The thought threatened to steal the air from his lungs even as he ran. When he’d lost everything years ago, that had included any hope of ever meeting his mate. Partly because he’d left all other shifters behind, except for Bryce, but also because he didn’t deserve to. It hadn’t been much of a loss, not compared to what others had lost because of him. Not once, in all the sleepless nights he’d spent drowning in guilt, had he wondered how his mate’s life might be without him.
Well, now he knew. And it didn’t change a thing.
Matt would do everything he could to keep the truth from Jesse. Fromeveryone.He knew the rest of the pack wouldn’t understand why he couldn’t be with his mate. They hadn’t learned the same hard lessons he had. For an instant he tasted blood, guilt and shame, as if ten years hadn’t passed.
He couldn’t have Jesse. The last time Matt let people get that close to him, they ended up dead. That weight never left him. It was why he’d fought so hard against having a pack.
Jesse challenged every instinct Matt possessed. He was unpredictable, untamable. Worse, he put Matt off-balance and made his control slip. Made himreckless.And that was one thing he could never be again.
So what if he wanted to tumble Jesse into the nearest bed, to taste him, to drink in his scent, to claim him? It meant nothing that in his dreams, running beside Jesse had made him happy, had made him feel free. Or that Jesse was starting to make him want to laugh as much as swear in frustration. That damn wolf was almost as stubborn as Matt.
None of it mattered. Because Matt couldn’t have a mate.Wouldn’t.
He told himself that again, just to be sure.
It didn’t make the want go away.
He forced himself forward, ignoring the deep, unsettled whines of his wolf and the pull dragging him back toward the house. Toward Jesse.
Jesse would be gone in a few hours, and everything would be back to how it had been. Matt would make sure of it.
However wrong it felt.
Chapter Nine
JESSE
It was mid-morning by the time Jesse stirred. He’d slept better than he had in a long time—deep and restful, without the usual startle-awake fear that he’d be discovered by someone. Probably because he was in a comfy bed instead of curled up in the woods, nose under tail, praying some hunter didn’t spot him.
Might be nice to have this, he supposed. A roof over his head, warmth, and no need to wake every hour to check for danger.
But it wasn’t worth the cost. His mind unhelpfully supplied an image of what the cost looked like, and somehow that shadowy, dark alpha controlling his life morphed into Matt Urban. All power and black-clad authority, looking at Jesse like he saw right into him.
Jesse huffed, scrubbing a hand through his hair. Urban was exactly the sort of alpha Jesse should be staying the hell away from. Urban loomed over the rest of his pack. Even when he said nothing, his presence filled a space, commanded attention, demandedobedience. Jesse had watched the way his pack were always aware of him and adjusted their behavior to follow what he wanted from them.
Jesse knew one thing for damn sure—he wasn’t the following type. And yet… Temptation curled through him, insidious. Urban was powerful. Dominant. And hot as hell.
He turned onto his stomach, burying his face in the pillow with a groan andnotshifting his hips to rub his cock against the sheet. He wasn’t thinking about how it might feel to have all that power directed athim. Nope, he definitely wasn’t doing that.
Just as he didn’t wrap his hand around himself in the shower, feeling the press and slide as he jerked himself off thinking of those black jeans and how they were about the tightest thing Jesse had ever seen. Good as they’d looked, more than anything, Jesse wanted them off Urban. Wanted to taste him, to see how he looked when his head tilted back, his eyes closed, while Jesse sucked him.
He rubbed his thumb over the head of his cock and shivered at the thought of Urban above him. His hot eyes would be boring into Jesse as he held him down, helpless under him, so he couldn’t do anything except take whatever Urban wanted to do to him.
He came with surprising suddenness. After he’d gasped his way through it and could think again, he was mad as hell at his brain—the last thing he wanted was anyone holding him down like that. He didn’t know where that urge had come from.
Deciding to ignore the part of his mind that had betrayed him so badly, Jesse took his time shaving and packing away his things, ready to leave.
He hesitated for an instant over his duffel. Long enough that he grew frustrated with himself, before he eventually decided it would probably be safe in the bedroom. If Urban had been telling the truth, and Jesse had believed him, he was going to let Jesse go. IfUrbanhadn’tbeen telling the truth, Jesse would have more things to worry about than whether he had a change of clothes.
It never even occurred to him to turn left out of the bedroom and head for the front door. Instead, he made his way toward the kitchen, breathing in the scent of sizzling crispy bacon and fresh coffee. And something else, that wasn’t the scent of food, impelled him toward the kitchen. Aneedto be there.
He didn’t know what that churning deep inside him—hiswolf,he reminded himself—was so insistent about. Not until he walked into the kitchen and saw Matt Urban sitting at the table.
It had beenMatthe’d sensed. The raw power in the man was unmistakable now he was facing him. Matt’s black jeans and black button-down contrasted sharply with the way his blond hair shone in the sunlight through the window, and his eyes were a piercing green as he looked at Jesse.
Arousal hit Jesse deep in the gut, burning sharp and clear until he couldn’t think of anything, didn’t know anything except that he couldn’t breathe.
Matt rose to his feet, a long, sensuous unfolding of his body, and prowled across the room toward him. His movement was so full of power and grace that Jesse’s mouth dried. Matt stopped just inches away—so close Jesse could swear he felt the heat radiating from him.
