Read Not Until Moonrise for Free Online Page B

and stroked her inner walls in a way that made everything go liquid hot and shimmering.
       Kate screamed. Every muscle in her body contracted helplessly as her release roared through her. Her thighs clamped tight around Jackson, but he only went on working her mercilessly. She curled her body around him, dug her nails hard into his scalp and sobbed his name while the pleasure wrung her out.
    _______
     
    Jackson laid her back in the straw, laid himself down beside her with his cheek resting on her hip, fingers still trailing across the curve of her belly. “I love you,” he murmured against her skin, so softly she almost didn’t hear. “Whatever else, I love you.”
       Kate exhaled harshly. She felt empty, utterly used up. And more completely satisfied than she could ever remember feeling. Jackson had never touched her with such intensity before, never with that edge of mercilessness. If that was what the wolf had given him, she couldn’t be sorry for it.
       When her heartbeat was steady, she shifted down to press the length of her body fully against his and nuzzle at his jaw. His flesh had never stopped burning, but when she reached for his belt buckle, he caught her hands and stilled them.
       “Kate… no.”
       “Yes.” She kissed his neck, tried to draw her hands free. “I want you inside me.”
       “I mean it.” He squeezed her hands harder.
       Kate drew back, frowning against the sting of rejection. “It’s not the full moon. You can’t infect me.”
       Jackson pressed his lips to her forehead, sighed. “Are you still on the pill?’
       “The…?”
       Abruptly Kate understood.
       A baby. The backs of her eyelids stung suddenly, painfully, and she understood everything. In her mind she saw the same dream she’d seen a hundred times since Jackson disappeared. A home full of sunlight. A man she wasn’t afraid to love. And a black-haired baby with blue eyes, who turned when she called him, and smiled—
       And then was gone, as if he’d never been there at all. Which he hadn’t.
       Kate put a hand over her mouth and twisted away. She wanted to cry. But her eyes remained dry, and she was left with only a wracking pain, for everything that might have been, and now never could be.

F ifth
     
    KATE SEARCHED FOR HER CLOTHES, not looking at Jackson. She didn’t have to look. She could feel him watching her every move as she pulled her jeans on, as she checked her boot for the short throwing knife hidden there.
       She wanted to be gone. She couldn’t stand to stay in the loft an instant longer, feeling his breath on her spine. Let the Division send someone else, someone with no emotions to stand in the way, no guilty conscience to tell them Jackson Reeves’ crimes were all their fault.
       She buttoned her jeans and turned to face him with her jaw set. “I’m going now.”
       He didn’t look at her. He was staring down through the loft doorway, down into the darkness of the barn.
       “Jackson.”
       ”I have a present for you,” he said.
       Uneasiness churned in the pit of her stomach. “More stars?”
       He glanced back, lips twisting into a wry smile. “You won’t like it.”
       She shivered. “Jackson…”
       From beyond the barn, out through the open patches of roof, she heard a sound. Dry grass and gravel crunching under tires.
       “Wait here.” Without looking back, without reaching for the ladder, Jackson jumped down through the loft door. Kate heard the soft thud of his landing, and then nothing more from him.
       Outside, a car door slammed. A man bellowed, “Reeves!” in a voice with a pained nasal twang. Kate went still, and all her blood gone cold.
       “You want the cash, you come out here and get it. You’re cracked if you think I’m going in there like the others.”
       “All right,” Jackson’s voice echoed under Kate’s feet. “I’m coming.”
       Kate’s stomach lurched. Every instinct