He smiled at her, reached for her, cupped her chin in his hand. They stared at each other and Moira forgot to breathe, so amazed that there could be such a tender, perfect moment between strangers.

Then he eased her over, onto her stomach, and nudged her thighs apart with his knee. She could feel his thumbs on either side of her spine, pressing, soothing, and instinctively arched into his touch. Then she felt a silky firmness, and realized he was dragging the tip of his cock down her spine, between the cleft of her buttocks, and pausing at the opening of her vagina. She waited expectantly, but he paused. Bent.

Murmured.

"I'm Jared."

She said nothing, just surged toward him.

"And you're Moira."

The bare tip of him was teasing her nether mouth, almost easing inside but not quite, and she swallowed a groan. His fingers were on her, spreading her wide for him, but still he didn't enter, still he lingered.

"Say it, Moira."

"Jared." The word was nearly wrenched from her. "You're Jared."

He chuckled, deep in his throat, almost a purr. "Nice to meet you."

He pushed forward and was almost—almost!—inside her, but not quite. She began to shake. Had she imagined she'd have the upper hand in this seduction? Had she really?

"Please . . ."

"Moira, we're going to have a nice long talk when I'm finished." Coming inside her now, the full, engorged head pushing, pushing. "About you . . ." Another inch, "the company you keep . . ." Another.

"And your boss." Abruptly he was gone from her, and she could have cried. His finger replaced his cock, dipping, teasing, feeling her slippery wetness, and then he was stroking the tight bloom of her anus, gently rubbing the rich core of nerve endings there. She made a surprised sound which escalated to a muffled shriek as he slowly pushed his finger past that tight muscular ring.

"Easy."

"Don't." She tried to scramble away—she had never, no one had ever —but he nudged her again and she couldn't get the leverage she needed. When he was up to the first knuckle she felt his cock at the mouth of her vagina, and there was no gentle easing this time, this time he was instantly inside her, while his finger slid around slowly, out just a touch and then back in, no big dramatic strokes, just an overall pressure and gentle wriggling. She could feel him everywhere, filling her up, taking everything . . .

"Yes, we'll have a nice long talk," he said, his voice so gritty she could scarcely understand him. He pulled out and his finger stilled; she was reasonably certain her heart would stop. "About your unfortunate choice of associates." He slammed all the way in.

She screamed.

She screamed into the pillow as he thrust, rocked, as he took her again and again, one hand on the small of her back, one hand . . . doing things inside her, doing things no man had ever . . . and always his cock, throbbing and huge and a terrible thing, doing his bidding, ignoring her pleas, her cries, just shoving and thrusting, and it was a terrible thing, a terrible wonderful thing, because somehow the tables had turned, she wasn't using him, he was using her.

She would kill him. She would kill him for making her scream. She would kill him if he stopped.

"Moira," he groaned. He wouldn't let her move, wouldn't listen to her cries, but his hands on her were gentle. "Moira, ah, God. " His tempo increased, he slammed into her, the bed moved, she braced herself and shoved back as hard as she could, because she could sense it, feel it, her orgasm was on the horizon, was almost there, and another finger joined the first inside her, stretching her, and that was enough, that tipped her over.

She tried to throw back her head and howl, but all that escaped was a wild groan as she bucked against him. She felt him clench behind her, felt his seed pour into her, could actually feel the temperature change as he heated her up from the inside, and came again, so quickly and fiercely that white spots danced on the edge of her vision.

He pulled out of her, away from her, and she collapsed, alone, on the bed. She lay on her stomach for long moments, shaking from the aftereffects of the most cataclysmic sex (with a human! a human!) she'd ever had, then finally rolled over and looked at him.

To her surprise, he'd pulled on his jeans, had sat down in the chair and was watching her with hungry interest, the way a wolf watches a limping fawn. She could still smell the musk they had made. Could smell herself, on him.

"Now," he said, smiling, and she didn't much care for that smile, not at all, "let's talk about your boss."

Chapter Three

Moira sucked in her breath in a startled, hurt gasp. "You . . . you were using me."

He blinked. "Well, you were using me first. In fact, you sort of gave me the idea."

She glared. She felt like a fool—where did she get off, accusing him of anything? She sounded like a brat. Well, she couldn't help it. Right now, she felt like a brat. He was right, but that didn't make accepting it easier . . . or lessen the hurt. However, she would eat her own eyeballs before letting him see how she felt. "Yes, that's true, I did start things," she said slowly. "It's just as well, since you apparently enjoy forcing women to get them to do what you want."

