Yeah, the universe was laughing its ass off right now.
I didn’t have to force gruffness into my voice as I said, “Don’t try anything, and you won’t have to worry about it. Okay?”
A beat passed, and I braced for Caleb to argue. Instead, he gave a terse nod.
“Take off the cuffs and we have a deal.”
Chapter
Five
CALEB
Werewolves aren’t real.
Werewolves aren’t real.
Werewolves aren’t real.
The chant marched through my head as I trailed Jesse down a flight of stairs and into a wide hallway lined with tasteful charcoal prints. Muted sconces cast a pleasant glow over slate-colored walls.
For the thousandth time in the past half hour, I questioned my sanity. For one thing, the skin around my wrists was totally healed. Seconds after Jesse removed the cuffs, the abrasions had faded and the shooting pains that had streaked up my arms and numbed my fingers disappeared. Now, my skin was whole, not a bruise or burn mark in sight.
But my miraculous recovery was a distant footnote on the list of weird shit that had happened tonight. The top bullet item was the man leading me into a spacious living room decked out with the kind of high-end decor my mother drooled over. Whoever this van der Meer guy was, he wasn’t hurting for cash.
“This your parents’ place?” I asked, my head on a swivel.
“No,” Jesse said without turning around.
“So it’s yours?”
Jesse said nothing, just continued past overstuffed furniture arranged around an enormous, colorful area rug. Wide floorboards bore marks from being scraped by hand. A low coffee table in front of the sofa held stacks of books bristling with sticky notes in various shapes and sizes. In a couple places, a pencil or a paper napkin stuck out from the pages like someone had stopped reading and thrust the nearest object into a book to mark their place.
“You like to read?” I asked, trying to get a look at the titles as we passed.
Jesse smiled at me over his shoulder. “You could say that.”
My stomach did an odd flip at the sight of his straight, white teeth and the tiny, almost imperceptible laugh lines radiating from the corners of his eyes. His irises were a warm chocolate brown now, but they’d lightened to gold when he warned me to stop cussing. His dark hair was the kind of thick and wavy perfection I’d only seen on movie stars. Actually, everything about him was movie star hot, from his chiseled cheekbones to the dark hairs peeking from the cuffs of his Under Armour shirt. The gray fabric had molded to his chest when he folded his arms in the bedroom. Now, it strained across his shoulders, which were so wide Coach Gannon would have taken one look and begged him to play middle linebacker.
I let my gaze wander to his ass. Like the rest of him, it was fine as hell—two taut, round globes cupped by a pair of joggers that hit a touch above the ankle. No wonder, given his height. I’d spent my adolescence and young adulthood dodging tackles, and I could pinpoint a guy’s height and weight with decent accuracy. Jesse van der Meer wasn’t bulky, but he was big. He had about two inches and at least thirty pounds on me.
My dick tightened, proving once again that my sense of self-preservation needed serious work. I jerked my gaze off Jesse’s ass. It didn’t matter how hot the guy was. He’d knocked me out and handcuffed me to a bed.
He also made his hand shift into a wolf’s paw,a little voice reminded me.
I ignored it. Later, I could indulge in all kinds of theories to explain what had happened in Jesse’s bedroom. Right now, I needed to focus on getting the hell out of his house.
We reached the kitchen, where a big window overlooked a forest illuminated by some kind of patio light. The kitchen itself was all gleaming natural wood and polished granite countertops. But it wasn’t cold or minimalist. Open shelves held pristine white plates and gleaming copper cookware. A Viking range with enough burners to cook for a wedding dominated the far wall.
Just who the fuckwasthis guy?
He was obviously rich, but he looked my age, and people in their early twenties didn’t live in houses like this. Maybe he was a trust fund baby. Hale Valley had a few of those.
Or he’s a werewolf who’s a lot older than he looks,the little voice whispered.
Shut up,I told it. Probably not a good sign that I was arguing with the voices in my head.
“Sit,” Jesse said, pointing to one of the barstools pulled up to a gray island under a row of pendant lights.
