“Stay with me, Maizie.” His voice was low, rumbling in his chest and vibrating through her body like distant thunder. “I want you here. You don’t know how hard it is for me to admit that. I tried to pretend you didn’t affect me, that I was making the choices. To convince myself the way I felt around you was controllable, ignorable. I was wrong. Stay, Maizie.”

“You plan on keeping me here against my will?”

“No.” He put his lips to her ear, her mouth to his chest. “But I’d love the chance to persuade your will to stay.”

His breath was warm, soothing and erotic against her skin. She felt like a kitten on catnip. It’d been a strange night, scary and exhilarating. The over-hot room, the scent of him, the fight for her life, it all made her dizzy and left her body wanting. It was just too hard to fight. She didn’t want to anymore. She wanted him, had from the start if she was being honest with herself. So she stopped fighting.

She breathed him in, her hands going to the belt loops of his slacks. Her legs wrapped around his. She pulled, pressing her wet needy sex against the hard length of him. “Convince me.”

It was both an invitation and a challenge. Gray was good with both. Admittedly he wanted her to stay for her own safety, for her own sanity. The first shift was hard and scary as hell. But there was a part of him, a large part and growing larger by the second, that wanted her to stay for purely selfish reasons.

He liked how he felt with Maizie, comfortable, at home. He’d never felt like this before, not even with Donna. It wasn’t fair. He should’ve been able to give her that, to fit with someone so perfectly like this. He hadn’t. But he was so tired of punishing himself for the failure. For one night he’d accept that maybe he did deserve to feel happy.

Gray kissed Maizie’s ear, then tasted her-just a quick flick of his tongue. Sugar and spice. Jeezus, he’d always thought that was just a nursery rhyme. Maizie’s profession made it a distracting reality.

“Shower first.”

She pulled back. “Oh. Sorry. I was running before and it’s hot in here…” She bent her head down to her shoulder and sniffed.

“No. You smell…great.” She smelled like dirt, cookies and sex, his three favorite things. “Your wounds, though… You’ll be more resistant to infection, but I don’t want to take any risks.”

“Oh.” She laughed, but there was a nervousness about it that came with first-time lovers. The sound made his muscles quake and sent the same nervous thrill through him.

He stepped to the side and scooped her up, carrying her to the glass-walled shower. The molded corner seat was wide enough for three but Gray had no intention of sitting beside her. He reached for the bottom of her T-shirt. She leaned back, clutching the hem.

“I can manage by myself.”

He couldn’t help the lopsided grin. “What fun is there in that?”

Understanding flashed in her eyes, lust warming the color of her cheeks. She dipped her chin, coy and sexy, peering up at him through the tousled red strands of her hair. “You first.”

The virus was working through her system faster than he’d expected, enhancing her basic senses. He’d never seen anyone go through the initial stages besides himself and all he remembered from those days was pain…food…and sex. Intense was the catchword of the experience. The virus didn’t make you do things you didn’t want to, it just made everything taste, smell, feel better.

Gray snagged the edges of his shirt and pulled, sending the matching sea-foam green buttons tick-tacking off the glass and over the shower floor. The shirt was already ruined with Maizie’s blood, but he’d have done it anyway just to see her eyes go wide like that again.

He pulled his arms free, tossed the shirt out of the shower and cocked a brow at her. He didn’t say it, but he knew his look told her it was her turn.

Maizie grabbed the torn edges of her shirt and pulled. She widened the tear by an inch, but little else.

“May I?”

She nodded, catching her bottom lip between her teeth when he reached for the ragged edges. One quick pull and the cotton shirt opened across her body. She gasped, her breasts rocking in her pretty white-lace bra from the force. She was breathing heavy, and God help him, he couldn’t look at anything else for three solid heartbeats.

“Stand. I’ll help with the sweats.”

She shook her head, a wicked grin teasing across her face. “Not my turn.”

Gray didn’t hesitate. He worked out of his slacks, pulling his underwear with them to save time. He wasn’t wearing shoes or socks when he’d heard Maizie’s screams, so after tossing his clothes to the bathroom floor, he was completely naked and harder than stone.

Maizie’s wide green eyes stared at his cock wagging straight out from his body as though trying to reach her on its own. Her focused attention made his muscles coil, twitching the meaty shaft even more and pulling a bright hungry smile across her face.

Jeezus, he hated that they’d done this to her. But he couldn’t help his excitement at her awakening senses and the enhanced need that would come with them. He wanted her. He had from the moment he’d seen her at Green Acres.

His wolf had known all along, and he’d tried to ignore it. But now with the virus pumping through her veins, the wild scent of the pack rising through her skin, he couldn’t deny it, couldn’t resist her. He was helpless. His wolf wanted its mate.

Maizie reached for him. Her long slender fingers lightly feeling over the smooth head of his cock, the ropey veins bulging along the shaft. Even seeing it coming, Gray’s lungs seized at her touch, his body tightening. Her gaze flicked to his, her smile a permanent fixture on her face. She held him, not a firm palmed grip but enough that when she tugged he followed.

Three steps was all it took and Maizie’s soft red lips parted over him. Her tongue explored the textures, swirling and flicking, making him lean into the feel of it. He pushed deeper into her, her right hand loose around the base, stroking what she had left to take. Her mouth pulled on him, sweet, wet suction that drew sensation from every part of his body like strings on a puppet.

She went down on him farther, and back with greater suction. Down and back and then again to the hilt. Gray’s hips pumped with each draw, until he was fucking her mouth, as hard and fast as she could take him. Every thrust he went deeper, and Maizie took it, grabbed his balls, his ass and demanded more.

He held her head with both hands, his fingers digging into her thick fiery hair. His hips rocked, thrusting his shaft between her lips, feeling the sharp scrape of teeth, the hard pull of suction. He’d come like this if he wasn’t careful.

Fuck. Sensation thrummed through his veins, swirling, building in his groin, feeling better and better by the second. He wanted to come. It felt so damn good. No. He could hold off a few seconds longer, enjoy it just a little more. Maizie’s hands began a wicked tease. She rolled his balls through her fingers, caressed, and tugged. Her other hand slipped around his ass, traced the line of his cheeks, teasing, searching for his anus.

The sensation stormed through his body faster than he’d expected, a wash of heat and delicious pleasure crashing through his tenuous control-a flash of release.

He came before he could stop himself. He pulled out, holding her back before he lost any more of his load. Jeezus, it’d been decades since anyone had out-fucked him. He controlled his body. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had managed to seduce that control away, even a little.

Maizie licked her lips, tasting him, eyes questioning. “What’s wrong?”

“Your turn.” The wolf growled in him, panting. She’d awakened the beast as she’d been doing for days, only this time he’d have his fill.