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Wasn’t even like I didn’t know whatallof him looked like. I’d been sleeping in the same bed with him. I didn’t need to get this personal with his genitals to know he was an impressive specimen, if I’d been the one handing out the grades.
He didn’t release me and held me gently—butheld—against him. His grip engulfed me My throat spasmed, and I choked out, “What were you working on?”
“A sand ring, for Equinox.”
“Like a sandbox?” Like a sandbox… Gaia’s Ass, I was an idiot.
He looked at the trees, then back at me. “It looks nice.”
Did I saythank youfor all of us? Laugh it off? Say something witty? I was fresh out of witty but full up on terrified anxiety and a desperate need for him tolet go.
He bent a bit as if to kiss me.
I froze. Didn’t move a muscle as he stopped short. His eyes, this close and in this light, were more amber than brown, and he gauged me, our faces so close I heard the softness of his breathing.
You can go, I’ll be okay.
Abruptly, he released me, and followed the other males up to the house, stretching his legs to catch up.
I managed to not sag onto the chair or ground or into a puddle while the overwhelming urge to sob clawed up my throat like vomit. I looked around for the bag, looked inside it. Empty except for the broken clay bell. Nothing to do with my hands or focus on.
“Searle being cuddly? Never thought I’d have seen the day,” one of the she-wolves commented.
“Eh, he’s a softy under that,” another said. “I’m glad he finally found you, Summer.”
“He’s gottenmorecuddly,” Emily said knowingly. “Or he’s trying to, at least.”
Giggles.
Blood drained out of my face while my heart tried to squeeze itself down the back of my leg so it could escape the scene.
“Should have let him kiss you. Don’t be bashful,” the first teased gently. “Not onouraccount.”
This prompted two of them to cast a glance at Emily, who gave them a glare/eye-roll combo. “You can leavebothof us alone, thank you. She’s his mate.”
Oh… as if this couldn’t get any worse. Emily and Searle had been a thing? That wolf who had nearly bit me in two wouldn’t kill me, but the traumatized mortification would.
Emily snapped, “Summer, don’t let them tease you into thinking there was anything between Searle and me. There wasn’t. Obviously.”
Right.Obviously. Clearly there’d beensomethingbetween Emily and Searle, and whatever it’d been, I’d landed right smack in the middle of it.
Emily turned her fangs on the oldest she-wolf. “And I’m not the only she-wolf in this group who knows something about him.”
The oldest she-wolf shrugged. “That was a time ago, and you know it. Summer, you don’t need to be so bashful around him. He’s gentle, for all he’s stern. But why am I telling you this? You’ve had sex with him by now.”
Could I die now? I couldn’t even muster a syllable that didn’t vaguely resemble the sound of air being let out of a balloon. And as the cherry on the sundae, I was caught in a snark-fest between Emily—Searle’s most recent paramour, apparently—and the older, mated she-wolf who no longer gave a flip about her history with Searle, if she ever did. But the she-wolf wasn’t about to let the chance to chew on the higher-prestige Emily’s hamstring pass her by.
Emily’s scent was the cocktail of frustrated despair and anger I knew so well from my time hunting for my wolf-of-silver. Her cheeks flushed with anger.
But the other she-wolves were more interested in something else. She asked me, shocked, “Wait, youhaven’t.”
A fourth rolled her eyes. “Have you smelled sex on either of them? Everyone’s whispering about it.”
Emily’s flush got higher and hotter as a few she-wolves looked ather, then avoided looking at me.
I snapped, “Everyone should mind their own business.”
Yes, there was the expectation mates would be having sex with each other, especially new mates. If Sterling had been a little less gallant my first night in New York, I wouldn’t even have lasted twenty-four hours. My panties had been halfway to the floor anyway, for all he’d been an ass. The fact we waited as long as we had had been noticed by the pack. The fact westoppedfucking each other after the first trip to AmberHowl had been noted by the pack. The fact westartedfucking again had been noticed. The pack always noticed. Cye and Jun had probably been keeping a calendar and might have been working on a chore chart where we got little stickers.
