Maizie gasped. “That’s it. That’s it. Like I dreamed you did in the shower.”

Gray flicked his gaze to Maizie’s face, etched with concentrated pleasure. The invisible shower-Maizie had been his dream. Was it possible she’d felt him the way he’d felt her? Could they be that connected-that destined? Maybe. Possibly. If they were true life mates. But what would that make Donna?

His hard-on softened. He didn’t want to think about it. Not now. Gray thrust his hips, pumping his cock until her hungry muscles made him so stiff he nearly came. He didn’t want to think about Donna. He had Maizie in his arms, her wet pussy, her sexy ass. He wanted to fuck her senseless, he’d wanted to from the start.

He pulled out and bent to her anus. He licked and kissed, thrusting his tongue into the tight opening as his fingers pumped her pussy. Maizie writhed against him, keeping the fast rhythm until her anus was as slick and ready for him as her sex.

Gray drew himself up to her, guided the head of his cock as he held her ass cheek. He pushed, felt the sweet resistance and allowed Maizie to bring him inside her. She pressed back against him and Gray’s cock slipped through, smooth and easy, muscles so tight he gasped at the surge of pleasure, raising the hairs all over his body.

She moaned loud and the sound reverberated along his cock, made him pump when he wanted to hold still. Jeezus, she drove him wild. He reached around and found her clit. He stroked her, using her own cream to keep his fingers wet. She wiggled against him as he pumped, her muscles squeezing tight, pushing him toward the edge, swelling the need inside him. So close, so close, the coming release pulling his balls, humming through his thighs and tugging his gut.

Not a moment too soon Maizie threw her head back, her body driving hard against him. His balls were drenched in her come. Her clit pulsed with another orgasm, her ass muscles throbbed around his cock with a third. She was coming all at once, her clit, her pussy and her ass.

“Maizie…” There was no holding back. Her orgasm pulled him over the edge so fast he couldn’t breathe. His body worked on its own, pounding into her. If she’d asked now he couldn’t have stopped. He was out of mind, out of body, lost to the whirl of sensation.

Something inside him gave way, heat rumbled over him like a summer storm, rolling through his muscles, massaging his balls, sucking the come from his cock so he felt utterly undone.

He collapsed onto her and she collapsed to the ground.

Maizie winced at Gray’s soft cock sliding out of her bum, her sex still pulsing and flexing with after-waves. Gawd, she’d never come like that in her life.

She pushed up to her elbows and Gray shifted off her, his lips trailing soft kisses across her back. She shuddered, her belly quivering. Everything he did seemed so intense, affecting her mentally and physically. She felt him everywhere, sensed him, more tonight than before. Something had changed. She felt marked by him. The werewolf blood coursing through her veins forged a connection between them. Or strengthened one that had already been there.

He sat up, his leg touching her thigh, and scooped a handful of her hair off her back. She heard him inhale, knew he held her hair to his nose, and then she remembered the way his nostrils had flared when she asked if he blamed her for his wife’s death.

Anger burned down her spine, stiffened her shoulders. She twisted, pushing up to sit, not caring how the movement yanked her hair from his grip.

She looked at him.

He smiled.

She slapped him hard, hard enough he nearly fell over. When his head snapped back to her, his glower was set in deep lines across his forehead, his lips tight.

“What the hell was that for?”

“What did you turn me into?” Her anger was a bit misdirected, she knew. Gray hadn’t done this to her. He’d only blamed her for his wife’s death then screwed her senseless anyway. She couldn’t really complain since it was obvious she’d wanted it as much as he had. That didn’t make her any less pissed about it or make the slap any less satisfying.

“I’m sorry. But I didn’t infect you.” He rubbed the red handprint she’d left on his face. “It shouldn’t have happened. If I could fix it, I would. Believe me.”

“Fix it? Yeah. Because you’re all about doing what’s right. Like blaming me for the accident that killed my parents…and your wife.”

“I’m sorry for that too.”

Maizie’s jaw snapped shut. She blinked. She hadn’t expected him to admit to it. “Then why did you? I mean, if that’s really the way you feel, what was all…this about.” She gestured to their naked bodies and the crush of grass where they’d had sex.

He raked a hand through his mop of silvery hair, grunted and pushed to his feet. She tried not to notice the way his muscles rolled under his skin, the tempting bundle between his legs. Would he say tonight was a mistake? She might agree, but it hadn’t felt that way. She pulled her knees to her chest, hugging her arms around them, feeling small and vulnerable.

He stared out over the cliff, hands propped on his hips. “It was easy blaming your parents and you for Donna’s death. They were dead, and you were just a kid.”

The moonlight silhouetted his body in a blue-white light, made her breath shudder to look at him.

“I don’t know why,” he said. “It didn’t bring her back. It didn’t change a damn thing. But until you walked into my forest, I didn’t really give a shit.”

“So how’d I change things?”

His shoulders shook with a silent laugh, though when he spoke there was no sound of it in his voice. He knotted his arms under his chest. “By being everything to me that I couldn’t be for her. Jeezus, I had no idea. I mean, I knew it was harder for her. She was born a werewolf, her instincts were stronger. She needed to find a life mate, her life mate, and I just wanted to be married to her. After she infected me it was too late. I’d made a mistake. But I was just too damn stubborn to admit it.”

“A lot of people consider honoring your wedding vows a good thing.”

“I wasn’t honoring the damn vows. At least not the spirit of them. Not the way she needed.” His head lowered, she couldn’t be sure, but she thought he’d closed his eyes. “Our marriage was killing her. She was dying of loneliness lying right next to me. If I had understood better…”

He shook his head, raising his gaze. “I was just pissed as hell that our marriage was failing. I loved her. I know she loved me, but there was something missing, something she needed. When she tried to find it with another man I…” He shrugged. “I lost it. We had a blowout fight. Damn it, I hated what I’d driven her to, hated I couldn’t be what she needed. So when she ran…I let her go.”

“That was twenty-one years ago, Gray. Maybe you’re remembering it wrong.”

He turned his chin to his shoulder, looking back at her. “I remember like it was yesterday. I remember because I feel the bond with you I could never forge with her. Your family took my wife from me, but gave me my life mate. So, tell me, should I thank them, or curse them…or both?”

She swallowed hard not knowing if she wanted to smile or cry. She wanted to go to him but the muscles in her arms and legs still trembled from everything they’d endured.

He came to her on one knee. “Don’t try to get up. Your body needs to rest. It’s still sort of in a state of flux.”

She’d protest except she could feel he was right. “Whatever you do, Gray, you should start by letting yourself off the hook. It was an accident.”

He snorted, a short sardonic laugh. “That’s just one explanation, according to your grandmother. An accident, yeah, but predestined too.”

“You mean like fate?”

“Like a goddamn fairy tale.”