Hidden Moon (Hot Moon Rising #4) Read Online Free

the hardest. They’d stayed best friends after
    graduation, but tonight made it clear she hadn’t outgrown their old clique mentality.
    The sound of a moan pricked her ears. In seconds, she found him and knelt by his
    side. He was in human form again, naked as a jaybird, and covered with scratches. His
    bottom lip and the area below bled where his fangs must have punctured it. Since wolves
    were fast healers, the wounds turned to scabs before her eyes.
    Scabs. The teasing voices replayed in her head, making her cringe. No wonder he’d
    moved away. Curtis had been the loudest among them. While she didn’t expect him to
    welcome Alan with open arms after their brutal fight on prom night, he could have acted
    more mature. Weren’t they all adults now?
    She brushed her fingers across his forehead. “Are you all right?”
    Unable to resist, she explored the trimmed beard, too. He definitely wasn’t a scruffy
    kid anymore, and the latest version of him looked even sexier than the one she’d fallen
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    in love with years ago.
    “I’ll live.” He rose to a sitting position. “And I told you to leave me alone.”
    “You’re tired and stressed,” she argued. “I’m not going anywhere until you’re dressed,
    fed, and settled at your father’s cottage.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” The note of teasing in his quiet voice shot a thrill through her body, out
    to her fingertips.
    He accepted her hand to help him stand. With his other, he covered a burgeoning
    erection. A flush of heat crested inside her like a tidal wave. Although still a slender
    man, his arms were heavier and more defined. So was his abdomen. Mercy. Her fingers
    ached to explore each plane of his body.
    “You must exercise a lot,” she blurted out. “I mean, not that I was looking.”
    “Thanks.” He grinned and turned his head. “Working out at the gym helps keep my
    anger level low.”
    “I have some clothes in my truck,” she told him. “Your business outfit didn’t fit in
    around here, anyway.”
    She took a few steps toward the diner’s parking lot but stopped when he didn’t follow.
    “I’d rather wear a tarp than Curtis’s clothes.”
    So he knew they were still a couple.
    “They’re not his. I have a whole bag full of clothing donations for the homeless shelter
    in Palmetto. I would’ve dropped it off sooner, but I’ve been canning vegetables and
    filling in at the diner since your dad’s been sick.”
    Still covering his privates, he followed her. “Sounds as though you’re a pretty busy
    lady.”
    She shrugged. “I like to help out wherever I can.”
    “You’ve changed.” His smile looked so sexy in the moonlight. The ends of his top
    teeth were angled instead of straight across. The little imperfection hinted at the wolf in
    him and gave him a boyish grin that stole her heart.
    “Thank God for that,” she replied. “I couldn’t exactly make a career out of being a
    shallow beauty queen.”
    “But you could have been a model. You look tired.”
    They stopped under a large oak tree. The moonlight filtering through the branches
    seemed to cast a spell over them. She’d forgotten how magnetic his eyes were. Fringed
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    by black lashes, the pools of dark chocolate looked through her and melted her heart at
    the same time.
    His unique scent, borne on the humid night air, wrapped around her and transported
    her back to high school English class. In it, she smelled his traveling fatigue, anger from
    the diner, raw arousal, and affinity. He was her mate. She’d suspected it in school, and
    now the older, wiser woman—and the wolf—in her knew it as fact.
    Unfortunately, the knowledge remained as inconvenient now as then. Alan hated the
    pack and it hated him. Since the attack, the recovering Moonlight pack had interwoven
    so deeply into her life, it would be impossible to separate the two. Curtis was as well.
    Barbara, a handy seamstress, would probably sew her wedding dress. She wouldn’t be
    too thrilled if Shelley