Page 45 of Flock Around and Find Out

So as I found was usually the better path than just waiting to get hit, I struck first. “It didn’t mean anything. I know—it’s okay.”

He furrowed his brow. What, did he not like me saying it first? He didn’t enjoy losing out on being the one who won?

Too fucking bad.

I went on, nerves causing my words to rattle out. “It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing because I was sore and needed a good night’s sleep. Don’t worry about it—I get it. I mean, you and me?” I forced out a laugh that probably didn’t come across as all that honest. “Ridiculous. We’re good. This is for the best, anyway. It’s good for us to know where we stand. What’s a little oral sex between coworkers?”

Even I winced at that last one.

He said nothing, his gaze still locked on the road out front. The silence carried on for so long that I worried we wouldn’t speak again for the entire six-hour ride home.

Part of me wondered if that wouldn’t be less painful, all things considered. Sure, silence sucked, but did we have anything to say worth saying?

After four minutes—according to the infotainment screen in the center of the truck’s dashboard, because I watched—Ruben finally answered. “Okay.”

It was a simple answer, yet it seemed to shatter something inside me.

Okay?

What the fuck was up with this disappointment I felt?

Why would I actually be upset over him accepting what I’d said? What, did I want him to fight with me over it? To tell me no, there was something more between us? That it was different than I thought?

Instead of risking opening my mouth again, I reached forward and hit the radio button on the screen, then cranked up the dial, letting music fill the cab.

It was country, which I didn’t normally love, but which seemed to set the depressing mood perfectly right now. Some man sang about losing his woman, about how it destroyed his life, and if nothing else, it made me think that yeah—this was for the best.

Orgasms were one thing—giving away hearts was the thing that really hurt a person.

* * * *

Let sleeping dogs lie.

I wondered if the saying also went for wolves. Not that it mattered—I planned to do what I wanted no matter what old idiom told me otherwise.

Sure, Galen was cute as fuck in his sleep. He didn’t have his glasses on, of course, and it made him appear less like a computer nerd. He also seemed oddly relaxed in a way he rarely was when awake.

It made it clear the weight on his shoulders, the worries he carried all the time. As alpha for all the wolves, as leader for all the Weres, he had so many things to deal with.

Looking at him like this, I could understand why girls so often fell for him.

Exceptthatwasn’t what was on the agenda for today. If I wanted to molest him while he was sleeping, that would have to wait.

“I found it,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper.

He jerked upright, his lips peeled back, his teeth already shifted into fangs. He looked around, his eyes bright, searching for whatever had dared woken him.

If I had any brains or self-preservation, I probably would have worried. Most people who saw that didn’t see much past it—ever.

Me, though?

It was just Galen. No matter how he growled or snarled, I never found it in me to be truly afraid of him.

He twisted his gaze toward me, and I expected the fangs to recede, for him to recognize me and lecture me as he usually did.

That didn’t happen.

Those bright eyes locked on me, and if anything, brightened…

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