“I asked her for some privacy.”
“With no internet?” Yes, my voice did have a distinct whine to it when I asked that. I freaking liked the internet, okay?
His answer to that was an even bigger smile. “Oh, I think I can distract you from that.”
And then, he unbuttoned his suit jacket.
Okay, that... might work. Jax stripping was officially the sexiest thing ever, and it’d make me think about something other than the lack of the internet for at least a while.
He stripped, right there in the kitchen, tossing his jacket onto the marble countertop, then reaching for the fly of his wool slacks. And that? Okay, it was too much for me to stand there when this could be an interactive display. So I reached for the tiny white buttons on his shirt and started helping him out.
The way his grin turned predatory could only be described, punnily enough, as wolfish.
I was so distracted by uncovering his warm, strong, golden chest that I almost missed him dropping his pants. Fuck my life—or not, since that man was all fucking mine. Every tanned inch of perfect skin, every firm muscle, every soft look as he gazed at me—me!—all of it was mine.
“As great as this is,” he said, reaching up to grab my hands running over his pecs, “it’s not exactly why I brought you here. Well, not only that.”
His wink was underwear-melting, but then a moment later, he was shifting. Holy shit, he was... how was it even possible fora wolf to be gorgeous? Yes, they were beautiful creatures, but I’d never been the kind of person who was sexually attracted to non-human beings... except that I was also not human anymore. Or... maybe I’d never been human.
Whatever. The point was that I was also a wolf, or at least I had one inside me.
When he backed away a step and looked at me, waiting, I realized that was the point of this. He wanted me to do the same thing. Wanted me to become a wolf and... well, I didn’t know what came next.
It didn’t matter, though. There wasn’t any hesitation in me. I’d go anywhere Jax asked me to, do whatever he needed me to. He was my alpha, and the man I was definitely in love with.
With the pull of that on my psyche, it took less than a minute before my clothes joined his on the counter and floor, and I was shivering my way through the strangest sensation I’d ever felt in my life.
Then Jax was nosing a door open in the back of the kitchen, and both of us were streaking off through the woods behind the house.
3
Jax
Before San Francisco, I’d never had to help anyone through their first transformation before. Our pack back in Idaho had been insular. We didn’t bite people, not out of any special care for humanity, but because we’d never trusted outsiders.
Then, in San Francisco, when things had opened up for us, if somebody cared enough to bite somebody, they also cared enough to show them the ropes. As the alpha, of course I was there. Available. But transforming for the first time in front of somebody you wanted to bare your neck to—it had to be intimidating, so I tried not to pressure anybody and waited for them to ask for help if they needed it.
Needless to say, I’d never been the point person for somebody’s first shift, and I wasn’t sure I knew what I was doing.
But I did know how to do the thing. Transform.
And Dakota was the smartest person I’d ever met—don’t tell Jill—so I figured giving him a chance to work it out himself was at least a good place to start.
When I fell to four legs, I stared up at Dakota—okay, justslightlyup—and that was an odd angle to see him. Normally, I towered over him. I liked it that way, but this—this was good too.Looking up at him made the fur down my spine stand on end. I had the strangest urge to whine until he scratched my ears and called me a good boy...
So that was something we’d have to explore later. For the time being, he was staring at me with?—
It wasn’t fear in his eyes, and I thought it might even be admiration. I still had the prickle of doubt that it couldn’t possibly be that. He was a mage—and he was nothing like any other mage I’d met.
It wasn’t fair for me to hold him to the shitty expectations I’d built around mages, any more than it was fair for them to hold me to their expectations of us. With Dakota—never, not for one second, had he turned his nose up at our pack.
Not even once.
Mostly, he’d been wide eyed and overwhelmed when I told him what I was.
I knew better than to think Dakota was the sort of person who carried around that kind of prejudice. It was just a momentary prickle of worry before he took off his clothes and I realized?—
No, it was definitely admiration, maybe laced with the barest hint of anxiety. I recognized the light in his eyes carried the same feeling I had when he shifted. He didn’t look anything like what I’d expected, and somehow, exactly perfect at the same time.
