“No.” He turned to face her. “Because you were right. All the choices had been mine. This was yours and I had to live with it. I’m asking you now not to leave me again, not to make me live with it. You matter to me.”

Everything inside her cried out to go to him. Instead she lifted her brows again. “Matter to you? Those are small words for such a big request.”

“I care for you.”

“I care for the puppy the little girl next door has. I’m not content with that from you. So if that’s all—”

“I love you. Damn it, you know very well I love you.” He snatched her hand to keep her from leaving. Both the gesture and the tone were anything but loverlike.

Somehow she kept her voice steady. “We’ve established I don’t have the gift to see, so how do I know very well what you don’t tell me?”

“I am telling you. Damn it, woman, can’t you hear, either?” His control slipped enough to have sparks snapping in the air around them. “It’s been you all along, right from the start of it. I told myself I didn’t—that I wouldn’t until I decided. I made myself believe it, but there was no one ever but you.”

The thrill of it—the words, the passion behind them driven by as much anger as heart—spun through her like rainbows. Even as she started to speak, he released her hand to prowl the circle much as the wolf he favored.

“And I don’t like it.” He flung the words over his shoulder at her. “I’m not required to like it.”

“No.” She wondered why she should feel delighted rather than insulted. And it came to her that it gave her an unexpected and desperately sweet power over him. “No, you’re not. Neither am I.”

He whirled back, glaring at her. “I was content in my life as it was.”

“No, you weren’t.” The answer surprised both of them. “You were restless, dissatisfied and just a little bored. And so was I.”

“You were unhappy. And the way you’re thinking now, it’s that I should have taken advantage of that. Plucked you up straightaway, told you things you couldn’t have been prepared to hear and carried you off to Ireland. Well, I didn’t and I won’t be sorry for that much. I couldn’t. You think I deceived you, and maybe I did.”

He shrugged now, a regal motion that made her lips want to curve into a smile. “You needed time, and so did I. When I came to you as a wolf it was to comfort. It was as a friend. And so I saw you naked—and enjoyed it. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Why indeed?” she murmured.

“When I loved you in dreams, we both enjoyed it.”