Zing. Her temper shot through the top of her head. Tearing off her jacket, she dropped it on the floor and rounded on him, backing him into a corner. “You know what, Harry? You go right ahead, genius! Nay, I dare you to try and find a way to reverse this. I’m tired of you insulting my people, my family, who’ve been nothing but kind to you, like we all have some incurable disease, you jerk!”
Harry remained unruffled and unapologetic. “I can’t wrap my head around why you’re insulted. I’m not insulting you or your family or even your way of life. I’m just stating a fact. It’s impractical for me to remain a werewolf. That’s all there is to this.”
Yet, Mara was still insulted. Rather than respond, she glared at him.
“And seeing as you found a way to create a werewolf, why can’t I find a way to uncreate one?”
“Because it takes an open mind and a whole lot more smarts than you’ve got!” she yelled up into his face. Arrogant jackass.
Harry’s eyes glittered, his chest rising and falling. “Did you just call me dumb?”
“No!” she shouted, rising on tiptoe. “I called you not as smart as me.” So there!
His chest puffed out when he leaned down and jammed his face at her. “What’s your IQ?”
She made a face at him. “What are we using as our source of measurement, your penis?”
“Are you now attacking my manhood?” He virtually squealed the question as if it were incomprehensible she’d do such a thing. Or maybe it was just that she was behaving like a child. Whatever.
“You have to have one to attack!”
Now Harry’s temper was flaring, too, his nostrils following suit. She smelled his anger, wanted to bathe in it for the insults he kept hurling her way. “Quit the low blows. How am I less of a man because I don’t want to be a werewolf, Mara? Because I don’t want to have to figure out a way to explain to the kids about full moon jaunts, fevers, inhuman amounts of consumed beef, eternal life, and the fact that Uncle Harry wants to have his way with the nice Miss Mara until she begs for goddamn mercy?” he seethed, then pulled up short.
His face no longer a hard mask, but sheepish.
“Shit. I just said that out loud, didn’t I?”
Mara’s mouth was dry. She licked her lips with a nod. “You even spit a little, too.” It was just the full moon calling. He’d get over it.
He leaned in even closer. “Really? Where?”
She reached upward, forgetting she felt insulted and attacked, and wiped at the corner of his lips. “Riiight there. Okay, all gone.”
Harry’s mood swung wide and wild again when he caught her thumb between his teeth and wrapped his arm around her waist, crushing her to him. “Mara?”
“Harry?” she whispered, her breathing coming in gasps.
“I have to,” he said between the sudden clench of his teeth.
Mara’s mood did the same. Her hand somehow ended up on his chest. The insane urge to dig her fingers into his pecs verging on desperate. “I have to, too.”
Harry hoisted her up until her feet were off the ground and his rigid cock rested at her cleft. Even through his jeans, he was stiff and ready. “You’re supposed to teach me not to give in to my impulses. Do it. Do that now, Mara.” His demand was husky, tight with restraint, riddled with his fight for control.
All of her pent up emotions, her desire for Harry, her days and nights of fantasizing about him came down to one thing. She could either fulfill the fantasy and recognize that’s all it was, all it would ever be, or she could “teach” him to control his inner sex demon with breathing techniques and finding other vices, like a Deep Space Nine marathon.
Deep Space Nine—sex with Harry.
Damn. You. Choices.
Harry’s lips were but a half-inch from hers. “I think this is where you tell me not to give in, Mara. Say it. Say it fast,” he ordered, his tongue striking out to caress the corner of her lip, his hot breath fanning her face.
Her chest became tight, the blood in her veins throbbing, leaving trails of white-hot heat as she warred with her primal urges. As hard as she tried to force the words from her lips, she couldn’t say it. Full moon lust induced or not, she wanted this. She’d always wanted this. From the moment she’d laid eyes on him.
Harry. All of him.
Harry hiked her higher, backing them up until she was pressed against the wall in her living room. Now his lips touched hers, just the hint of a graze, but it made her rear up against him, fighting the natural urge to grind against him. It was painfully sweet and sharply hot, gripping her and holding on tight.
Her chest heaved up and down, rising and falling with harsh gasps for breath.