She waved her hand. “Oh, yeah, I always look at people’s bookcases too. I’d especially look at someone’s bookcase if I weremarryingthem. But that’s right, you were only looking at the shelves, weren’t you?”
“Was I supposed to be looking somewhere else?”
She grinned. “Yeah, if you wanted to see my Jack Casey collection. They’re in my favorites pile on the lower part of my nightstand. I do most of my reading in bed, and that way I can always grab some guaranteed pleasure reading if I need it.”
Case’s mind went blank for a moment, totally preoccupied by the vision of Lydia surrounded by rumpled bedsheets, sleepily reaching for one of his books. Then he forgot all about the book and zeroed in on Lydia and the tangle of sheets. The words “guaranteed pleasure” echoed through his head.
He had to fight his way through the fog of desire that brought on and force himself to focus on the fact that he was, genuinely and sincerely, overawed by this.
Just not as overawed as he was byher.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever told me,” Case said honestly.
She scoffed, even though she was still smiling. “Come on, no, it’s not. I’ve seen your reviews. I’m not the only one who loves your books.”
“Maybe not, but you’re the only person who’s ever told me I’m in her favorites pile.”
Lydia’s expression got even warmer, and there was a distinctly golden glint of humor and arousal in her dark eyes. Somehow, once again, she’d picked up on what he was thinking.
“You—” The glint faltered for a second, and then it came back, fiercer and brighter than ever. “You, not Jack Casey, are the entirety of my favorites pile. And I don’t want to keep younextto my bed, I want youinmy bed. We can have a mini-book club in the truck, but I think we should start heading to the lodge.”
Case’s breath caught in his throat. Yes, yeah, definitely. They should absolutely start heading to the lodge.
He managed to say, “You’re my favorite too, you know. If you were a book, I’d read you cover to cover a thousand times.”
Lydia’s smile lit her up so brightly that it was like the sun was shining out through her. She was utterly luminous.
Case had completely forgotten about the red velvet dress. None of this had anything to do with what she was wearing, nomatter how gorgeous and sumptuous it was. It was all her. It was Lydia through and through.
And the sooner they got to the lodge ....
He pressed down on the gas. It looked like they were going to break some speed limits after all.
15
Lydia knew that her horizons had been a little stunted by the need to be responsible to the pack. The only time she’d ever been out of Montana by choice had been during a brief, doomed flicker of teenage rebellion, when she’d driven south for the Wyoming border for the sake of getting somewhere, anywhere else.
She’d crossed the state line, bought a root beer and some Doritos at a convenience store, had the world’s saddest picnic on the hood of her truck, and then come back home. Because even when she was chafing at the borders of Mountainview, she knew she belonged there, and she knew that would-be alphas didn’t abandon their packs. Not ever. Not for anything.
She had gone to community college one town over, and she had rarely stayed the night there. Just a couple times, sleeping over at a friend’s. Even Ruth hadn’t been able to object to that small of a break from Mountainview, not when things were going well, but Lydia had never been able to shake the feeling that she still didn’t think they were a good idea. That had haunted her. Ruth was the only alpha she had ever known, and Lydia knew—like everyone in town knew—that Ruth had held the pack together through a lot of hard times. If she didn’t think something was a good idea, maybe it wasn’t.
That uncertainty had stuck with her for years. It was why most of her out-of-town one-night stands hadn’t even lasted a whole night. She’d never wanted to take any of those guys back home with her, not when it felt so revealing, and staying at their places until morning meant risking Ruth’s disapproval.
Before Case, it had always been better to cut things short and keep them simple.
She had already been glad that the night they would have had together hadn’t happened, and that they’d gotten this potentially pack-saving marriage instead. Now that she was in love with him, she felt almost ill when she thought about how she could have slept with Case and then disappeared on him.
Maybe she wouldn’t have been able to. There was something about him thatgrabbedher, after all.
But still, what if she had? What if she’d never gotten to know him at all?
Even though the truck’s heat was on, she shivered a little.
Case’s gaze had been on the road, but somehow his attention was still too sharp to miss that.
“What’s wrong?”
Lydia liked that she’d told him how much she cared about him—even if she hadn’t technically saidloveyet, to be on the safe side—but she decided that telling him about morose what-if scenarios where they didn’t get married was a bridge too far. She gave him a half-truth instead.
