The kiss was soft at first, like a question we weren’t sure how to ask. But then his fingers slid higher up my thigh, and my mouth opened, and the kiss stopped being gentle. It deepened. It pulled. Itached.His hand found the back of my neck and he pulled me closer like I was the only thing keeping him grounded.
My chest was too tight. My stomach flipped. My body saidyesbefore my brain could even whisperwhat are you doing?
This was supposed to be pretend. Just practice. Just something to make the lie believable.
But Roman’s lips didn’t feel like fiction.
And I knew, without a single doubt, I was in trouble. Big, stupid, kiss-me-again-right-now kind of trouble.
Chapter 9
Roman
It was past midnight,and sleep wasn’t even pretending to be an option.
I’d flipped my pillow three times, shifted positions every two minutes, even tried the calming breathing exercises Maggie made fun of—inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight, whatever the hell that was supposed to do—but my mind wouldn’t shut up. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. Not just her face, but also her fingers curling into my leg, the little hitch in her breath before she kissed me back. The way her lips had moved against mine, like she’dwantedit.
It had been a practice kiss. A dress rehearsal for the fake relationship we were selling to my alpha. A lie.
So why did it feel like my whole nervous system was trying to crawl toward her room?
I glanced down and sighed. “Down, boy.”
I needed air. Space. A serious reset.
I threw on a hoodie and sweats and padded quietly through the apartment, careful not to make any noise. Maggie’s door was cracked, and I paused without meaning to. Her light was off. I could hear her slow, even breathing. She was asleep.
Good. She didn’t need to see me like this.
Outside, the world was cool and quiet, the air dense with that sticky, late-summer humidity that never knew when to leave. I jogged across the cracked pavement behind the apartment and ducked into the trailhead at the edge of the park. The trees closed in fast…tangled and shadowed enough to pretend it was real wilderness. It wasn’t. But it was dark and shrouded, and that was enough.
I scanned the trees, every sense on alert. No late-night dog walkers. No smokers tucked under the stairwells. The neighborhood was asleep.
I pulled off my hoodie, then my sweats, folding them quickly and stashing them under a low branch. The shift came easily. My body bowed forward, muscles stretching, snapping, bones reforming with a crack that would’ve made anyone else scream.
The instant my paws hit the forest floor, I ran.
I didn’t hold back. I didn’t pace myself. I let the wolf take over, lungs burning, heart hammering, paws pounding the dirt as trees blurred past. The wind brushed through my fur. The forest whispered around me, alive with the creak of branches and the rustle of nocturnal movement. It was raw and real andmine.
Finally, I could breathe.
I tore through the undergrowth, ducking low beneath a fallen tree, leaping over a boulder slick with moss. For a while, there was nothing but the run.
No thoughts, no humans, no Maggie.
Until therewasMaggie. Always Maggie, now.
Her breath catching when I touched her. Her lashes fluttering as she leaned in. Her scent—fresh linen, a little citrus, something warm and frustratingly familiar. It was under my skin now. I couldn’t outrun it.
I veered hard left, tongue lolling, and spotted a rabbit up ahead.
Perfect.
I wasn’t going to kill him, but I needed the chase. The distraction.
I lunged, muscles firing. The rabbit darted forward, white tail flashing as it zigzagged through the brush. I followed, silent and fast, weaving between trees, focusing only on its movements. Keep up. Cut it off. Stay sharp.
Eventually, I lost the rabbit in a thicket of ferns and slowed to a stop, lungs heaving. The scent of rabbit faded, replaced by damp leaves and pine. I padded to a clear patch of earth and flopped onto my back, rolling in the cool, prickly comfort of the forest floor.
