’s edge. “It’s literally tucked between…”

He didn’t hear the rest of what she said, his eyes locked on the bare skin of her nape, her braid having slid over her shoulder. His hand curved around that nape before he was aware of moving. She wrenched away, her eyes slamming into him, bright cobalt touched with purple. For an instant, he froze, but then his wolf roared to the surface and he knew he’d been fooling himself about his ability to resist her.

THE electric charge in those eyes gone a vivid wolf gold raised every hair on Adria’s body. “No.” Not even if the rough heat of contact had rocked a lightning bolt through her. “I told myself I’d never again invite you into my bed and I meant it.”

Riaz flinched. “I’m doing the inviting.”

Bruised pride made her want to repudiate him as he’d repudiated her, but if being with Martin had taught her one thing, it was that her pride could be a terrible weakness. “You’ll just hate me for it.” And she’d had enough of a man’s hatred.

Shuddering, Riaz stalked forward to cup her cheeks in his hands. Startled at the tender hold, she didn’t jerk away when he bent to press his forehead to her own. “No.” A hot breath on her lips, his hands warm and callused on her face. “It’s on me.” Raw, his soul stripped bare. “I can’t carry on as I have been doing.”

“So I’m the bitter pill?” Even as she said that, part of her resonated with the tumult of need and pain tearing him apart.

“Adria—”

“No.” A finger pressed to the firm curves of his lips. “You’re right. You need to make a clean break … and so do I.” She gave him that piece of herself so this wounded wolf would know he wasn’t the only one going into this with the most painful of motivations. It wasn’t simply about the sex any longer, wasn’t simply about assuaging the skin hunger that haunted them both. It was about saying good-bye to a dream that had never had a chance. “But,” she whispered, forcing herself to hold the potent dominance of a gaze that was pure wolf, “you have to be sure.”

“I am.” No hesitation, even if the words were jagged as broken stone. “There’s nothing for me in the past.”

Yes, she thought, the past was forever gone, for both of them. “All right.”

His eyes glowed wild and beautiful in her vision as he dipped his head, stole her breath. She let her lids flutter shut, knowing that regardless of what happened after this, whether they remained lovers or walked away, one thing she would never, ever be able to change—that she was the first woman to lead him into betrayal.

A dull ache, an accepted pain.

Then her wolf came to life inside her body, and the thought fractured under a chaos of sensation. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she met the fever of his kiss, her bones molten with passion. Yet … there was a hesitancy to them that hadn’t been present before, and Adria wondered if their time had passed. A twisting in her chest. A hurt that was deeper. More dangerous. But when she made as if to pull back, the growl that rumbled out of Riaz’s throat was a primal thing.

His hand closed over her breast, his mouth sucking on the pulse in her neck almost before she processed the fact he’d taken her to the grass, the earth still holding the sun’s warmth. Any thought of retreating fragmented, the hunger inside her a wild craving. Clawing at his T-shirt, she heard something tear. He snarled against her, thrusting one hand under her own tee to push up her bra and spread his fingers over the bare flesh of her breast, cupping and shaping.

“Oh God!” Arching into the firm, confident touch, she tore at his T-shirt until it was in pieces around them, his big, muscled body rising over her own, his mouth busy on her lips, her jaw, her neck.

His skin was a shade of burnished brown, warm and beautiful, her pleasure at touching him—at last—almost painful. When he shoved up her T-shirt and lowered his head to her breast, her womb clenched in anticipation. His breath on her skin … the hot suction of his mouth. Twisting wildly, she fisted her hand in his hair, attempting to pull him off. The pleasure, oh God, the vicious pleasure was too much, her body too sensitive.

He used his teeth.

Crying out, she was bewildered at the sudden cold on her damp flesh. “What—” An instant later, he was unzipping her jeans, pulling them off, along with her boots. She felt something rip, knew her panties were gone. When he unzipped and moved between her thighs, she spread them against the heavy intrusion, ready until her skin ached.

A single hard thrust and he was seated deep inside her, the thickness of him a pulsing brand.

