Page 48
“But nobody knows. And you don’t know what your bite would do to me.”
“No.” His eyes reflect real fear now as he looks at me—fear for me.
I sit with that before I answer. “Thank you for stopping. I mean it. If neither of us knows what it would do, then I’m glad you stopped. But I’m not thanking you for deciding I’m better off without everything else.”
His eyes narrow. “Nora.”
“No. You’ve told me the truth tonight. Let me tell you mine,” I say, keeping my voice gentle. “I know you look at yourself and see a man fighting a monster. But it isn’t what I see.”
“You don’t know what I was like.”
“No. I only know you now.” I shift closer until our knees touch. “I know the man who stops to help me with groceries while complaining about it. The one who sits outside my window in the rain because some part of him wants to make sure I’m safe. The one who fixes curtain rails and kisses me like he can never get enough.”
“The wolf—”
I press my fingers over his mouth. “No. You do that every time. Talk about him like he’s someone else.”
“He is.”
“Is he?”
“Nora—”
I don’t back down. “When you were outside my window, did the wolf want to stay?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
His eyes darken. “Yes.”
“When you kissed me? When you held my hand?”
“Me.”
I nod. “And yesterday, when you wanted my throat under your mouth?”
His breathing changes.
“I’m not asking whether the instinct came from the wolf. I’m asking whether you wanted me too.”
His eyes flare amber. “Fuck, yes.”
Heat moves through me, but I don’t let it distract me from the thing that matters. “Then maybe I don’t need protecting from half of you. I don’t think there’s a half I’m allowed to like and another half I’m supposed to be afraid of. I think there’s just you.”
His hand goes still around mine, and a line appears between his eyebrows.
“Hewit, I don’t want you because I think I can fix something. There’s nothing for me to fix.” I lean closer. “You’re the one who has to decide what you think about becoming a wolf. I can’t do that for you. But I’m not waiting around for some safer version of you to appear because I already like the one sitting here.”
He looks at me for a long moment. “What do you want from me?” he asks roughly.
I don’t hesitate. “You. All of you.”
“Nora—”
“I know about the bite now. I know we don’t know what it would do. So we don’t do that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want the rest.”
I cup his face, holding his gaze as I stroke my thumb over his cheek. “I want you to kiss me. I want your hands on me. I want you inside me. I want to know what happens when you stop pulling away every time wanting me scares you.”
