Page 13 of Ravaged Wolf
He doesn’t even sound mad.
I shrug, and for a second, our arms press together. Shivers race across my skin. “Don’t take it personally. It’s not about you.”
“Sure it is.” He flashes his wry smile. “I’m not what they want for their smart, classy girl.”
He is so wrong. He’s not what they want for themselves. I’m not, either. I don’t want to explain that, though. I don’twant him to see me how they do—not worth the time or the effort.
“They’ll come around,” I lie. “Everyone knows that Fate decides.”
He turns away from me to stare at the sink again, his shoulders tensing. “Yeah. We don’t have a choice.”
The fuzzy, warm feeling that had distracted me for a second when we were joking sinks away like water down a drain. All of a sudden, I’m shivering, hyperaware of my damp shirt clinging to my sweaty back, the painful points of my nipples, and the heavy ache in my breasts. I’m a mess. My hair is so wet with sweat, it’s plastered to my neck.
I slide off the counter onto watery legs. “I want to go home.”
He blinks, surprised, and hops down beside me. It isn’t fair. I’m a wreck, and he seems even bigger and stronger than when I noticed him across the salad bar.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I fuss with my shirt to give my hands something to do and my eyes a reason not to meet his. “It’s just the truth.”
“No.” He crosses the space between us and grabs both of my clammy hands, drawing them to his sides, holding me there, not quite in his arms, but close. If I dropped the top of my head forward, I could tuck it under his chin. “That was my pride talking. Being defensive. What I meant to say was I’m glad. I’m glad Fate decided that you’re for me.”
There’s a gruffness to his voice, an awkwardness that makes the smooth words terse and blunt and wonderful.
I let my forehead fall to his chest, and I can feel his heart slugging against my temple, fast but steady. My stomach hollows, and my blood buzzes through my veins.
He lifts my chin with a knuckle, gazing down, the blue and gray storming, and I finally understand what it meansto be lost in someone’s eyes. I forget what I was going to do, what I’m supposed to do, who I am.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he whispers.
“Okay,” I whisper back.
And he does. His lips are dry and soft and firm at the same time, and up close, he smells even better than gravy, and he tastes like toothpaste and soda and all the things I’ve ever craved and never gotten enough of—royal icing flowers and snow days and the pale, full moon and the woods at night.
He draws back, and I whimper. Somehow, my hands are framing his face, my fingers dug into his cheek, my thumbs pressing his hard jaw.
“Don’t go home,” he says. His fingers have plunged into my hair, and he’s cradling my head.
“What?” I want to touch him, but I also don’t want to let go of the grip I have, and he’s talking about not going home, and I just want him to kiss me again.
“Stay here.” His hands travel over my shoulders, down my back, tentatively wrapping around my waist, pulling me flush against his front. I can feel hardness poking my belly, and that’s scary, but being held, being drawn close, that’s new and strange and lovely. “Please.”
I can’t stay. My father would kill me. He’d killhim.
I don’t want to bring that into this, though. I don’t want any ugliness in this moment between him and me as we stand in an empty kitchen like we’re slow dancing, but not moving, almost too scared to breathe in case we mess it up.
“There’s no furniture,” I say.
“I have sleeping bags. You can have the big bedroom with the bathroom attached.”
“I can’t.”
“I’ll leave you alone. I just don’t want you to go back there.” His voice is deadly serious.
I shuffle forward a half step until I’m standing between his tan work boots and give in to gravity, sliding my hands down to rest on his hard chest. It’s so broad that I can splay my fingers and cover hardly any of him. His heart beats against the center of my palm.
I don’t want to go back to my parents, either. I don’t want to be anywhere but here.
