Page 50 of Bookish Girl’s Emergency Contact Is a Lycan King

And then the panic stops.

Just like that. The spiral that was building in my chest, the one that usually takes hours to talk myself down from, it just… stops.

Because Orion is here. And the scariest thing about Orion isn’t the teeth, or the size, or the fact that he just came through my door, a furry battering ram. The scariest thing is how safe I feel looking at him. How my body knows, on some deep instinctual level, that nothing is going to hurt me as long as he’s here.

That’s probably not healthy. That’s probably codependence or trauma bonding or one of those things my therapist would have opinions about.

I don’t care.

I feel safe.

Orion shifts.

One moment lycan, the next man, naked, golden-eyed, already moving toward me. He crosses to the front door in three long strides and flips the lock, turns the sign to CLOSED, and then he’s in front of me, hands cupping my face with a gentleness that makes my throat tight.

“Are you hurt?” His voice is rough. Barely controlled. “Did he hurt you? Let me see your wrist…”

“I’m fine.” The words come out steadier than I feel. “I’m fine because of you.”

“You should have called for me sooner. You should have…”

“I did call for you. I whispered a hearing test and you knocked on the door like a very dedicated guard dog.” I’m talking too fast, the adrenaline finding an outlet. “Which, by the way, we need to discuss… the whole lurking outside my building thing is either romantic or creepy and I haven’t decided which…”

“Later.” His thumbs are stroking over my cheekbones, so gentle it makes me want to cry. “We’ll talk about everything later. Right now I need you to tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.”

“Your heart is racing.”

“That’s not because of him.”

The words are gone before I can catch them.

His hands go still against my face.

We’re in the romance section. I didn’t notice us moving, didn’t notice anything except his hands and his eyes and the heat radiating off his bare skin, but we’re surrounded by paperbacks now, books with shirtless heroes on the covers, stories about impossible love and against-all-odds happiness.

Ironic. Deeply ironic.

“Fable.” His voice has dropped. Lower. Rougher. “What is your heart racing because of?”

“You know what.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“I’m not going to say it out loud.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s embarrassing.” My face is heating. “Because a creepy man just grabbed me and my door is in pieces and I should be traumatized right now, not…” I cut myself off.

“Not what?”

“Not thinking about the fact that you’re naked.”

His expression transforms. The protective fury banking into a warmer heat, one that looks almost like hunger.

“You’re thinking about that?”