Page 42 of Wild Wolf
Jordan had never been reckless. A little wild and spirited, which is what drew him to her.“We don’t smoke here. Hookahs or anything else.” Nolan thought of the danger of a spark ignited by a cigarette, and his stomachlurched.
“You gonna set a babysitter on me to make sure I don’t do that either?” she asked, folding her arms. “I’m not the one you need to watch. Erica is. I saw her yesterday flirting with Adam, the Harlow betawolf.”
The news didn’t surprise Nolan. Though their two packs were rivals, the single women in his pack had complained about the lack of eligible bachelors. It was one reason he tried forging a truce with theHarlows.
A marriage between a Harlow male and a Mitchell female would help end the bloodfeud.
“Leave Erica to me. You’re more trouble right now than she is,” hemuttered.
“Maybe you can assign that cute guy on the porch to watch over me while you’re sampling vintages and stamping grapes. He looked a little like Sam. Ishe?”
“Never mind him,” he growled. “No smoking. Fire danger’s toogreat.”
She searched his face. “No one in the pack would be stupid enough to flick a litcigarette.”
“I’m not taking chances. It’s dangerous in thewoods.”
“It’s not fire seasonyet.”
“I’m not taking chances,” he repeated. “You’re never to be alone. If a fire breaks out, you might gettrapped.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “I never thought about that. Why didn’t you tellme?”
“Justdid.”
Jordan released an exaggerated sigh. “Communication is a good thing in a relationship,Mitchell.”
It was, and he wanted answers fromher.
“Why did you take the bike?” he askedquietly.
Jordan shrugged. Something brewed inside her, dark and deep. Nolan clasped her chin and turned her face toward him to meet his scrutinizinggaze.
“Pixie, why did you take thebike?”
Whether it was the endearment or his gentle tone, he didn’t know, but her lower lip wobbled. “I just needed to get out of here. Too many memories all bottled up, Iguess.”
He wondered what memories. “When I get like that, I shift and run through the woods. Release mywolf.”
Now she refused to meet his gaze. “Running as wolf is one thing. I wanted to have fun as aSkin.”
Surprised, he studied her, stroking the softness of her lower lip. “You having troubleshifting?”
She shrugged again. “Never had any problems on theroad.”
Her evasive answer worried him. He needed a strong mate who could run with him as wolf, and control the others when they were in wolfskin. Then again, perhaps she hadn’t been eating right while she’d been gone. Lupines needed to eat raw meat once a month in order to shift intowolf.
“You probably need a good, home-cookedmeal.”
Jordan traced a line on the bench. “I’ve done okay formyself.”
The wildness was all related to human activities, not anything Lupine, herealized.
She needed alone time with him in the woods to learn how to be a wolf again. Being wolf would relieve herrestlessness.
Tomorrow, he’d take her into the park and teach her a fewthings.
Maybe teach her how to make love in the wild, as a wolf did. His blood surged at thethought.
