Page 21 of The Wolf Professor

“High five,” she explained, with a lip quirk.

She saw him hesitate. Then, almost tentatively, he touched his hand to hers. Charlie registered the size and heat of his big palm.

Her body started to thrum, heat swirling low in her belly.

Max didn’t move a muscle.

Oh goddess, now what?

Suddenly, slowly, his fingers curled around hers until they were holding hands across the desk, strangely suspended in time and space.

She felt Max’s thumb slide down the inside of her wrist, and then the pad was resting on her racing pulse.

For a moment he looked almost perplexed, then his heavy gaze raked over her body. A pulse jumped in his jaw, his expression darkening. There was no mistaking that look. It was raw hunger, and it set off a throb of need low in her belly. It was almost like he’d captured her, like she was his prey. With barely the lightest of touches.

Glancing down, she saw the hard points of her nipples dark against her shirt.

Charlie’s lips parted on a silent moan, and she felt herself sway toward him, her breasts yearning for his touch.

Max gave a low growl, dropped her hand, and started to shuffle the papers on his desk.

Charlie waited. And waited…

But when he looked up, it was like a cloud had come over his face, wiping out the sun.

“I’ve still got a fair bit of reading to get through, so it’s best if you leave me to it, Charlie,” he said tersely.

Charlie forced a smile to hide the sting of his dismissal. “Yes… of course. Goodnight, Max.”

CHAPTER 9

The next morning Max went down to the kitchen and made himself a double espresso, the way he’d been practicing all week. And it was, he acknowledged as he took a sip, not bad at all.

He guessed he had to be pleased with small wins. Because he definitely wasn’t winning over his wolf. All night, he’d tossed and turned, fighting his libidinous thoughts. When he did finally get some sleep, his dreams were punctuated by the moon glinting through leaves, the pounding of his feet, and the soft patter of those he was pursuing, the quiescence of soft skin as he grabbed her, pressing her down onto the forest floor, one big hand pushing her legs apart, fingering her wet, warm cunt… until he’d looked into those big dark eyes, and instead of desire, all he’d seen was fear.

He'd woken with a jerk, his cock rock hard and throbbing, even as the shock of his dreams had him hyperventilating. His gaze sought solace in the dark, trying to fix on something,anythingin the room to ground himself, to reassure him he was not a savage beast that would take a woman without her consent, and ravage her without mercy.

What the hell had induced him to clasp her hand last night, when she was just giving him a youthful high-five? The rapid staccato of her pulse under his thumb pad had made his wolf ravenous for her. What had started as an innocent gesture on her part, he’d managed to turn into something else entirely.

Max twisted in anguish, remembering how delectable she’d looked in figure-hugging jeans and a clingy silk shirt. How he’d grasped her hand like she was his to claim.

He’d almost lost it, smelling her musky scent, overcome with vivid images of bending her over the desk, tugging those jeans off her and thrusting into her, right up to the swell of his knot.

He’d had to force himself to let go of her hand. Had to will coldness into his voice, to reject her, because if she developed a crush on him—and he sensed she may well be harboring one already—he could not be sure the civilized professor would win out.

The conclusion he’d reached in the wee small hours was that he couldn’t trust himself around Charlie.

His forebears had committed unforgivable acts; the packs around Motham held plenty of human blood in their veins. The mate bites that had been inflicted meant a fair few women had become captive to their wolves, bonded, whether they chose it or not.

Oh sure, the popular vernacular these days was that women gave themselves willingly. And sure, there was some evidence of that, but it was scant. Somehow the myth was gaining a foothold in pop culture. Gods, even Charlie had found research to support it.

The fact that he would soon be privy to the early texts, the ones that would tell the real story, both excited and worried him.

Especially what he might find out about his own species’ misdeeds.

He’d sworn to himself that whatever he uncovered, he wouldn’t sugar coat it. The book would be a tell-all. He tried to reassure himself that it wasn’t only wolves that had perpetrated harm. Other species, the vampires in particular, and the mutant species that sprang up—werecats, weremonkeys, and more, that now hung around in the Wastelands—had all started in those early years of Motham City. They’d all been responsible for terrible crimes.

Oh yes, there was a dark side to the inhabitants of Motham City.

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