Page 35 of Cursed Wolf

“No! No, I’m not allergic.” Right then I noticed his panicked expression and laughed. “No one’s ever brought me flowers before, that’s all. Come in, and thank you. They’re beautiful.”

He stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind him, taking up a massive amount of space in my one-bedroom apartment. “I wondered if flowers would be a risky move,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Not at all, it’s really sweet of you.” I took the bundle from him and raised up to my tiptoes, lifting my face to his.

Tryn met me halfway, leaning down with a half-smile to give me a kiss that was warm, sensual, and lingering. The desire I’d felt on our first date roared back to life with a vengeance. Earlier today, we’d made plans to visit a brewery in the next town over, but all I really wanted to do was climb him like a tree and show him to the bedroom.

“I’ll put these in water,” I whispered as the kiss ended, amazed that I didn’t say, You’re making me wetter than water.

“I’m glad you like them,” he murmured, straightening to his full height. While I looked for something that would make a passable vase, Tryn’s gaze swept over my apartment. “You’ve got a nice place.”

“Oh, please.” I laughed, filling up a mason jar in the sink. “It’s basically a dorm room. You don’t have to be polite.”

“No, I mean it.” He took a few steps into my living area, head nearly brushing the ceiling as he stood in front of my bookshelves. “It’s cozy in here, like a den. Feels like you.”

“Well, thanks.” I didn’t entirely know what he meant, but it felt like a compliment. My chest warmed at the words. “What’s your place like?”

“Not too different,” he answered easily, before I could wonder if that question was too invasive. “Small, near the woods. I live with a bunch of guys all around me so yeah, a lot like a dorm room.”

“Oh really? Is that just when you’re working or when you go back home too?”

Tryn’s jaw seemed to tense up for a moment, but then it passed. His easy smile returned. “I’m pretty much always working, so yeah.”

It was a vague answer, one that seemed to dodge the question. I tried not to feel bothered by it, remembering that he couldn’t tell me everything about his job yet. He was secretive about some things because he had to be, not because he was hiding a criminal background or a wife. There was no way I’d feel so attracted to someone who was intentionally deceiving me.

Right?

“Ready to go?” He went back to standing by the doorway.

“Yeah. Just let me put my coat and shoes on.” I stepped into a pair of ankle boots and bent over to zip them up. They weren’t biker-like in the slightest but were cute enough. It wasn’t until after I opened the coat closet, grabbed one, and put my arms through the sleeves that I realized that Tryn had been staring at me the whole time. “What?” I looked down, wondering if I’d spilled water or anything else.

“Nothing,” he said softly. “You’re just beautiful, that’s all.”

The simple, earnest compliment stunned me. Men that looked like him didn’t find women like me beautiful. I’d been teased about being nerdy, bookish, always studying instead of partying and having fun. Never beautiful.

And I had a feeling Tryn knew that as he reached for one of my hands, gently pulling me toward the door. “You deserve to hear that every day.” He leaned down and kissed me, which I was grateful for, because I still didn’t have words to speak with. We parted only after I started to feel breathless. I was beginning to realize Tryn didn’t do short kisses. “Now let’s ride and taste some beer.” He smiled against my lips.

I was already drunk on his taste, his wild mossy scent, his voice, and the ridiculous, crazy idea that he might actually like me, but I nodded and found my voice again. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Our date at the brewery was honestly a blur. I knew with some distant awareness that we sampled beers and ate tacos from an excellent local food truck. But the focus of all my senses seemed to home in on Tryn. He warmed my freezing cold hands like on our first date, since most of the brewery seating was outside. We talked and laughed the whole evening, but it was the physical connection I craved like a starving woman. Every kiss on the cheek, roughened by his stubble, nearly left me gasping. Every embrace of those thick arms pressing me to his broad chest had my hands itching to dive under his clothes to feel the heat of his bare skin.

I tried to be in the moment, to listen earnestly to the stories he told about playing pranks with his best friend as a youngster, but this feverish need consumed me. My thoughts turned to kissing more intimate places, of bare skin gliding on skin. Of hardness and softness, instinct and touch.

On our first date, the intensity of these sexual thoughts were unnerving to the point of making me uncomfortable. Now, I was just tired of fighting them. Tryn was the only person I’d ever met who made me feel this way, who made me realize how starved for an intimate connection I really was.

At long last, the brewery gave their last call and Tryn settled up our tab. He wouldn’t let me pay and playfully restrained my hands so that I couldn’t reach my wallet. It only made me imagine him pinning my hands down while thrusting into me.

His large hand rested on my leg on our drive home, the other confidently steering the motorcycle. My body was a furnace in the chilly mountain air, nerves alight with sensation while he gently massaged my thigh and traced soothing circles on my knee. Emboldened by my desire—and maybe the beers—my hands found movement too, running up his broad chest and back down again.

When Tryn slowed to a stop outside my front door, I didn’t even hesitate. “Would you like to come in?” I asked with my chin on his shoulder.

He shut off the bike abruptly and kissed the corner of my mouth over his shoulder. “I’d love to.”

The moonlight was bright on my front stoop as I fumbled one-handed to unlock the door, my other hand entangled with Tryn’s. When I pushed the door open and looked back at him, his eyes were fixed on the not-quite full moon in the sky.

“It’s a beautiful night,” I whispered, admiring how the light seemed to outline him in silver.

“Yeah.” His gaze returned to me, and he followed me inside. The moment the door closed, he pulled me into his deepest, hungriest kiss yet. “Already the best night I’ve had in a long time.” His lips found my neck and the warm, gentle suction over my pulse catapulted me into a new heightened state of need.

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