This assignment was going to be a lot more difficult than she expected and in a far different way than she expected.
“Let’s continue this in the library, then we’ll have lunch, then afterward I’ll need to leave you on your own for a while.”
“Don’t let me keep you from anything you need to do. We can talk later. I have more than enough books to keep me occupied, and your kitchen runneth over with food.”
He chuckled. “Are you sure you don’t mind? I dislike leaving you on your own to fend for yourself when I’ve opened my home to you.”
“No problem, really. I’ll be fine,” she assured him, and yet the oddest sensation came over her. She had the strongest urge to rest against him and feel his arms wrapped around her as if she didn’t want to be parted from him.
She stood and picked up the mugs to take them to the sink, and when she turned around to return to the table for the teapot, Tiernan stood directly behind her. She hadn’t heard him move.
His arm circled her waist, and he brushed his cheek along hers as he whispered, “Think of the castle as your home. Roam freely.”
Olivia stood where he left her and after hearing a door close, a howl broke the silence and several howls followed.
Olivia was so engrossedin taking notes that she didn’t hear Tiernan enter the library, but she caught his rugged scent, strongand enticing. She looked up when he came around the coffee table to sit at the opposite end of the couch from her.
“The books have kept you busy, I see,” he said, nodding at the three stacks of books sitting in front of her on the coffee table.
“I could spend days in here reading all the interesting and fascinating books you have here and never get bored.”
“Something I enjoy doing myself, getting lost in reading. Find anything that can be helpful with your assignment?” he asked.
“Some interesting. Some laughable.”
He didn’t dazzle her with a smile but rather tempted her with a glance that suggested pleasure before being blunt about it. “You could learn firsthand if you wanted to, Olivia.”
She was so tempted but a thought saved her. “Sex with a possible future boss. I don’t think so.”
“I would never have sex with one of my employees, a puzzle to add to the mystery and for you to think on, Olivia.”
His remark certainly did puzzle her. Whatever did he mean by it?
“Let me offer you some insight to a werewolf having sex with a human female. Scent, as you know, is a huge factor when a wolf pursues a mate. It is also helpful when a lycanthrope enters a room with many women in it. It is easy to pick up the scent of a rise in estrogen and with that rise, the woman would also be drawn to the werewolf’s scent. Sex would then be quite satisfying for both.”
“You have found willing women that way?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“Aye, I have.”
“But you don’t travel so how then do you find—” She shook her head. “Of course, the Christmas Fundraiser and you have had female journalists who have come to interview you since Iread several such articles by females when researching you. And you have traveled locally though not often.”
“Aye, casual sex to relieve the craving. Certainly, you’ve done the same.”
“I can’t even recall the last time I had sex—” She shut her mouth quickly, admonishing herself for admitting something so personal to him.
“That’s why your estrogen level is so very high. If you cannot recall the last time that you had sex, then it must not have been satisfying for you, and with the strong urge we have for each other?—”
“My sex life does not concern you,” she said in a rush to stop him from saying any more.
“I beg to differ since I can scent your powerful desire for me, and I do desire you just as powerfully.”
She was shaking her head at him, unable to find words. Their conversation was far too personal and far too ridiculous to give it any credence.
A thought hit her. “It’s the cold. It affects the ovaries and spikes estrogen.”
His smile held humor. “In female wolves, but you’re not a wolf.” He shifted a bit closer to her and his smile turned seductive. “I would love to please you, and I can guarantee you that it would be memorable.”
“I am not here for sex.”