Chapter Two

I’ve been tossing and turning in bed for hours. Nothing I do is working. My legs won’t stop shifting, my pulse beating too hard.

My body won’t stop pulsing, burning deeper with every hour that passes. It hit like a storm, slow and suffocating, an ache that bloomed deep in my belly and spread outward like fire beneath the skin.

“Please, stop,” I whisper to no one.

I dig my nails into the bedding and rip through the fabric like it had offended me.

Because it did.

There’s only one thing I want touching me right now, and it’s not the sheets.

My brain keeps going back to that wolf. Those dark brown eyes. The massive form. It’s crazy, I know it is, but that wolf makes me think about the man. The one who called me a stray.

Even as I want to slap him across the face for being such an incorrigible prick, something else coils tight in my chest every time I remember that scent.

Damn it. Stop it, Greer.

I sit upright with a frustrated huff, throwing the covers off and standing. I start pacing the hall, stopping short of the window. I don’t want to know if it’s still out there.

I’m safer not knowing. Is that true? Probably not. But I’d rather believe it than think about the alternatives.

The burning doesn’t ease.

It spreads.

I pace until my arches scream and my breath comes in broken sobs. I bite the inside of my cheek until the copper taste floods my mouth. My hands tremble. My heart is too loud.

I’m unraveling. Coming apart under the weight of a hunger I never asked for.

I start clawing at my own skin, dragging red lines down my arms. Anything to ground myself. Anything to stop the fire.

It doesn’t work.

The scream inside me builds higher and tighter, lodged so deep it feels like it might tear out my ribs. My legs clench, desperate for friction, but it only makes the pressure worse.

I’m not just aroused.

I’m unraveling.

The need is suffocating. Violent. It isn’t pleasure. It’s torment.

I cross the hall back to my bedroom and sink down onto the bed. Movement is agony, but stillness is worse. I grab a pillow and press it to my chest, using it to muffle the sound that’s trying to claw its way out of me.

I’ve never felt anything like this before. I don’t think I could explain it if I tried.

I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t escape.

Somewhere between pure stupidity and a death wish, my thoughts drift back to the wolf outside.

To those eyes.

To the way he stood there, unmoving, watching.

And I wonder, dimly, if I threw that front door open again, would he maul me this time?

I lie there for a long minute, staring at the ceiling, counting my breaths like that might help. It doesn’t. Every inhale drags the fire tighter through my body. Every exhale feels useless.

This isn’t easing.

It isn’t peaking.

It’s building.

I roll onto my side and press my knees together hard enough to make my thighs ache. It barely touches the burn. The pressure only sharpens it, turns it mean.

“Shit,” I whisper.

I push myself upright, swaying as my feet hit the floor. The house feels too small. The walls too close. The air stale and thin, like it’s already been breathed too many times.

I pace the length of the room, then the hall. Once. Twice. Again.

My gaze keeps sliding to the front of the house.

To the door.

That’s stupid. I know that. Whatever was out there was real enough to scare the shit out of me. Real enough that my body still remembers the weight of his stare.

And yet.

Standing here is unbearable. Sitting is worse. Lying down feels like drowning.

I stop in the hallway, hands braced on my hips, chest heaving. My heart is beating too fast, too loud, like it’s trying to crawl out of my ribs.

I tell myself I’m just checking.

Just confirming I didn’t imagine it.

Just proving to myself that I’m not losing my mind.

That’s the lie.

The truth is uglier. Quieter. It settles low in my gut, heavy and undeniable.

I know I need him gone.

Or closer.

I don’t let myself think past that. Thinking is dangerous right now. Thinking is how I end up frozen in place while my body burns itself apart from the inside.

I move before I can argue myself out of it.

The hallway tilts slightly as I cross it. My fingers fumble on the light switch and miss. I don’t bother trying again. The dark feels safer.

The front door looms at the end of the hall. Solid. Ordinary. A stupid piece of wood standing between me and whatever I’m about to do.

I grip the handle.

It’s cool under my palm. Steady. Real.

For half a second, I hesitate. Just long enough to wonder if this is the moment everything goes wrong.

Then I twist the knob and pull the door open.

Nothing happens.

I scan the yard. The porch. The edge of the trees.

The wolf is gone.

A sharp, embarrassing wave of emotion hits me. Relief, tangled up with something uglier.

Disappointment.

I scowl at myself and step down off the threshold, crossing my arms over my chest. God, I’m losing it. I can’t believe I—

Movement flickers at the edge of my vision.

I turn my head.

The wolf is right there.

So close his breath washes over my face. His snout inches from mine. I don’t even have time to flinch.

There’s no space for panic. No space for thought.

He was standing beside the door the entire time. Waiting. Like he knew I was going to open it.

The heat hits all at once.

Not a slow build. Not a warning. It detonates, sharp and brutal, stealing the air from my lungs. My knees wobble and I barely manage to stay upright, fingers curling into the doorframe like it might anchor me to something solid.

His breath brushes my face.

The sound that tears out of him is low and restrained, like it’s been forced down into his chest and barely allowed to escape. His eyes flick over me fast, furious, then snap away, jaw locking hard enough that I hear his teeth grind.

I try to speak. To apologize. I’m not even sure what I’d be apologizing for. My tongue feels thick and useless, and every second this close to him makes the fire inside me worse. Hotter. Meaner.

My body leans forward without asking.

Suddenly, the wolf is changing.

Fur pulls back like it’s being stripped away, bones shifting beneath skin that reshapes too fast to follow. The sight knocks what little breath I have left straight out of me.

