Page 44 of Fate, Interrupted

A relationship doesn’t build with Silas. It just arrives.

I don’t have an explanation for that, and I’ve stopped looking for one.

Footsteps start somewhere deeper in the warehouse, steady against concrete. Nothing casual about it.

I don’t move.

Chapter thirteen

Silas

The dock eases back into its rhythm once the guys clear out.

Racks roll across the concrete inside, metal wheels catching and releasing in the steady cadence that usually fades into background noise within thirty seconds of me arriving anywhere in this building. A press releases a long, low hiss somewhere deeper in the warehouse. Someone near the sorting line says something that gets a short laugh, and the sound is swallowed quickly by the size of the space.

All of my attention stays fixed on Norah.

Her shorts leave most of her legs bare, and my eyes drop before I can stop them. I picture those legs around my waist, and my balls contract, and for a minute, I’m fourteen years old again. I almost groan with frustration. This isn’t me. I’m way too strategic to be into a human woman. The boner rising in my pants says otherwise.

This is not the reaction I should have after spending yesterday convinced I’d scared her off.

I want her physically. That part is obvious. But I’ve also spent weeks finding reasons to be near her without pushing too hard, and after yesterday I was certain I’d ruined it.

She climbs the concrete steps and stands on the dock apron. The wind catches in her hair, pulling loose the strands that didn’t quite hold where she tied it back. The strands float across her cheek, and she brushes them back with an impatient flick of her fingers, like they’re a distraction she doesn’t have time for. Her eyes don’t leave mine.

I have been with enough women to know when my body has decided ahead of my brain, and right now my body has made a very clear decision. My history with women has never been complicated—I find one I want, I pursue, the situation resolves itself. Clean. Simple. Norah is not resolving.

Shit. She’s driving me mad. I’ve never felt this way about a woman. My history of sport-fucking is legendary in the pack. But Norah is different. She thrills me physically; yes, there is no doubt about that, but this is about more than getting in her pants. I’ve been plotting and scheming about how to spend more time with her without scaring her away. And now, after yesterday, I knew I’d blown it.

My first thought is that she drove into this part of town, stepped onto a loading dock full of wolves and let Matt interrogate her without flinching. She shouldn’t have had to come here to prove anything to me.

The second is that she came anyway, and my wolf has been aware of her since before I stepped through the warehouse doors, since I heard Matt call my name and smelled her scent wafting across the dock and through the pressing room.

My wolf knew.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

My voice comes out rough, edged with irritation I don’t bother smoothing over.

Norah crosses her arms slowly. “That’s a strange way to greet someone who drove across town to see you.”

The wind changes again, loosening another strand of hair across her cheek. She brushes it back with the same impatient efficiency, not breaking eye contact.

“You came alone,” I say.

“Yes.”

“Into wolf territory.”

“It didn’t stop me.”

My pulse kicks harder. I drag a hand across the back of my neck and look past her toward the empty lot, the small sedan sitting near the fence, the absence of anyone with her.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” I say.

Her eyebrows lift slightly. “Done what? Come to see you? Come alone?”

“Yes, both.”