He’d finished his Change and was resting, both of us lying on the ground, as he curled up behind me, his arms wrapped around me, heart racing against my back. I’d brought a blanket—two, in fact, one for under us and one for over, to ward off the October chill. Back home, in Buffalo, fall would just be setting in around now. But we didn’t live in Buffalo anymore. Didn’t live in the United States anymore. We were three hundred miles almost due north in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.

Badger Lake is a private community run by a Cabal. Yes, a Cabal, like the one we’d escaped when I met Derek, and then had spent six months running from. And no, we weren’t captives. We were here voluntarily. At least as “voluntarily” as we could be under the circumstances. It was the safest place for us until we were old enough to make serious choices for our futures.

I lay there, listening to Derek’s breathing, waiting for it to slow, and, when it did, his hands went to my waist, slipping under my shirt, fingers hot against my bare skin. He nuzzled my neck, which was nice in wolf form but a whole lot nicer in human, as he kissed and nibbled, his hands tight around my waist. I still waited, giving him a few minutes to fully recover. He needs time to get his energy back. Which is one reason we cuddle like this, with my back to him—it’s a whole lot easier not to rush when I can’t see him and think maybe just a quick… Nope. Better to wait.

He turned me around, one hand under my waist, the other in my hair, bringing me over to him, lips going to his. I remember when we first got together, those sweet and tentative kisses. It wasn’t like that anymore. It could be, when we kissed behind the school or our houses, stealing a few moments of privacy when we couldn’t hope for more. But when we got this private time in the forest, the kisses were a whole lot different.

In the beginning, as soon as he’d Change back, I’d turn away and wait for him to get dressed. He didn’t get dressed anymore—not beyond pulling on his boxers. It had started with an unseasonably hot spell in late spring, when he’d been done Changing and was already overheated, and it seemed perfectly reasonable to postpone the redressing until he caught his breath. Then, he’d catch his breath, and the interruption of getting dressed was just too much. By the end of summer we’d given up any pretense of excuses. If I wasn’t in a rush for him to put his clothes back on, he wasn’t in a rush to get them on. And I really wasn’t in a rush.