Page 45 of Enspelled

“Well, I don’t mind if he stops by my house in the middle of the night.” Her gaze turns lecherous. “Might not be a bad way to go.”

Oh, Goddess. She does not mean what I think she means. Does she?

Before this conversation can implant images in my head that I will never be able to remove, I inch toward my car as I fish my keys out of my pocket. “Um, you should probably get to the meeting. I don’t think Vera will—”

“I hope his being back doesn’t mean we’re dealing with brats running around with stink bombs again.” She gazes back at me expectantly.

Has she lost her mind? And if she has, should she really be driving around town?

I clear my throat. “I, uh, don’t know what you mean.”

“Stink bombs!” she screams, as if I’m the one hard of hearing. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Bodie angling his head away from her.

His poor ears.

“I still don’t understand what—”

Ellie doesn’t let me finish.

“The night someone flamed his pack, kids were running around with stink bombs. If you’d smelled that rotten stench, you’d remember it even a hundred years from now. Do you remember?”

Her clear blue eyes stare into mine, and I stare back, her words stirring… something.

“I was pretty young then,” I tell her.

“You don’t remember the smell?” she leans even closer toward me. “Like bad feet, rotten eggs, and that sock you wore when you had a fungal infection and it fell down the back of the couch, but you couldn’t reach it so you had to have the nice men in the fire department bend over to get it for you.” Her eyes glint with remembered pleasure.

At this point, Bodie’s ears must have had enough abuse, because he grips my arm and drags me toward my car. “We’re late. Nice to meet you,” he says as he stuffs me into the driver's seat and slams the door shut before I know what’s happening.

He’s getting into the passenger seat when a slap loud enough to echo fills the parking lot. Bodie freezes, his expression impossible to decipher.

Glancing over his shoulder, I spot Ellie grinning as she ambles toward the community center.

My gaze returns to Bodie, still frozen, half in and half out of the car. “She slapped your ass, didn’t she?”

He nods.

I sigh, for the first time feeling sympathy for a wolf when I believed I never would. “Get in, before she decides she’s forgotten something in her car and comes back to—”

Bodie is in the car so fast, slamming the door shut as he’s still pulling his leg in, that I have to turn away before he sees the smile curving my lips.

13

KEANE

It isn’t easy meeting Briar’s eyes after what we nearly did in the truck.

You mean like how you thought it would be a good idea to fuck Briar Fenix in the front seat of your truck in a grocery store parking lot, Keane?

My brain is eager to show me all the things that could have gone wrong. Like some innocent tourists deciding to stop at the grocery store for a gallon of milk and walking into an X-rated show. Bodie turning up. Liam Wolfe sending his wolves to kill me. Maybe even Georgia Calla taking advantage of my distraction by blowing a hole right through the back of my head.

It could have been a damn sight worse than just Greg.

But even now, as I listen to Briar rummage around in the kitchen cupboards, I don’t regret it.

Not at all.

I wanted to taste her lips, and I want to again. More than just her lips. I caught the rich scent of her arousal, sweet and sultry, and I want to tasteher.

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