“I don’t hate anybody,” he said. “But it’s annoying how they take for granted the acceptance of the general public.”
“Oh. Well…what if one of them overhears us from inside the car?”
He tapped the side of his nose, and a smirk overtook his face. “By the time they can hear me, I can smell them. And that goes for fellow wolves too.”
“Ohh.” Willow’s eyes brightened despite the failing daylight. “So much new information to integrate.”
“Yeah.” He grinned. There she went again, reveling in the data, smoking hot while the gears of her mind worked behind those keen brown eyes.
She went still as though she could read his body the way he read hers. She reached out a finger and trailed it down his arm, over his bicep, the simplest of gestures, hardly sensual, yet a growl left his throat, faint enough for Willow’s ears only. Her turn now for a smirk.
“I want an answer to my question.”
“In the car.”
She led him to a sensible silver four-door. He folded himself into the passenger seat, and she giggled as he shut the door.
“My car isn’t exactly wolf-sized.”
“Most things aren’t.”
“Yeah, wow, now that I think about it… Can you even nap on a standard-sized couch?”
“If I crunch up or dangle my feet over one side.”
She thought for a moment, then cocked her head at him. “That’s a topic for later. Right now we need to address the—the, uh—the next-level, uh…”
Ezra cupped one side of her face, traced her lips with his thumb. “This?”
As if on reflex, Willow turned her head into his hand. Then she shut her eyes and leaned away from him, into the corner of the driver’s seat and the window.
“No, see, we can’t just do that,” she said, her voice pitched high with restraint and frustration. “We’re not there, not yet, and—and I don’t understand how wecanbe there if I don’twantto be yet.”
“I know.”
Oh, how he knew. How he needed to grill Aaron and Cassius and Trevor and Jeremy. Was this normal for a wolf? Blood on fire, needing to claim her, needing to hold her mere days after their hands brushed by chance in a coffee shop? Or was this, like his scorching protective drive, amped up in Ezra’s case?
Cassius had said he’d find his own way to his mate, that every wolf did. Maybe Aaron and Ember hadn’t strained for self-control during those ten days in the same house. But maybe Ezra would. Maybe this was his way, his and Willow’s. Whatever the case, he must honor his mate. He curled his fingers into his palm and withdrew his hand to his lap.
“Ezra,” Willow said, “you know more than you’re telling me.”
He nodded.
“So tell me.”
“It’s going to sound farfetched.”
“However it sounds, I want to know.”
“Okay,” he said. “A wolf doesn’t find a spouse the way human males do. He doesn’t date around, trial and error, see if she might be the one.”
“Find aspouse?” Willow looked ready to bolt from her car.
He held up his hands. “I warned you. Just hear me out, please.”
She nodded, eyes wide.
“A wolf doesn’t need trial and error. He knows. Instinctively.”
