Page 27 of Wham Bam Thank You, Wolf

My wolf started pacing again, his worry forming a knot in my gut.Mate has no food. Mate is hungry.

Alice isn’t going hungry, I told him.She’s probably been too busy lately to get to the grocery store.

He stared back at me, eyes golden and lip curled, utterly unconvinced.

Shit. I wasn’t going to get any peace about this. The wolf couldn’t stand the idea of someone in our care going hungry or not being safe. Neither could I. But something told me trying to buy Alice groceries would be crossing a boundary. Maybe she’d let me buy her lunch. We could work up to grocery shopping.

I took my bag upstairs and set it on the floor near the bathroom door. Then I stripped down to my boxers again and sprawled on the bed to wait for Alice to get done in the bathroom.

There was a small guest bathroom down the hall, but I liked listening to the shower and the scents of shampoo and body wash drifting out from under the door. It was easy to imagine Alice under the spray washing her hair and getting sudsy. Those thoughts had a very predictable effect on my groin.

And my wolf, who stared at me, golden-eyed.Play with mate.

Alice could have invited me to join her if she’d wanted, but she hadn’t. So that was a boundary.

Not unless she asks, I told my wolf firmly.

Disgruntled, he huffed and put his head on his paws.

My phone buzzed.

I figured it was Ron texting about a work issue, but when I glanced at the screen the message was from my beta’s wife, Delia.

Delia: I’m having lunch with Lily today. She said she’d texted you about getting together again for dinner, but you’d gotten busy and forgotten to reply. Can I tell her you’ll text her a date and time?

My wolf rose, stiff-legged, and growled.

Lily Anderson was the daughter of a local alpha, Zachary Anderson, whose brother Matthew was on the Were Ruling Council. The extended Anderson family was a major force among local packs and in shifter politics.

Delia and Jack thought Lily would be a perfect mate for me. I’d gone on one date with her to placate Delia, and to confirm my suspicions about the kind of person Lily was.

She was cold, ambitious, devious, spoiled, and in every other way the direct opposite of the kind of woman I was interested in. I couldn’t stand her.

And I had in fact texted her back and declined her dinner invitation. So either she’d told Delia that and Delia thought I’d forgotten—which wasn’t likely—or Lily had lied about whether I’d replied.

Either way, my answer to Delia’s question was the same.

Me: Absolutely not.

I set the phone on the bed and folded my hands behind my head, listening to Alice sing quietly in the shower. She was a good singer. And that was an Eagles song she was singing. One of my favorites.

I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply, and smiled.

My phone buzzed again, but I ignored it. I had a feeling it was Delia and she wasn’t happy about my response. I’d deal with that later.

Alice had invited me to come along as a colleague—essentially, her partner for a day. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized this was even better than drinks at a bar or dinner and a movie because it was a chance to prove not just my trustworthiness but my skills and usefulness as an investigator too.

She was everything I’d waited for.

More than that, she deserved to be safe and happy. She deserved to be able to trust someone and have them at her back—to have apackat her back. She deserved to find peace and heal her scars, especially the ones that didn’t show.

It would be my privilege to give her all of that and more, no matter what I’d need to do or how long it would take for her to feel secure.

My wolf curled up in my mind.We found her, he said, eyes golden.She will be our heart.

And for the first time in days, he closed his eyes and slept.