Page 31 of The Wolf Guard's Mate

I bit my cheek to stop myself from moaning.

I had never cared much for hair pulling, but the way Hunter did it was something else. It affected me way too much. Which meant I needed to get out before I did something I would regret.

Like screwing my jackass of a mate when I was mad at him.

Hunter had already told me he wasn’t ever coherent when he woke up, so I went ahead and pulled his hand off my ass.

He didn’t try to fight me on it, just scratching an itch on his face as soon as I let go of his wrist.

It took a little longer to free my hair from his grip, but eventually I was in the clear.

He reached toward the space I had occupied a moment ago as I slipped away, but I didn’t let myself look back at the gorgeous, naked man.

Boundaries.

I needed boundaries.

Mostly to stop myself from screwing him again. Even though that sounded really, really good.

I went right to the shower, too awake to go back to sleep and too sleepy to do anything else. I liked Hunter’s mansion, but I was getting tired of doing things alone. Soon, I was going to be trying to set a new record on his bowling lane or something, and I didn’t even like bowling.

As much free time as I had, I still hadn’t found the basement. Maybe I could find something else to do down there. Nova had stayed in it during every heat she spent in the mansion, so I knew it existed. I just wasn’t sure how to get in there.

I itched to ask Hunter where the stairs were, but I didn’t particularly want to talk to him.

I closed my eyes and tipped my face up toward the shower head, which was exactly the position I was in when Hunter found me a few minutes later. He opened the door, but I didn’t jump at the sound.

I’d figured there was a fair chance he would want to talk. If his wolf was taking over inside the house, the man was probably in bad shape.

“Can we talk?” Hunter asked.

I didn’t look over at him, scrubbing chlorine out of my hair instead. “Doesn’t seem like you’re going to leave unless we do.”

He didn’t respond right away.

I wondered if he was blushing again. It was cute when he’d blushed in the bar. Had that been a lie too?

I finally looked over, and found him rubbing one of his eyes with the base of his palm. The scarred one. Did the scar ever ache?

Maybe if we were actually mates, I could ask.

But we weren’t.

The bond was real, but the relationship was nonexistent.

He wasn’t blushing.

“Look,” he said. “I shouldn’t have lied to you. I realize that. If you had lied to me about that, I’d probably kill you. Pre-bond, of course.”

“Of course.” I rolled my eyes at the ceiling, facing away from him enough that he couldn’t see as I rinsed shampoo from my hair.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Okay.”

There was a pause.

I grabbed more shampoo. My hair was a freaking mess. I should’ve washed the chlorine out the day before, and I shouldn’t have left it in a bun all day while it was full of chlorine.

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