Page 86 of Stags

He gave her a slow, satisfied grin. “Well, you said you wouldn’t do that.”

She stretched, basking in that, in his possessiveness, which felt strangely freeing, like being trapped and adoring her own prison. She was a very idiotic person, she thought. This man could not be good for her. “Hey, I have a question.”

“Yeah?”

“I thought wolves had, um, knots.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Yeah. Not so much with me. They, uh, they tend to develop after bonding with your mate, when your body decides it’s time to really get down to the business of procreation. That’s the point of them, you know, to hold in the—”

“I know the point of them,” she said, grinning at him. “So, you’ve never had one?”

“Lone wolves don’t sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It’s supposedly not abnormal, and I shouldn’t worry about it, so I don’t. Have I spent too much time on Reddit threads with lone wolves obsessing over how to get themselves to knot up? Do I sometimes get served very awkward ads on the internet about medication that’s supposed to make knots happen? Yes and yes.”

She was intrigued. “Wow, I had no idea. Do you want one?”

“I don’t want to mate with a woman and get her pregnant and have children,” he said. “And I think something in my cock just understands that. I mean, maybe I’m curious about what it feels like, but it’s not like the base of my dick is the most sensitive part of it, so I doubt it feels that much different. Plus, being stuck to someone after sex seems inconvenient and uncomfortable.”

Right, because he was a real rolling stone, wasn’t he? He did not want commitment, not at all. She gazed at him for a while, thinking that through. Then she picked up her phone. “Um, I might have dinner plans, actually.”

“Dinner plans,” he said in a low voice that bordered on a growl.

“Not with a man,” she said witheringly. “Though you’re one to talk, Mr. Don’t-Tie-Me-Down. It’s very much a double standard here, isn’t it? It’s with two women I met here. New friends. I’m not great at friends, really. I’ve lost touch with most of my good female friends. It’s nice. I should go.”

“Hey,” he said, “I agreed not to fuck anyone else, too.”

“You agreed not to fuck another doe,” she said. “Other species were on the table.”

“Were they?” He considered. “Didn’t realize, but let’s take them off.” His expression was wolfish and territorial.

She flushed, still liking that way too damned much.

“Anyway, of course, you should go out and have dinner with your friends,” he said. “I get it. I’m not great at friends either, really.”

“Shocker,” she said, teasing him.

“Ouch,” he said mildly. “I’ll go, then, let you get ready.”

She nodded, but she didn’t like that. She waited, hoping he’d say something about keeping in touch or seeing each other again or something like that. Was she simply going to sleep here, alone, in this bed, untouched for him, just following his whims?

Damn it, why did that sound so very, very hot?

He climbed out of the bed and started searching for his clothing.

She chewed on her bottom lip. “Do you… want to exchange numbers?”

He turned to her. “Uh, I didn’t bring my phone when I tracked you here. I was a little distracted from practicalities like that. You could write it down, maybe?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding, but hating that she’d been the one to ask, feeling as if it had destroyed that balance she had thought was between them, feeling as if now, everything was tipped, that maybe she wanted him more than he wanted her.

He buttoned his jeans, looking around the room. “There.” He pointed at the pad of paper sitting on the bedside table, the one with the Center’s logo printed on it.

She snatched it up, and then went looking for a pen, thinking of Rora explaining that she couldn’t find one last night. But there were three pens in the drawers of her bedside table, and she selected one. Holding the pen, she hovered over the paper. “I mean, if you don’t want to see me again, if this was just a fling or something, you can tell me. It’ll be easier, I think, if we’re honest with each other.”

Nothing from him.

She wasn’t looking at him. Her heart started to pick up speed, and she hated how needy and exposed she felt in this moment. “You’re being pretty clear about how much you don’t want a romantic relationship.”

“Well, this would be quite the way to start a relationship,” he said wryly. He pitched his voice. “ ‘How’d you two meet?’ ‘Oh, I pounced on her in the woods and fucked her brains out and didn’t even ask her name.’”

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