“You just told me people wander off and get lost in dark woods. That makes it hard to believe you.”
Lucas snorted and looked at the ground. “That was a mistake.”
“Lucas, I want to believe you—which is probably why I should go.”
I reached down and picked up my mug to carry it into the kitchen, and Minnie hissed behind me. I looked over, and she wasn’t looking at me—
I turned around and Lucas was gone. In his place was a wolf as big as the couch. I stepped back. It took up so much space I felt like there was little room left to breathe. Not it—he. Lucas. His fur was the color of a worn penny, dull red, with streaks of gray. Minnie kept hissing.
“Is frightening my cat really the best way to convince me?” I picked her up and set her on the couch, away from him. When I looked back, he was sitting on his haunches, watching me with copper eyes. He got down on all fours and stretched toward me, head low. He crept nearer, bowed down, until he was an arm’s length away. He kept looking, and I did my best not to move.
He could have attacked. He would have won. But he kept coming closer until his wet nose almost touched my kneeling thigh.
I reached one finger out, to trace the fine hairs on his muzzle the wrong direction. Lucas the wolf closed his eyes. Bolder, I stroked a path up to his eyebrow. The fur wasn’t soft, but tactilely different than I expected. Somewhere between bristles and fur, both thick and springy. I ran the palm of my hand down the back of his neck, pressed it into his fur, felt it give, and then the solid muscle hidden underneath.
His head turned slowly to the side, and his teeth caught my wrist. His rough, warm tongue ran over my hand.
There was a knock at the door. My ride.
I pulled my hand away slowly, and he bit down a little more, pulling me toward him. His teeth were like the ends of blunt pens—not needle-sharp, but his jaw could crush my wrist and I would never chart again.
Then he let me go.
There was another knock at the door. Louder, insistent.
“If the world is full of paths, why does yours have to be the one lined with puppies?”
Lucas’s eyebrows, and lips, pulled up into a literally wolfish grin. He sat up and bit my bicep with his frightening-not-frightening teeth, and then licked at my throat. I closed my eyes and laughed and pushed him away, and found myself touching skin.
“I’m a wolf, not a dog.” He was sitting on the floor very near me now, completely naked. My hands were on his chest, and I pulled them back with a yelp. “Are you really so frightened of me?”
“No. But I should be. That’s the problem.”
“Edie, I don’t want you to be afraid.” He was near enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him, feverish. He was beautiful, and I could see all of him now, his tattoos scrolling up and down both arms, his stomach lean, his cock hard.
I’d spent the past few weeks angry, frustrated, overthinking things, running scared. Here was something I could do that would be so simple, and feel so good, if I just let it. I was tired of fighting, I was lonely—and I was hungry. “I don’t want to be afraid either.”
The door knocked one final, last time, and I could hear someone cursing behind it as they walked away. I didn’t jump up to follow.
Lucas reached out for me, ran his hand into my wet hair, caught a fistful, and gently pulled. His eyes—they were still his wolf’s eyes, bright, searching my own, as he leaned in near and breathed deeply. His hand in my hair tightened, and he pulled away to look at me. His chest rose and fell, breathing hard, like he’d been fighting, and I felt the same sensation, mirrored in my own. I twisted my head and my wet hair slid through the fingers of his hand.
“I can smell you,” he said, his voice deeper, more rough. “Still afraid—but curious. Ready.”
I felt more naked than I had in the shower, even though I still had on clothes. “You’re not wrong,” I said, my voice low.
“Once we start, this close to the moon—” he said, and I could see the tension flow through him. He was as hungry as I was, but he was still tempered with restraint. “There’s no going back.”
I sighed and almost laughed at him. “Don’t worry. You can’t hurt me.”
Then he fell on me, with a kiss.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Kissing was great and all, but—I kicked out of my sweatpants beneath him. He left my mouth to bend back and grabbed the ankles of them, dragging them off me, dropping me to the floor. My underwear were the next to go; he grabbed each hip and tore them free. The shirt I already had halfway off when he started to help, and I could feel his chest against mine, each touch hot like flame. He stopped and stared. I had those stupid girl thoughts that you can get when foreplay downshifts gears without warning—what if he didn’t like what he saw, what if he changed his mind about sex with me—but he was staring at the belt buckled around my waist. “What’s this?”