“Oh, that’s awful, just forget it.” She plunked her face into her hands again and played ostrich.

“I like you too. I’m sorry you’re unhappy about that.” Gideon’s voice was all rich amusement. “Is this related to your ‘big, smelly werewolf’ comment from earlier? Because I’m going to have to protest; I have been showering regularly.”

She looked up again. Yep, he was smiling. She might have been too, if the whole thing hadn’t been quite so humiliating. As it was, trying to explain herself was bound to only make things worse, but she had to give it a try. Even if he was, as she strongly suspected, about two seconds away from bursting into hysterical laughter, possibly while pointing.

“You know what I mean, Gideon. I think you’re …”

“Pretty?”

“Oh, for the love of …” She reached for the nearest object to her hand, which turned out to be a box of tissues, and tossed it at him. He caught it, all his amusement showing in the deep crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Forget it.” She struggled to her feet, slapping away the hand he put out to help her up. “I’m not interested in making any more of an ass out of myself right now. I don’t think I’d live through it.”

The size of him, the way his presence seemed to fill the small room had Carly suddenly shooting into sensory hyperawareness. And just like that, none of this was funny anymore. None of it seemed quite so much like a meaningless game. She was going to need some air, some space, and soon. Because being so close to Gideon without touching him was starting to actually hurt.

Still, she managed a strained smile. “Just leave me in peace, because the mortification is starting to sink in, and you’re not going to want to see this.”

And then there was even less space, because he moved in on her, closing the gap between them to mere inches. When she looked away, his large, rough hand slipped gently beneath her chin to tip her gaze back up to him. “Carly?”

“Mmm?”

“You’re not an ass.”

“That is definitely a matter of personal opinion right now.”

“But I’m afraid I don’t think you’re pretty.”

“Ah.” She could feel the heat flooding her cheeks while she wished she could just sink through the floor and disappear.

Gideon moved his hand, tucked some of the heavy fall of her hair behind her ear with a tenderness that stole Carly’s breath. “I think you’re beautiful,” he murmured.

“Oh. I mean, oh,” she stammered, now completely flustered. She’d never had a man look at her quite like this, never heard quite so much meaning implied in that simple statement. “I didn’t mean … I hope you don’t feel like you have to …”

He continued as though he hadn’t heard her, which she was grateful for. Her brain and mouth seemed to have gotten out of sync somewhere along the way. “You are, in fact, the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.” And she couldn’t look away from him, from the shimmering glow that filled his eyes. She couldn’t, and she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to again.

“Oh,” she said again. Then she cocked her head at him, unable to help herself. “All things considered, I think you may have a pretty low bar for that.”

Gideon chuckled, low and deep, and Carly felt a familiar liquid heat settle into the core of her, tightening her belly while she looked at him. “Does this mean you’re through being pissed off at me for all of the egregious ass-pinching you got today?”

“Only if you’re through sulking about those bloody boxes.”

“I’ll think about it.”

He laughed again, lowering his head until he was only a breath away from her, and when he spoke again his soft burr had become the ragged growl that never ceased to send delicious shivers coursing through her body. “You’re enough to drive a man mad, Carly. Your smile, with those bloody adorable dimples, your laugh.” He rubbed his lips against her forehead, her cheek. “That delicious wee round bottom. And God in heaven, the way you smell …”

“Hey,” she protested with what breath she had left, “I though we were done with the cheap shots about hygiene!”

“No,” he laughed softly as he nuzzled the sensitive spot behind her ear, “no, it’s like vanilla, and fresh cream, and berries.”

She drew back then, her eyebrows raised. “I smell like dessert to you?”

“Mmm, yes,” he breathed, and when he smiled, it was what Carly could only think of as wolfish. And to her surprise, she felt that wildness stirring within her to meet whatever lurked just beneath his skin. It promised, in a whisper, to melt away what inhibitions and misgivings she had left, until there was just the two of them. And intense, indisputable need.

“You are dessert, Carly Silver. And all I can seem to think about is taking a bite.”

It was now or never, Carly knew. Time to run away, or to run to. And she realized, in that moment, that there had never really been a decision to make.

