Unbearable Desire: Lone Pine Pride, Book 4 Read Online Free PDF

an orgasm, she shivered.
    “Wherever there’s more to learn about shifter medicine.” They’d spoken about her calling during the second pitcher—and everything and anything else that had tripped across their beer-loosened tongues.
    His arms settled more firmly around her back. “You should come to Lone Pine.”
    His pride. He was inviting her to his pride. A streak of pure, giddy pleasure sliced through her. She bit her lip on the urge to squeal, yes yes yes yes yes . She didn’t want to get ahead of herself, but every cell of her body was exploding with pleasure at the idea.
    She felt like she’d been waiting her entire life for this moment without even knowing it. Moira hadn’t had many relationships. She wasn’t a nun by any means, but she’d always been more focused on her calling—traveling and learning as much as possible about shifter healing. In the back of her mind, she’d always wanted a family, but she’d never really given it much thought. It would happen when it happened. She’d figured she would know the One when she tripped across him.
    She just hadn’t expected to trip across him in the Yukon Territory.
    She shouldn’t get carried away. He’d just asked her to come back to Lone Pine, after all. She certainly shouldn’t be hearing wedding bells after a little invite like that. But it wasn’t a bad sign. It was easy to picture her life with him, far too easy for a woman who’d never tried to picture her life with anyone.
    They wouldn’t get too serious straightaway—he was still recovering from his grand passion, after all. Things would progress slowly. They would move in together in perhaps a year or two. Get engaged six months after that and be officially mated before the pride by her thirty-fourth birthday. That wasn’t too late to start having cubs. She’d work as a healer at the pride. He’d stay on as the Alpha’s second. Their cubs would grow up in that community, surrounded by that diversity and wealth of tradition.
    Not a bad life, if she could get it. And maybe she could.
    “All right,” she said, striving for casual. “I’ll come.”
    His only response was a deep basso snore. Asleep. Of course. While she’d been mentally mapping their lives together, he’d been snoozing. Both of them dreaming in their own ways.
    She knew it was a dream. Just a dream. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t become a reality. She wouldn’t know until she tried. And for the first time in her life it felt right to try to be with a man. To be with Hugo.

Chapter Five
    Present Day .
    The gash on his palm was a minor one. A few inches long, not terribly deep. Normally, Hugo would just wait for it to heal on its own. He’d never really been one for doctors. Which in no way explained why he was walking into the infirmary, knowing full well it was Moira’s shift to handle minor emergencies.
    She was sitting on one of the bunks in the emergency room with what looked like a medical text spread open on her lap when he walked through the door. She lifted her head, nostrils twitching as she scented the blood. “What did you do?”
    Moving with brisk efficiency, she was halfway across the room, her medical text set aside, surgical gloves snapped in place, before he could reply.
    “It’s nothing. Just a little cut.”
    She tugged his hand down from where he’d cradled it against his chest, wrapped in a dishtowel, and frowned at the soaked rag. “A lot of blood for nothing. Come here.”
    She guided him to one of the beds and he obediently sat, watching the top of her head as she bent over his hand, gently unwinding the dishtowel. There were gray hairs mixed in with the slightly faded brown now. It surprised him to see. Moira always seemed so ageless to him. Eternal. But now that he looked, there were lines where there hadn’t been before, crinkling the corners of her eyes, giving him the sense that she was always laughing. They suited her.
    “Serrated blade?” she asked, gently prodding the