Something unpleasant tugged hard in my chest—and it wasn’t the first time. The squirmy, unsettling sensation was quickly growing familiar. I’d felt it in the bedroom every time Jesse’s voice dipped or his eyes lightened to that eerie gold. The wriggling, phantom feelers had burrowed deep and then turned into a crushing pressure that stole my breath and made me desperate to banish the feeling.
The pressure had only lifted when I’d dropped my eyes. Which wasnot normal. Nothing about this situation was normal. For fuck’s sake, I’d attacked Dean Welch in the park. And then Jesse—who was a total stranger—had punched me, chained me to his bed, and gone all Obi-Wan on my ass with his “the wolf is strong with you” announcement.
But I didn’t recall Obi-Wan hitting Luke with some kind of sex magic voodoo that made his dick chub up.
Blood rushed in my ears as I hesitated on the threshold between the living room and the kitchen. Jesus, I was stupid. I was wasting my time looking at Jesse’s home decor—and body—when I should have been looking for the door. The dude probably had the head of his latest victim in his fridge.
Jesse watched me, his shoulders relaxed and his expression patient. For some reason, the latter lit a fuse of anger inside me. Because I’d seen that look before, I realized. On teachers’ faces. On counselors’ faces. It was the dismissive, slightly bored “I’m Waiting You Out” look adults gave when they were dealing with a problem child. And I didn’t need this shit. Not from some stranger who looked like a rich frat boy.
“Caleb,” he said quietly.
My heart sped up. The anger burned hotter, threatening to put a growl in my throat.
Jesse blinked, and his eyes glowed bright yellow. “Sit down, Caleb.”
His deep voice struck like a thunderclap. Suddenly, looking at him was like staring into the sun. I winced and tucked my chin, my breaths coming in gasps as pressure squeezed my lungs. My knees loosened, and something within me longed to sink to the ground and stay there.
No, that wasn’t quite right. I wanted to drop to all fours and crawl to the barstool. Because Ineededto sit. It was what Jesse wanted, and the pressure urged me to give him what he wanted.Panting and starting to sweat, I stumbled to the stool, clumsily pulled it out, and plunked my ass on the seat.
Instantly, the pressure lifted. The anger dissipated like smoke in the wind. I curled my hands into fists on the cool granite as I sucked in lungfuls of air.
“Good boy,” Jesse murmured.
The two words went straight to my dick, which tightened all over again. God, what was wrong with me? The werewolf thing couldn’t be true. Except I’d attacked Welch. And I’d attacked Aiden Cross. And bizarre crap had been happening to me since August. And that whole transforming arm trick Jesse pulled in the bedroom had looked awfully real. Thesilverhandcuffs he’d put on me had burned my wrists. How much evidence did I need?
On the other hand, maybe I was losing my mind. In my intro to philosophy class, we’d learned about this principle called Occam’s razor. The gist was that the simplest explanation for any given problem was preferable to something more complicated. I pictured my philosophy professor with his short sleeve button down and gray nose hairs Occam’s razoring my current predicament. Yeah, I didn’t have to go through the exercise to know what he’d say.
“Look at me,” Jesse said, and that fucking pressure in my chest formed into a hook that jerked my head up. The glow in Jesse’s eyes faded quickly, and his irises darkened to chocolate brown. “I know this is hard. But I’m going to help you get through it.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I croaked. I squeezed my thighs together under the counter, willing my erection to go away.
Jesse appeared unfazed. “I know a couple of things.” He moved around the kitchen and pulled supplies from the cabinets, gathering bread, peanut butter, and a glass jar ofstrawberry jelly. He grabbed orange juice from the fridge. Within minutes, he pushed a loaded plate and a tall glass of juice in front of me. “Eat. Hungry werewolves are dangerous.”
“So you’re afraid of me now?” I asked, trying to ignore how something within me wanted to please him. When the pressure returned, I swiped the sandwich from the plate and took a bite.
Once again, the pressure lifted. Just like stumbling to the barstool, picking up the sandwich and biting into it made me feel…lighter. Content. PB&J wasn’t my favorite, but I’d gone so long without food that the soft bread, creamy peanut butter, and tart jam were ambrosia. I devoured the sandwich, chewing and swallowing so fast that my jaw ached from working the peanut butter around my mouth.
Jesse didn’t answer, but the little smile teasing his lips was louder than words.
No, he wasn’t afraid of me.
“More?” he asked when I was on my last bite. At my nod, he whipped up another sandwich, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he wielded the knife. His fingers were long and elegant, with square nails and a light dusting of dark hair on his knuckles. A perfect amount of stubble shadowed his jaw, and his dark eyebrows were sculpted or something. He obviously took care of himself.
“Drink your juice,” he said softly, wiping the knife on a paper towel. He slid the sandwich onto my plate, then went to one of the cabinets and pulled out a box of brownies. As I slurped down the orange juice, he unwrapped two brownies and set them on my plate. They were the junk food kind—dense rectangles with little multi-colored candies embedded in the frosting you could peel off and eat separately. My mother had always refused to buy them, claiming they would ruin my teeth or something. Maybe she thought sugar was a portal for other debauchery like R-ratedmovies or video games. But I’d always wanted to grab the damn things from other kids’ lunches and peel off that frosting.
For some reason, a lump formed in my throat. Before it could form into something else, I grabbed one of the brownies and stuffed it into my mouth.
“These are terrible for you,” I mumbled around the burst of chocolate and candy.
Jesse shrugged. “They taste good. And you’re a werewolf. You don’t have to worry about high cholesterol.” He went to the refrigerator and withdrew a bag of apples. When he returned to the island, he washed two pieces of fruit in the prep sink and began peeling them with deft movements. The knife flashed, and water droplets clung to the apples as the peel dangled in a long spiral before dropping into the sink. He sectioned the apples into slices and deposited them on my plate. “There,” he said, the little smile reappearing. “Something healthy.”
I stared at the fan of apple slices as the wriggling sensation stirred anew in my chest. He hadn’t told me to eat, but he obviously wanted me to. Apparently, that was enough to trigger whatever Jedi mind trick he was using on me. Could he make me do anything he wanted? Panic formed at the edges of my mind as the pressure swelled, urging me to obey.
To submit.
Jesse set down the knife, then wiped his hands on a towel and braced his palms on the counter. “You should?—”
“I’m full,” I said, pushing away the plate. Triumph and something hot and shaky surged inside me. My heart thumped faster as I kept my gaze pinned to the granite. But I could still see Jesse as he studied me, and my whole body tensed as I waited for what came next. And maybe I was as “perverse” and “disrespectful” as the youth pastor at my parents’ church claimed because part of me was impatient for the fallout. Which was stupid. I shouldn’t have wanted that hot, shaky feeling. Itwasn’t even particularly good. But like the chocolate brownie, I wanted to seize it and peel it back.
