Page 12 of The Wolf Professor

Max guessed some explanation was called for. “I have a reputation for being something of a loner,” he said stiffly. “I’m not used to having company. I’ll try to make sure I tell you where I’m going in future.”

She merely nodded as they fell into step, and they trudged on in silence. Max wished they could retrieve the easy conversation they’d had at lunch, but that damn orc had ruined his mood.

Once they got inside, she slid behind her desk and got to work. Making the excuse that he needed to focus, Max grabbed a few thick tomes and headed across the corridor to the snug.

And there he sat, cocooned in the cozy room, fuming, and barely reading a line.

His annoyance, he conceded, was mostly aimed at himself. He didn’t like surprises, didn’t like spontaneous changes to his routine or his plans. He had his whole research period perfectly mapped out, and now that had all been turned on its head by the arrival of a girl instead of a guy.

A girl with bouncy curls and tempting curves. A girl with the world’s most captivating smile and the promise of mischiefin those dimples and the wide set of her brown eyes. She was ingenuous and… something even more disturbing. Something about her was tempting his wolf out of hiding. Promising to satisfy a thirst he hadn’t even realized needed quenching, until now.

She’d not said a word out of turn, but in her scent, her smile, the language of her body, hesensedshe was ripe for his wolf.

Gods, it was sheer lunacy to think this way.

He racked his brains as to why these feelings were surfacing. Maybe vulnerability at his lone wolf status was hitting him? It was not so long after his mother’s death, after all. The only family he had left in the world resided not so far from here, a family he had no desire to see. But maybe this was the need for pack rearing its ugly, wolfen head.

The need for a mate.

No! On both counts. His mother had always told him that he was a lone wolf, a sigma not an alpha. Which meant he would never feel a strong need to mate or succumb to his baser emotions. That he would prefer his own company to that of pack. Damn it, he barely noticed when the moon was full. He’d proven to be sigma in his relationships too. Civilized, courteous, never losing himself in his wolf even at the moment of coitus. He would no more allow himself to turn wolf in the bedroom than, well… fly to the moon.

Suddenly his cell rang. He took the call without even checking the number, eager for distraction from his troubled thoughts.

“Hello, Max speaking.”

“Fucking hell, you picked up!”

Max blinked. The voice was vaguely familiar—rough-edged, husky, chewing at the edges of his memory. Max racked his brain but before he could pin it down, a low laugh was followed quickly with the words, “It’s your cousin Benjy, mate.”

Now memories flooded back, of those summer visits before he was ten. Of Benjy, bigger than the other kids in the pack, teasing him when his head was buried in a book. Nipping at his heels in their horrible tumble-down yard with its old cars and motorbikes and sheds, where Benjy would hide and jump out at him.

Of Benjy, finally full grown, big and shaggy and bearded with his curvaceous wife Janine, the only two members of the Hunt pack who had come to his mom’s funeral.

“Ah, Benjamin, hello.”

A big guffaw followed. “Well, if we’re going to be all fuckin’ formal, howdy,Maximillian.”

Max ground his molars, wishing to the gods he hadn’t picked up. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” he managed with stilted politeness.

Another growl of amusement. “Heard on the grapevine you were in Motham. In the name of pack, I’m calling to invite you to a Hunt barbecue this weekend.”

Max’s brain spun with horror. “Oh, er, yes, very thoughtful. It’s just, right now I’m snowed under with research for the book I’m writing.”

“What? Seven days a week?”

“Well, pretty much. I only have four weeks before I return to Selig.”

“Egh, still gotta eat. Come over Saturday night, man. No time like the present. We’ll put a wild boar on the spit. Got one in the freezer we caught last month.”

As Max was desperately trying to come up with a plausible excuse, there was a gentle knock on the door and Charlie’s head peered round the frame.

Max held the phone away from his ear as she said, “I’ve typed up all the notes you left me, is there anything else you want me to do?”

Her smile was so freakin’ gorgeous that his heart and his cock jerked in unison. Holding the phone away from his ear, he managed a husky, “I’ll come and join you in a moment.”

He returned to a chuckle on the end of the line. “Sorry, didn’t realize you had company. Lady friend, eh, cuz?”

“That was my research assistant,” Max said stiffly.

---