Page 12 of Big Bad Wolf

“Cool it, you two,” she said. “You’re scaring the new guy.” She winked at Rafe and he couldn’t help his laugh.

“I don’t need to take this crap,” Sierra said and stormed off to a nearby table.

“Thanks for saving us, Ruby,” Sal said with a grin, and Ruby shook her head.

“I was saving Rafe, not you.”

“You were saving me?” Rafe said and when Ruby’s attention was on him, he felt it again, the need to reach out, to touch her, to feel her skin beneath his fingers, under his teeth…

What the actual hell was wrong with him?

“Of course. I had to. You’re new and you don’t know how dangerous Sierra can be.”

“I was getting the idea.”

Ruby laughed. “She’s not very subtle.”

“No, she’s not.” He glanced over at her table where she was watching him with her friends.

“But if she’s your type, by all means…” Ruby swept out a hand, inviting Rafe to go after Sierra if he wanted.

“Not my type,” he snapped and Ruby grinned.

“Okay then. Noted.”

She didn’t ask him what his type was, thankfully, because then he would have had to answer you and that would have sounded crazy. He didn’t even know this girl. He’d just met her. Even though every fiber of his being was screaming that that was the truth. His type was Ruby. He could no longer imagine a world in which that wasn’t true.

“Did you hear Gil spotted a wolf the other day when he was out hunting?” Sal asked.

A wolf.

Rafe waited for Ruby’s reaction.

She raised an uninterested brow.

“Oh really?”

“Big one. A little too big, if you know what I mean.”

Rafe’s gaze stayed on Ruby even as his heart rate crept up.

“And how big was he?” she asked like she was reading from a well-worn script.

“Bigger than a normal wolf,” he leaned over toward Rafe. “There are strange creatures that prowl around these woods.”

“Is that so?” Rafe asked, his words carefully measured.

“Oh yeah, have been for years. My grandad was nearly killed. Attacked by some kind of creature, he said. A wolf far bigger than anything normal. Plenty of folks around here have stories like that.”

Ruby scoffed. “That’s all it is. Stories.”

“Are you calling my grandad a liar?”

“No, of course not.” Ruby softened, patting Sal’s hand. “Let me get you another one. Rafe, what can I get you?”

He couldn’t bring himself to utter the words Sexy Chaos, so he ordered a Sam Adams and pulled up the stool next to Sal.

By the time he was done listening to Sal’s theories on the thing in the woods, it was really late. The bar had nearly emptied out when he made his way to the back office to finally talk to Macy.