She took the final step, pressing herself up against him, biting back the moan that wanted to escape when that connection was made. She heard the hiss when he drew in his breath, saw what she wanted awaken behind the intense glow of his gaze.

No matter what came after, it was time to welcome the beast … and embrace her own.

“Only,” she purred softly, “if I can bite you back.”

t t t

He felt as though he were being led into some decadent dream by a wanton, fallen angel. Gideon had expected her to want what he wanted, to feel what he felt. To grant his silent wish and wrap herself around him, immediately, giving in to the intense heat that was now arcing between them like lightning and let him take her right there, with slight variations. The floor. Against the wall. Bent over the sink.

Expected. Hell, he was all but ready to demand it as Carly moved in on him, the sight of her parted lips, the hard little buds of her nipples straining against the thin material of the tight little shirt she was wearing pushing him to the outer limits of his restraint.

But she’d surprised him, shocked him into immobilized silence when she paused, only a breath away from that lovely fantasy, and smiled with a promise hot enough to turn what he hadn’t thought could get any harder into living stone.

“Not so fast. Not this time.” Her dimples, his downfall, flashed, just for a moment. “And no more sinks, thanks.”

“What did you have in mind?” His voice sounded distant, strained to him. Not surprising, Gideon supposed, since the moon was nearly full and his more animalistic tendencies were on a very short, increasingly weak tether. And if he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn that Carly was tugging at it purposely.

“Something … softer.” And he followed her, helpless to do anything else, charmed when she took his hand in hers and led him into the hallway, then left, toward her

bedroom. “Sit,” she instructed, pointing at her bed.

“We’re back to that again, are we?”

She grinned, the inhibited creature she’d seemed before gone off to who-knows-where to be replaced by a being wholly, completely physical. Gideon didn’t know whether to shout his thanks to the heavens or throw her on the bed … or both. “Exactly.”

So he sat. What else was he to do, he asked himself? If she’d instructed him to wait on the roof in the freezing cold while she took her clothes off, he would have. As long as he got to have his hands on her. And the look in Carly’s eyes, the soft pant of her breath as she came to stand before him, just out of arms’ reach, told him that having his hands on her was part of both of their agendas.

“I have wanted you,” she said softly, gripping the bottom of her shirt with both hands and pulling it up just enough to expose a line of smooth, creamy skin, “since I woke up with you in my bed. I’ve had some time to think about this, what I’d like to do to you. What I want you to do to me. I want to make this last.”

“I have some ideas on that as well,” Gideon murmured, unable to tear his eyes from that small expanse of taut, flat belly, amused that they were having what sounded like a polite conversation about having sex. She might be acting bolder, he decided, but she was still Carly. And thank God for that.

“Well, then.”

He watched her fight off her nerves, watched her flush only faintly as, keeping her gaze locked with his, she drew the shirt the rest of the way off, exposing the sexy little indent of her navel, breasts pushed up invitingly by her bra. Still, he sat, forcing himself to let her set the pace. He wanted Carly to enjoy this as much as he knew he was going to, wanted her to understand the power she had over him. There was so much fire in her, whether or not she saw it. Gideon intended to tease it out of her, to watch it consume her. Even if it took all night.

God willing.

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth for a moment, making him want to suck on it himself. Then he watched her small hands move down, unsnap her jeans, lower the zipper, and slide them down to her feet.

She was wearing a thong. God in heaven.

Gideon knew he’d made some small noise in the back of his throat. He couldn’t help it. And he knew Carly had heard him when one side of her mouth curved up while she stepped out of the jeans completely and kicked them aside.

And then reached up behind her to unsnap her bra.

“Come here. Now.” The wolf snapped again at the end of its leash, and he knew he would take her, hard and fast and rough, nothing to be done about it, if she didn’t give him just a little to tide him over. Carly slid the bra off, exposing full, perfectly rounded breasts. And she seemed to sense how far she was pushing him, because she stepped toward him then, hooking her thumbs in the sides of her thong to pull it off as well.

“No,” he managed to get out. “Leave it on. And come here.” It was a picture he wanted to keep in his mind always, his golden angel, eyes gone to blue smoke with desire, wearing nothing but that little strip of silky fabric. And then she came to him, stepping between his spread legs, hissing in a soft breath when he grabbed her hips to drag her even nearer.