Page 4 of Crave

“Pretty sure there’s something wrong with introducing your dick into a conversation before your name.”

“Dallas Caldwell.”

When I raised an eyebrow, her eyes narrowed. But instead of giving me her name, she crossed her arms. “Lightning round. Ten seconds. Top three cupcake flavors.”

“Damn, sweetheart. Will I need to fight off a dragon or make a party dress out of trash bags during the commercial break?”

“Only if you behave yourself.” She didn’t even blink. And fuck, I was so in trouble. “No chocolate. No fruit.”

“Hard core from a girl who got strawberries and lemons.”

“Only way I roll, Caldwell.”

So here’s the thing. I’d been whipping up pancakes since before I could see over a counter. My mom swore my first word after the usual babbling all little kids do was cilantro. According to my dad, I had more recipes in my head than common sense.

I so had this.

“Maple bacon with a hazelnut frosting,” I ticked off on my fingers, eyes locked with Cupcake Girl’s. “Vanilla bean with an espresso buttercream.”

“Five seconds,” West announced, clearly enjoying this far too much.

“—and a zucchini tomato bread spice cake with a cream cheese frosting.”

The entire track team burst out in applause. Coach blew the whistle, shouting at us to move our asses and stop acting like idiots.

Cupcake Girl glanced my way. “Wow. I’m kind of fangirling a little. You actually can cook.”

“So do I get your name?”

I glanced over to West, whose expression had changed from amusement to wariness. He was right, of course. No way could this happen. She was human and I was a shifter, which meant she was off-limits, for my protection, but mostly for hers.

Completely oblivious, she smirked, taking off around the track. “One small problem, Caldwell. Check your biology textbook. Tomatoes?”

And, crap. She was right. I’d used fruit.

“Okay, but I’m just gonna make up a name until you give me yours.”

“Why am I not surprised.”

Our eyes met. Held. And despite the distance between us, I heard her heart fluttering like a caged bird caught in my outstretched hands. And I knew then that she felt it, too, the link between us thrumming like a live wire in a lightning storm. My blood caught fire, my wolf clawing in the cage of my ribs. Raw, chemical desire rushed through my veins. My eyes flared gold. I inhaled the burned rubber tire smell of the track mixed with unwashed gym clothes and Axe body spray, desperate to short-circuit my brain.

The girl took off around the track, that dark, luscious ponytail whipping behind her red hoodie like a flag. I clenched my fists, taking long breaths, the instinctual male urge to chase shredding my insides until it felt like the wolf was going to crack my bones trying to get free.

West jabbed me hard in the ribs. “Death wish? Dad will—”

“Yeah. I get it.”

But the moment the girl stole another glance at me at the halfway marker, cheeks flushed pink from the cold, I knew I was in trouble. I’d never felt anything like this before. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to survive it.

Lacey Blair was trouble, and the tingling, primal rush beneath my skin was telling me to do anything except run away.

The following day, someoneran my gym clothes up the stadium flagpole. I knew it was her, even before I hauled them down and the faint scent of vanilla and coconut caused the wolf to stir in my blood. I filled her locker with balloons. She hosed down my math book with that same vanilla-coconut body spray. Which, epic. My brothers made me do my homework out in the barn for a week. West continued to give me suspicious looks, but kept quiet. My lunch was stolen and replaced with a sack of radishes. Her Nikes? Shaving cream.

It. Was. On.

For months, I resisted. We pranked each other like crazy. Snarked and flirted across a lab table in AP Chemistry while I fought not to breathe every time her ponytail, which I was pretty sure at this point was going to be the death of me, brushed my arm. She went to her after-school job at Blair’s, selling cupcakes and muffins while I avoided staring in their shop window on my way home. I went to football practice, tried not to fall on my ass while she ran circles around the track in her sour-cherry red hoodie, and stared up at the ceiling of the room I shared with my brothers at night, picturing me and her, together.

The rules about interspecies relations were pretty cut and dry. Hookups? Fine. Relationships? Not so much. The werewolf council might not give a damn about a one-night stand after a wild night out at a bar, but get serious with a human and potentially expose the existence of werewolves everywhere? Yeah, you were pretty much screwed.