Page 60 of Bound to the Wolf
Even here, in a borrowed cottage with nothing to protect and no one depending on her, she couldn't sit still.
She heard the bray of a laugh track from some old sitcom Reece was watching and tried to put it out of her mind. She would have taken him for a sports guy, or maybe a World War II documentaries type, but he had been sitting there watching that sitcom for about two hours now. He’d even laughed at two or three of the jokes. Not that Delainey had been counting or cataloging his smiles.
God damn it.
She should have let the motherfucker get soaked by the rain if he wanted to stay out there. It wasn’t her job to save him. But this wasn’t her house, and she couldn’t exactly kick him out. They were both guests.
The pressure and the proximity was getting to her.
She remembered that night at the bar and bit her lip to keep from making a sound. She remembered the texture of the bricks behind her back as Reece backed her up against the wall, the even harder feel of his body against hers, and the purewantin his kiss as they stole a moment they should never have.
She tried to put it out of her mind, but all that succeeded in doing was summoning that night in the woods.
The feel of his hands against her, of his fingers inside her.
How had she ever been okay with that? But she couldn’t pretend she wanted to take it back, or that she didn’t want it to happen again.
Distantly, she heard Reece make a rumbling, growly sort of sound. She glanced at the TV, but there was nothing that would have caused it.
Maybe a dog had run across the screen and his wolf hadthoughtsabout it.
She remembered what it felt like to wake up in his arms, her whole body soft and pliant, and how it had taken every ounceof willpower not to paste on a dopey smile and say something absolutely ridiculous.
Fuck, she had it bad.
The memories hit her in quick flashes. Delainey put her hand against the wall, fingers curling and scraping into the drywall. Heat suffused her.
If Reece had been anyone else, but he wasn’t.
The want didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. They were stuck together. He was a werewolf. She was a witch. That might have felt like it mattered less and less every day, but eventually they would have to go back to reality.
Nico and Elise were already facing the stares and censure that came from their relationship. Delainey didn’t want to deal with the consequences.
Besides, if she and Reece tried something, she would probably kill him within a week, though a part of her reminded herself that they’d been living together for a week so far and no one was dead.
Of course, Reece had been in his wolf form most of that time.
Maybe he could transform overnight and sleep on the loveseat like it was a doggie bed. Was there any way she could possibly suggest that without it blowing up in her face? Delainey doubted it.
It was dark outside now, with only the sound of the storm and the occasional flash of lightning illuminating the place up. The lights flickered but stayed on. Wind gusted hard enough to rattle the front window in its frame and send a draft curling under the door across the hardwood.
“Is there a generator or anything out here?” she asked Reece, putting any sexy thoughts out of her mind and trying to focus on the practicalities.
He looked over his shoulder, gold eyes flashing, and a wave of want crashed over Delainey. She didn’t hide it in time.
From the way he sucked in a ragged breath, there was no hiding it now. He swallowed, and she watched it work its way down his throat. “No generator for the cottages,” he said. “There’s one at the big house.”
The power flickered again, and everything went black.
Fear flashed through Delainey for just a moment, then subsided. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, not really, but it was startling, and she hated the little gasp she made. She stayed standing where she was, right near the desk in the corner, and tried to let her eyes adjust.
It was so dark she could barely make out the outline of Reece on the couch.
“There’s a flashlight under the sink in the kitchen,” he said. In the dark, his voice was more intimate. It wrapped around her like a caress.
Because he couldn’t see her, or at least she thought he couldn’t, she let her eyes fall closed, relaxed, and enjoyed the way his smooth voice washed over her.
“There’s a candle on that table, right?” Delainey said.
