Page 98 of Moon Awakening

"I thought I could touch you… pleasure you, but my control is too shaky right now."

"I don't understand."

"The confrontation with my brother left emotion I need to burn away, but if I burn it the way I want to, I will break the promise I made to you."

"I don't care if you do," she admitted, her voice almost pleading.

He shuddered. "I would care," he said harshly.

She sat up, as far away from him as she could get while still sitting on his hard thighs. There was another hardness there, too, one that moved under his plaid, and she knew he was not stretching the truth when he said his control was precarious. But that did not make her feel better about his rejection.

"Because you would feel committed to me and you don't want to?" she asked painfully.

"Yes. You are a virgin."

"And if I offer you my virginity?"

"You offer it because I have enticed you to feel things you are not used to, because it is a full moon, because I am close to my… too close to you. I should not have started this tonight, but you make me lose my head."

"So you think we are both out of control?"

"Yes."

"But I do not have excess emotion I need to rid my body of." Unless they were talking about love and they weren't. "If I offer myself, I know what I am doing."

"You don't. There are things about tonight you do not understand. Things you don't know."

"And these things mean I do not know my own mind?"

"Yes."

"Why does it matter so much?"

"I will not break my word to you. I will not take advantage of my beast."

Now that she knew what she did, she understood he wasn't using beast as a euphemism for lust. He meant the wolf inside of him, she was sure of it, but she did not comprehend how his being a werewolf had anything to do with her offering herself. It did not matter though. Not really.

She wouldn't beg. She didn't need to understand his reasoning to realize that if he wanted her anything like she desired him, he would have accepted her offer. With alacrity. It might hurt to admit the truth, but it was obvious that while the feeling might be mutual, it wasn't mutually intense. But then how much of her desire was bound up in the love she felt for him? He liked touching her, but he did not love her.

There would be no comparison between the need generated by the two.

Blinking back tears and swallowing her hurt, she traced the blue pattern that circled his bicep. This was his Chrechte marking, or at least one of them. The other was on his back. She realized now the simplistic beast on his back was probably supposed to represent a wolf, but the tattoo band on his arm was different. None of the other warriors had it.

"Is this to mark you as clan chief?" she asked, wanting to distract herself from thoughts of love.

He gave a strange kind of shiver and gently pushed her hand away. "Yes."

"It's beautiful," she said as the blue markings blurred before her dampening eyes. He would not even allow her to touch him in this innocent way.

"God willing, my son will have the same marking one day."

She blinked furiously. "Your son?"

"I must have sons."

"And daughters?"

"I would welcome daughters, too."