Page 102 of The Alpha's Pen Pal

“Nothing could ruin this moment,” she replied, her voice almost undetectable under the wind, the waves, and the footsteps of tourists on the pier.

In fact, had I not been a lycan, I doubt I would have heard her at all.

And as I held onto her under the setting sun and my lips moved back to hers, I found myself agreeing with her. Because it was at that moment that I realized—I was in love with Haven Kenway.

CHAPTER 36

WESLEY

At some point between the kiss at the pier and us getting ready to settle in to sleep for the night, I realized that spending the night in a tent with Haven was a terrible idea.

Especially once I found out there was only one sleeping bag in my truck.

I didn’t know if Seb removed the other one I could have sworn was in there or if there was, in fact, only one in there in the first place, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was there was only one, and there were two of us.

Well, it actually didn’t matter. I could sleep without the bag—the temperature wasn’t cold enough to affect me. But, I had to keep up pretenses, and that meant acting as though I needed a sleeping bag.

As I came back into the tent with our bag of extra clothes, the camping pad, and the one sleeping bag and pillow, the second reason it was a bad idea reared its ugly head at me in the form of Haven’s words.

“I don’t have anything to wear to sleep in,” she muttered as I put the pad and pillow on the floor, her cheeks turning pink.

I stopped my movements and stared at her, my throat closing up. What was she trying to imply? Was she saying she was going to sleep naked?

Images of just that flashed in my mind’s eye, too fast to catch a clear picture of, but each snippet enough to feed the growing desire in my soul. And my pants.

“Wha-What?” I stammered, shaking my head to clear my thoughts.

“I don’t have any pajamas,” she said with a nervous laugh.

“Pajamas. Right,” I mumbled, mentally smacking myself on the forehead. Of course, she didn’t mean she wanted to sleep naked.

I fumbled in the bag of extra clothes, keeping her new outfit hidden from her because I didn’t want to get yelled at yet, and grabbed one of my old T-shirts.

“Here,” I mumbled, holding it out to her. “You can sleep in this.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, taking it from me and brushing my fingers with hers.

That one touch almost sent me to my knees and had me clenching my jaw and fists as I tossed the bag on the tent floor and turned to give her some privacy to change.

Goddess, damn it, I was acting like a bumbling teenaged virgin instead of the experienced, confident alpha I was. I don’t know what it was about her that made me that way, but she turned me into a helpless puddle without even trying.

The soft rustling sounds of her changing filled the tent, and I yanked my shirt off, dropping it on top of the bag before unbuckling my belt and removing my jeans.

I stood with my hands on my hips, breathing deeply, trying to control my thoughts, deciding whether to slip on my gym shorts or stay in my boxers. But the only thing my deep breathing did was fill my lungs with Haven’s jasmine and fruit scent mixed with the light musk of her arousal.

My dick had been semi-hard pretty much all day, and the fragrance coming from her side of the tent did nothing to ease the tension in my pants. I lifted my fist to my mouth and bit my knuckles to keep in the groan threatening to spill out of me.

I wanted her.

“Are you done changing?” I asked through clenched teeth, my hand moving to my hair, my eyes closing as I tried to hold my breath.

“Yeah,” she said.

I took a moment to prepare myself before I turned to face her. I knew seeing her in my clothes would light a fire in me, and there was a chance it would bring my lycan forward, so I needed to be ready.

I turned my head first, looking at her over my shoulder. She’d taken her braid out so her hair fell in damp, loose waves over her shoulders, and my old, gray Stanford T-shirt came to the middle of her thighs, leaving the rest of her long, smooth dancer legs on display.

I let my eyes skate over her body, searing the image of her in my clothes into my brain. My lycan didn’t know whether to purr, pant, growl, run around in circles, or roll around on his back at the sight in front of him. So he was in my head doing a weird dance of all five.

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