Without pause, I held his jaw tenderly and kissed him on the mouth. Our kiss tasted like tears, but it was beautiful. His hands found my hips and slid beneath my shirt, stroking the small of my back. I’d never been so forward with my affection, but Reno did something to me, something I couldn’t explain. Maybe it was pheromones, or maybe it was the fact that he’d bought me a houseful of decorations to make my self-made prison into a palace. My body ignited and I gripped his strong shoulders.
His mouth scraped away from mine and down my jaw, kissing my neck. I tipped my head up and moaned quietly, my breaths heavy and my body insatiably hungry. Then he broke contact and leaned back.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He stood up and lowered his eyes guiltily. “I don’t expect payment, April. That’s not why I did this.”
My eyes widened. “Do you think that I’m paying you off with a sexual favor?”
“Then why would you kiss me?”
“Because I’m attracted to you, Reno. No one does stuff like this,” I said, waving my hands around the room. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me before and it shows me what a big heart you have. But you’re right. We shouldn’t do this because it’s all wrong. I can’t keep any of this stuff.”
“You’re keeping it,” he decided, unloading more groceries and putting them in the fridge. “I’ll stay outside at night so it won’t be weird for you.”
“Oh sure. There’s nothing weird about you sleeping outside my front door in the mud.”
He shrugged and put a bag of Oreos in the cabinet. “My wolf doesn’t mind and I can always sleep in the truck.”
“Can I have some of those?”
He turned his head and his eyes danced with amusement. “These?” he asked, holding up the blue bag as the plastic rattled.
I nodded and returned an impish smile. I hadn’t had cookies in forever. “Is there any milk?”
“Right here, princess,” he said, opening a jug and pouring me a tall glass. He peeled open the bag and sat down beside me, putting the cookies in my lap. “So where do you want the table I’m going to build for you?”
I twisted the cookie apart and scraped the filling off with my teeth. There seemed little point in resisting his kindness; Reno was dead set on doing things his way and it was hard to stay mad at him. “Right there,” I said, pointing to the left of the door. “I’m going to put Hermie on top and my books on the shelf below.”
Reno set my glass on the table and lifted up a paperback book with a bare-chested man on the front. “This book?”
My face turned six shades of red when he began thumbing through it. “Give me that!”
A laugh pealed out and he leaned to the right, out of my grasp. Then he began reading a passage from the page I had marked. Well, what Trevor had bookmarked.
Oh. My. God.
“‘His shaft glided into her velvety canal, exploring deep inside her like a man discovering new depths of passion. She moaned, rocking sweetly against him, their bodies marrying and clashing like waves in a violent storm. He laved her sweet nipples and they hardened against his tongue. His blood heated and his thrusts spiraled out of control…’ Hot damn, April,” Reno said, looking at me with an astonished expression. “You read this?” He glanced over his shoulder and I stuffed another cookie into my mouth.
“Trevor.”
“And I suppose you read Shakespeare,” he said sarcastically, setting the book back down.
“Why are you trying to make me ashamed of what I like? It’s a novel. There are stories in there about love and adventures, and yes, sometimes there’s sex.”
“I’m not judging you, April. I think it’s sexy as hell you read this kind of stuff. I don’t know about these word choices, but it sounds classier than some of those magazines.”
A laugh burst out of my mouth. “Magazines? Exactly what kind of literature are you reading?”
“A man has needs,” he said in a low voice.
“You don’t strike me as a man who has trouble getting women. I didn’t picture you as the magazine type. Do you order them off the Internet or buy them at the gas station?”
His brow arched and he grabbed a cookie, shoving it into his mouth without any twisting, licking, or nibbling. “So, are you trying to make me feel ashamed about what I read? That’s a little hypocritical.”
“Are we reading those magazines, or just admiring the racy photographs?” I gave a spirited laugh and Reno handed me the milk. Then I realized I probably had chocolate teeth and took a long sip, putting the cookies aside.
“What’s it like? Shifting, I mean. Does it hurt?”
“No. It feels like… I don’t know how to explain it,” he said, rubbing his chin. “It’s like sliding into a pool of water or something. I can only remember a few minutes into my shift—after that, my wolf takes over.”
“And you don’t remember anything after that?”
“Zip. Total blackout. It’s like that for most of us. Alphas are more likely to remember the entire shift because they have control of their animal, although I’ve heard stories about others who weren’t alphas having the same talent. I don’t know how they do it. I personally enjoy having a break.”
I pulled up my legs and twisted the frayed edges surrounding the hole in my jeans. “Were you born that way?”
“Yeah. I’m a different species than you.”