Shane hated her.

Oh, Nadia wasn’t so blind as to believe he knew it. The man was drowning in self-loathing, and she suspected that the source could be found in the clothing she wore, clothing that had belonged to a woman so important, he’d kept it with him even when she was not.

Perhaps she’d left him, unable to accept the violence inside. Perhaps he’d sent her away. In the darkest part of her soul, Nadia felt sure the woman had died—a tragic death that would make a man punish himself by living in lonely solitude.

However it had happened, Shane clearly despised the parts of himself that were wild—and she’d killed a human. Not in cold blood, perhaps—no, her pulse had pounded in her ears with the first shot, and protective rage had powered the spell. She’d been defending someone she cared for, but she’d killed nonetheless.

The camper that covered the truck bed afforded her room to sit up, but changing was awkward. Nadia struggled into fresh clothes as she listened to Shane’s footsteps outside, crunching over the snow as he secured things for the evening.

He opened the door, just a crack—not wide enough to look in, and she realized he knew she’d been changing. “This might be the last night we have to sleep in the truck,” he told her. “We’re about to hit some of the trade routes. There should be stopover cabins, if you’d rather stay in those.”

Hard to tell if he saw it as an offer for her comfort or a chance to put distance between them. “Will they be warmer?”

“Most of them have a heating source,” he confirmed.

Better for her, then, with her energy so decreased by the recklessness of her first attack. Nadia crept down to the edge of the truck and eased the door wider in quiet invitation. “It might be more comfortable for me.”

Snowflakes had gathered, clinging to his hat, his eyebrows. His eyelashes. “For both of us.”

An ache spread through her chest. Longing. Not just the rush of lust that came from wanting a man’s touch, but the desire born of wanting a man. She started to reach out but checked the gesture and eased back onto the pallet where they spent their nights. “Of course.”

“Ready to sleep?”

“Yes.” Maybe her last night in his arms. Her last night soothed into sleep by his warmth and steady breaths, his body against hers.

She’d always been a bold woman, confident enough to reach for what she wanted, even if it slipped through her grasp. Lovers had not been plentiful, but she’d had her share and enjoyed them. Her people weren’t raised to be shy about sex.

Shane made her shy. The gulf between them seemed so vast that reaching for him might end with her tumbling into nothingness, a fall that wouldn’t end. They weren’t from the same world. They were barely the same species.

Still, when he slid behind her, his arm falling over her waist, she knew he felt it too. The connection, the pull of desire.

He cleared his throat. “Warm?”

“I think so.” She lifted her hand to brush his wrist where it rested on her hip. “If more witches had werewolves to curl up with, we might not hate the wintertime so much.”

He chuckled, and his chest shook against her back. “I think I might be cuddlier than your average werewolf.”

It was as good a way as any to broach a delicate subject. “And I have more sharp edges than your average witch. I’m not a soft woman. I’ve never been a soft woman.”

“Because you’re a warrior. Fighters aren’t soft.”

“Even among our people, some men don’t care for women with hard edges. Women who are willing to kill.”

He hummed. “I guess, for me, it would depend on why you were willing. If it was about conquest or survival.”

Nadia traced her fingers higher, over the strong line of his arm. “What about protection?”

His breathing roughened. “That’s survival, isn’t it?”

“That’s instinct,” she corrected. “Protecting the people you care about, so fast and so vicious you’re not thinking about it at all.”

Shane stiffened. “You don’t think what you did earlier bothers me, do you?”

“Something is bothering you, isn’t it?”

“It sure the hell isn’t you.”

Nadia eased onto her back and sought his gaze in the uncertain light. “Would you explain it to me?”

His jaw was tight. Tense. “I don’t know if I can.”

Just reach. She touched his cheek. Took her chance. “I protected you. You protected me. It’s been so long since I’ve had someone protect me.”

His hand came up and wrapped around hers, but he didn’t pull away. “I don’t have limitless self-control, Nadia, but I’m trying.”

It didn’t seem that way to her. If anything, his control was better than hers. She’d blown up a snowmobile, after all. “You stopped. Those men would have killed you, killed both of us. And you still stopped. You have self-control.”

“No, I—” He groaned and shifted somehow, rolled so his body loomed over hers. His hand slid under her neck, and he kissed her—hard.

The air escaped her lungs on a startled gasp. His lips were warm and firm, crushing against hers with so much force, so much need. Her arms were still trapped in the sleeping bag, tangled up so that there was nothing she could do but show her willingness with her parted lips and her hungry moan.

Shane’s teeth scraped her lower lip, and he growled as he soothed the bite with his tongue. “See? No control left at all.”

Maybe he would be a wild lover. A hint of the beast wrapped in the control he didn’t credit nearly enough. The thought heated her blood. “A softer woman would need your control, but I don’t.”

His thumbs brushed her cheeks. “What if I need it?”

“To hold yourself back from me?”

He licked her lip again. “To hold myself back, full stop.”

