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Luke let out a startled laugh.

Dammit, Hunter.

Apparently, I was just gonna flirt with this guy now, self-imposed rules be damned. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded,” I said.

God, I was a terrible liar.

“Shame,” Luke said, grinning. I’d been right when I’d thought that his was a face that was made to smile.

Still, I pretended not to hear him. The last thing I needed was to encourage this thing, whatever it was—no matter how attractive I found him. Instead I said, “You can do some stretches with me and run a lap to warm up. Then I’ll put you through the agility course so I can see how you move.”

“This agility course? The dog agility course?” Luke looked pointedly at the sign next to the course at the other end of the park. And yeah, it had a picture of a dog on it. The course itself was a recent addition, with two ramps, a series of jumps, some obstacles to move between, and a tunnel. And fine, technically this park was for dogs to run off-leash, but I’d been asked to help design it after I’d done some work with the son of the mayor, so it was pretty much custom built for my clients. As far as I knew, nobody else in town even used it.

“Think of it as an ordinary fitness course,” I said. “I need to see what I’m working with.” His forehead creased and he looked like he was about to protest, so I shrugged and said, “Or we can call the whole thing off.”

“That agility course looks great,” he said quickly, and I turned to hide my smile. I’d been right. He was taking this seriously.

We completed a set of stretches and he set off at a slow jog around the park, and he had no trouble with that at all—but I hadn’t expected him to, not running on a flat surface. There was nothing to see except a young, fit guy working out. As he passed me at the starting point, I fell into step beside him. I increased the pace and he matched it with easy strides, his sweatpants stretching over thick thighs in a way that had me watching more closely than I should have. Luke caught me looking and shot me a grin before putting on a burst of speed and racing away. I didn’t try too hard to catch him, not with the view I now had of his broad shoulders, wide back, and perfectly sculpted ass. Just because I didn’t get involved with clients, that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate Luke’s physique.

From a purely professional viewpoint, obviously.

When I caught up to him at the park bench we’d started from, he was bent over at the waist with his hands on his thighs sucking in deep breaths, and the back of his shirt was damp with sweat.

“Tired already?” I teased.

“Barely getting started!” he shot back and jogged over to the agility course. Once he got there, though, he paused. “Am I running this thing as a human, or…” He waved his hand vaguely but I caught his meaning.

“Human is fine,” I said and positioned myself at the side of the course so I could watch.

He bit his lip and glanced around, but the area was deserted. There was a reason I always brought my clients to this particular spot. Nobody who lived in Hyde would dream of coming here because odds were high they’d find it being used to retrain clumsy werewolves. It was like the local motel every town had that nobody stayed at because it was a mob front.

Hyde Cove didn’t have a mobster motel, but we had our own secrets.

Still, I understood his hesitation. He wasn’t worried someone would see him completing the agility course. No, he was worried someone would see him failing to complete it. But Luke wasn’t gonna get over his rear-end awareness problems standing there with his thumb up his unaware ass, so I clapped my hands briskly and said, “Any time you’re ready.”

“Fucking fine,” he muttered, loud enough for me to hear. He rolled his shoulders and after a last look around to make sure he didn’t have an audience—he did, but it was made up of a couple of squirrels watching from the nearby trees and an osprey circling overhead—he approached the first part of the course, which was a slightly raised ladder-shaped obstacle on the ground, kind of like a hopscotch grid.

It was designed for small dogs, and all Luke had to do was step over the bars and make it to the other end. He started out fine, but when he got about halfway along, I could see the moment his brain glitched. He froze, one foot in the air as he stared helplessly at the ground and then at me. His voice shook a little as he said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“What are you seeing right now?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

A furrow appeared in his brow and he glared at me. “Fucking—I dunno? Paws, I guess?”

“Okay. Front paw down,” I said quietly.

He stared at me as if I was speaking in a foreign language, but at the same time his foot came down to rest on the grass. He scowled at his left foot like it had personally betrayed him by listening to me.

“You’re doing great,” I said. “Keep going.”

Luke stayed where he was. “I don’t think I can,” he said, then ran a hand through his hair and let out a frustrated huff. “Maybe this is a waste of time.”

I understood his frustration, but if Luke had been able to figure it out on his own, we wouldn’t be here in the first place. And this wasn’t the first time a client had doubted my ability to help them. I didn’t take it personally—from their perspective, I wasn’t even a shifter. But their skepticism usually vanished once I helped them reach the top of the first ramp, and after that, getting their minds and bodies realigned was just a matter of time and practice.

Did I mention I was very good at what I did?

“Maybe I could do it if I shift,” he said.

“Maybe,” I said, “but how will that help you in the long term? I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shifted werewolf working construction.”