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All I did was try to blend with the pack at dinner. I laughed at every joke and smiled until my cheeks hurt. I was making a home here for Charlie, one way or another. He wouldn’t have to worry about who hated me ever again. I’d started off on the wrong foot in Groza’s pack, and I wasn’t doing anything to jeopardize our situation here.
By the time we made our way up to the suite, I was ready to drop from the exertion of being so incredibly nice to everyone.
Charlie looked like he was about to drop too, but it was probably from all the games and running around he’d done today. Of the two of us, he seemed to be transitioning easier.
“Come on, Charlie. Time for bed. I want you rested enough to go to school tomorrow,” I said.
“No games?” He looked at me as those were the most appalling words he’d ever heard.
“Maybe after you do your homework, but I don’t want you to fall behind. You still need to know things.”
His face scrunched up until a yawn stretched it back out. “Can I have friends over? Kicks said I could.”
“You can ask, but they’ll have to check with their parents.” I was yawning myself. “Okay, go get yourself to bed,” I said before I fell asleep first.
Charlie wrapped his arms around my waist. I tried to hug him back, using my forearms that were covered by my sweater.
He went into his room while I turned and caught Kicks staring at me.
“I’m heading to bed. I’m pretty tired.” I acted as if he hadn’t given me a look.
I scurried into the bedroom. I’d take a quick shower and hopefully be asleep before he came in and started stripping.
Kicks was already in the bedroom when I came out of the bathroom.
“What is that smell?” he asked before taking another whiff, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was smelling.
“Huh? What do you mean?” I walked toward the bed.
“That smell.” He stood in front of me. “What did you do?” He leaned closer, smelling my neck.
“What do you mean?” I repeated, playing dumb.
“That smell?” His lip was curled up as if I’d rolled around in a pile of manure.
“You mean my perfume?” I asked innocently, as if that couldn’t be what he was talking about. I’d gone nose blind in my determination to find a good scent, but this one couldn’t be that bad. It would’ve cost big bucks, way more than I could’ve afforded, if the store hadn’t been abandoned.
“I like how you smell, and you’re burying it with that stuff.” He leaned closer again, breathing me in, and it sent flares of awareness through me.
I would’ve been better off skipping the shower until tomorrow and limiting contact. If I’d been in bed with my eyes closed, this wouldn’t be happening.
“I don’t have the same shampoos I had at the cottage. You’ll just have to adjust to a new scent anyway.” And a much stronger scent, soallhe could smell was the perfume.
“I’m not talking about the shampoo. I didn’t like that either, but at least it wasn’t so strong.”
“You mean you like the scent of my skin?” No one had ever said that to me before. Yes, they’d complimented a scent I’d worn, but notmyscent.
“Yes. I like howyousmell.”
Between the leaning and the compliments, it was like he was trying to arouse me.
He smirked, then laughed softly to himself. “It’s not going to work anyway. Smells are layered but still there. You could go swimming in that and I’d still pick up on other scents.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, my voice going awkwardly high for some reason. As if I hadn’t already been embarrassed, now my voice was declaring me a liar and caught.
“It doesn’t matter. We have more important things to discuss.”
He reached back and yanked his shirt over his head in one of those single-handed movements that all the hot guys seemed to do. Instead of my hormones going into overdrive, because Kicks could turn on a broken-down car with no gas, panic kicked in. It was hard to get turned on when you were paralyzed with terror. If I hadn’t seen him watching me with Charlie, I might’ve gotten the impression he was looking for something else. Even knowing what this was about, part of my body still responded as if itweresomething else.
