Page 16 of Wolf's Claimed Mate
“I’m glad I’m not a wolf,” I muttered aloud to myself.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I answered. “Let’s just go.”
“Can’t bear to see me in your apartment again after last time, kitty?”
Annoyed, I walked past him, snatching one coffee cup out of his hands, hissing at the heat. I slammed the door shut behind me and stalked down the stairs leading to the back of the bookshop.
“The coffee you took was mine,” Conall said, laughing. Glaring at him, I met his eyes and drank the bitter, strong shit he called coffee. I forced the wince out of my face, gulping down a burning hot sip before handing it back.
“Enjoy the cherry flavor,” I snapped. “It’s the last time you’ll taste it.”
I grabbed the other cup and started drinking it, walking away from him and to the front of the store.
“Oh, Sasha! I forgot to ask when you next wanted to pick up a shift,” the owner said as I passed by the cashier, Leah. She was the owner, in her forties, her kids moved to Atlanta for college, hence her studio for rent since she’d moved in with her partner. Her face lit up when Conall approached me, lingering at my side. I heard him sniff the cherry gloss before he took a sip of his drink. “Hi again!”
“Hey Leah,” he said, as if they were friends.
“This weekend,” I told her with a brighter smile than I gave Conall. “Six hours each day good?”
“Can you make it eight? I need the lunch shift covered.”
“Sure thing,” I told her before Conall and I headed out. Once on the sidewalk, I asked, “How do you know Leah?”
“I don’t,” he answered simply. “I got talking to her before I came upstairs to you. I asked her if she had any books on leopard mating behaviors.”
I stopped short. “Conall, Iswearto God, I will dump this coffee over your head—”
“Hey now,” he said, in a falsely soothing voice. “No need to be hostile. She didn’t give up your shifter secrets. She didn’t have any. She hadplentyon wolf mating, if you were interested.”
I seethed. “Good thing I’m not a wolf.”
I stalked away from him.
“Sasha!” he called.
“What?” I yelled.
“My car’s the other way.”
He jabbed a finger behind him, all casual coolness that I hated.
“You have three strikes of getting on my last nerve today, and then I promise Iwilldump something over you,” I hissed. “I’m talking, like—” I fumbled. “Like, Rizzo and Kenickie inGrease-style milkshake dumping.”
“Likewhoandwhoinwhat?”
“You’ve never seenGrease?” I asked as we approached his car. He popped his coffee cup on the roof of his car andgripped his keys between his teeth, tugging on a hoodie over his t-shirt. Today’s color was white, tight around his biceps.
“Unless you’re talking about Aidan’s hair, then no,” he said around the keyring between his teeth. I didn’t know why, but there was something attractive about the angle of his mouth doing that, the ease with which he had just moved. The swagger and confidence of knowing he could be looked at and admired.
I couldn’t help but snigger. “You’re trying to snub him, but Dakota said he uses shampooandconditioner.”
Conall rolled his eyes. “Get in the car.”
***
It was bad enough that I was opening up the barely healed wounds of my ex-boyfriend; now I was searching through his pack that he wasn’t even a part of anymore, to my knowledge,andpretending to be Conall’s girlfriend. Not only that, but he’d already started planting the seeds of our fake relationship around town. Now, my sort-of landlord thought he was my boyfriend, and who knew who else.
