More Blazing Bedtime Stories: Once Upon a Mattress
her by her real name. Oh, it sounded nice from those lips. And a bit of her resolve melted.
    But when she heard the clatter of crashing dishware, that resolve reformed and hardened. Inside, Callie stared helplessly at the floor. She’d dropped a tray filled with empty plates, probably unable to bear the weight.
    “Damn,” Penny whispered, stabbed with guilt. “That’s it, we’re done.” Then without offering Lucas Wolf one last moment to try to change her mind, she strode inside and got back to work, determined to forget about the dark, mysterious man.

3
    T HIS WAS definitely going to be harder than he had expected.
    Princess Penelope didn’t trust him. Considering Lucas had skimped on the details to make them somewhat more believable, he imagined she would run away screaming if he admitted where he really wanted to take her. Who she really was, who her mother had been. The whole, “There’s another world that everybody over here thinks is fiction, but really does exist,” issue.
    She would have laughed in his face…even though she wanted him. Badly. Oh, he’d noticed. Her obvious lust for him had nearly driven him out of his mind.
    He had never been so close to letting his primal urges wash over his human common sense than in those charged moments outside the diner. She couldn’t have been more inviting if she’d torn off her clothes and begged him to take her. Over. And over.
    Heaven help him, he’d wanted to. Over. And over.
    But even the hint of desire he’d shown had made things worse.
    “You should have stayed all business,” he told himself as he rode on his Harley early that evening, having just turned around to head back to LeBeaux. He’d been cruising for hours, staying away from towns, not wanting to be around people. But the sky would soon darken. Even if his eyes hadn’t sensed the difference in the quality of the light through his sunglasses, he’d have known the sun would soon set. He could feel it in his blood. Feel the tug of the moon wanting to take over the sky.
    If he were smart, he’d stay out until morning, not risktrying to appear normal. Because, when the moon was full, his normal was a little different from that of the people on either side of the border. Nothing drastic, not like the stories of ravaging predators. But he couldn’t deny that he looked, acted and felt a bit strange at certain times of the month.
    It could be worse. He wasn’t, after all, a full-blooded member of the Wolf clan, since his mother had been a human from over here. Most other Wolves had far more noticeable traits.
    Feeling a hum against his hip, he remembered the cellular phone he used when visiting these lands. He kept it with the Harley, clothes, money and false identification in a small abandoned shack near the border. Only one person knew the cell phone number.
    He pulled over onto the shoulder, thrust a booted heel against the kickstand and cut the engine. Pulling the phone out of his pocket, he answered, not surprised when he heard his half-brother’s voice.
    “So you are here.”
    “How did you know?”
    Hunter, to whom Lucas’s mother had given birth after she’d left Lucas and his father to return to her own world, laughed softly. “I always call when the moon’s full on the chance you crossed over while you could.”
    “Why?”
    “Well, you might have a dozen half-brothers over on your side of the divide, but you are all I’ve got.”
    “Don’t you have a mate now?” Lucas chuckled, knowing how to get under his brother’s skin. “A very attractive one as I recall.”
    “Don’t think I’ll ever forget that you’ve seen her naked.”
    “Oh, I won’t let you forget, I promise you,” Lucas replied, well remembering the day he’d climbed into bed with a sleeping woman who’d thought he was his brother.
    At the time, Hunter had been tracking him, trying to capture Lucas for crimes he’d thought he had committed. Capturingthe woman had seemed the simplest way to get his

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