She froze for a minute, her body stunned at the almost violent possession. Long unused muscles ached, but below all that was need. Such naked, raw need. Rising toward him, she met eyes glowing against the dusk. She wasn’t the least surprised by the warning growl, or by the hand he fisted in her hair to arch her neck. The bite along the sensitive slope where her neck flowed into her shoulder was hard enough to sting, hard enough to push her over.

Even as she came with a scream, he pounded into her with such wild fury, the feel of him reverberated through her very bones. A brutal word in a masculine voice so harsh, it was almost unrecognizable. Her internal muscles spasming in erotic response. His hand clenching on her breast. The primal heat of him spilling into her.

RIAZ lay on the grass, so angry with himself that he couldn’t look at Adria. But he could sense her pushing her bra and T-shirt back down into place. She didn’t rise to find her jeans, and he wondered if they were even in one piece. “I’m sorry.” His voice was coated with gravel.

A pause. “Why?”

“I’ve never hurt a woman like that.” He knew damn well she had bruises, and that bite on the smooth curve of her shoulder wasn’t going to disappear anytime soon.

Adria sighed, stretching out under the twilight colors of the sky. “I wasn’t complaining, Riaz, and I’m strong enough to have gutted you if you’d been doing anything I didn’t want you to do.”

“Damn it, Adria.” He lifted himself up on one elbow to glare at her, his body still pumped with adrenaline. “You deserve more than a fuck in the grass.”

Her eyes widened.

He went to say something else, lost the thought when his eyes fell on half-parted lips. Kiss-bruised and lush, her mouth was the most erotic temptation, the need inside him nowhere near sated by their frantic coupling. Breath coming in harsh gasps, he managed to get out a single word, the only question that mattered, “Adria?”

“Yes.” Permission.

Promising himself he would give her tenderness this time, even if it killed him, he sucked on her lower lip, played his tongue across the part, but didn’t push for entry. Instead, he licked and tasted and teased as he should have done earlier … until her hands landed on his shoulders, her claws releasing just enough to prick his skin in silent female demand.

Smiling, he thrust one jean-clad thigh between her own and pushed up. She hissed. Breaking the kiss at once, he reached down to stroke one hand over her calf, her leg raised and bent at the knee. “Sore?” Hardly surprising since he’d shoved into her with all the finesse of the average eighteen-year-old.

She nodded, lifting her fingers to his mouth. He held position and let her explore. When she tugged him back down, he claimed a kiss that was all tongue, deep and wet and an unashamed taste of the things he wanted to do to her, before removing his thigh and shifting so that he was on the bottom. “I think,” he said, holding her steady with his hands on her waist as she pushed herself up to straddle him, “it’s my turn to take the pounding.”

ADRIA was caught by the playful smile tugging at Riaz’s lips, the harsh angles of his face relaxed to reveal an intoxicatingly attractive male—one who was playing with her just a little … but coming from a lone wolf…

“No?” Riaz said when she didn’t move, his head angled in a way that told her his wolf remained very much near the surface.

Leaning forward, she brushed his hair off his forehead. She knew it was a tender move, one that went beyond sex, but she needed to do it. The truth was, no matter what she’d said to him that day at the training run, no matter what she’d tried to convince herself because it hurt too much to do otherwise, she wasn’t a woman who could ever have sex for sex’s sake. It wasn’t in her.

Home and hearth and family, that’s what you’re built for.

Words spoken by Tarah long ago, so long ago that her sister had probably forgotten. Adria hadn’t. That woman continued to exist inside of her, and in spite of the cracks in her heart, she still wanted a family of her own; a home filled with love; a man who adored her and who she could adore in return. This lieutenant who held her with warm, strong hands, his heart already given to another, wasn’t the one with whom she would ever fulfill that dream, but that didn’t mean their joining had to be a cold, hard thing.

Riaz didn’t pull away from the gentle touch, and one of the cracks deep within her healed a tiny fraction. “Let’s be friends,” she whispered to the golden-eyed man who watched her with such predatory focus, the wolf in his eyes.

His hands flexed on her hips. “I can’t be platonic friends with you, Adria.” Not a rejection, just a blunt truth from male to female, wolf to wolf.

“I know.” Now that they’d touched, the need in her had only grown stronger.

Thumbs stroking gently over the curve of her hip. “Friends who share intimate skin privileges then?” A quiet clarification. “Do you think we can be?”

