He climbed slowly and quietly to his feet, backing away from Missy’s stall before turning to Matt. And the smile on his face—Matt had been right the first time he’d seen him smile. He was a goddamn heartbreaker.
Matt looked away.
Chapter Ten
JESSE
Jesse took the coffee Matt shoved at him—did the manliveon coffee?—and settled at the table, watching Matt and thinking. When Matt had touched him by the chicken run, arousal had jolted through Jesse, wild and insistent. He’d wanted nothing more than for Matt to throw him down to the ground and fuck him. Well, maybe Matt could have controlled the unbridled lust long enough to get him to the hayloft first because Jesse wouldn’t have appreciated having the chickens as a loud and interested audience. ButGod,he’d wanted something to happen.
He still did. And when Matt’s gaze flicked to his across the table and they held… It was like nothing Jesse had ever known. His breath caught in a stifled gasp. Damn it, why the hell had that sounded like a fish out of water rather than sexy? Matt looked sharply away again.
Jesse wasn’t imagining things. Matt wanted him, even though it seemed like he wasn’t going to do anything about it.
Screw it. He’d been fighting this since they met, and for what? Giving in towantwasn’t surrender. Might as well take what he wanted, and if he wanted a session tangled up with a broody alpha, he was going to take it. Just maybe not right now, with a heavy oak table between them and Matt looking away from him.
Jesse would keep watching, he’d pick his moment, and when it came—Matt Urban was going tobeg.Jesse would make sure of it.
And until that moment came, things here weren’t as bad as he’d thought. It’d been kind of nice, working alongside Matt. Almost like he fit.
Dangerous thought. Urban might not be what he’d first believed, but at heart he was still a bossy alpha, in control of everyone all the time.
Which made Jesse wonder, given how many shifters must live here, why it was so quiet.
“Where’s the rest of the pack?” he asked, breaking the long silence that had been oddly comfortable.
Matt looked at him, and Jesse lost himself in those eyes for a while, scarcely hearing his answer. “Bryce and Jason are at work, Christian and Dave are up in the top pastures, Karl’s patrolling, and Tristan’s at college.”
Jesse eventually tore his gaze away and processed Matt’s words. “What about everyone else?”
“That’s my pack.”
Jesse knew his jaw dropped. “What, five… no,sixshifters? And no women? How does that work?”
“Guess you’re not asking for the birds and bees talk,” Matt drawled, and Jesse didn‘t know whether to roll his eyes or grin. In the end he grinned, because—unexpectedly—helikedMatt.
“This was never supposed to be a pack, but Bryce got a call one night from an ex who was in trouble. He came home with thisshifter kid, all floppy hair and big eyes, who needed a home. And Bryce, the softhearted pushover, gave him one. So, Tristan came to live with us, and then Dave came along when I was looking for a hand to help with the horses.”
Matt smiled—the first time Jesse had seen it, and it was a fucking revelation. It was like the sun coming out. Jesse did that dying fish thing again, and thank God Matt didn’t seem to notice.
“I doubt Dave had so much as touched a horse before in his life, but he learned. With some help from Christian, who was the next one to turn up.”
“He just knocked on your door?”
“It’s odd,” Matt said slowly. “I never thought about it before, how so many stray shifters turned up here. I put it down to Bryce being Bryce and scooping up anyone in need who crosses his path. But I wonder… When we first came here, the land felt as if there’d been shifters here before. It feltright.I wonder, now, if maybe we can sense things we’re unaware of, and something draws shifters to the ranch, to Elk Ridge.” His eyes flicked up, spearing Jesse like a butterfly on a pin. “Like you. You had hundreds of miles in which to run, but you ended uphere.Don’t you think that’s more than a coincidence?”
Well, no, actually—Jesse didn’t. He didn’t believe in mystical shit like that, like fated mates or shining wolves. But even as he thought about saying that, Matt’s face changed, grew pale, and he rushed on without waiting for an answer, almost like he wanted to bury the words before Jesse could poke at them.
“Christian didn’t so much knock on my door as get hauled out of a bar fight by Bryce. He was offered the choice between a night in lock-up or coming up here and doing some chores. Turns out Christian’s on the claustrophobic side, so he chose here. And then, like the rest of them, he never left again.”
“Jason and—Karl, is it?”
“Jason got dropped off in town by a ride, took a job at the diner, and lasted maybe a week before Bryce found him. He took one look at Jason and brought him up here. As for Karl… ” The slight smile playing around his lips faded, and he looked down into his coffee, his expression growing somber. “Karl came to us about a year later, after his truck gave out a few miles out of town.”
He offered nothing more, and Jesse had the feeling he shouldn’t ask.
Matt’s eyes flicked back up to Jesse. “Now I’m overrun by goddamn wolves.” But his complaint was undermined by the warmth in his voice
Matt’s account of the pack raised more questions than it answered in Jesse’s mind. How come an alpha like Matt wasn’t running a proper pack? Most packs were at least a hundred strong, from what he’d heard, with some of the bigger ones being up to three hundred. From the sound of it, Matt hadn’t hadanypack before Tristan.
