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An amused chuckle escapes his lips. “You’re seriously worried you’ll trick Ava into falling in love with you?”
I playfully swat his chest. “Hey, I find your humor and doubt insulting.”
“I’m not saying she wouldn’t fall in love with you.” He sketches his fingertip along the brim of my nose. “I just think it’s adorable that you’d feel bad if you tricked her into falling in love with you. It shows me how sweet you are.”
“I am far from sweet,” I argue. “I can be very mean when I want to.”
“I believe that. But not cruel.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Mean usually results from a bad mood and being upset. Cruel stems from the desire to hurt someone. You don’t desire harm on others. But I’m not surprised. When we were younger, you were always the one trying to cheer everyone up when we were fighting with each other. You used to bring home stray animals, too; always trying to save everything. Your mom and dad were usually okay with animals being in the house until you brought home a giant demon rat.”
“Please tell me that doesn’t look how it sounds.”
“It’s about this big”—he holds his hands about a foot apart—“has stringy yellow hair, black fangs, and smells like a sewer.”
I dry heave. “I was a disturbing little shit, wasn’t I?”
“Nah, you just liked to try to save things. It was sort of your thing—mending injured or broken things.”
If only I could’ve done a better job mending myself.
“I wasn’t like that in the Common Realm. Although, I think if I tried to bring a rat home, all my foster families would’ve had a human freak out. One time I did bring home a puppy. It was really cute and kind of looked like a wolf pup. It had a broken leg, and I wanted to keep it until it got better.” My expression plummets. “My foster mother ended up taking it to the pound, and if no one claimed or tried to adopt it, it probably died.”
Jules draws me closer, reducing the space between our bodies. “Were all your foster parents that horrible?”
I shrug, gazing at the trees and hills shadowing the distance. “Some were okay. There was this one woman. She was a dancer. Or well, a … stripper. Do you have those here?” Warmth spreads across my face. Luckily, the dark conceals my blush.
The edges of his lips twitch to turn upward. “Yeah, we have them in some of the clubs in the city.”
“Okay, well, anyway, she was a stripper, and she knew how to dance and taught me how to dance a little bit. She was a pretty cool foster mom. Unfortunately, my time with her was pretty short.”
Wide eyed, he stiffens. “She taught you how to dance? Like, strip dance?”
“What? No. Just normal dance.” My cheeks are on fire.
His stiffness relaxes, and humor dances in his tone. “Well, that’s disappointing. I was going to request to see these stripper dance moves. But, I wouldn’t mind seeing the normal dance moves, too.”
I roll my eyes despite my blush. “And you saidIhad the dirty mind.”
“You do. But don’t worry; great minds think alike.” He gives me a flirty wink.
My traitor heart goesla, la, lainside my chest. Or maybe that’s my wolf.
“You could show me your dance moves now,” he suggests. “It’s just you and me here, and we don’t really have anything to do.”
“I really, really don’t want to dance in front of you. I’ve never danced in front of anyone in particular.”
“But you’ve danced with people?” he asks, and I nod. He pauses, seeming undecided. “Have you danced with Legend?”
“Yeah, we went out dancing all the time.”
“Oh.”
The wind fills up the awkward silence between us, and I feel like I’ve done something wrong.
“I’m trying not to go all wolf on you,” he finally says softly. “I don’t want to be the kind of werewolf who freaks out every time his alterum dimidium animae talks about another male. Or be the kind of wolf that, when she kisses him, he loses control over his desire.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets, staring at the ground. “It’s just that you were gone for so long, and then you came back, and you’re gorgeous and funny and sweet and scared, and I want you so badly that sometimes I can barely stand it. And that want sometimes gets out of hand. But I’m trying to be mellower because I can tell the growling and snarling fits freak you out. I don’t ever want you to be afraid of me.”
