Page 40 of Dark Wolf Soul
He nods, wincing. “I know.”
“Right, I forgot. You stalked me beforehand. Had to make sure I was vulnerable enough to fall for your tricks.”
“No, I— Fuck, you’re stubborn.” He grips my upper arms. “Haven’t you wondered how it’s possible that you’re related to an alpha wolf shifter and yet you can’t shift yourself?”
The question throws me off. It’s not a jab I expect, but it’s too logical to ignore.
“Maybe,” I hedge, wary about why he’s bringing this up now.
“Look, the reason I asked you for the dance was to sense your wolf, and I needed to be close to do that.”
“There were other ways to get close,” I snap.
“Maybe, but I shouldn’t have had to get close. Most wolves can sense each other a mile away. Your wolf is barely noticeable from a distance, and I needed to know for sure. The lap dance isn’t something I planned, but once it started…”
He shakes his head, his hands releasing my arms. Suddenly, I desperately want to know how that sentence ends.
“Once it started,” I prompt.
He opens his mouth just as his phone rings.
Scowling, he slides his phone out of his pocket and steps back as he presses the phone to his ear.
“Yeah?”
He listens for a few seconds then says, “I’ll buzz you up.”
He ends the call and looks back at me.
“I’ll see what I can do about a meeting,” he says.
My heart squeezes. For reasons I can’t even name, his agreement feels like a rejection. On top of that, he never finished his sentence, and I’m dying to know what he would have said. But I nod and simply say, “Thank you.”
He starts for the elevator and the keypad beside it but then pauses and turns back.
“All this,” he says, gesturing around us, “Bringing you here, playing their games, that was for duty. But the dance… Lexi, that was all for me.”
15
GREY
By the time the elevator opens to reveal a freshly-showered Dutch, Lexi has stomped off to her room. It’s just as well. No good will come of her pushing me about that stupid fucking lap dance. The worst part is that I don’t regret it, even though I know I should. I wasn’t lying either. At the end of the day, she’s right. I could have found another way to get close enough to sense her wolf, but I chose that stupid fucking dance. And I did it for one simple reason: I wanted her, even if for only a minute. The worst part is I actually thought a minute would be long enough.
Fuck.
“How’d cleanup go?” I ask Dutch as he steps off the elevator.
He goes straight to the fridge and takes out a beer. “You want one?” he asks.
I shake my head.
He shuts the fridge and crosses to the couch. Sinking onto the cushions with an audible sigh, he cracks the can and lifts it to his mouth for a long sip. When he’s done, he says, “Razor and Crow are finishing up, but I stayed back long enough to make sure we were in the clear.”
“Thanks. All I need is my old man hearing it from someone else that we carried out a sentencing without him.”
He grunts because we both know I’m playing a dangerous game by not telling him what happened with Trucker tonight. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have dared keep something like this from him, but my time away changed me.
Hopefully, it didn’t make me stupid. Because if he finds out I put Trucker down without consulting him, there’ll be hell to pay. I should worry about such a payment, too, but watching him go after Lexi like that…
