Then he flipped her over, pressing her against the floor with the full weight of his large body, his muscular thigh between hers, and kissed her. Hard.
Valerie felt as if she were melting into the weathered boards that made up the floor of the cabin, her limbs loose and molten and heat pooling in her core. Morgan's lips parted against hers, and she sighed, inviting him to slip his tongue into her mouth. She was aware of the pressure of his erection against her lower belly and she wound her arms around his neck again, pulling him closer. Their tongues twined and tangled, flicking and tasting, and Valerie pulled away for a moment, panting, before reclaiming his mouth in a kiss just as hungry and demanding as his had been. He tangled his hands in her hair, anchoring her head in place as he claimed her.
The heavy length of his erection pressed against her and she squirmed restlessly against him, drawing a growl of arousal from deep in his chest. His large hands moved slowly over her, brushing apart the sides of her coat so he could trace the curve of her hip, the soft swell of her belly and the dip of her waist. His touch was confident and self-assured, and Valerie couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to have his fingers touching her more intimately, urging her toward bliss.
Tracing kisses over the angle of her jaw and burying his face against her throat, he played his fingers down her body again, then gathered the hem of her sweater in his hand and began to draw it up, exposing her soft, pale flesh.
It was like a splash of cold water, bringing her back to reality. She struggled to sit up, pushing him away and pulling her sweater back down over her stomach, drawing her coat closed and wrapping her arms around herself.
Morgan knelt beside her, breathing hard, and took her hand in his.
"What?" he said.
She tried to center herself. "Morgan," she said, her voice quiet and a little husky. "This isn't real, is it?"
He gazed at her for a moment, and she thought his eyes looked sad. A sense of longing seemed to swim in their blue depths. He shook his head. "No. It can't be. I can't let myself want you." He reached out and took her hand, engulfing it in his own. He was so big; so capable. So in control. He always had to be in control.
"You … want me?"
"I've been lying to myself pretending that I don't. Kissing you … Touching you like that … I realize now I've wanted you from the very first moment I snapped at you and you told me to go screw myself."
She snorted. "So … five minutes after we first met?"
He laughed ruefully at that. "Something like that," he said. "And that's the reason I can't be with you. I want you too much," he said tenderly. "That kind of want … it weakens a man."
She looked up into his beautiful blue eyes, trying to find the right words, and after a moment they came to her.
"Morgan Rosemont, you're a complete and utter moron. And I deserve better than a complete and utter moron. So let go of me."
He gaped at her open-mouthed for a moment before she yanked her hand away, got up off the floor and went to jab aggressively at the fire with the poker, wishing she were jabbing him.
Chapter Nine
Valerie lay half-dozing on the sofa in front of the fire. There wasn't much else to do. It was cold outside, and there were no books to read, no TV to watch, nowhere to go. She was hungry, she was bored, and it didn't matter. She wasn't going anywhere.
Valerie had a stubborn streak in her a mile wide. Maybe that was why she'd never given up on Morgan. She hadn't given in to the bullies in high school who'd taunted her about her weight, and she sure as hell wasn't going to give in to them now.
Morgan had gone out to hunt again. He'd let her know that there was a chance she was going to find out what squirrel stew tasted like.
Well, things could be worse, she reasoned. They only had two more days out there. Morgan had stoked the fire again before he left, and she was warm. And Morgan was doing all the heavy lifting, running out and fetching food for them while she stayed inside, warm and dry and smelling the delicious scent of woodsmoke.
There was a lot of woodsmoke, she realized. In fact, her eyes were watering.
She sat up. The room was filling up with smoke.
The wall behind the stove was on fire. Yellow and red flames crawled up the wall toward the ceiling, and thick, acrid smoke burned her nose and stung her eyes.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she leaped to her feet, grabbed her overcoat from where it was draped over the sofa, and rushed to the door.
She grabbed the doorknob and yanked – and the door didn't move. It was stuck.
She ran over to the window and tried to push it up. The window was stuck shut too.
The room was so smoky now that she could barely see or breathe. She pulled her turtleneck up over her nose so she could breathe through it. She had to find a tool to break the window, and fast. She sank down to her knees. She could crawl over to the fireplace and grab a poker – but the smoke was so thick there …
She heard a pounding sound on the door, and then the sound of splintering wood.
Then she felt strong arms scooping her up. Morgan. He'd come back for her.
She collapsed in Morgan's arms as he rushed her out of the cabin, muscling his way through the splintered door. Outside, the rush of cold, fresh air hit her like a bucket of water being dumped over her head. She coughed and coughed, blinking frantically.
"What happened? Valerie, are you all right?"
He set her down, but held on to her as she coughed and kept blinking her stinging, burning eyes.
She looked up at him. "I woke up and the cabin was on fire. How did that happen?"
"Sometimes wood stoves do that. The wall might have overheated." He looked back at the cabin with a scowl on his face.
She shook her head. "The door … I couldn't get the door open. Or the window."
The cabin was fully engulfed now, consumed by the roaring fire. She'd left her gloves and hat behind.
"They must have swelled shut from the heat." He shook his head. "When I saw the cabin, I thought … " His voice shook for a moment, then he cleared his throat and looked away. "Anyway, you're all right." He looked at her closely as if trying to reassure himself. "You're all right."
Black smoke from the cabin swirled up into the sky. Valerie hugged herself and stamped her feet.
"You can't stay out here in the cold," he said. "We need to head back."
"Won't that forfeit your position as Alpha?"
He hesitated. "It shouldn't. Honestly, I'm not completely sure. As you saw, the pack rules aren't clear on what happens when an Alpha chooses a human mate. But I'm not going to let you freeze to death."
She wiped at her eyes with her sleeve and looked around the clearing. The tool shed was out – there was barely room for one person to stand in there, much less sleep inside. There had to be something they could do. "I'm not giving up. Can't you make us, like … a lean-to or something?"
"Hmmm. I can make us an igloo," he said. "Are you ready to really rough it?"
"Really? You can make an igloo?" she said, amazed.
"Heck, yeah. Me and my dad used to go out on camping trips all the time. We'd have igloo-building contests." He smiled, and his eyes lit up as he pictured some long-ago memory. "We were damn good. We got it down to an hour and a half. Not as fast as the Arctic wolf shifters, but not terrible."
"Huh. That's the first time you've ever mentioned your dad," Valerie said.
He glanced at her, and she saw his eyes go dark. "Not much to say," he said abruptly, and strode off to the tool shed. He emerged with a big knife, and set to work, slicing rectangular blocks out of the hard-packed snow.
Valerie stood near the burning cabin for warmth, and watched, fascinated, as he quickly built them a shelter. He hacked out block after block of snow. He set them in a circle, then carved several of the bottom layer of blocks to make a sloping surface that would support the next row.
"It's like watching a National Geographic documentary," she said, shaking her head in admiration.
As Morgan worked, they heard the sound of snowmobiles approaching.
His family, and Arthur, roared up to them and scrambled off their snowmobiles. Honoria rushed over and threw her arms around Valerie, hugging her. "I thought you were dead!" she said loudly, stepping back.
"Nah, I'm too tough to die." Valerie grinned. "But thanks for your concern."
"We saw the smoke. What happened?" Nelda demanded.
Morgan glanced at the cabin, which had mostly collapsed in on itself. Surrounded by snow, there was no danger of the fire spreading. "The wall behind the stove might have overheated," he said. "The cabin and the stove are pretty old and not very well built."