Page 39 of Wolf's Forbidden Curse

Nic eyed me with suspicion but didn’t say anything, so I went on.

“Anyway, Kat shows up, and we… we get to talking.” There was no reason for me to share the more sordid details with Nic. She would probably be grossed out, and I was still trying to stay on her good side. “And then she agreed to go get some food with me. We went and had a little lunch date, and it was great. She’s great. Then she invited me over tonight for a glass of wine! Over the course of twenty-four hours, we went from her seemingly hating me to inviting me over to her place! I’m a goddamn miracle worker when it comes to women. Seriously. This has to be some kind of record or something. Can you believe it?”

Nic shook her head. “Actually, since you asked, I don’t really believe it.”

“Huh?” I shot her a look. “Do you think I’m lying?”

“No,” she said. “I think Katrina’s lying.”

“What?”

She folded the paper up and slid it aside. “Think about it, Rory. People don’t just do 180s like that. There has to be something in this for her—something more than just a date with you. No offense.”

“First of all, offense taken. And second of all, I feel like she and I have had a connection since day one. It just took her a little longer to realize it. Makes perfect sense to me. She just needed to spend some time with me and see that I’m not a bad guy.”

She clicked her tongue. “I don’t like it. I don’t trust her. What if she’s trying to get close to you because she’s—I don’t know—a shifter hunter or something?”

“You sound more paranoid than Cornelius!”

“Well, maybe Cornelius is right to be a little paranoid,” she argued. “I mean what do you even know about this girl, really?”

“I know everything I need to know.”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s not good enough for me, and it shouldn’t be good enough for you.”

“For now, it is.”

“You’re being irresponsible,” she said. “And I’m not going to let you get yourself, or the rest of us, in trouble because your ego is too fragile to allow for even one girl to turn you down.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You’re the one not being fair! You could be putting the entire pack in danger. This isn’t just about you.”

I stifled a growl. It had been a long time since Nic and I had been in a fight, but we had been known to let things get heated if we weren’t too careful. “You know I would never do anything that might put you guys in harm’s way.”

“If that’s true, then you’ll stay away from this woman—at least for a little while. Let me see what I can find out about her. A few days—that’s all I’m asking for.”

Nic was pleading with me, and she’d dropped her angry tone of voice to replace it with a somber one. It worked. She rarely implored me for anything, with such an obvious emotional attachment to my response that I found myself nodding before I even really thought about what I was agreeing to. “Fine.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Just a few days,” I reminded her.

“That’s all I need.”

She looked satisfied with where we ended up. I, on the other hand, had to mask my discomfort by taking a large sip of my soda. I wanted to keep my promise to Nic, but was I really going to blow Katrina off just because my friend group was overly cautious?

I could do my own research while I was at her apartment, I thought as Nic stood up and took the paper and soda out onto the back porch with her. What better place to look for clues than where Katrina lived, right?

And even though I knew it wasn’t the kind of argument that would hold up in a court of law, it was enough justification for me. Nothing was going to keep me from seeing the woman of my dreams tonight.

Not even Nic or the rest of my pack.

CHAPTER 16

KATRINA

There was no denying the fact that I wanted to make a good impression on Rory. After tracking him down at the pool, seducing him in the men’s locker room, and then inviting him over tonight to my apartment, there was no reason for me to pretend like I didn’t have feelings for the guy. He was something else, and I couldn’t get him out of my mind.

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