Page 7 of Fate, Interrupted

I shift slightly and cross my legs, the blood pumping between my thighs. Hoping he doesn’t notice the bead of sweat starting on my upper lip, I pick up my tea and take a sip.

The tea does absolutely nothing to cool me down.

“You read everything when you came in. That was the most thorough assessment of a shop I’ve ever watched someone conduct from a doorway.”

His expression warms, real and brief. “Why did you invite me back here?”

Fair question. I’ve been asking myself this for three minutes.

“Because you’ve been in my shop for twenty-three minutes,” I say, “asked twice as many questions as any customer who actually buys something, and showed approximately zero interest in the automotive section the moment you found it. Whatever you came in for, it wasn’t a manual. And you’re slightly more interesting than my re-shelving. God, that’s a terribly embarrassing thing to say out loud.”

He considers me for a moment. “So slightly more interesting than housekeeping. I think I’ve heard that one before, and it didn’t end well.”

I throw up my hand in protest. “Wait, wait. It’s way too early in our relationship to start sharing ‘ex’ stories.”

At that, he gives the first relaxed, genuine emotion I’ve seen so far. He throws his head back and laughs, perfectly brilliant white teeth gleaming.

I’m intrigued by this man. This wolf. More than intrigued, if the heat still sitting low in my body is any indication, but that isn’t the part I find most unsettling. I like him. Twenty-three minutes in, I already like being the person who can make that guarded face break into a laugh.

“There’s nothing more interesting in my past relationships than there is in this new one.” He says it as if it’s the most honest thing he’s said since he walked through my door.

His words hit squarely in the center of my chest. I leave them where they land.

Here is what I know about Silas Coulter. Twenty-three minutes in and one unasked-for cup of tea, he came in and read the room before he did anything else. He checked out the shelves and the ceiling, and the back wall, and then he focused on me, and whatever he found was enough to make him stay.

I’m afraid what’s making him stay is the same thing making it difficult for me to want him to leave.

I don’t particularly care for how quickly I’ve arrived at that realization. His gaze across my small table tells me he already knows that, and he has all the patience in the world.

But for me, it’s not the eyes. Not the jaw. Not the jeans, and not the heat of him in that narrow aisle.

It’s the patience.

That’s the part that’s going to be a problem.

Chapter three

Silas

She’s talking about modern fiction.

I know this because her mouth is moving, and words are coming out, and I can tell she cares deeply about what she’s saying. What I’m less certain of is whether I’ve absorbed any of it, because I’ve been sitting on this stool for long enough that my ass might be going numb. Besides which, being alone with Norah in the back room of The Last Chapter is wrecking my concentration.

It’s warm back here. Warmer than the shop floor, the overhead fans not reaching this far, and she’s close—across a table designed for one person eating lunch, not two people having a conversation. Besides, the lightweight cotton of her tank top does very little to conceal the curve of her breasts when she reaches past me to pull a book from the shelf behind my head.

I note this with the detached clarity of a man who has been celibate for six months and is only now registering how inconvenient that is.

Six months. The last time was at a wedding—here in Larkin, a pack from Maine in attendance that nobody had adequately warned me about. One of their women climbed into my pickup truck at the end of the night with the focused intention of someone who has already decided and is simply executing it. Dark-eyed, relentless—and conditional. She made that clear before anything else: she wanted to film it. On her iPhone. Non-negotiable.

I said yes.

I’m not entirely sure what that says about me. Nothing flattering. She was insatiable—wore me out within an hour—and I drove home alone with the distinct feeling that I’d made a decision I couldn’t entirely justify. Her pack was back in Maine by Sunday. I’d never see her again. I told myself that was the point.

Mostly I try not to think about it.

The point is: six months. I’ve been busy. The operation doesn’t run itself, and my brother, Logan, has had his hands full with the north corridor negotiations. Someone has to keep the warehouse efficient and profitable. Somehow, women stopped happening. I hadn’t noticed until three minutes ago when Norah Keane reached past me for a book to make a point. Her scent hits me at close range, and my wolf came fully, immediately awake.

There is a thing about wolf women. They’re direct about what they want, matched in energy and appetite to men, and the transaction is clean on both ends—no performance, no pretense, no morning-after ambiguity about what it meant. I appreciate that. I’ve always appreciated that. The Maine woman was an extreme version of it, but the principle holds.