Page 103 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

“I suppose you shall.”

He chuckled, brushing off the leaves that stuck to her damp neck. She ought to have been in a bed with silk sheets and candlelight and a feather pillow. She should have warm water to wash with, not a handkerchief she pulled from her pocket. She rested her forehead against his and pushed, just a little, to get his attention.

“Don’t you dare,” she murmured.

He stroked her hair because he couldn’t help himself. “Dare what?”

“You’re about to say something ridiculous about taking me in the woods instead of a bed.”

He blinked. “Are you sure you’re not a soothsayer?”

She rolled her eyes and then kissed his nose. A wall of ice melted behind his ribcage. “You’re not as complicated as you think you are.”

He nudged her hand away when she climbed off him and tried to clean herself. “That’s for me to do.”

Her cheeks went pink. His wild girl? Shy? Now?

“Let me,” he added quietly. “It’s my privilege.”

He kissed her before she could say anything else, a searing claiming of her lips, her body, her everything. And then he tidied her up and insisted on carrying her back to Nettlestone Hall, where vampires and kittens and ghosts roamed freely, as safe as monsters could be.

Because of her.