I start to move. Back toward the house. Toward safety.

A hand slams into the doorframe beside my head.

The impact rattles the door, the wall, my teeth.

“Stay,” he snaps.

The word hits hard, vibrating through me like it’s struck something deep and responsive. My body stills instantly, traitorous and obedient in a way that makes my stomach twist.

Within seconds, the massive wolf is gone, replaced by the man from the diner. Cold brown eyes pin me in place, daring me to move. Daring me to test him.

His chest rises and falls fast. Controlled, but barely. His scent is everywhere now, thick and overwhelming, clogging my lungs until every breath feels like I’m breathing him in.

“You should go in the house,” he says, his voice so low it’s barely more than a breath.

I agree. I should.

But when I tell my feet to move, they refuse. I tell my hands to come up and shove him back. Slap him. Do something. Instead, they twitch uselessly at my sides, every nerve screaming to grab him and pull him closer.

“What is this?” I ask instead, because apparently I’ve lost my survival instincts.

“Your first heat, stray thing,” he says.

His head lowers, his breath ghosting against my collarbone. He inhales slowly, deeply, like my scent is something he can’t help but take in. The scowl on his face tells a very different story.

“Heat?” I repeat, my throat tight. I should be angry about the name. I am. But right now my thoughts keep snagging on the same things. His closeness. His scent. The way his chest keeps brushing mine when he breathes.

He makes a low sound that might be agreement. Might be restraint.

His hand lifts, hovering close enough to my jaw that I can feel the warmth radiating from his skin.

“Disgusting mistake,” he growls, his fingers flexing in the air beside my throat like he wants to close them there and is forcing himself not to. “But the scent of a first heat is…”

He breaks off and steps closer, his bare chest pressing fully against mine.

That’s when I realize he’s naked. Completely.

I should be shocked. Instead, the heat rolling off him makes my knees go weak, my body reacting like it’s been waiting for this exact moment.

“…intoxicating,” he finishes.

His fingers finally touch my jaw, not to choke, not to hurt. He tilts my head back, forcing my gaze up to his.

“Go,” he says quietly. “Turn around and run back into your house.”

“Would you let me if I tried?”

He makes a low sound in his chest. Something that might pass for a laugh to someone who’s never heard one before.

“Try,” he says. “Let’s find out.”

I should stop. I tell myself to.

Instead, my hands come up and press against his chest.

I regret it instantly. Not because he reacts, but because my body does. The heat under my skin detonates at the contact, sharp and overwhelming.

Before I can think better of it, I close the last inch between us, and my lips brush his.

It lasts half a second.

Then he’s moving.

His hands catch my shoulders and shove me back. I stumble and land hard on my ass, breath knocking loose as the doorframe rattles behind me.

“Enough,” he snaps.

His face is tight with control, fury held just beneath the surface. He doesn’t advance. Doesn’t touch me again.

“Do not touch me like that,” he says, voice low and iron-hard.

I plan on snapping back, but my eyes drop instead, traitorous, drawn to the unmistakable proof of his arousal standing thick and rigid between his legs.

Jesus Christ.

That shouldn’t be possible. The disconnect hits me all at once. That thing doesn’t belong to a human man.

For the second time today, this wolf-man has put me on my ass, looking down at me like I’m something unruly and unwanted.

Stray.

The word echoes in my head, bitter and sharp.

I wish the humiliation was enough to kill the heat burning through me. I really do.

But instead, the place where his hands touched my shoulders feels branded, and my body is begging for something it absolutely should not want.

Get it together, Greer. Don’t let this wolf-man treat you like this in your own house.

“You came here,” I say as I stand. I try to sound steady, but my voice betrays me, rougher than I mean it to be. “You didn’t have to.” I try to match his glare, but having to tilt my head back kills any illusion that I’m threatening.

“I go where I please,” he replies coolly.

“Yeah,” I say, stepping closer before I can stop myself. “Funny how that led you straight to my door.”

His mouth dips toward my ear, breath warm, deliberate.

“Careful,” he murmurs. “You’re already in trouble.”

I laugh under my breath. It comes out thin. “Then why are you still standing here?”

That finally gets him.

His eyes flick down my body before he can stop himself. Just once. Enough.

I see it. The tension in his jaw. The way his hands curl like he wants to grab something and refuses to.

“You feel it,” I say quietly. “Same as I do.”

His gaze snaps back to mine, furious. Exposed.

“This isn’t desire,” he growls. “It’s biology.”

“Doesn’t change the way you’re looking at me,” I reply.

Silence stretches between us, thick and charged.

“You should be afraid,” he says.

I swallow. “I am.”

Not as much as I should be.

“But you’re still here,” he adds.

So are you.

I don’t say it. I don’t have to.

“Inside,” he says, glancing over his shoulder like he expects something to come out of the tree line.

“Like hell—”

I don’t get to finish.

His mouth crashes down on mine, and the heat that’s been tearing me apart detonates all at once, violent and overwhelming.

I gasp into the kiss, and my arms come up on instinct, locking around his shoulders as he drives me backward into the house.

The door slams shut behind us.

My back hits the entryway wall, and the sound jolts through me, sharp and dizzying. His body presses close, heat everywhere, too much and not enough at the same time.

“This heat,” he growls against my mouth, rough and unrestrained now. “Little stray, you have no idea what it’s about to do to you.”

The words barely register before his lips trail lower, his breath scorching against my skin. My body arches into him without permission, every nerve screaming for relief.

“And you’re even less ready,” he murmurs, voice dark and unforgiving, “for what I’m going to do.”