The chocolate was too sweet and slightly burnt. I didn’t care.
I straightened. A drop escaped the corner of my mouth and I caught it with my tongue, dragging it slow across my lower lip. Her eyes tracked the movement. Followed my tongue, making my blood run hot and my cock twitch against my zipper.
My eyes flashed gold. Just for a second. A pulse of the wolf that I couldn’t contain because she was staring at my mouth and every predatory instinct I possessed screamed to close the distance and give her a reason to keep staring.
Red flooded her cheeks. Mira whipped her head around, flipped me off over her shoulder, and marched out of the room as fast as she could.
Fuck, I want her so bad.
I chuckled.
The sound came from somewhere dark and satisfied, and I took another sip of the terrible chocolate milk because her hands had been on the mug and that was reason enough to finish it.
However, the cabin went quiet after that.Too quiet.
Mira’s silence was never peaceful.
I found myself outside her bedroom door before I could construct a logical excuse for being there. I was not checking on her because I missed the noise. I was performing a security sweep. That was all.
The door stood open. She sat cross-legged on the bed, scribbling in the new journal Solomon had bought her.
A figure of a man, tall, with an exaggerated scowl. And she was scratching horns onto his head with aggressive strokes of the pen, muttering under her breath.
“I’m a lycan, not a bull.” I kept my voice flat. “We don’t have horns.”
Her head snapped up. Then she smiled, all teeth.
“Good thing this isn’t a bull horn, then.” She returned to her scribbling with renewed vengeance.
I watched her add what appeared to be a forked tail and flames around the feet. She’d given up on persuasion and moved to artistic revenge.
I sighed.
This woman will be the death of me.
“Fine. You can go to the Founder’s Day celebration.”
Her eyes went wide. Her head whipped toward me so fast her hair flew. She opened her mouth to grin and I raised a finger.
“But.” I held her gaze. “You have to learn self-defense first. And carry a weapon. I told you this before.”
She launched off the bed. The journal hit the mattress, the devil-drawing forgotten, and she was on her feet with a grin so wide.
“Teach me now then.”
***
The clearing behind the cabin served as a training ground. Late afternoon light filtered through the canopy. I’d used this space for solo drills when the wolf grew too restless.
“Feet wider,” I told her. “Weight in your hips, not your shoulders.”
She adjusted her stance. Shifted her weight back and bent her knees, and the movement pushed her hips out and pulled the leggings tight across her backside.
God. That ass.
The leggings left nothing to imagination, clinging to every curve. The tank top exposed the line of her arms, the curve of her shoulders, the bare skin of her collarbone that I’d been deliberately not looking at all day.
I bit my cheek inside hard enough to taste copper.
