Playing her fingers through the hairs that brushed his nape, she locked her ankles at his back and moaned softly at the exquisite feel of him stretching her, filling her. When he dipped his head to lick at her nipples with languorous ease, her nails dug into his back. “More, darling.”

The sense of a masculine murmur, though she heard nothing with her ears, and then he gave her what she wanted. She arched under the sensations, her fingers fisting in his hair. Tugging him up when the pleasure became too much, she kissed her way up his throat and along his jaw to that spot under his ear that always made him shudder. A wet flick of her tongue, a husky request, and slow and lazy turned slow and relentless.

Pleasure rippled over her—not in a crash, but in a languid wave, her orgasm endless. She felt him stiffen, shifted her mouth to his throat, kissing and petting him through his own orgasm until he collapsed on her, a delicious weight.

“That was some wake-up call,” she murmured much later, when he roused enough to shift to his back, with her sprawled half on and half off his body.

He drew circles on her back with his fingers. “I’m glad you approve. As you know, I was a virgin not long ago.”

She laughed at the teasing reminder of how she’d offered to be gentle with him. “You’re a fast learner, Mr. Lauren.” Yawning, she dragged up the sheet to cover them. “How was the watch?”

“Trouble free,” was the concise answer, but then he said, “Judd was there for a while.”

Sensing he meant more than he was saying, she spread her fingers over the taut heat of his chest. “Did he want to catch up?”

Walker was quiet for a long time. “We talked about a boy I once knew. A trainee Arrow.”

And then, as the final vestiges of the night faded from the sky, her mate spoke to her about the schoolroom that had been his for so many years, told her things she understood without asking that he’d shared with no one else, not even his brother. Tears clogged her throat at all that he had witnessed, the pain of the children…and the realization that her mate was inviting her into a part of his life she’d only glimpsed till now, sharing one of his secrets with her.

•   •   •

THAT morning marked the day the pack shifted into high gear, all of the remaining evacuees scheduled to return within the next forty-eight hours. While not needed to heal injuries, Lara was needed nonetheless, as was Walker. The week passed in a rush of helping the pups resettle into the den, soothing their worries, and—for Lara—talking privately with packmates who’d been so badly injured that in any other situation, they’d be dead.