Page 52 of The Forbidden Wolf

“Let me put it this way.” I shifted toward him in my seat, letting the slit in my dress open up once more to show a little thigh. “When you act like that, it turns me off. So stop.”

His eyes flicked to the desired location, and I felt a dizzy rush of power, and a flush of heat as his gaze traveled up my torso and back to my face. “This implies I have turned you on previously.”

Leaning in, I whispered, “I’m indignant, not dead, Sebastian.”

His lips twitched. “Your voice has made me like my name.”

I tilted my head. “You normally don’t?”

He grimaced. “It has certain… crustacean connotations.”

My jaw dropped. “You’ve seen The Little Mermaid?”

“Gods, no!” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “But I have been made well aware of it in all my human dealings.”

I laughed. “Do you prefer Bastian then?”

He hesitated and then tersely shook his head.

“It’s what your mother calls you,” I said.

“She’s my mother.” He rolled his eyes. “She could get away with murder.”

“But not me?” I pouted a little.

“Not yet.”

“Alright.” I lifted my hands in surrender. “Is there something else you prefer? A nickname? Seb? Sebbo? Seb-dog? Sebaceous?”

He made a face. “Isn’t that a type of zit?”

“Yes.” I smiled sweetly. “One that’s grotesquely full of itself and almost impossible to get rid of, so…”

“You know what?” He flashed a cocky grin. “I think darling will work just fine.”

“Crabcake it is then.” I patted him on the cheek.

The lights dimmed, shifting the room’s energy from impatience to anticipation. My dismissive gestured faltered, fingertips sliding over the smooth hollow beneath Sebastian’s cheekbone and above his jaw. The muscle there twitched when he swallowed, his eyes darting toward my lips. My thumb, for reasons all its own, decided it would be a good time to settle on the subtle cleft in Sebastian’s chin.

He shifted toward me, his left elbow edging into the space between our seatbacks. His knuckles grazed my jawbone, tipped my chin upward. His lips parted, and I closed the gap, suddenly determined not to let him get there first. Our teeth bumped together with the force of my lunge, and we both whispered “Ow” into each other’s mouths.

Then he laughed, and my palm flattened against his cheek, and his cupped the back of my head, and somehow our lips found the right places, and we were kissing, like really kissing, from zero to sixty in under five seconds, and his right hand clutched my left arm, tugging me so close the armrest dug into my stomach, and thank the gods for that because otherwise I might have swung my damn leg over his lap.

His right hand fell to my waist, turning my core as molten as the earth itself. I made a sound I hadn’t known I could make as my fingers raked down his neck and caught his lapel. Had I been wrong all along? Was this all it was? Pumping blood and scratching nails and nipping teeth? Had I purposefully misunderstood what it would feel like to find my fated because I didn’t want to know my own parents had been half-crazed horndogs? I didn’t feel anything deeper than that, but I felt that deeper than I’d known a feeling could be felt.

I pushed him back, gasping for air as the familiar notes of the Columbia Pictures theme filled the cavernous room. “Is this allowed?” I blurted out.

“Making out in a movie theater?” he asked, already looking a little bit helpless, shell-shocked, and squinty.

“Being in a movie theater,” I whispered. “Owning a movie theater.”

“Yeah,” he said with confidence, and then, “I mean… yeah, it’s fine.”

“Is it really?” I twisted my fingers in his lapel. “Because where I come from…”

Sebastian shrugged. “It’s gonna raise some eyebrows, yeah, but it’s fine. I promise.”

I pulled back, searching his eyes and finding only the reflection of the screen—a female silhouette standing in front of a back-lit door. “Fine for me, or fine for just you?”

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