Page 27 of Running with Direwolves
He stroked her hair, kissed her cheek, and wound his legs with hers. He’d removed his sweater and she was enjoying having her palm flat on his warm hair-coated chest.
“Do you think he’ll be long?” she murmured.
“Tarl? Nah, he’ll soon find some information about what’s going on in New York. Hopefully the search hasn’t stretched beyond the city.”
“Perhaps not for you, but maybe for me?” She paused. “Do you think they’ll presume we’re together?”
“They’d be right.” He raised her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Yesterday you had me under lock and key, right now I feel like you’re taking possession of a different part of me.”
“What do you mean?”
He twisted is lips as though thinking of his answer. “I’m half direwolf, half human, the same as Tarl, so you have to understand that our thought processes and emotions are different from yours. We have a different biology.”
“Go on.”
“I guess what I’m trying to say is we fall in love hard and fast. When we know someone is right for us, when we want that person, or direwolf, at our side, the decision is made. It doesn’t waver, we’re decisive, and that’s for practical reasons. The wilderness is a tough place, why make it tougher?”
“You fall in love hard and fast?” she repeated.
“Yes, and it’s pretty obvious to me that Tarl is already in love with you.”
“He is not.”
“I know him better than anyone, and I see it in his eyes when he looks at you, the way his attention follows you around a room, how he knew in his heart you could help us, even if he didn’t understand the future at that point.”
She was quiet for a moment and watched the flashing light in the window as the train passed through trees. “I like him, a lot. I trust him, something I haven’t been too good at in the past.”
“Trust is vital to any relationship.”
“I agree.” She stroked from his sternum to his nipple and traced a circle around it, disturbing the hairs. “How long have you been together?”
“We had an attraction as soon as he started shifting, but I made him wait, it seemed the right thing to do.”
“Because you’re older than him?”
“Yeah. I gotta set an example to the pack. I’m alpha, remember.”
“I remember.” She studied his face. “How much older are you?”
“He’s twenty-two, I’m forty. And you?”
“I’m thirty-five.”
“I guess Tarl has a type then—older.” He laughed softly, his chest rising and falling.
“Can I ask you something personal?”
“Sure.”
“Do you … you know … fuck, when you’re direwolves, when you’ve shifted?”
“No, we don’t. Some do, not our thing.”
“Oh, I see.” She found herself glad about that. “Why isn’tit your thing?”
“It doesn’t seem as intimate somehow. When I fuck Tarl, I like to see his face, feel his flesh, not fur, I want to hear his words not howls.”
She nodded and tried to imagine them fucking. Perhaps she wouldn’t have to, maybe they’d let her watch when they eventually got to Kochi.
