Page 44 of A Wolf After My Own Heart
“You know,” he breathed. “I know you do.”
The few hairs left on her arms were all trying to stiffen. Fear? Lust? All-consuming irritation? “You’ll have to narrow that down, because I know tons of stuff. I know how to pluck a chicken and stuff a teddy bear. I know that custard’s just a fancy name for pudding, and I know Dairy Queen makes the best non-ice cream in the world. I know dill and thyme make everything taste better and I know how to train a parakeet to sit on a finger. I know how to change a flat and make a perfect fried egg. I know how to ice fish for walleye and how to de-head shrimp and that real whipped cream is a thousand times better than Cool Whip. I’m a friggin’ font of knowledge.”
He just looked at her.
“And I know how long it takes the average radius and ulna to knit back together.”
He was looking at her with not a little desperation. “What? What?”
She pushed up his unbuttoned sleeve, revealing a sooty—but unharmed—wrist. “Oooh, looky here. You’re all better. You went from make-shift cast to bandage to nothing in seventy-two hours.”
“Yes! Exactly!You know this.”
“Most people don’t heal up so quickly after getting hit by a decommissioned ambulance.”
“Right!” He sounded so relieved she’d finally put it out there, the Big Unspoken Thing, she (almost) felt bad. “So…”
She took a breath. “So I think there miiiiiiiiiight be something kinda weird going on with your family.” Beat. “Maybe.”
He let go of her shoulders and let out a tiny yelp of frustration. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?”
From her kitchen: “Take what you can get, Oz!”
Lila snickered. “Devoss has excellent advice for you, Ox.”
“Uh. It’s Oz.”
“Like the wizard?”
“Like the werewolf.” Pause. “OnBuffy?”
She blinked. “Buffy wasn’t a werewolf.”
She almost whispered that, because he was leaning in again and she could not stop staring at his mouth. (In her defense, it wasright there.) She felt momentary dizziness, then realized she was holding her breath. She wasn’t going to lean in, that wasn’t how she played this game, and besides, she didn’t have to; he was doing all the leaning. He just needed to lean faster. Much faster.Much, much faster.
“Lila, I know my timing sucks, but I haven’t been able to get you out of my mmmpphh.”
Much better. She ran her tongue across his lower lips and got a tender nip in response, and then she could feel herself stepping closer to him (not that there was much space left between them), could feel herself opening to him. His hand came up to cradle the back of her head and he tasted like salt and smoke and also cookies for some reason, and as far as first kisses went, it was devastating in all the best ways.
“What are you kids doing out here?”
They both jumped apart like guilty teenagers as Macropi came out and held the kitchen door for them. Lila took a second to remind herself that a) she was an adult, b) it was her yard, and c) Macropi was not the boss of her.
She followed Oz inside anyway, already wondering when they might kiss again, which shouldnotbe her priority right now, which nicely encapsulated the problem.
Never mind the fire and the wildlife. I might be inrealtrouble.
Chapter 19
“You want us to stay with you?”
“Sure.”
Maybe it was the (damp) nightgown and robe, her long feet all black with dirt, or the fact that her tight white curls were a disaster, but Macropi looked, for the first time, old and vulnerable. “Really?” she whispered.
“Sure.”
She and the kids had just finished drinking their Flanders’s cocoas, and Lila was glad to see it had perked them up a bit. The looks on their faces had been worth the effort of making hot chocolate from scratch during the wee hours.
