“It does. Because then all of this is just a perfectly practical deal.”
“A deal. Yep. That is exactly what I was thinking.”
“No feelings involved. Nobody owing anybody anything.”
“Just a straightforward, unemotional, completely reasonable transaction.”
He nodded firmly. And she nodded back.Done and done, she thought.
Although she had to say, he didn’t seem to be in any rush to look away. And for some reason, she didn’t seem to be breaking their eye contact either. She was just staring at him and he was staring at her, and it was going on and on in such a weird way that it was a relief when he suddenly said, “So we should probably shake hands then.”
Or at least, it was a relief until she realized:
What he’d said required bodily contact.
Way more bodily contact than had already occurred. And worse: there was absolutely no good way to get out of this one. “I think shaking hands is the thing two business partners usually do,” she just had to squeeze out. Then she expected him to simply go ahead. To be confident about it in a way she couldn’t be.
Only, for some unaccountable reason that didn’t seem to be happening.
Instead, he looked like he was psyching himself up for battle.
He bounced on his toes. Clapped his hands together.
“Okay, so I’ll just go for it. I’ll just reach forward and take hold of you,” he said. But still, he didn’t. He just looked nervously at her hands. And back up to her face. And back down to her hands. So now it was on her, again, to make this seem normal.
“Yep. Just go right ahead and touch me.”
“And then you’ll touch me back.”
“I definitely will,” she said.
But honestly, she wasn’t sure what was going to happen when he tried. It felt like she might scream, or slap his hand away, or maybe even run back into the house. All three possibilities were certainly building inside her, when he took a step forward.
Then he reached out his hand.
And somehow he wasn’t forceful about it. He didn’t do it firmly, the way she had imagined he would. He did it slowly, in stuttering stages. Like he was waiting for all the things she’d thought she might do: the scream, the slap, the run. And it was only when those reactions didn’t immediately happen that he touched her. Just with the tips of his fingers, along the soft side of her hand. No pressure, no sense of him pulling her into anything.
As if he was still waiting for permission.
Even though that was silly, wasn’t it? It was just a handshake. Nothing weird about that. And she told him so, by turning into his touch. Only a little, to indicate it was fine. But enough that he would know that it was, and go ahead.
Just get it over with, she thought at him.
And he obviously heard her, because he did. He took her hand in his.
Thoughtook her handdidn’t really cover the way it felt.
It was as if everything beyond her wrist had been swallowed up. She couldn’t see one hint of her inside that enormous grip. All she could make out were his knuckles, so thick and heavy-boned that they almost seemed to have worn down the skin around them. And his fingers, big enough that they could fold around hers. And the way the thick, lush hair on his forearm had started to spread over his wrist, and downward to the base of his little finger.
Like the wolf had begun to make a mark on him, even when he looked as human as he currently did. And not just in terms of the hair, or the sheer size of him. There was something else too. Something she didn’t notice immediately.
But she definitely started to, after a few seconds of his hand surrounding hers.
Because, oh dear god, theheat. The sheerblazethat seemed to be coming from inside him.
It was like he had molten lava for blood. She could feel it radiating through his skin and into hers, in a way that seemed to flood through her. It slid through her body and between her bones, untilshe started to feel thick with it. Ripe with it. All burned up and sort of blurry around the edges.
“Seth,” she tried to say, but somehow it came out slurred.
