Page 48 of Dark Wolf Soul
He snorts. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Funny.”
But he doesn’t smile. If anything, he looks confused. “What’s to figure out? I’m not that complicated.”
“Yeah,” I scoff. “Right.”
“Okay then.” He crosses his arms, challenging me. “What’s so hard to understand?”
“You’re a kidnapper, a killer, and a mafia boss’s son,” I say, ticking them off on my fingers.
“Is that all?” he shoots back.
“No. That’s the problem,” I say, shaking my head. “You’re also a cook, a protector of young girls, and apparently a fan of punny t-shirts.”
His lips twitch. “Is that last one a point for me or against me?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Fair.” His gaze holds mine, and the silence between us stretches.
“Is Grey even your real name?” I finally blurt.
Surprise flickers in his eyes and I can’t help the disappointment that spears through me to realize it’s not. “It’s my middle name. When I left, I started using it as an alias.”
“Left where?”
He hesitates. “I left the city for a few years.”
“Where did you go?”
His expression tightens, and I realize too late I’ve crossed a boundary somehow.
“Away,” he says simply.
“And now you’re back,” I say, trying to get us back onto even footing.
“For now.”
I wait, but he doesn’t say more. Instead, he stares at me with a look of such intensity I can feel it all the way through to my bones. Instantly, I go from trying to understand the contradictions he contains to losing myself in the dark depths of his eyes. He flicks a glance at my mouth, and I realize suddenly that we’ve somehow ended up in my bedroom with me in nothing but a bedsheet. And all I can think about is what he told me earlier, about how that lap dance was all for him.
In this moment, I’d dance for him all over again if he asked me to.
But he doesn’t.
Finally, he looks away from me, toward the door at my back—like he wants nothing more than to escape this moment. An instant later, after a mumbled comment about grabbing the rest of my stuff, escape is exactly what he does, leaving me alone to catch my breath and add another contradiction to the list.
My attraction to Grey makes zero sense whatsoever, but it’s only getting stronger the harder I fight it. The question is, what happens when I can’t fight it anymore? Who will he be then?
17
LEXI
Iforce myself to take a deep breath and concentrate on steadying my nerves. From the window of the second-floor high-rise office where I stand in heels and a pantsuit more expensive than I used to make in a month, I stare across the street below at Altobello’s Italian restaurant. It’s a bit out of place among the surrounding skyscrapers with its one-story stature and red, checkered awning with cute little flower hanging boxes beneath the windows.
If I didn’t know it doubled as the headquarters for a wolf pack mafia, I’d find it inviting. Instead, my stomach churns with nausea, and my palms sweat as I study the restaurant’s tempered glass windows like they’re the crystal ball I need to see how this will all play out.
“You ready?”