Every swipe of his tongue tugged at things deep inside her. It made her question come out breathlessly. “Why?”

He hesitated. “Does it matter?”

She should say no. The desire throbbing inside her demanded it, desire fanned higher by the hard press of his body. Maybe if she’d been better at holding her tongue, at forming pretty, evasive words, but the truth tumbled out. It always did. “I don’t know if I can lose myself in a man who doesn’t want to be lost in me.”

He rolled away, cursing when his shoulder slammed into a box. “Getting lost right now is a bad idea for either of us.”

Nadia dug her teeth into her lip to hold back a protest—or a frustrated curse. Without his bulk pressing down against her, she felt light. Cold. Bereft. Her fault, from start to finish, and she’d managed to turn awkwardness into misery.

She inched onto her side, giving him her back as she struggled to catch her breath. It didn’t work. “You’re right. I ask for too much.”

“It’s not about what you’re asking, Nadia.”

“It is.” If only because she’d asked for the sort of thing that meant forevers and happy endings, not a desperate coupling before an inevitable parting. “That, and everything else.”

“I don’t know what you want from me.” His words were muffled, as if he had his hands over his face.

Nadia closed her eyes and concentrated until she knew her voice would sound casual. “I believe our cultures are at odds. We value civilized behavior everywhere except between a woman and her lover. Control is…not my experience.”

“So what you’re saying is that I’ve insulted you.”

“No. I’m embarrassed that I asked for parts of you to which I have no right. Parts it would be reckless to share with me, when we are who and what we are.”

He stayed silent for a long time. “Then that’s it. It’s reckless, and that’s what we need to remember.”

How helpless it made her feel. How alone. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“Right. That’s settled.” One hand on her shoulder rolled her back, and he loomed over her. “Probably means I shouldn’t kiss you again.”

In that moment, Shane didn’t look controlled. He looked hungry, and she wanted to be the thing he craved. “Will you?”

His gaze focused on her mouth. “I shouldn’t, and I know I will. I want you too much.”

Nadia leaned up and brushed her lips against his. “Enough to not regret me?”

He closed his teeth on her lower lip. “The only thing I would regret is if I hurt you.”

Pleasure zipped along her nerves. She liked the feral edge, the hint of danger. The promise a mate was strong enough to be her equal. She found his upper lip with the tip of her tongue and teased him with a quick swipe.

A growl rose in his chest. “You really do like the thought of making me lose control.”

Nadia laughed. “A man who can keep his control must not find his partner particularly inspiring.”

“Oh, is that the way it works?” He bit her jaw. Not so hard it hurt, but still enough to curl her toes and speed her heart.

A pity the back of the truck provided so little room to move. She tried to lift her hand to his shoulder and bit off a curse when her elbow smashed into a wooden box. “This might test my dexterity.”

Shane caught both of her wrists and somehow urged them up over her head. “Or mine.”

The urge to laugh vanished, swallowed in sudden, painful arousal. Thick flannel pajamas didn’t hide his arousal or the burning heat of his body. She inched her legs apart and moaned when he settled more firmly against her. “I’d enjoy testing so much of you.”

“Would you?” He was watching her, his expression odd even in the darkness. “Why?”

Why? She’d always tested everything. Her boundaries, the rules, the outer reaches of her magic. She’d tested her lovers and the line between pleasure and pain.

It wasn’t curiosity that drove her to test him. It was craving. Hunger. “Because I want all of you.”

His grin flashed white in the darkness. “You do, don’t you? Every goddamn inch.”

She’d felt his erection pressed against her bottom and knew he’d fill her, driving so wonderfully deep. “Show me how to make love when it’s too cold to be naked.”

“I could roll you over, take you from behind,” he whispered in her ear. “Or I could promise to keep you warm.”

The glint in his eyes was too stirring to give up. She couldn’t move her hands, but turning her head let her close her teeth on his earlobe. “Whatever you’re going to do, start soon.”

“Uh-uh. Control, remember?”

She bit his ear again. Harder.

He growled again, his hands skating under the sleeping bag and blankets. He hooked his thumbs in her waistband and dragged her pants down, just far enough to ease one hand between her thighs. Calloused fingertips slid against her, and her breath caught at the sensation.

So fast, but he would know she didn’t need a slow seduction and teasing foreplay. He’d feel the slickness of her arousal, know she could take him now, that the thought made her even wetter.

She told him as much, murmuring the words against his cheek. “I’m ready for you.”

“Never had a man go slow?” he rasped. His touch retreated, returned. Delved deeper.

Often enough, but never a man whose eyes blazed with a lust that eclipsed simple desire. Perhaps control was its own quiet aphrodisiac, when a man knew how to wield it.

Shane knew. Her body spun tight as he worked his fingers inside her, his gaze never leaving her face. It had been endless months since she’d taken a lover, not since she’d been tainted by her sister’s defection. She was alive again, remembering pleasure as a rusty moan escaped her.

