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“Kit.” He said it like he was testing the feel of it in his mouth.

“You always this intense with bartenders?” I asked, running the card through even though every instinct told me to just keep looking at him instead.

“Only the ones worth being intense about.”

I handed the card back, let my fingers brush his on purpose, watched something flicker behind those strange gold eyes. It was lust, plain and uncomplicated, and no games in it at all. It made my stomach do that little flip again. I loved when people were honest.

“You’re trouble,” I said. “And I don’t like to deal with trouble-makers.”

“You sure do like to run that mouth of yours even when you don’t mean it,” the werewolf grinned, his sharp canines gleaming in the dim light. “But I can think of a better way to put it to use.”

“Oh?” I asked, leaning down on the bar so he had a good view of that jockstrap I’d put on to get more tips. “Is that so?”

That grin of his didn’t fade. “Here’s how this is going to go, kitten,” he said, making a pun out of my name, which, to be honest, was sort of clever. “You’re going to tell me when your shift ends. I’ll pick you up, take you back to my place, fuck you senseless, and then I’ll call you an Uber. You’ll go home and be sore for a week after I knot you. Then, if you can manage to stop thinking about me, maybe I’ll give you a call again just to remind you what a real cock feels like.”

I should have had a comeback ready. I always had a comeback ready. But for a second my brain just short-circuited, stuck somewhere between the word knot and the low rasp he’d said it in. All I managed was a soft exhalation that came out more like a laugh than I meant it to.

“Confident,” I said, once I’d found my voice again. “I like that in a man.”

“I’m not a man. I’m a wolf.” He picked up the glass, took a slow sip, watching me over the rim the whole time. “And I’m just giving you a fair warning.”

“Very considerate of you.” I grabbed a napkin, more for something to do with my hands than anything else, and wiped down a spot on the bar that didn’t need wiping. “And what makes you so sure I’m interested?”

“The way you’re shaking that little ass around? Please. You’re begging for it.”

He had a point, and I hated that he had a point. I glanced down the bar. Reggie was busy with a group of regulars, the woman with the beer was scrolling on her phone, and the guy I’d embarrassed was gone. Nobody needed me in the next thirty seconds. So I stayed right where I was, elbows on the bar, and let my eyes drift over him again, slower this time, from the notch in his ear down to those blunt claws wrapped around the glass.

“Ten o’clock,” I said. “That’s when I’m off.”

“Ten o’clock,” he repeated, like he was setting an alarm in his head.

“You got a phone or am I supposed to howl for you?”

That got a real laugh out of him, short and rough. He pulled his phone out of his jacket and slid it across the bar, and I typed my number in fast, like if I thought about it too long I’d talk myself out of it, then slid it right back.

“Don’t waste my time,” I told him, because I needed to say something to feel like I still had the upper hand, even if it was only a little bit.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, kitten.”

He finished his drink in one long pull after that, set the glass down with a soft clink, and left a tip that made my eyebrows go up before he even stood. He was even bigger standing than he’d been sitting, and he stopped for just a moment, those golden eyes taking me all in once more. Heat flooded through my body as I realized I was his willing prey.

Then he was gone, swallowed up by the cold air and the crowd outside. I was left standing there with my pulse going a little too fast and two and a half hours left on my shift that suddenly felt like the longest two and a half hours of my life.

I spent the rest of my shift in a low simmer of distraction, the kind that made me shortchange a guy on his whiskey and pour a Guinness with way too much head because I forgot to tilt the glass. Reggie noticed. Of course he noticed.

“Where’s your head at tonight?” he asked, sliding the ruined pint out of my hands and pouring it down the drain himself.

“Nowhere,” I said, which was a lie so obvious I didn’t even bother making it convincing.

He just grunted and went back to restocking the cooler, and I went back to checking my phone every four minutes like an idiot, even though I knew Brandon wasn’t going to text until ten. There was no reason to text before then. We both knew the deal. But I checked anyway, because the anticipation was its own kind of torture and I wasn’t above enjoying it.

By nine-thirty the bar had thinned out to the die-hards and the lonely, and I found myself replaying the whole conversation in my head, the way he’d said knot like it was nothing, like it was just a fact of biology he expected me to already understand. I’d been with werewolves before. I knew what that word meant, knew what it would feel like stretching me open, but there was something about the way he’d said it. He was so matter-of-fact, with no hesitation, like he knew he was the best lay I’d ever have. And it had gotten under my skin, which wasn’t normal for me.

At nine fifty-eight my phone buzzed against the bar top, and I nearly knocked over a rack of glasses lunging for it.

Brandon: Outside. Whenever you’re ready, kitten.

I looked up at Reggie, who was already watching me with that knowing, tired look bartenders get when they’ve seen every version of this before. “Go,” he said, before I could even ask. “You’re useless to me like this anyway.”