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watering her garden with a hose. None of them would respond well to seeing a wolf break free in the middle of their neighborhood.
    Nor would Allison.
    Even now, Allison had no idea what he truly was.
    For a moment, he wasn’t sure how to interpret the look on her face. There seemed to be layers to it, suggesting that she was feeling a dozen different things.
    Slowly, he sat down beside her, still keeping that small distance between them, giving her room to escape if she thought she needed to.
    “Will I what?” she asked.
    His words seemed like solid, tangible things, clogging his throat like a handful of pebbles. He’d felt this same way four years ago, after she had told him she couldn’t go with him back to the island—that she cared for him very much, but she couldn’t walk away from her home, her family, her friends, her career…
    “I shouldn’t,” he said, and he moved to stand up.
    Allison grasped his hand and pulled him back down. Her grip was so firm that he had to surrender, and this time the distance between them was smaller. “Don’t go,” she said, looking straight into his eyes. “It’s—it’s really good to see you again. I don’t want you to go.”
    You’re the one who left, he thought.
    But, true to her words, she didn’t seem as though she wanted to leave now. Her scent was changing, he realized: becoming richer, more enticing.
    She wanted to mate with him.
    For what seemed like a very long time, they sat on the step looking at each other, holding each other by the hand. After a while, Luca began to rub her palm with his thumb, a simple gesture that she had always enjoyed. She still seemed to enjoy it, because she smiled and made a soft sound deep in her throat, and began to breathe more slowly and deeply.
    “I thought I might not find you,” he confessed. “My brother said I might not find you. But I had to try.”
    “I’m glad you did,” she whispered.
    Before he could respond to that, she leaned in and pressed her lips to his, and grabbed a handful of his shirt so she could hold on. That, too, was familiar, something she had done almost every time they kissed.
    He was eager to give her what she wanted—and the wolf certainly was—but those other humans were still around. Years ago, they had kissed passionately out on this street more than a few times, but they’d been younger then. More impetuous.
    He returned the kiss as eagerly as he dared, thinking he would lean away after a few seconds.
    But Allison wouldn’t let go.
    “Come back with me,” she said in what was almost a groan. “To my hotel room. I want to be with you. I want you in my bed, like we used to be. Just us, right now. Will you come?”
    Would he?
    “Yes,” he said.
    Inside him, the wolf howled and danced with joy.
     

Six
     
    Allison had barely closed the hotel room door when Luca began to strip off his clothes.
    Afraid that the maid would show up for some reason—to bring extra towels, turn down the bed, get rid of that awful lemony bleach smell somehow—she reached for the deadbolt knob and had barely turned it when Luca pulled her away and back into his arms.
    “Let me just—” she started.
    He was already carrying her toward the bed.
    She couldn’t find it in her to protest. They’d all but run back to the hotel—the best part of a mile, she guessed—and she was a little winded. At the same time, she was desperate to have him pull her clothes off too and relieve that gaping emptiness inside her, that need for something she hadn’t been able to name that she’d been feeling almost all day.
    Not just sex; she needed him to… well.
    Fill her soul .
    He set her down carefully, gently, in the middle of the bed, then took a step back. For a moment he just stood there gazing at her, drinking in the sight of her, and she couldn’t help but do the same.
    He’d always been tall, well-muscled, perfectly built. In fact, Julie, who’d caught a glimpse of him naked early one morning, had said,