Flannel abraded her nipples. She arched against the hard wall of his chest, rubbing against him to relieve the ache, but she only succeeded in making it sharper. “Shane.”

He captured her mouth again, swallowing her moans and answering them with hoarse masculine groans of encouragement. His fingers curved inside her, seeking, and his thumb swept up to tease her clit. Softly at first, until she found the leverage to lift her hips and show him what she needed.

He gave it to her. Firm touches, fingers rocking, thumb circling, and when he found the spot inside that made colors explode behind her eyelids, she tore her mouth away and begged. She begged as tension twisted in her middle, as her toes dug into the sleeping bag and her breasts rubbed against his chest. Her elbow crashed into the box again, and this time she didn’t care, too intent on the climax that hung just out of reach of her grasping hands, until desperation made her cry out.

His mouth moved lower, and he pushed her head back with his jaw, bared her throat in one desperate motion. Then he bit her, hard enough to arch her back even more. Her fingers found his hair, and she tangled her other hand in the fabric of his shirt, clinging to him as all the heat he’d given her shattered into pleasure.

Shane trailed his lips over her cheek as she drifted down, whispering gentle words that soothed. “That’s it, Nadia. Just like that.”

If not for his body above hers, she might have drifted away. For the first time, she was completely thawed, warm and loose limbed and so relaxed she couldn’t stop smiling, even as she kissed him. His lips, his cheek, then his jaw as she skated one hand down his back to shove at his pants.

He caught her wrist. “Not right now, honey.”

Confusion pierced her lazy satisfaction. “What?”

“It’s all right.”

He might as well be speaking a different language. “What is all right?”

He stilled, then pulled her hand up, out of the blankets. “I don’t think we should do this right now. Not like that.”

“Why?” She tried to tug her hand free. “You don’t want me?”

Shane groaned again. “Fuck, Nadia, of course I do.”

“Then why?” Another tug and this time he released her hand. Not that it did her a bit of good—trapped beneath him in the confines of the truck, there was nowhere to go.

“I don’t have any condoms, and I don’t—” He bit off a curse. “It’s the magic, right? Heading south in more ways than one.”

Condoms. Humans’ clumsy attempt to control nature. Some of the other tribes traded in such oddities, but she’d never met a son of the tribes who wanted to use one, not when magic was more effective—and far less awkward. “If I did not have a way to protect myself, I would never have asked you to make love to me. The spell required very little power.”

His jaw tightened. “Protect yourself from what, exactly?”

Did he think she meant to protect herself from him? “The things that would require a condom. I’m not careless enough to risk a child when I have no home.”

“And diseases? We still have them. Do your people?”

Her cheeks heated with the first stirrings of temper. “We’re not primitives, incapable of understanding medicine. Our magic is far more reliable than the methods humans use to prevent such problems.”

“And you want me to take your word for that.” He didn’t seem upset, or even offended. He mostly seemed tired.

His utter calm twisted the knife of his distrust until her heart bled from it. She slammed both hands into his shoulders as misery formed a painful knot in her throat. “Get off of me. Please.”

He shifted away too quickly and cursed when his elbow slammed into the side of the camper shell. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, Nadia.”

She didn’t care. She made it onto her side, turned away from him, where he wouldn’t see her rage turning to bitter tears of frustration and pain. “You didn’t mean to sound as if I’m a savage who would trick you into touching her disease-ridden body and getting a child on her? As if I have so little respect for myself that I’d lie about such a thing?”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. “You’re right. I’m a bigoted asshole. Now aren’t you glad you didn’t fuck me?”

Answering would reveal the depth of her pain, something she’d never be able to keep from her voice. It took everything she was to lie still, to not shake as the vastness of her solitude settled over her.

She was alone, more alone than she’d ever been before. Her tribe might not accept her back. If the elders had been trying to rid themselves of an untrustworthy warrior, they might just sell her again—there were always human scientists willing to pay for test subjects, considering those subjects’ short life expectancies. Or her people might eliminate her once and for all.

Whether they’d betrayed her or not, they’d long since shunned her. She could easily imagine her life now, an endless sea of strangers who would look upon her customs and find them peculiar. Who would mistrust her or dislike her. Who would push her away to protect themselves.

She swallowed and found the strength to speak quietly. “I’m sure things will seem better in the morning.”

“Yeah. I’m sure they will.”

Tears burned. Burned her eyes, spilled over the bridge of her nose as she turned her head into her rough pillow. If she’d been outside in the frozen night, they might have crystallized into ice.

So foolish, crying over a man. Over a clumsy rejection from someone she barely knew. She must have become soft in recent months to let his sarcasm and his disinterest wound her. To need his comfort and affection so much that being shoved away felt like a mortal blow.

How wildly her people would laugh. How low they’d say she’d fallen. Crying over a werewolf.

Things would seem better in the morning. They had to, if only because she could hardly imagine a moment more humiliating than this.