Молли Харпер - The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf

“Funny,” I muttered.

“I know this is going to sound like a line, but I think we need to get you out of those wet clothes,” he said, pulling my boots off. I pushed his hands away and yanked them off myself. “It’s going to get cold in here, even with the blankets.”

“I have an extra set of sweats in here, just in case,” I told him, not bothering to add that they were there “just in case” I woke up naked in a strange place after a run, which was sort of an occupational hazard.

“I’ll turn around,” he said.

I arched my brows, then laughed as he dutifully turned his back and covered his eyes.

When you spend so much time around people who pay no attention to nudity, you forget niceties like modesty. It was sort of strange, but a refreshing change from guys who paid no attention when my boobs were exposed to God and everybody. It was nice to have a little mystery about me . . . you know, beyond the furry issue.

I peeled the wet shirt over my head and slid into the warm, dry sweatshirt. It felt absolutely delicious against my skin. It took a bit of effort to fight my way out of the wet jeans, but it was worth it to pull on the dry sweatpants.

Now that the adrenaline was wearing off and I was seventy-five percent sure we weren’t going to die, I was suddenly so tired I felt as if I’d just run a marathon. I pulled my hair into a messy bun on top of my head. I wasn’t going to win any beauty contests, but I was comfortable and warm. I couldn’t want much else.

“You decent?” he asked.

“Depends on who you ask,” I retorted.

He turned, pulling the emergency bag open. “And for dinner, we have our choice of protein bars that taste like peanut butter or protein bars that taste like chocolate and dirt. Paired with a lovely domestic bottled water.”

“I think I’m going to go with the peanut butter,” I said, shuddering. “The chocolate and dirt one lives up to its reputation.”

“Excellent choice,” he said, tossing the packet to me.

I stripped off the foil and shoved most of the protein bar into my mouth. Between the run and keeping warm, my body was starved for calories. His eyes went wide, and I swallowed. I tended to forget my table manners when I was hungry.

“I eat when I’m nervous,” I told him.

“How’s your head?”

“Feels like there’s a drunk marching band in there,” I said, gingerly rubbing my temple. “And the tubas are way off-key.”

“Well, your pupils look good, but we should probably keep you awake for a while, just in case you have a concussion,” he said. “Talk to me. Why’d you run off like that earlier?”

“You couldn’t think of something a little more small-talkish before diving right into the deep end?” I griped.

“What’s your favorite color?” he asked.

“Blue.” I sighed, staring up into his eyes and hating myself for being such a sappy masochist.

“What do you think of the Red Wings’ chances this season?”

“They’ll be fine until the Avalanche take the ice,” I muttered, biting off another hunk of protein bar.

He snorted. “OK, then, why did you run off earlier?”

“I don’t like how you make me feel,” I said, my lips somewhat loosened by exhaustion, warm dry clothes, and the weight of the protein bar in my belly.

His eyes widened in alarm. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean—”

“No, I mean I like you, too much. You make me forget. You make me feel like you’re more important than anything, and I can’t let that be.”

“Why not?” he asked, pushing my hair behind my ears.

“I have to take care of everybody,” I said, yawning.

“And who takes care of you?”

I smiled at him. “Me.”

“Nobody takes care of themselves all the time.”

“Who takes care of you?” I asked.

He grinned suddenly. “Me.”

“There you go.” I blinked again, letting my eyes droop closed.

“No, no,” he said, pinching my arm lightly. “Stay awake.”

“Ow,” I grumbled, swatting at his hand. “OK, fine. Tell me something. Anything. Tell me anything. Where are you from?”

“I’m from Reno, originally,” he said, tucking a blanket around my shoulders. “My mom ran out on us when I was five or six. Didn’t give much of a reason, but she’d made it clear that she didn’t like being a mom nearly as much as she liked getting loaded or going to the casino with her friends.”

“You don’t believe in personal-history small talk, either, do you?” I asked wryly.

“I’m hoping you’ll reciprocate,” he said. “I always thought Dad was just putting up with her, but he sort of fell apart after she left. I’d never seen him drink more than one beer at a time, but he started drinking the better part of a six-pack as soon as he came in from work. I was handling the bills and signing my own report cards by the time I was eight. Dad lost one job and then another, so we started moving around. I think the highlight of my truancy report was the year I spent more time out of school than in it. Still, my grades were good. And by the time I hit high school, I was able to get a job, start sharing some of the load. I figured I could keep us in one town for a while, so I could go to school. We ended up in Darien, Connecticut, of all places. I went to class in the mornings and then did whatever I could at night, loading groceries from trucks, convenience-store clerk, mucking out stalls at a dairy farm, sawing limbs for a tree trimmer—which is how I developed an interest in climbing, by the way.

“Dad died in the middle of my senior year, liver failure. Mom sent a registered letter asking if he’d kept up his life-insurance payments. I had a guidance counselor who actually cared about her job and helped me get a full scholarship to a minor state school.”

“That’s impressive,” I told him.

He shrugged. “I had enough grant money to stop working and just be a student. It was the first time I remember being able to just sit and study and read. And that’s all I did. It kind of freaked my roommate out. I wasn’t used to living with someone who liked to talk. I think Dane was convinced I was going to go postal on him, but two months into the semester, he put in this Star Trek DVD. I’d never seen the show. I started asking questions. And that’s all it took. He was really into comics, sci-fi, role-playing games, and he shared it with me. He dragged me to all these conventions and meetings. It was fun. I’d never really had a friend before. So I just went along. Kind of pathetic, isn’t it?”

“No. It’s sort of sweet.”

He looked faintly embarrassed. “Dane was always going on about this online multiplayer game software he was designing. It was different from anything we’d ever seen, an Internet-based joint experience among gamers all over the globe. A fully developed world where they could chat, build their characters, and, most important, pay subscription fees and buy upgrade packages. He spent every cent he had on hard drives for his ‘rendering farm.’ He told his former jock dad he’d joined some hard-core gym, swindling Daddy Dearest out of a few hundred a month, which he has paid back in spades, by the way. The game looked great, but he was having trouble coming up with character options and story lines. He was a genius with code but crap at storytelling. I filled in the gaps. I’d just taken a class in mythology. I’d served as dungeon master for a couple of our D&D games.”

“I don’t even want to know what that means.”

He poked me in the ribs, his mood lightening. “It just means I wrote the story lines for the game. Pervert. Anyway, I wrote a bunch of different scenarios and created a colorful cast of characters. I based them on the stories we studied in class. I took a little Celtic mythology, some Greek, some Norse, some faerie lore, swirled in a little Tolkien, and voilà, you had Guild of Dominion.”