Page 43 of Full Moon Frenzy

He wanted to snidely tell her to get her own food. Wanted to direct her back out into the rain, towards the pizzeria’s doors, or else find herself something else in the vicinity, but nothing in his upbringing would have allowed it. Trapp was certain his mother would have felt the shiver run down her spine from across town if he did, and besides, it wouldn’t have made him feel good, and he didn’t want her to go hungry.

“Nothing. That’s not the way this works.”

She straightened in her seat, that familiar look crossing her face, the one that telegraphed to the entire world that she was about to argue with him. “No, that’s not right. I should pay my own—”

“That’s not the way we do things,” Trapp snapped, cutting her off again, heat blooming across his chest in aggravation. She was so irritating. His wolf was close to the surface, snapping, growling at the smaller beast in her, wanting to do nothing more than jump up and pin her to the ground. Right before you roll her over and fuck her into the dirt. “We work as a team. It’s not tit-for-tat. You don’t want to be here and I don’t especially want you here, but today, you’re a part of this team. So shut up and eat, because I can promise you, we’ve only got a few minutes.”

In the back of the ambulance, Oleg slapped his palms down to his bony knees. “Welp. I’m gonna get some fresh air. Thanks for dinner, Trapp.”

Only once the troll had clambered down from the ambulance, leaving the back bay doors open, his stack of pizza resting inside and out of the rain, did Adriana slowly return her little wristlet to her backpack, pink spots of color warming her face.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, taking the plate he handed her without further argument.

Trapp was glad he was watching when she took her first bite. Her eyes fluttered shut, the thick fringe of black lashes casting a shadow on her cheekbone like a bruise. “Oh my gods!”

“I know, right?” He chuckled in spite of himself. “This is the only place we ever ordered from growing up. Everything else in town is a pale imitation of what pizza should taste like. My mom used to say the grease is how you know it’s actually good.”

“She’s right,” Adriana choked out around a mouthful of cheese. “I used to think the same thing, anytime I moved somewhere new and tried to find pizza that was worth eating. This tastes like home.”

They were each quiet for a moment, chewing. It wasn’t what Trapp would’ve called a companionable silence, but it was at least not actively antagonistic. “You’ve moved a lot?”

She stiffened slightly, and he could tell that she immediately regretted the tiny confidence. Fucking ironic since she had no problem telling perfect strangers all about us while she waited for her medium house roast.

“A few times,” she allowed at length, her voice careful. “I stayed on at the place I did residency with until their whole hospital system imploded. After that it was a few years until I found someplace that stuck.”

Trapp said nothing. He didn’t want to pry into her hospital work history. He didn’t care. He didn’t miss the life he’d walked away from, despite what everyone seemed to think.

“Did you . . . When did you leave? How many years after residency did you—”

“I didn’t finish residency.” There was no point in lying. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t find out the truth with even a minor amount of digging. Probably wouldn’t even need to dig if people are still talking about you.

In the passenger seat, her mouth hung open, her pizza slice frozen midair a few inches from her lips, the action aborted at his words, her eyes wide. “But . . . why?! You were at the top of our cohort! You could have matched into any program you wanted!”

“Yeah, well. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. I didn’t. I didn’t like the program I matched into, and it didn’t take long to realize I wouldn’t be any happier someplace else. It was a bad fit, the whole career. A bad fit for my temper. A bad fit for what I wanted for my life. Just think, you were second in our class for nothing. All that scheming and you got beat by a dropout.”

Her eyes darkened, face screwing up.

The smell of her anger was spicy, a drop of hot chili oil in the sweet, clean rain smell of her neck. Trapp raised a single finger, pointing to the dashcam. Adriana leaned in close, obviously intuiting his meaning.

“You know how you said to me that some things never change?” Her voice was a furious whisper, low for his ears only, and Trapp knew that the steady drumbeat of rain on the roof would prevent the recording from picking it up. “You’re right. Because you’re still a fucking asshole. A cocky, full-of-himself asshole. And that’s never going to change, is it?”

“As long as you’re here to be the same argumentative, backstabbing know-it-all you’ve always been? I guess not.”

They were both leaning into each other, hissing over the center console, faces growing closer with each word they spat, until contact was made. Trapp had no idea which of them leaned into the kiss first, only that as soon as the tip of his tongue touched hers, they both abandoned all pretense of control.

She gasped against his mouth, her nails dragging over his forearm until he knew she’d drawn blood. He could taste her anger as their tongues slid against each other, teeth clacking, biting at his lips, a furious kiss, fueled by hatred as much as lust. His cock was throbbing, and he could smell her slick, could almost taste it on his tongue . . .

He should have been expecting the next tone drop, for there was never a time when they didn’t interrupt. One could never make a personal call, finish a meal, or use the restroom uninterrupted, and now Trapp could add “hate-kissing one’s enemy” to that list.

“Attention all units, stand by for MCI dispatch. Stations Two and Twelve, Rescue Five, Medic Forty-one, Medic Forty-three, Medic One-eighteen, and Battalion Two. Respond to Code Three on Interstate-12 westbound, mile marker one-sixteen. Multi-vehicle collision with heavy entrapment and multiple critical patients. Requesting all ALS units. Air Care One and Two remain on standby.”

“What the fuuuuck. Why can’t anything ever just be on fire?!” Trapp beat on the steering column for a brief, frustrated moment before throwing the driver’s side door open. “Oleg, where the fuck are you?”

Adriana gasped when he surged to his feet right there in the cab, dropping the pizza box into her arms, stepping over the center console and through the narrow partition door to the back of the rig. She shrieked in surprise when Oleg threw himself into the front seat beside her.

“C’mon, let’s go, lights and sirens.”

The troll was already doing so as the words left Trapp’s mouth, pulling out of the pizzeria parking lot and putting his foot down on the accelerator.