“I thought you said he doesn’t touch you?” Jen asked as she leaned forward and rested her forearms on her knees.
“He holds my hand, he puts his arms around me, he touches my face. There’s no pain when he touches me. But he only touches me certain places. My thigh, where the markings are, for example, he can’t touch me there apparently.”
“Oh, no the markings are like catnip to a cat. Their wolf sees them and all he can think of, at that point, is that you’re his and he wants to claim you. It becomes primal, which is harder for him to control. Okay, so we’ve established he hasn’t touched you, touched you?” Jen asked.
“Touched me, touched me?” Bethany questioned.
“She means has he touched you anywhere that makes you gasp, groan, or turn into a shameless hussy begging for more?” Jacque asked before Jen could answer.
Jen looked over at her best friend. “Wow, being nearly dead changed you.”
Jacque shrugged. “It’ll do that to a person.”
“I feel sort of like that when he kisses me,” Bethany admitted. “I just feel like there’s more. I want more and I don’t understand exactly what that means and he won’t tell me. Every time I ask him, he says that I’m not ready to know those things. He treats me like I’m fragile.”
“I’m sure Drake is confused about how far to take things because, as we’ve already talked about, he knows that you aren’t knowledgeable about a lot of things, including our species, and he doesn’t want to take advantage of you,” Jacque explained. “And they all think we females are fragile. It’s our job to remind them that we are anything but.”
“How do you do that?” Bethany asked.
“You hit them,” Jen answered.
“And throw things at them,” Jacque continued.
“And make them build dog house for dogs that don’t exist,” Jen added.
“Also,” Jacque interjected, “youcango to a bar without their knowledge.”
“Or do a striptease in a room full of people,” Jen laughed. “Yep, that one will hit them where it hurts every time.”
“Every time?” Bethany’s eyes widened. “You mean it’s happened more than once?”
“Clothes are annoying. My philosophy isthe less you’re wearing, the shorter the show, which has the added benefit of giving you a head start on the pursuing fur ball—because they will be pursuing, believe me.”
Bethany was speechless.
“Oh!” Jacque said, snapping her fingers. “There’s also theyour touch is uninvitedcard.” She smiled at Bethany, whose eyes widened.
“Burn,” Jen said. “They hate that one. I think they’d rather you kick them in the balls than tell them they aren’tallowedto touch you.”
“How do those things make them see you as not fragile?”
“Listen up, sweet cheeks,” Jen said as she stood and walked to one of the shelves in the library and grabbed a book. She set it on one of the tables and flipped it open, continuing to flip pages until she came to what she was looking for. “Ah, here it is.Fragile, of an object, easily broken or damaged, flimsy or insubstantial.” She snorted a laugh. “Yeah right. Where was I? Oh, yeah,easily destroyed. Fragile, of a person, not strong or sturdy; delicate and vulnerable. Synonyms include tenuous, shaky, insecure, un-reliable, flimsy, weak, delicate, and frail. There’s more but I think we get the picture.” She slammed the book closed and sauntered back over to her seat.
“As you can see, it takes a woman with large jewels to stand up to a werewolf. We do not have the luxury of being flimsy, or easily destroyed. So when they begin to think we are, we remind them that we are not passive, vulnerable bitches. We are she-wolves, and we will bite if we have to. Whether it’s a real bite, whichhey back to that whole foreplay thing, or it’s only a figurative bite, they will feel our strength, our durability, and our robustness. Love that word by the way—robustness. Makes me want to strut around while nodding and saying ‘Yeah, I’m robust. What’s it to ya, punk?’ ”
“Oh holy troll tongues, please do,” Jacque begged as she laughed.
Bethany covered her mouth as she tried to keep from rolling.
“You totally got those from the antonym section, didn’t you?” Jacque asked through her fit of laughter.
“Totally,” Jen agreed still feeling robust.
Once they’d pulled themselves back together, Bethany leaned forward. “What else?”
“My, my you’ve become an eager little beaver. Oh man, that’s frickin—” Jen started to say but Jacque slapped a hand over her mouth and shook her head.
When she removed the hand, Jen’s lips puckered. “Too soon?”
