“Stop it,” I told my reflection. “You’re overthinking a one-night stand with a hot weirdo who has an Australian fetish or whatever.”
But I couldn’t stop. The questions kept piling up. How had he gotten those wounds that looked exactly made by the beasts? How had they healed so fast? Why had touching him felt electric in a way that defied explanation?
Screw this. I needed answers.
I grabbed my phone and called Vivi before I could talk myself out of it.
“Please tell me you’re calling to explain the insurance paperwork,” she answered on the second ring. “The repair guysneed estimates for the window and door, and I have no idea what to put for ‘cause of damage.’ Giant wolf attack?”
Right. The shop. My destroyed shop that I’d have to somehow put back together.
“Sorry, I... had a rough night. Listen, I need Poppy’s gossip network.” I didn’t bother with small talk. “The guy from the coffee shop. Matthias. I need to know who he is.”
Silence on the other end. Then, carefully: “Lina, what happened?”
“Just... please? Can you ask her if she knows anything about a really hot guy, about six-four, gray eyes, leather jacket? Staying somewhere in town?”
Vivi didn’t push, bless her. “I’ll call her now. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just need some information.”
“I’ll call you back.”
I showered while waiting, cataloguing every mark he’d left on my body. Bruises on my hips from his grip. Love bites on my throat, my breasts, my inner thighs. Scratch marks on my back from when I’d ridden him. My body was a map of our night together, and each mark made the hollow feeling in my chest grow.
By the time I was dressed, my phone was ringing.
“Okay,” Vivi said without preamble. “According to Poppy, there are four men at the hotel. Total smoke show convention, her words. They checked in about three weeks ago. One matches your description perfectly. Gray eyes, tall enough to make herreconsider her stance on climbing trees, looks dangerous. Room 303.”
My heart pounded. “Did she get a name?”
“The booking’s under Noah Reed, but there are four of them. Poppy’s been trying to get the hot redhead’s number for days apparently.”
Room 303. I had a location.
“Lina, whatever you’re thinking-”
“Thanks, Viv. I’ll explain later.”
I hung up before she could talk sense into me. Because the logical part of my brain was screaming that this was insane. He’d left. Clearly he didn’t want to see me again. Showing up at his hotel was textbook crazy ex behavior, except I wasn’t even his ex. I was just some girl he’d fucked and abandoned.
But the angry, hurt, confused part of me won. I needed to know why he’d come to me specifically. Why he’d made me feel things I’d never felt before and then just... left. Without even a “thanks for the mind-blowing sex” or “sorry for the breaking and entering.”
I pulled on boots and my jacket, shoving my knife in my pocket out of habit. The hotel was only a ten-minute walk. Ten minutes to either talk myself out of this or work up the courage to actually knock.
By the time I stood outside the hotel, I’d done neither. Instead, I stood there having an internal debate about levels of crazy. Wasconfronting a one-night stand at their hotel room a level 5 or level 10 on the unhinged scale?
“Just ask him why,” I muttered to myself, psyching myself up. “That’s all. Get answers and get out. Get closure.”
Right. Closure. That’s what this was about. Not the fact that I could still feel his hands on me. Not the fact that I’d woken up reaching for him. Just closure.
I walked through the lobby with false confidence, took the elevator to the third floor, and followed the signs to room 303. Each step felt surreal, part of me still expecting to wake up and find out the whole thing had been an incredibly vivid dream.
But then I was standing outside the door, and I could hear voices. His voice, angry and defensive. Other male voices I didn’t recognize.
“What the fuck have you been doing?” someone demanded.
Another voice, not Matthias, added with clear disgust: “Fucking with a human girl? What the hell were you thinking, Knox?”