Score! Bright color jumped into his cheeks. Suddenly she felt a bit better. It was hard to feel triumphant, though, when her thighs were still throbbing from what he'd been doing to her. For a while—a teeny, tiny while—she'd forgotten all about the pack, about this man being a threat to her leaders. It just . . . just went completely out of her head. She could count how often this had happened on one finger. Yesterday, she would have been able to count it on no fingers.

Jared cleared his throat, obviously piqued to see her interest was elsewhere. "Now . . . where were we?

Oh, right. Your scumsucking boss. You—"

"I'm not telling you spit about Michael Wyndham, you cretinous globulous fornicator, and you can just—stop laughing!"

He'd thrown his head back at "globulous" and was still chortling, despite her specific order to the contrary. He finally stopped and looked at her admiringly. "Has anyone ever told you how you insult people in threes? Cretinous-globulous-fornicator? Schmuck-putz-moron? Anybody mention this before?"

"Yes. Michael Wyndham, for one." That wiped the smirk off his face. "I don't know what you want with him or his, but he's—"

The brother I never had.

"—my dearest friend and not only am I not going to tell you things about him, I'm going to put you to the floor if you go near him with harmful intent."

Of course, now Michael would be laughing at the thought of her defense, because a pack leader who couldn't fight off intruders wouldn't be a pack leader very long. Still, her pride demanded some sort of action.

He shook his head at her. "You poor kid. You have no idea what he is, do you? I suppose you're fooled by a pretty face."

"I wasn't fooled by yours," she said coldly. He grinned. It made him look years younger. It made him look nice. When he most assuredly was not.

She sat up suddenly, testing herself, pleased to find she wasn't dizzy. In a bound she leaped out of the bed and stood on the floor, fists planted on her hips. Jared's gaze lowered to her breasts and she could practically hear his I.Q. dropping. Pretty soon his mouth would fall open and a silvery line of saliva would start tracking down his chin. "I'm out of here, schmuck, putz, idiot. I don't appreciate being kidnapped and drugged and—er—seduced—"

"Technically," he pointed out mildly, "you were the one to introduce sex into the equation. I was just—er—a willing pupil."

"Details. Anyway, stay away from the Wyndhams, or I'll pull off your ears and you can use them for cufflinks." With that, she whirled and marched toward the smell of Comet cleanser . . . presumably the bathroom.

It was the bathroom. Excellent. Shutting and locking the door behind her, she ignored the laughter coming from the bedroom. Moira had always been the shortest person in any room and was used to people— men—laughing at her fierceness. The laughter usually stopped when they had to spit out their back teeth to avoid choking.

It was time—past time—to get the hell out of Dodge. She didn't trust herself to remain around The Insufferable One. When he laughed he threw his head back and she thought about nibbling on his throat, licking until she tasted his sweat and—oh, yes, it was time to leave.

She spotted the window above the toilet and opened it. Three stories up—hmmm. Big house. She could easily get to the ground, but there was the small problem of being naked. Not that she cared—no werewolf cared—but she was supposed to pretend to care. A lot more humans lived in this town than werewolves, even here, the seat of Michael and Jeannie's power.

She snatched at the shower curtain—a silly thing with imprints of grinning ducks, and were the little bastards mocking her? They were!—and tugged it down. There was a paft-paft-paft! sound as the curtain hooks disengaged, but she didn't hear approaching footsteps. Good.

In a flash she wrapped it around herself, a sort of plastic, duck-laden toga. Wriggling through the window with a minimum of grunting, she dropped to the porch roof, about twenty-five feet straight down.

And fell through it.

That wasn't in the plan, she thought, dizzy with surprise. Stupid old Cape Cod houses with shoddy porch roofs! And are those splinters in my . . . aarrgh! This day is never going to end. She slowly climbed to her feet and heard Jared thundering down the stairs.

She ran.

Chapter Four

Moira limped into the combination dining hall/family room at Wyndham Manor (or, as Derik called it, Carnivore Central). For a moment she just watched them, drinking in the cozy domestic scene. She'd brought chaos and bad news (and splinters) with her, and was loath to disturb them.

Derik, her oldest friend, was deeply engrossed in a back issue of Martha Stewart Living. He was tall, broad, rippling, muscular, etc., etc., and made a quiche like nobody's business. His Chilean sea bass, served on a bed of sautéed spinach, could make grown men weep. Derik was convinced Ms. Stewart was a cleverly concealed werewolf, and read each magazine to tatters, looking for clues. When the article on steak tartare came out, he was sure she'd made a fatal slip.