Page 58 of Satisfaction Guaranteed

“It’s perfect,” he rumbles.

A smile curves along Alana’s features. She’d meant what she said in the woods about taking care of him. Though he did have to carry her inside on account of the loss of ability in her lower extremities, she made good on her promise as soon as the numbness went away. Forced him to eat, sat with him to soothe any lingering anxieties or discomfort the moon was causing him. Cyrus wouldn’t be without anything, as long as she were here. Although her efforts hadn’t stopped the werewolf’s persistence. However determined she was to take care of him, the wolf was even more so. Dual bath time was but one compromise.

Cyrus nuzzles into her shoulder, and Alana into him as she gently runs her borrowed washcloth along her knees. They’re red and irritated, with small cuts from kneeling in the dirt. The hot water stings when it makes contact, but it’s a satisfying kind of pain she can’t say she minds.

“You sure you’re alright?” Cyrus asks. That southern drawl is thicker now, more prominent.

Alana tilts her head to kiss his jaw. “I’m fine. I told you, you didn’t hurt me in ways I didn’t like,” she reassures.

He kisses her shoulder. “Just making sure.” Silence stretches falls over them for a moment.

Alana grabs his hand, running her fingers across his life lines. “You never told me what you were going to say, by the way.”

Cyrus sneaks a hand into the water, rubbing the sides of Alana’s tummy. “You’re going to have to jog my memory, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “You used up what little battery power I had in this head of mine.” He plants soft kisses down the side of her neck. There, his lips brush over a patch of vitiligo.

Alana shakes her head with a quiet laugh. “Earlier, at the party. You were going to tell me something in the bathroom.

Then again when we were dancing. But you never did.”

“Was I?” he asks. “I don’t know if I recall.”

A shit liar, this man. Alana rolls her eyes and smacks his arm hard enough to send water splashing. “Cyrus, you bruised parts of my cervix that shouldn’t be able to bruise. The least you can do is be honest with me here.”

A breathy laugh leaves the shifter, strong enough to cause the nearby candle to flicker. “Well, if it’s honesty you’re looking for, then I’d tell you I was going to confront just how insane you’ve been making me this past few weeks.”

“Excuse me?” After all this, he’s got the gall to say she drove him insane? “What did I do?”

Cyrus pulls his hand from the water to gesture to her. “All this. You. Your whole…everything,” he says.

“Boy, you’re not making a lick of sense,” she scoffs. Pouts. If she recalled, she’d been trying her best to do the exact opposite. To be…not too much. Not drive him away, or make him uncomfortable. By the sounds of it, she must’ve failed.

Paying no mind to the water spilling over the edge of the overfilled bathtub, Cyrus maneuvers so they can face each other. Alana yelps as she’s forcibly moved and tucks her knees closer to her chest.

“You,” he says again, firmer this time. He reaches over and flicks her nose when she scrunches it at him again. “I’ve been in this business a long time. Countless partners, countless clients. Most of them repeated. I do what I’m paid for, I go on my merry way, and I don’t necessarily think about ‘em again until it’s time for us to see each other. But you? We have sex once, and that’s all I can think about. Just you. Your smile, your laugh. The thought of…of us. Sleeping together again. Or, you know, other things. Movie things. Dinner things. Cooking together things, I don’t know.” He smooths a hand down the side of his neck. He’s blushing, a deep berry color. “That’s what I was going to say, Miss Alana. That you made me a ruined man.”

Her brain takes its sweet time registering, her features flushed. Her expression is impassive at first. But then, a smile, wobbling and faltering with laughter. “You’re so… you’re such a moron. How long have you—why didn’t you say something earlier!”

She splashes water at him again.

“Because I—” His attention shifts off to the side, swallowing.

“A lot of reasons, to be honest. Didn’t think it was right of me, for one, given the fact that you’re a client. I was doing my best to leave things well enough alone. But then you started going steady with Connor, and I realized I very much hated that, so—”

“Whoa, whoa. Pause.” Alana’s brows pinch together. “Who the hells said me and Connor were going steady? We went on one date. It was nice, and we do like each other. Just not like that. When we met, we spent most of the night at my place just watching movies, drinking, and talking. And we kept in touch after, because we realized we’d be better off as friends. Like I said, he’s sweet.”

Cyrus’ mouth falls open. “So you didn’t…?”

Alana’s nose twitches, as does the muscle beneath her eye. He knows better than to finish that question, because his mouth shuts faster than she’s ever seen it, and his eyes shift to find focus on anything other than her. He looks no better than a dog caught with its nose in the trash.

“That’s light-years from being any of your business,” she says, tone holding stern. “But no. I could have. And I wanted to at first, but it just wasn’t the time.” She doesn’t tell him that they’d tried. She doesn’t tell him that, even with Connor’s mouth on her neck and fingers inside her, she couldn’t get Cyrus out of her mind. She doesn’t tell him how Connor was the one who put a stop to things because he could tell she wasn’t all there, and hadn’t harbored a single ill feeling over it. He just smiled and assured her there wasn’t any rush in taking things somewhere when she wasn’t ready.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Alana rolls her eyes. “‘Oh.’ I’m pretty sure you owe that man an apology. You called him a meathead, but frankly, that title belongs to you.”

The shifter winces. “Okay. I deserved that one. M’ sorry, okay? I don’t know what’s wrong with me. When it comes to you, I get…” He waves his hands around in an attempt to drum up the right word. “Stupid.”

“So I see. Is this why you gave Connor that talk? After our date, he told me about how you texted him. About treating me right, or else you’d bury him in the woods behind your house.”