“Bailey! Are you okay?”
Dean, I thought, even though he was covered from head to toe.
It was like the air shifted around me and I just knew it was him. Dazed and confused, I looked up as he pulled off his helmet.
His eyes scanned my naked body, warming me all over.
Oh God! I was lying on the ground, covered in dirt, entirely naked.
He scowled and looked around. No one else was there.
“What are you doing? Anyone could have driven by and seen you out here.”
I sighed. “No, they wouldn’t. I was getting dressed and tripped. I think you startled me when you drove up.”
I’d never been naked in front of anyone like this before, not even for a Pack run back home. I was always discreet and shifted out of sight of others.
I knew nudity wasn’t supposed to be that big a deal for shifters, at least not wolf shifters, but it had always seemed embarrassing to me. And now, here I was, naked and vulnerable in front of the one person I was supposed to care about.
He looked pissed as he pulled me up to my feet.
“Ow!” I cried when pain shot through my side.
He started running his hands down my arms and back, searching for the cause of my pain.
Then he turned me around.
I felt horrified.
“Let me finish getting dressed,” I protested.
“Your entire backside looks like road rash. We need to get you back into town and have the doctor take a look at it and clean you up. What were you thinking? If I hadn’t come along. . .”
“If you hadn’t come along, I wouldn’t have tripped like that trying to be discreet.”
“You can’t know that for sure.” He looked around. “Where the hell is your car?”
“Back at the motel. I ran here.”
He shook his head and cursed under his breath.
“Come on. I’m taking you back into town.”
Ignoring his protests, I got dressed. It hurt like hell. I wasn’t even thinking straight. What I should have done was shift and let my wolf heal me. Instead, I threw on my pants and shirt, leaving my discarded underwear behind, and let Dean take control of the situation.
When he saw my panties and bra on the ground, he growled, picked them up, and shoved them in his jacket pocket while cursing under his breath.
With hesitation, I obeyed his instructions and climbed onto his bike after he had taken his seat.
“Hold on tight,” he said.
“To what?”
“Me.”
In that instant, the pain disappeared, replaced by butterflies taking up residence in my stomach as I wrapped my arms around his waist and tried to ignore the sparks flying between us.
Mate, my wolf sighed.Mine.