His mouth moves up to the shell of my ear, and his next breath comes out hot enough that I shiver against my own will. “Which head?”
I twist in his arms, wooden spoon raised, and his hands come up in mock surrender, that ridiculous grin still tugging the corner of his mouth. His hair is sticking up on one side. There’s a faint pink mark on his jaw where I bit him last night. He looks indecent.
I lower the spoon. “Out of my kitchen.”
“Our kitchen.”
The word makes my heart skip a beat, but I don’t get the chance to respond because the knock at the front door cuts straight through the conversation.
Grayson’s whole posture changes. The teasing slides off him, and the wolf surfaces a half inch behind his eyes before he tucks it away again. He kisses the top of my head once before he goes to answer.
I hear Coach’s voice in the foyer before I see him. Low, clipped, none of the warmth he usually carries when he comes by the house on a normal morning. The eggs go past golden into the territory of nearly ruined. I slide them off the heat and listen.
“Coach.” Grayson sounds wary. “What’s wrong?”
Footsteps cross the wood and round the corner into the kitchen. Coach takes one look at me standing at the stove in Grayson’s shirt with my hair down and my mouth still red from being kissed, and his jaw tightens.
He looks at Grayson.
“You really didn’t waste any time, did you?”
I freeze with the spoon in my hand.
Grayson rolls his shoulders back. “Coach, come on.”
“Outside with me, Wolfe.”
“She lives here, Coach. You can say what you came to—”
“Outside.”
Grayson looks irritated, but the two of them go through the sliding door onto the patio. He pulls it shut behind him but not all the way. The gap is maybe two inches. I stand at the counter with my heart climbing into my throat, the burned-edge eggs in a pan that I no longer remember caring about.
I pour three cups of coffee, adding cream to Grayson’s, milk to Coach’s. Crossing the kitchen with them on a tray, I push the door wider with my hip.
They both look up.
“Coffee,” I say lightly, holding the mug out to Coach.
He takes it after a beat before looking between me and Grayson. The resignation that crosses his face tells me he was hoping to have this conversation without me in it.
I sit down in the third chair without being invited and tuck my bare feet up under me.
Grayson shoots me an amused look before asking, “You were saying?”
Coach exhales slowly through his nose. “There was a body discovered last night.”
My blood turns cold. “Where?”
He blinks, and I watch the moment when he properly registers that I am sitting here with both of them and Grayson hasn’t sent me back inside. He looks at my fiancé with a disapproving look, but Grayson refuses to budge.
“She knows what I am, Coach.” His voice is tense. “She saw the wolf two nights ago. You can speak in front of her.”
“I would rather not.”
“I can step inside,” I offer. This matter is serious. I’m not going to force myself into something like this.
But Coach is already shaking his head, and his eyes have moved off mine onto Grayson. “How far,” he asks quietly, “have the two of you gone?”