“Yes.” But she understood why Riaz hesitated, though it was clear to her he needed a friend as well as a lover. “I’ll take you as you are,” she promised, wanting him to understand that she wouldn’t demand what he didn’t have to give, wouldn’t hurt him by reminding him of what he’d lost. “No expectations. No ties. No promises.” Just a friendship that might help them both heal.

Riaz caressed his hands down to her bare thighs, back up to slide under her T-shirt, the calluses on his palms scraping over her skin with a rough seduction that made her shiver. “You almost sound as if you prefer that.”

“I do.” No lies, she thought, not here, in this beautiful moment with the world so hushed and private around them. “I’ve been … lost for a long time. I’m wolf enough to want the contact with a man I’m not only physically attracted to, but who I’m beginning to like,” she said with deep honesty, thinking of the tenderness of his kiss, of the way he’d handled her trainees with both affection and discipline this afternoon, “but I need my freedom.”

Despite the dreams of family she nurtured in a secret part of her soul, she knew she was damaged. Until she fixed herself, if that was even possible, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, steal a commitment from anyone, least of all a man who belonged to another in a way that could never be erased.

He reached up to tug the tie loose from her braid, unravel her hair. “Friends.” It was a promise, the wolf gold of his eyes glowing. “Tell me about him.”

And because she understood how hard it was for a dominant male like Riaz to be vulnerable, to have her keep his secrets, she did. “To understand how it happened, you have to know the beginning.” She shared how she and Martin had been apart for long periods for the first five years after they met, while Martin did a postgrad degree in England, and she focused on intensive soldier training.

“My family tends to lump all those years together, but they only saw me sporadically,” she told him, thinking back to that demanding, exciting time. “My parents were posted to the other end of the territory, Tarah was busy with Evie,”—it made her heart clench painfully tight even now to remember how weak Evie had been as a child—“and Indigo was still in school in den territory, while I was in the Cascades.”

Riaz nodded. “They would’ve had no idea of your day-to-day life.”

“Or how insane it was. As well as the soldier training, Hawke had me taking certain college courses online.” Things that had given her a grounding in basic business principles, so she could act as a sounding board for a lieutenant should it ever become necessary. “I barely had time to breathe, much less start a committed relationship.”

“It was like that for me when I first became a lieutenant,” Riaz said, his fingers moving on her skin, the slight roughness of his fingertips an exquisite caress. “Steep learning curve.”

“I guess that was part of why I was drawn to Martin when he came home for visits, why I said yes when he asked me out on dates. He was warm, intelligent, funny—he made me relax.” Tainted by the darkness that had come later, everyone else seemed to remember only the bad times, but it wasn’t the angry man he’d become that she’d fallen for.

“He’d talk me into watching silly movies; tell jokes in this deadpan voice that would have me in stitches.” But he’d only shared that part of himself with those he knew well. “One thing most people don’t realize is that Martin is shy, always has been. It sometimes comes across as arrogance or conceit and means he doesn’t make the best first impression—he didn’t on my parents.”

However, she’d seen and liked the man behind the mask, sincerely believed her family would too, once they got to know him. “We didn’t have explosive chemistry,” she admitted, “but I never expected that kind of passion.” Had thought her wolf too sensible for the wildfire she’d seen burn so many others in the pack. “I didn’t go around accosting brooding lone wolves then.”

Riaz’s eyes warmed with quiet amusement, but he didn’t interrupt.

“We were compatible in so many other ways, from our outlook on life, to our belief that loyalty was the core of a relationship, to the things that made us laugh that when he suggested we take our relationship to the next level, I said yes.” Her wolf had liked Martin well enough not to interfere with the human’s decision, but it had never demanded more, never hungered to tangle with Martin’s own wolf … never chosen him.

“You didn’t worry about the dominance issue?”

“Initially, yes.” It had been too important a question to blow off. “But you have to realize—by the time we moved in together, we’d known and casually dated each other for years.” Regardless of the impression others, including Tarah and Indigo, might’ve formed as a result of his remoteness around strangers, not once had Martin done or said anything to make her believe he couldn’t handle the fact of her dominance.

