Page 27 of Stags

“Yeah, I walked too far,” she said. She pointed behind her. “There’s a… a deerkinthinggoing on this weekend—”

“I know about it,” he said. His voice was gravelly, almost a growl. She liked it. Was it because he was standing above her, with the light behind him like that that he seemed sort of… majestic?

“Right,” she said. “Of course you do. You live here. Happens every year, so…”

He nodded, staring down at her.

And then, neither of them moved much or said anything for a long time. It was too long. There was a point in which silence became awkward and this went past that immediately. There was another point in which silence ceased to be awkward and began to become some other form of communication, and they seemed to segue into this quickly.

She looked up at him, and she couldn’t stop noticing things about him. His flannel shirt was unbuttoned at the top, and she could see the gray fur on his chest and he had a muscular, broad chest. And then she noticed how his arms filled out the sleeves of his shirt and then, oops, why was she looking at his crotch?

She smirked and met his gaze again, but he seemed to have realized how she’d just been checking him out, and his expression was amused.

She was embarrassed.

He lifted his chin, as if he liked that. He looked down on her, still majestic,predatorkin.

It had been over a hundred years since society was segregated between predator and prey, but when it had been, predators had the choicest of everything, the best lands, the bigger houses, more money, the best jobs…

Things were better now, but predators were still predators and she was still prey, and there he was, up there, with the light illuminating his fur.

She worried her top teeth against her lower lip.

His chest rose and fell with his breath.

They still weren’t saying any words, and she was now realizing this was beyond awkward, but she couldn’t break away, and she certainly couldn’t speak.

He leaned even further forward, digging his fingers into his porch railing. He sniffed the air.

Her body tightened at this, for no reason that made any sense, except that she liked the idea of his smelling her for some stupid reason.

No.

She liked the idea of her scent affecting him.

His expression changed.

Oh, ithad. Her breath caught in her throat.

They looked at each other, sizing each other up, and his head jerked in a way that made her freeze up, an instinctive prey response, and this flooded her body with some other sensation, both pleasant and frightening.

And he scented that too, and his muscles all tightened, as if he were going to spring out onto her.

She let out a noise in the back of her throat.

He snarled.

She could not move. She could only blink, her heart beginning to beat wildly in her chest.

“Run,” rasped the wolf.

His voice seemed to unfreeze her. Her limbs worked, coming unlocked, and heat and blood pumped through her body.

She ran.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“I WANT TOknow what you like,” Bruin was saying.

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