“Let me go,” I whisper. I could sass him when there was air between us, but now that I’m plastered to his heat, my wolf’s instincts are rising. Submit. Present.
“No.” He tugs my braid, tilting my head further back, forcing me to show my neck. It should be humiliating, but it’s not. Some primal part of me wants this. Craves it.
I swallow again and babble, desperately reaching for a handhold on reality. “Trip the girls. Pull their hair. What, are we back in school?”
“I never pulled your braid, Una Hayes. You hid up by the teacher.” He bends and nestles his nose in the crook of my neck, inhaling. Tingles zip down my spine. “Why don’t you smell like arousal?”
I don’t? Good, good. That would be too humiliating. But I feel something. New and powerful and terrifying.
But no, I don’t want to have sex with him. He’s Killian Kelly. I just got publicly humiliated. Again. And we’re out in the open. Anyone could walk past. There’s a bug zapper hanging a few feet away. I’m wearing an old lady’s sweater, and it smells like mints.
And yeah. He’s Killian Kelly. My mate who rejected me. I’m not turned on.
I try to pull my neck away from his nose, but his grip on my hair is too tight.
“I don’t like you,” I say. It’s such a stupid argument.
He nips at my shoulder. “You don’t have to. Do you think half the females in this pack like me? I’m the alpha.”
“I think it’s bigger.” My voice is breathless. Wobbly.
He stops messing with my neck and rises to his full height to gaze down at my upturned face. His forehead wrinkles. “What?”
“The number. It’s definitely more than half.”
Why am I baiting him? Is this how moon madness starts? With bad jokes and me getting my head ripped off by the braid, buck naked except for a borrowed cardigan?
He doesn’t laugh, but he doesn’t snap my neck like a twig, either. He kind of cocks his head. “Why don’t you like me?”
“Well—” I don’t know where to start, but I do know that saying pretty much anything honest would be a huge freakin’ mistake. “I mean, for one, you’re pulling my hair. It hurts.”
He stares at me for a long second, and then he smooths my braid so it hangs over my left shoulder. He tugs off the elastic, and with one hand, he undoes the sections, careful not to yank.
He combs his fingers through the loose strands. Slowly. Gently. His fingertips glance down the slope of my breast. It’s too light and fleeting to be full-on copping a feel, but I don’t think it’s accidental, either. Goosebumps break out down my arms and bare legs. No one touches me like this. Ever.
Nobody ever really touches me.
“I could make you hot,” he says. “Your wolf’s panting for it.”
She is—at this point, she’s presenting—and it’s beyond awkward. I’m not paying her any attention. If I did, my face would spontaneously combust.
“We’ve agreed to disagree on this one,” I mumble.
“There’s no division between the man and the wolf. That’s a heresy.” Killian says it like he learned the words by rote. I bet he did. It’s what the elders preach. The man and the wolf are two sides of the same coin.
Abertha teaches us differently. She says everyone’s connection to their wolf is unique, a creation of their own making. When people are fucked up, it’s because of an imbalance in the relationship. She says that’s what’s wrong with a lot of folks in this pack. Their heads are up their wolf’s ass.
But I don’t say that. I hedge a little. “I don’t see it that way.”
“And you know better than your elders?”
“There’s a division between you and your wolf.” It’s as clear as the color of his irises. And the fact that his wolf actually likes me.
“Is that so? And how do you know?”
Because he’s a cocky asshole, and his wolf is a giant, homicidal snuggle bunny.
“Because your wolf is in my thrall.” I almost gasp when I say it. It’s way more truth than I intended. I brace myself. That was a challenge. He can’t possibly take it any other way.
His already angular jaw clenches, throwing those neck muscles into even sharper relief.
Why did I say that? What is possessing me? This whole conversation is bonkers. I should apologize for whatever I did or didn’t do, according to him, and go on to live another day.
But the moon is casting the world in blue, and everything feels hyper real. Heat radiates off Killian, and I’ve never had an alpha this close to me before. I’m not “aroused” as he put it, but I’m—interested.