Page 25 of Loan Wolf
“Are you just as stuck as I am?” Clara pointed out, feeling stung. She’d wanted sympathy.
“Am I? Or do I like what I have here? I’ve been thinking about tit, and maybe I’m glad I’m tied down because I can make a lot of noise about not being content without actually having to admit that this place is okay.”
Clara stared at his profile. “But you’re dying to get out of here. See the world. Culture and art and stuff.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing things someday, but…look, it’s just a dumb bike shop, but it’s my bike shop. It wouldn’t exist without me.”
Gabe looked cross, like he hadn’t wanted to admit that.
“I think it’s great,” Clara said.
“Not as great as your name in lights in New York,” Gabe snorted.
“Which is not as great as you might think.” Clara knew she sounded bitter. “I mean…I don’t want to be ungrateful, but…”
“Yeah, I get it,” Gabe said, and Clara thought that he actually might.
“You want another beer?” he asked gruffly.
“I’m here to get drunk and go skinny dipping,” Clara said. “Bring it on.”
21
GABE
Gabe gave Clara another beer but didn’t take another himself. He had a shifter’s tolerance to alcohol, but he could hear the slur in her words as she succumbed to it much faster than he expected her to.
One of them ought to stay clear-headed.
As clear-headed as it was possible to be in her dazzling, addictive presence.
“Ready to go swimming?” he asked, hoping to catch her before she was drunk enough to drown. Maybe he shouldn’t have offered that third beer. She drank half of it before putting the rest with exaggerated care on the hood of the truck.
We wouldn’t let her drown, his wolf sniffed.
“I think there’s something I’d rather do than swimming,” Clara said suggestively, struggling with the buttons of her shirt. “Oh, I never paid you for the rest of the week!”
Was that what he was? A hire?
Gabe knew he was on dangerous ground. Dangerous for his heart. “You’re drunk, Clara.”
“I know!” she said expansively. “I came here to do that! I never get drunk! I never stay out late or eat fatty food! I never do anything wrong! I’m pretty and discreet!” She was still trying to unbutton her shirt and Gabe was pretty sure she was going to take a button off before she figured out how they worked.
“Clara—”
She gave up on her own shirt and tried to get Gabe out of his. “Bike blankets,” she said, peeling it up. “In the back!”
“Clara!”
“I’m saying yes,” she said, looking up at him earnestly.
“You’re drunk,” he reminded her. “That doesn’t count.”
“I said yes before,” she whined.
Gabe kissed her on the forehead with all of his resolve. “Still doesn’t count,” he said. “C’mon. I’m taking you back to your hotel.” He didn’t need more regrets on his tally.
“Noooooo,” Clara begged. “I want to go skinny dipping and spray paint the library. Oh, maybe I could take up smoking.”
