The console digs into my ribs. I don't care.
My knee slips, threatening to honk the horn. I don't care about that either.
All I care about is the way he angles my head for better access, the growl that vibrates through his chest when I nip at his bottom lip, the—
Wait.
Wait.
My hands push against his shoulders. Not hard, just enough to create space for words.
"Caine—"
He follows my retreat, stealing another kiss. Shorter but no less intense.
"Caine, this is—" Another kiss. My thoughts scatter. "This is really—"
His teeth graze my bottom lip, and I lose the sentence entirely.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. The vibration hums through my knee, my hip, the hand he has pressed flat against the small of my back.
Neither of us moves.
The buzzing stops. His mouth finds the spot just below my ear, and whatever rational thought was forming dissolves into the warm, dark scent of him. My fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt—
The phone buzzes again.
"Fuck."
The word rumbles through Caine's chest and into mine. He doesn't pull away, just shoves a hand between us and into his too-tight pocket. Eventually he manages to pull the device out, still buzzing sohow, and brings the phone to his ear.
"What."
It's… not a question. Definitely a threat.
There's an unfamiliar voice on the other end. Sothing about early arrivals. Two packs? Two packs of what?
Oh.
Packs.
Right.
Caine's jaw flexes against my temple. His breath stirs my hair.
"Which packs."
Again, not a question, and each syllable is squeezed between gritted teeth. Whoever's on the other end deserves a prayer.
More talking. Stuff like expecting to et with you tonight.
It's enough to take from full-on horny to oh-my-god mortifying.
Yeah.
Mortifying.
I'm straddling the Lycan King in his truck. In public. Not in the dark this ti. And there are way too many eyeballs on the other side of these windows.
My shirt is shoved up on one side, with one hand having snuck its way up until his thumb rests against the curve of my breast, rubbing there as he scowls at the ceiling, still listening to whoever it is on the other end.
My hair—um, I don't even want to think about my hair.
Movent catches the corner of my eye. Andrew, doing sothing with the still-stiff Ellie.
Yeah. If the picture of mortifying isn't clear enough yet, seeing Ellie definitely serves as a bucket of ice water.
Oh God.
Oh God.
I push back. Caine's arm tightens around reflexively, but he doesn't even pause his conversation.
"Then find them rooms. The lodge has space on the second floor."
"Caine," I hiss, pushing harder, both palms now flat against his chest. "Let go—I need to—"
His hand slides from my waist to my thigh and stays there, holding in place like I weigh nothing. Must be nice to be strong.
The concept of leaving his lap? Summarily denied.
"They can survive one night without a face-to-face," he says into the phone, sounding like a damn brick wall with a voice. "I don't care if it's what they want."
I smack his hand off my thigh.
His gaze cuts to then, looking surprised. Like straddling him in public is just sothing I should be okay with.
Sir, no. Wake up and sll the half-conscious wolves, please.
Then he looks up and down and his eyes darken with sothing that is absolutely not remorse, but at least his grip loosens enough for to scramble sideways.
The console catches my hip. My elbow clips the steering wheel. Graceful as always, I half-fall, half-slither into the passenger seat and land with the kind of dignity usually reserved for soone exiting a bouncy castle.
A sound suspiciously like a snort-laugh cos out of Caine from beside but I ignore it with single-minded intent.
Hair. Fix my hair first. I rake my fingers through the tangled ss, finding knots where his hands were. My shirt gets tugged down, smoothed, then tugged again because it rode up that far. My breathing sounds like I just finished a sprint, so I clamp my mouth shut and breathe through my nose instead, which doesn't help because all I can sll is him—warm, dark, musky, everywhere.
He's still talking, which is really just the occasional flat denial of so request, and I turn resolutely to stare through the windshield and not at the living temptation sitting beside .
There's a crack in the asphalt—well, and a hundred or so others, but I focus on the one. Very interesting crack. Fascinating, really. I could study that crack for hours if it ans not looking at the man beside .
"Good. Handle it."
Caine hangs up. The phone drops onto the console with a flat clack.
Silence fills the cab, thick and loaded, like he's waiting for to turn around and pounce on him but I'm not cooperating.
Which is… well, exactly what is happening here.
Ahem.
He turns to .
I feel it before I see it—the full force of his attention shifting like a weather front. When I finally make the mistake of glancing over, his gray eyes are molten on mine, and the look on his face says this phone call was an interruption he intends to correct.
Oh, shit.
My stomach flips. My pulse, which had almost reached a normal rhythm, kicks back to a hundred miles per hour, ready to fly right into the stratosphere.
"What was that about?"
My voice is high and reedy and I cough a few tis to clear my throat.
"It can wait."
Oh.
His gaze hasn't left my face. Hasn't blinked. He sits there with one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting on his thigh, perfectly still, perfectly controlled, and sohow radiating more heat than when his hands were all over .
Damn. I should take a picture.
I swallow before I start drooling and press my back into the passenger seat, focusing on the cool leather warming against my skin.
My na is Grace Harper and I make my own decisions and I don't just lt because a man looks at like I'm the only thing that exists. Even if that man has storm-cloud eyes and a jawline carved by soone with a grudge against my self-control.
"No," I blurt out, startled by how confused he looks.
Then I rember he's not in my head.
"Marking , I an. No."
Ah, yes. So clear. So intelligible.
I clear my throat and try again. "I an, no, you can't mark before we talk about it."
There we go.
His stillness changes, going from sexy Caine to Caine-the-Lycan King. It's the way his head goes back just a little, the way his nostrils flare, and how he clenches his hand into a fist before loosening it again.
And maybe a sudden surge of pheromones in this tiny, cramped space.
But to his credit, he doesn't argue. He doesn't deflect. He just sits there, watching , without a word.
Then he takes a deep breath and turns to face the wheel, both hands on it now and flexing. Another second of silence, then—
"We'll discuss it."
He turns the key and the truck roars to life, even as relief floods through my arms and legs.
It isn't like I'm against being marked, but a warning would be nice. Maybe a few dates. So discussions about our future and how it's supposed to look. You know, all the things that are supposed to happen before permanently tying your lives together by choice.
There's nothing wrong with ssing up the sheets before the bite, right?
… Right?
But then Caine shifts into reverse and says calmly, "On the way."
Oh. Okay then.
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