“When I made senior soldier while we were dating, he gave me a beautiful ceremonial knife,” she said, wanting Riaz to understand how she could’ve made such a terrible mistake and how it might not have been a mistake at all—not then. “He’d bought it months ago, because he was so certain I’d get the promotion. He was proud of me.”

Stroking hands on her thighs, the calm watchfulness of the predator that prowled behind the captivating shade of his eyes. “When did it start to go wrong?”

“I can never quite pinpoint it.” The only thing she knew was that the change had bewildered her. “Maybe it was the reality of living day to day with a woman whose wolf was dominant to his own, the realization that if it came down to it, I didn’t need him to protect me.” All she had were guesses, because the death of their relationship had been a slow, insidious thing, hard to see until it was too late.

“From what you’ve said, it sounds like he was the one who pursued you—could be he felt more for you than you did for him,” Riaz said quietly. “We both know you didn’t love him, not as a strong female wolf should love her man.”

Stricken, Adria said, “While I was in that relationship, I gave him everything I had to give.” Hadn’t realized she had the capacity for wild passion, that the dark intensity she’d witnessed in packmates was a part of her nature, too. “If he was unhappy, why didn’t he say anything?”

“Because he was a weak prick,” was the cold summation. “I can see why he might’ve reacted badly, but that doesn’t mean I have any sympathy for him.”

Yes … Martin had made his own choices, held the responsibility for them. “I should’ve walked away when I first began to realize he’d started to resent me for my strength, but I couldn’t bear to give up and prove to those who’d warned me off a less dominant man that they’d been right.” God, she’d been so stubborn, so proud.

“You’re a dominant female—being bloody-minded is part of the package.”

She laughed, leaned down to play her fingers through his hair once more. “Yes, I’ve forgiven myself for that.” Because underneath the pride had been the honest desire to salvage a relationship that had started out with such promise. “And I think I would’ve accepted defeat sooner and walked away, but then … Martin saved my life.”

She’d been out in a bad storm, searching for a pup everyone thought was lost when a tree had fallen on her. It had broken her leg and dislocated her shoulder as it knocked her into a stream that had been bloated to dangerous levels, where she’d hit her head on an exposed rock. Dizzied and disoriented, she’d begun to gasp in water instead of air.

Having described the accident to Riaz, she said, “Martin has a bone-shaking fear of the water after almost drowning as a child, but he came out into the storm because he was worried about me, and then he dove into a raging torrent to save my life.” However, that wasn’t the most important part of the jagged jigsaw that had been their relationship. “He got me out, but as he was pulling himself out, a huge rock smashed into him, crushing most of his ribs and doing serious damage to his organs. He was in the infirmary longer than I was.”

Riaz sat up, stroking his hands along her spine. “He used it, didn’t he, to hold you?”

The top of the tattoo on Riaz’s left shoulder just visible to her in this position, she traced the curved lines of it. “I don’t know if it was conscious, but yes.” The pressure had been so subtle, she hadn’t realized what was happening for a long time. “I always had this sickening bubble of guilt inside me whenever I thought of ending it with a man who’d risked everything to save me.”

After the relationship did end, she’d found herself unable to understand why Martin had fought to hold her even when it had become agonizingly clear they’d be happier apart. But if Riaz was right, if Martin had loved her in a way she hadn’t been able to reciprocate … it explained so much, even as it didn’t excuse the hurt he’d caused her.

“Loyalty’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Riaz’s breath warm against her skin.

“No … but taken too far, it can become a flaw.” Sliding her hands over his shoulders when his gaze darkened in knowledge, she gave a rueful smile. “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, isn’t it?”

He rubbed his cheek against hers. “That’s why it’s a bitch.”

Again, she laughed, startled at the vein of humor within the solemn wolf with the golden eyes. “Well, I’m done with looking back,” she said, tasting the salt and citrus bite of his skin, the hint of bitter chocolate in his kiss exotic and intriguing. “I’m ready to live in today.”

This time, their loving was an intimate dance.

Long, drugging kisses, lingering strokes of her hands over a firm chest lightly covered by a sprinkling of hair that was an erotic caress against her breasts, and a ride as deep, as slow. His body arched under her own, his tendons straining white under the dusky hue of his skin as his hands clenched on her hips.

She’d never felt as beautiful, as powerfully female.