...She pinned him with a glare of such intensity he didn’t know whether to crush her against him or head back to his car.

Slowly, one of her hands lifted. He thought she meant to slap him, but she grabbed the front of his shirt instead and hauled him inside her apartment with surprising strength for a woman who couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” Contessa demanded, her chest rising and falling sharply beneath the scarlet silk robe she wore. Heat flooded his body and he tightened up, his palms itching to cup the firm globes barely concealed by her night clothing.

Okay, it wasn’t exactly the greeting he’d expected. But for a start, it would do. He had to fight back the lust, the power of the wolf. Focus on her and her words…

“Contessa, I’m sorry.” He owed her that. “I didn’t mean to come into your apartment at all that night. I only meant to make sure you got home safely. The next morning, I know I left—”

“Not that!” Moving closer to him, she pulled the robe off her shoulder, revealing the really sexy red negligee she wore beneath. “This!”

“What this? The negligee?” It looked nice. There was no problem with that at all.

“Are you stupid or something? I mean my neck. Look at it!”

Leaning in, he focused on the smooth white flesh of that slim column. It was as perfect as he remembered and the warmth of her little body reached him in waves.

That’s when he caught sight of the bite marks, small and silvery now as if she’d had the scars for years. Only that was quite impossible since he’d slept with her only three days ago and those teeth marks were all too familiar to him.

“You bit me.”

He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, knowing he’d see marks behind her shoulder, and cursing himself for it. When the hell had he bitten her? How could he have been so careless?

He remembered now. He’d been on the edge of release, losing control inside Contessa’s body. Sometimes the urge to mate in the wolf was so strong he was too rough. He tried to guard against that. Shit! He hadn’t even realized he’d given her his bite.

Well, he sure as hell couldn’t take it back now.

“What have you done to me?”

And of course it had taken. Fuck! He cursed himself for the thousandth time for not listening to his instincts. He should have gone to Gary. He should have left Contessa safely in her apartment.

She’d have been safe from him. And Gary might not be in a coma.

“Shaving my legs once every three days was bad enough, Michael. Now I have to shave them three times a day. What’s up with that?”

“The full moon is only four days away. After that, it will get better.”

“Better?” Her voice was full of anxiety and it only made him feel like a bigger heel. “I’m a total insomniac now, Michael. I can’t sleep. I crave raw meat. It’s disgusting.”

He shook his head. How could he have screwed everything up so badly? Gary was normally the careless one. Gary was the one who took chances. Not him.

“And since you’re here, you can take care of another little problem I have.”