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He huffed, and the sound was so warm, so achingly fond, that it undid something in my chest I’d kept locked tight for longer than I could remember. Nobody looked at me like that. Nobody had ever looked at me like I was the answer to a question they’d been asking their whole life.
“You could’ve led with the wolf thing,” I said, needing to fill the silence before it swallowed me whole. “Skipped past all the mystery. Just walked up to the counter that first day and said, ‘hey, I’m a werewolf, my dog side thinks you’re neat, want a croissant?’”
“Would you have believed me?”
“No,” I admitted. “I would’ve called the police and possibly a priest. This way was better. Traumatizing, but better.”
His laugh rumbled low, and he leaned closer, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his skin, smell the clean warmth of him under the lingering scent of bacon grease and coffee. My pulse kicked up, awareness sliding through me, and every rational thought I’d been clinging to about processing wolf shifters, mates, and cosmic wolf-choice dissolved into something far more physical.
“Phineas.” His voice had dropped, rough at the edges, and the way he said my name made my toes curl. “Been thinking about you since that first morning. About your hands in that dough. About the way you bit your lip every time you got something right.”
Heat crawled over my face, spreading fast. “That’s… you noticed that?”
“Noticed everything.” His hand slid from where it rested over his heart to my jaw, tilting my face up toward his. “Noticed how you flush right here.” His thumb brushed the curve of my cheekbone. “Noticed how your breath catches when I get close. Noticed you looking at my hands like you wanted them somewhere specific.”
My lungs forgot how to work. The bed groaned under his weight as he crawled over me, knees bracketing my hips. His mouth hovered just above mine, close enough that I could taste the coffee on his breath.
“I did,” I said, the words rough as sandpaper. “Want them right fucking there.”
His pupils swallowed the greenish-amber of his irises whole. “Tell me where, kitten.”
The word slithered through me like a lit fuse. My cock jerked against my sweats, already leaking. I licked my lips. “You know exactly where.”
“Say it.” His voice was all gravel and smoke. “Beg me for it.”
The command unraveled something inside of me. I arched up, my hips stuttering against his. “Put your hands on me. Now.”
He moved before I finished speaking. Calloused fingers skimmed my chest, catching the hem of my shirt, dragging it up to expose my stomach.
His thumb circled my nipple, slow and rough, until it ached. Then lower—peeled off my sweats, leaving me bare beneath him, my cock leaking against my stomach.
“Fuck,” he breathed, settling between my thighs, his exhale hot against my balls. “Look at you. All spread out for me. Like a goddamn feast.”
His hands were rough, calloused—working hands, not the kind that hesitated. They gripped my hips then dragged up my sides like he was claiming territory.
He paused at the bruises but didn’t ask, just traced them with his thumbs before moving higher, pinching my nipples until I arched off the bed with a broken sound.
His mouth found the inside of my knee, teeth scraping just enough to make me twitch. Then higher, lips dragging wet and open-mouthed up my thigh, slow enough that I could feel every ridge of his tongue.
My cock leaked against my stomach, so hard it ached. When his breath ghosted over the head of my cock, I bucked, my hips jerking up without permission. “Drift.”
“Right here, kitten.” His hand wrapped around my dick, thumb smearing the pre-cum at the tip, and then his mouth was on me, wet, hot, and perfect. The first drag of his tongue over the slit had my fingers tangling in his hair to pull him closer, deeper, until his throat fluttered around the tip of my cock and I saw stars.
My hands stayed buried in his hair, and I couldn’t decide whether I was holding on for balance or just because I needed proof he was real.
He pulled off slowly, dragging his lips up the length of my cock until only the head rested against his tongue, and then he glanced up at me.
That look nearly finished me on the spot. His eyes were dark and heavy-lidded, his mouth wet, his beard scraping soft friction against my inner thigh, and he was watching my face like my reactions were the whole point. Like the sounds I made mattered more to him than anything happening below his chin.
“You taste better than I imagined,” he said, his voice wrecked and low. “And I imagined a lot, kitten.”
“That’s—” My brain misfired. Words scattered like startled birds. “That’s a sentence you just said. Out loud. To me.”
“Gonna say worse.” His tongue traced a slow line up the underside of my dick, from base to tip, and my hips jerked against the grip of his hand. “Gonna tell you everything I’ve been thinking since you walked into my café. How I wanted to bend you over that flour-dusted counter. How I jerked off in the shower thinking about these thighs.” His palm slid up the inside of one, his thumb pressing into the soft muscle there like he was memorizing it. “About this pretty cock. About the noises you’d make if someone finally took their time with you.”
Heat flooded my face so fast I felt dizzy with it. Somewhere in the back of my skull, a small panicked voice pointed out that I was naked in a wolf shifter’s bed, hungover, emotionally compromised, and about thirty seconds from crying over a compliment aimed at my genitals. My life had become a genre I didn’t have a shelf for.
“Nobody takes their time with me,” I said, and I hadn’t meant to say it. The truth just fell out, the way truths kept falling out around this man, like he’d loosened something in me that had been screwed down too tight for too long.
