With Paul and Luke gone for a late-night pack meeting, I dozed until it became a deep paralyzing sleep. Carlyle had knocked, but I'd pretended to sleep until it became a reality again. I'd had a repetitive dream, the type you awake from only enough to flutter your eyes closed again before you are thrown back in. It continued from the previous night and was still as torturous as the first time.

Rough, calloused hands traveled the lengths of my thighs, teasing me with a fire in their fingertips that burned as no others' had. I wanted to beg to have him inside of me. His hands roamed higher, leaving indents on my flushed skin, slipping under my shirt with yearning torture. I bunched my hand in the fabric of his shirt, skimming over the smooth skin of his chest underneath until I felt the raised line of scars.

The scent of woodsmoke and rain-soaked earth enveloped me, driving a need I had never experienced before. There was a flash of blue. I pulled his mouth hard against mine exploding with hunger. Ocean-blue eyes fixated back, and I was caught in a lock with a brother with the wrong colored eyes as Luke ripped open my shirt, scattering tiny beaded buttons onto the floor. His teeth grazed my neck before he bit down hard.

My eyes flew open as my heart hammered in my chest. Struggling to contain the thump in my chest, I stilled my thoughts and cast them out. I didn't want those dreams in my head.

"Good morning, beautiful." An unexpected voice startled me. Paul lay sunk in the armchair at the end of the bed, but it was far too dark for me to make out his expression. "What'cha dreaming about?"

I blinked away and chose a different confession. "It's not morning, is it?" The tension in muscles had eased but there were still signs of last night.

Paul mimicked my gaze out of the window at the evening sky but remained eerily silent. Dusk settled over the lake because there was no wind to ripple it. It was almost serene.

I tamed my hair from my eyes and sat up. "I slept all night and all day?"

The peaceful sensation vanished when I returned my focus to Paul. His face was absent of the normal smile lines around his eyes, or his playful smile.

"You were dreaming, Dana," he said, almost sounding sad. "Want me to make those dreams come true?"

"You already do, Paul." And I meant it. No hormonal-fueled dream would replace the bond sewn between us.

He stood, cutting across the room. The bed dipped as he lay beside me and nuzzled into the crook of my neck. With his nose, he nudged my head for a clearer path, and the heat of his mouth glided over my already sensitive skin.

This was the man I wanted. The one who had been there for me since my first night in town and every night after. Yet, for the first time in a while, my mind wouldn't quieten, and I ran the risk of baring my soul with confessions that were not real in waking life.

I needed to verbalize something, anything before one or all of them threatened to spill out, and he heard them all raw and off the cuff. "When this is over with Antoine and Lucille, where do you see us?" Awesome—that should do it—what was I thinking? Even I wasn't ready for this conversation.

His head lifted an inch. "You're not leaving. I've bought the handcuffs." He smiled against my skin; and dipped his head again, continuing his glorious assault. Maybe conversation could wait?

I knocked on his arm not wanting to allow the guard around my thoughts to drop. "In all truth, where do you see us?"

He sighed and rolled onto his back. "That's always been your call, hasn't it?"

"Is it?" I became more insistent. "Once Antoine's gone, my plan was to go home to finish college. What's yours?"

"Do what I've always done? Work at the shop, and care for my father, the pack. When his time comes, Luke and this pack will need me more than ever. "

"But what about us if I can't stay?"

"You seemed ready to try."

"I am ready to help Lucille, not start the habit of a lifetime running around the woods butt naked every time the moon appears."

"Dana, my dad isn't long for this world." He ran his hands through his hair. "And I won't kid you—nothing about our life here in Benton would be easy. But didn't you once say, 'It's hard because it's worth it?' To be here for him and dedicate myself to the pack is worth the sacrifice of everything else to me."

His answer shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. In the back of my mind, I always knew he would not leave town, but that never stopped me from thinking that if we grew close enough, he might consider leaving with me. With his father ill, that only streamlined logic into being here to care for his father. Luke and the pack came a close second.

"I don't want to live like that. Even once we have helped Lucille, I had a life to return to."

"Is this all because you're scared? Now that we're closer to helping with Lucille, are your nerves getting the better of you? Because if they are, I can understand that."

"It's not fear, Paul. I can take the fear; it's the hope I can't stand. One day you might not choose to leave with me."

"Does this have something to do with Luke?" Paul said, studying me more intently now, and my words halted in my throat.

There was no way he could have known about my dream because never before had he even alluded that it was possible. But now I thought about it, both streams of consciousness were no different, except one was consensual, and the other wasn't.

"It does, doesn't it? Luke got in your head? God knows he's been trying to get in everyone else's." He made a pfft sound.

My heart rate spiked at the mention of his name. Every cell waged war to clear my mind of the echo of a dozen beads scattering on the floor. I was sure Paul could see it in my eyes if he hadn't heard it from my head first.

"Why would it have anything to do with him?"

Paul moved away, sitting back up. "Did you ever consider that if Luke had made a move before I did, things might be different for you now? After all, you trusted him before you could trust me. He is an Alpha after all."

"Why would Luke have made a move? And, no. It's not something I think about!"

"Well, I think about it a lot," was all he said, but something inside said I'd just broken something sacred. "I thought I knew the plan, and this is an edited version," he mumbled.

"The plan is unchanged. Are you jealous? There's no reason to be."

"A fire can start from the smallest spark. Sex hormones as a wolf; you can't always control them, especially when it comes to your Alpha. Take it from a man who has learned that lesson the hard way: control in your presence is undeniably difficult."

I did a double take; this was Luke, for Christ's sake. "He isn't my Alpha."

His head shook with a sincerity in his eyes that crushed my insides, reducing them to nothing, and then he said, "Tell me then, Peach, why were you just dreaming about him?"

I was geared to argue the point further until his words hit fully, and a stunned silence fell over the room. The erratic thump in my chest betrayed me because Paul's stare held firm. From the way Paul's brow furrowed, I'd waited too long to deny it.

Paul expelled a deep breath. "Don't lie to me." He stood, tearing his gaze from mine. For a moment, it felt like the sun had set twice today.

"Where are you going?" I scrambled off the bed, but his pace didn't let up.

Paul stood to leave only pausing when his hand was on the doorknob. "I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you, Dana. I might not be an Alpha that can claim a mate the way he can, but I feel it in my bones. You're the one I'm supposed to be with. Not him. "

He headed out of the bedroom, boots striking the floor as he did.