His hands, which had been hanging uselessly at his sides, came up to frame her face, his thumbs stroking the delicate curve of her jawline. He angled her head, deepening the kiss, and she made a soft, breathy sound against his lips that went straight to his cock. He slanted his mouth over hers, taking, claiming, tasting. The fragile control he’d maintained for eight years shattered into a million pieces.
This was more than a kiss. It was a homecoming. A recognition. A sudden, blinding certainty that everything he had ever wanted, everything he had ever needed, was standing right here in his arms.
He pulled back, breathing heavily, and stared down at her. Her glasses were askew, her lips swollen and rosy from his kiss. Her grey eyes, huge in the moonlight, were wide with a dawning horror of what she’d just done.
“Oh my God.” She scrambled backwards, nearly tripping over the threshold into the room. “I don’t—I’m not—what was that?” Her hands flew to her mouth as if to physically prevent another such incident from occurring. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know whyI did that. It was the moon. And the quiet. And you being all… Alpha and protective, and my brain clearly short-circuited and I?—”
“Harper.”
The single word, spoken in a low growl, cut through her panicked monologue. She froze, her arms wrapped around herself like a shield.
“It was a mistake,” she whispered. “Just a mistake. It won’t happen again. I’ll be better. I’ll focus. I won’t?—”
“I’m not sorry,” he said, and the admission felt like ripping out a piece of his own soul and offering it to her.
She stared at him, her expression a chaotic mixture of shock, confusion, and a fragile, flickering hope that terrified him. “But you… you don’t like me. Or you don’t like humans. Or… something.”
“I don’t dislike you.” The words scraped their way out of his throat. “I don’t trust my reaction to you. There’s a difference.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re a distraction I can’t afford. A complication. A risk.” His wolf snarled its dissent.She is a reward. Our destiny. Our other half.He ignored it, focusing on the hard-won lessons of the past. “It means that nothing can happen between us.”
“So you’re rejecting me. Great. That’s fine. Perfectly consistent with my entire life experience.” Her chin came up, a flash of defiance warring with the hurt in her eyes. “In that case, I’d like to go back to work now.”
“No.”
“No? What do you mean, no? You can’t just say no.”
“It’s late. You need to rest.”
“What I need is to install your server racks before your entire pack loses its collective mind because their streaming services are buffering,” she shot back, her voice rising with frustration. “I need to work. I can’t…”
She gestured vaguely between them, encompassing the balcony, the kiss, the complicated mess of whatever had just happened. He could see the panic setting in, the flight response kicking in as she faced emotions she had no framework for processing. This was a woman who solved problems with logic, and what was happening between them was profoundly, stubbornly illogical.
“The servers will still be there in the morning,” he said, making his voice gentle. He didn’t want to frighten her, but he couldn’t let her run. Not yet. “You need sleep, Harper.”
“I sleep fine,” she lied.
“Barely,” he countered, his memory flashing to the dark circles under her eyes, the empty energy drink cans in her office. “Derek told me. You’ve been living on caffeine and code since you got to Monster Island.”
She flinched, and he knew he’d hit a nerve. “That’s not your business.”
“Everything that affects your ability to do your job is my business.” He stepped back, creating space that felt like a physical wound. “Get some rest. We can talk in the morning.”
Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away, forcing himself not to look back. Every instinct screamed at him to stay, to comfort her, to claim what was so clearly his. But yearsof self-preservation, of building walls around himself after what Vivienne had done to his father, held him in check.
He let himself quietly into the room next to hers, the Alpha’s quarters. Most of the pack members had returned to their homes and the house was quiet. His enhanced hearing picked up her restless movements through the wall. The soft thump of her boots being set by the door. The whisper of fabric as she changed clothes. The creak of the bed springs as she lay down.
He stood in the dark, listening to her breathe, and knew with a cold, hard certainty that two months of this would break him.
Chapter Eight
Harper stared at the door as it clicked closed behind Adrian, her breath coming in uneven gasps, her heart hammering so loudly she was certain any wolf within three rooms could hear it. Her legs felt like they’d been replaced with wet noodles—trembling, unreliable, barely capable of supporting her weight.
What the hell just happened?
She knew the mechanics of what had happened, obviously. She had kissed Adrian. He had kissed her back. There had been hands and heat and his mouth moving against hers with a desperation that had short-circuited every logical thought in her head.
