Молли Харпер - How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf

“But you haven’t had a chance to rest from your run here. Besides, I did mace you. It’s the least I can do.”

“Mo, you seem nice and all, but I don’t think that’s a good idea—” Stepping around Cooper, I got as close to eye level with Samson as I could and used Cooper’s “brook no opposition” voice. “Samson, I’m going with you. Don’t waste time trying to tell me otherwise. Now, get your ass in Cooper’s truck, or we leave without you.”

Samson peered over my shoulder and grinned weakly at his cousin. “I like her.”

“Me, too,” Cooper said, his tone a little bleak as we walked back to the house to grab some clothes.

“Samson, can I get you a blanket or something?” Cooper asked, sending a pointed look in my direction as he pulled on a pair of jeans.

“Why cover up perfection?” Samson asked, winking at me. Now that Cooper had agreed to go home, he seemed to be sliding back into his natural persona—which apparently was “flirtatious goof-ball.”

I countered, “Well, I don’t allow bare ass cheeks on my upholstery, so if you plan on sitting down, I’m afraid I’m going to have to deprive myself of your glory.”

“I really like her,” Samson told Cooper as he shrugged into sweats and a sweater that were at least two sizes too small.

“Me, too,” Cooper said, sighing as if affection for me was some sort of affliction.

The two-hour drive to the Crescent Valley was strained at best. The three of us barely fit into the cab of the truck. Samson was fidgety, insisting that they’d be there already if they’d run. Cooper tried to ask questions about his grandfather but came off sounding like a general asking for a briefing before heading into battle. Samson’s answers weren’t terribly helpful, since he seemed to have run for Cooper’s place on instinct without first concerning himself with details.

“How’s Mom doing?” Cooper finally asked.

“Worried. She’s been at the clinic with Pops for hours,” Samson said. “She’ll be glad to see you. She worries about you, you know. She said you were too skinny the last time she visited. I’m surprised she didn’t try to strap a ham on my back when I left.”

“What about Maggie?” Cooper asked.

Samson rolled his eyes. “You know her. She’ll never change. But she’s pretty shaken up. I don’t think she’ll be together enough to go for your kneecaps again.”

I gasped. “You said it was your fingertips and an ear.”

“And kneecaps,” Cooper muttered.

“And the eyelids, both ass cheeks, and that time she got hold of your throat,” Samson reminded him cheerfully. “That was the time he tried to tell her that she had to leave the valley and go to college. I believe the edited-for-TV version of her response was something like ‘Fudge you, you’re not my gosh-darn alpha anymore. You don’t tell me to leave the fudging pack. Now, get the fudge away from me before I rip your—’ What? It was funny at the time.”

“And y’all just stand around watching while she tries to dismember him?” I scowled at Samson.

Samson shrugged. “Coop won’t let us help him.”

“I thought that the alpha was supposed to be all-powerful. Why can’t Cooper command her to stop biting off his body parts?”

“Because he won’t,” Samson said, glaring at him. Cooper stared at the road. “He just stands there and takes it, which is like giving her permission. If anyone else tried it, instinct would stop them from striking at the alpha, active or not. But Maggie basically has an open invitation.”

Cooper glared out the window. Samson seemed to get even more ADD when it was quiet, so I asked him about growing up with Cooper. Every time he started a story, Cooper glared at him, and Samson stopped talking. So he turned the tables and asked where I was from, why I’d moved so far from home. I gave them a brief, none-too-sanitized version of my childhood with Ash and Saffron.

I’m pretty sure Cooper thought I was making it up to make him feel better. Unfortunately, you can’t make up your dad getting popped for disorderly conduct at a Raffi concert. Ash believed “Baby Beluga” anesthetized children to the horrors of whaling. And hopped onstage during the encore to say so.

“Suddenly, so much about your personality makes sense,” Cooper said, wiping at his eyes as we drove past a sign marking the village limits. Samson was doubled over, gasping for breath.

“You know, I didn’t laugh at your painful backstory,” I reminded him.

“It’s hilarious, and you know it,” he said. “That’s why you told me, to make me feel better and take my mind off my grandfather. That’s part of the reason I love you.”

“You love me because I’m willing to humiliate myself to amuse you?” I asked.

“That’s sort of twisted.” Samson snorted. “I like it.”

We pulled up to a little cinder-block building marked “Clinic,” and I threw the truck into park. Samson climbed out, but Cooper stayed in his seat.

He cupped my face in his hands, tilting my chin so that I was looking right into his eyes as he spoke. “I. Love. You.”

“How bad do you think this is going to be?” I blanched dramatically in an effort to cover the Mothra-sized butterflies taking flight in my belly. He loved me. Cooper Graham, one of the most beautiful, amazing, frustrating people on the planet, loved me. And it didn’t scare me. I smiled. “What’s next? The St. Crispin’s Day speech?”

He grunted, exasperated. “Mo!”

“All right, all right. I love you, too, Cooper.”

“Pardon me, I think I’m going to yark,” Samson grunted through the open passenger door. “Come on, Cooper.”

Grimacing, Cooper followed me as I slid out through the driver’s-side door. Gripping my hand, he walked across the icy parking lot and through the clinic door. I was right behind him, with Samson bringing up the rear.

A dozen pairs of eyes were suddenly focused in my direction, and conversation died as Cooper’s entire family stared in undisguised shock at us standing in the doorway.

Awkward.

I’D EXPECTED EVERYONE IN the pack to be tall and sturdy like Cooper and Samson, but there was a wide spectrum of shapes and sizes in the lupine family tree. Some were as dark-skinned and petite as Evie; others were almost fair-skinned, with light brown hair and blue eyes. This must have been what Cooper meant about diluting the bloodlines. There were so many genetic strains here it was a wonder the wolf magic had been passed along at all. But it had produced some beautiful individuals.

Beautiful but distinctly not human. Cooper had always stood out to me, compared with our Grundy neighbors, although I assumed it was because he was so spectacularly handsome . . . or that he pissed me off so much more than other Grundy residents. Now that I saw a pack en masse, the difference was obvious, and I was nervous. Even the products of “dead lines” seemed sinuous in their movements, purposeful. Their eyes took in everything around them, processing and cataloguing information that might be used later. And they were plowing through a box of doughnuts as if carbs were about to be declared illegal.

“Pops!” Samson thundered across the crowd, dragging Cooper and me in his wake. “Look who’s here to talk some sense into you.”

Samson pulled us into a little exam room off the crowded, cheerfully decorated waiting room. Cooper’s family tried too hard to seem as if they’d returned to normal conversation. It was as if a director had yelled, “And . . . background noise!” to a bunch of really untalented movie extras.

I was stunned when I saw Cooper’s grandfather for the first time. Noah Graham might have been laid up in a hospital bed napping, but strength radiated off him like body heat. His face was tanned and leathery, topped by a full tuft of iron-gray hair. A thin green knit blanket covered a body that still seemed solid, capable.