She sighed. “I was hoping he wasn’t afraid of you and might allow you to approach him and learn who he is.”

“I believe he was concerned about me, but I doubt he would have come near me if I had been above the hole.”

“If he was concerned about you, that’s good news. Was he a gray wolf or Arctic?”

“Gray wolf. His ears were too big to be those of an Arctic wolf.”

“Then he has to be old.”

“Or an injured or stressed wolf. Though I don’t know how in the devil he made it across the river without us catching up to him if he was either old or injured.”

“You mean the first time? Maybe he let the river carry him downstream so that we wouldn’t see him getting out of the river and where he ran after that.”

“Possibly.”

“Are you sure it was a he?”

“No. It could have been either. All I saw were his head and forelegs. Not the size of his body. And it was dark.”

She touched CJ’s skin where it wasn’t bruised, glad he would heal quickly and that he hadn’t been severely injured. “Could the truck have belonged to someone else?”

“Might have, but it seems like the person in the truck would have seen the wolf and reported him.”

“Unless the person was afraid to mention it to anyone, worried the pack members would think he was seeing things. Or he might have been human.”

“Could be either possibility.”

Laurel straightened and considered CJ’s belt buckle with a brass wolf’s head engraved on it. She was putting off removing his jeans. Not that she was embarrassed, but because she was afraid CJ would take it as a yes for connecting in a deeper way—a mating that would bond them together for life. Yet, he might not be ready for anything of the sort, and maybe she was thinking too much into the situation.

He needed rest, to sleep and to heal his injuries. Most likely his ligaments and muscles would be sore from the fall.

She unbuckled his belt and then began to unzip his jeans, her hand unintentionally brushing down his arousal. She saw the tension in his face and his body, the way he was trying hard not to react to her touch. But it was too late for that. She fought smiling.

“We’ve only known each other for around six months,” she reminded him, as if they might want to take this…situation between them slower.

“That’s all? Hell, we should have been mated long before this. I don’t think I’ve known any wolf couple to wait this long before they mate. Except Silva and Sam, but even they finally agreed on it.” CJ took Laurel’s hand and pulled her on top of him.

She stiffened, worried she was hurting him. “Your bruises and cuts—they have to be painful.”

“That’s nothing compared to the thought of you packing up and leaving town. And that is killing me.” His arms wrapped securely around her, implying that even if he was sore, he wanted the intimacy between them more. Wanted to show her just how much he needed her in his life. How he didn’t want to wait.

She sighed and snuggled against him, and he began to stroke her back. She loved breathing in his musky male scent and feeling his hard body beneath hers, the way he was already aroused—all because of her touch.

“What if we never learn the truth about your aunt?” he asked gently, his touch just as tender, not pushing to go further if she didn’t wish it.

She had been afraid of that—not finding out the truth quickly enough. Of putting her life on hold when she could really build something here with CJ, her sisters, the pack. Especially because Meghan and Ellie both wanted to stay. In the past, they’d been just as eager to move on to the next project as she had been. Uprooting them now would be wrong. She couldn’t ignore their happiness.

Yet if she truly did want to leave, she was certain they’d follow her. She realized it must have been that way with CJ when Eric left the pack and CJ and the others left with him to show their support of their brother, even if in their hearts, they hadn’t wanted to leave the pack behind.

“Not as a have-to-or-die mission, but would you continue to help me search for clues about my aunt?” She had made the decision, right or wrong, feeling in her heart that she belonged with CJ, with his pack, no matter what happened to the hotel or what else they discovered. Being with him felt right.

In one swift and powerful move, CJ managed to turn her onto her back and pin her down with his half-clothed body. He might have had some muscle strain from the fall, but if so, he sure was hiding it and showing that he was pure alpha-male wolf. “It’s a given and it’s my priority, because not only do we want to solve that dilemma, but we have to learn the truth about the Wernicke brothers and what’s going to happen with the hotel.”

She ran her hands up CJ’s chest in a soft caress, avoiding the bandaged areas and bruises. “What if they do manage to sabotage our sales? Ruin our business? Where would my sisters and I—”

“With me—this will be your home. I have plenty of room for your sisters too.”

“You only say that—”

He frowned at her. “Because I mean it. I care for your sisters as if they were like my brothers.”

She laughed. “I’m sure they’d love to hear it.”

He smiled. “I care for you in a whole other way—as my mate. Loving you and only you until the end. Say yes and you can show me how to create snow wolves and we can watch Christmas stories and…”

“Make love.” She pulled him down for a kiss.

She wasn’t being impulsive, she told herself. For half a year, she’d avoided any intimate entanglements with CJ, knowing he’d had an interest in her from the beginning that was more than just friendship.

It was obvious from the way he looked at her with wolfish interest and how he had gone out of his way to tell her how glad the pack was to have her and her sisters there and how beautiful the hotel looked. He also admired her for her dedication and tireless work despite all the troubles they’d had while renovating the hotel. He’d always been eager to help her.

She’d avoided getting in too thick with the pack members, even going so far as to ask Darien to tell his cousins she and her sisters didn’t need their help. Sure, in part it was because they feared how the pack would react if they learned the sisters were trying to discover what happened to their aunt, and the fear that anyone could have had something to do with her disappearance. But Laurel realized some of it was because of her concern that taking a mate would change her life forever, and that of her sisters. And yet, her sisters had wanted that all along.

She’d even considered that she might be dishonoring their aunt’s memory by even thinking of mating a wolf from the pack, when one of its members might be connected to Aunt Clarinda’s disappearance. Then again, Laurel knew in her heart that CJ hadn’t had anything to do with it. There was no sense in denying she wanted this and wanted him.

He was looking into her eyes, caressing her hair, his gaze heated and lustful, but he didn’t make a move to go any further, as if he was afraid she still had doubts.

So she threw herself into the kiss, into the feelings she’d been trying so hard to hide. And onto a path of no return.

“It’s forever,” he murmured against her ear, his hot breath tickling her.

She nodded, wanting this more than anything.

He kissed her then, his arousal pressed against her mound, his tongue tangling with hers. She wanted out of her clothes, now.

“We’re too dressed,” she managed to say.

“Easily remedied.” CJ shucked off his jeans and boxers in the time she’d managed to sit up on the bed and grab the bottom edge of her sweater. Then he pulled off her sweater and ran his hands over her pale blue lace bra. The rough lace against her nipples made them all the more sensitive and eager for his touch.

“Are you sure?” she asked, breaking off the kiss.