Page 31 of The Good Boys Club

Cian didn’t answer me. Instead, it appeared he was talking to himself. “Fucking hell . . . Urgh . . . Fucking werewolves . . . Fucking Mash . . . Fuck’s sake . . . So disgusting, so disgusting, so . . . Oh.”

“What’s the oh?”

“Are you pressing a glass against the door and listening to me?” he asked.

“No, not a glass, just my great big werewolf ears. What was the ‘oh’ for?”

“It’s . . . Okay, so in the bottle it smells like piss, but on me it . . . smells . . . kinda nice, actually.”

“Yeah?” I said. My tail started wagging. “What do we smell like?” Because that smell was the smell of us.

“It’s hard to describe. It’s—ah, fuck! Shit!” There was a crashing noise, and the sound of a now presumably empty pot bouncing on Cian’s bathroom tiles.

“Spilled it?”

“Fucking hell, yes. It’s everywhere now.”

“Want me to help you clean it up?”

“No, it’s my fucking fault,” he said. It was shortly followed by a cleaning product being sprayed. “Let me piss in this ridiculously tiny pot for you and I’ll come out.”

“Use the clean one.” The thought of splashing my own piss on myself was . . . ew, just no.

After a few moments, the toilet flushed and the water from the taps ran. Then Cian emerged with his little bottle of arranged-mating deterrent.

“How the fuck are you supposed to piss in these little pots without it splashing all over the sides? I can’t just stop mid-flow.” He pushed the bottle into my hand.

“Ew, it’s still warm,” I said, pulling a face and laughing. I looked at it. “Gods, Bangers, you need to drink more water—”

I cut myself off. My brain short-circuiting because I’d caught a whiff of him.

Of us.

“Oh my gods,” I said, crowding into his space, and lowering my head to his neck. “Fuck, I smell so good on you.”

So fucking good.

I breathed him in again. Deeply.

Oh. My. Gods.

“See?” he said, the word breathy and quiet.

He . . . we smelled . . . well, it was impossible to say what we smelled of. There weren’t any notes like flowers or oranges or whatever humans used in their perfumes. It was more like a feeling. Like it transcended smell.

Even though my heart was beating a million miles a minute, the smell was calmness, and rightness, and belonging.

It was breathing crisp air and snapping twigs underfoot on brisk autumn woodland walks. It was spiced biscuits and warm cocoa at Winter Fest. It was running headfirst into the frigid waters of my pack’s lake. It was ditching lessons to make out behind the Wingball auditorium.

It was clean sheets, and the fluffy inside coating of a brand new hoodie, and bread baking in the oven. It was the first sip of coffee in the morning. The moment when the weed hit your bloodstream.

It was the adrenaline of the hunt. And the endorphins of a great gym workout. And the serotonin of dropping into a steaming bath. And the oxytocin of being held to someone’s chest . . . heartbeat to heartbeat.

And the dopamine of being called a “good boy.”

And fuck, my tail was wagging again.

We were in a moment. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t let this happen again. I needed to ruin it.

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