To my annoyance, Wolfie laughed at me. “You should see the look on your face,” he explained. “At least you’re talking to your wolf now. What does she want?” My face turned bright red and Wolfie laughed even harder.
“Isn’t this supposed to be a date?” I countered to cover my embarrassment. “Yes, I agree, I need to figure out how to get my shift back under control so I can help Keith, but that’s work, and dates are supposed to be fun.”
Wolfie shook his head at me sadly. “That’s where you’re wrong, Terra. Shifting is fun. It’s a roller coaster and sexy as hell. How could you forget that?”
“Maybe shifts are like that for a bloodling,” I said, then regretted the words immediately when Wolfie’s head bowed down, his boyish enthusiasm gone.
“Is that how you think of me?” he asked. “Am I just a wolf to you?”
This was a tough question, and one I didn’t particularly care to answer. Having met Wolfie in wolf form, it felt natural to think of his wolf first and the man second. And the wolf did seem to be looking out of the man’s eyes a lot of the time, even when Wolfie was in human form. In fact, it was Wolfie’s strong canine presence that made me feel a little better about reclaiming my own wolf. On the other hand, I definitely didn’t have a fur fetish, and I thought Wolfie was unbelievably hot, so, no, I didn’t just see his wolf.
Oops, had I said that last bit out loud? This seemed to be the day for me to practice my blushing and for the sexy alpha to laugh at me, but it was better than seeing his head bowed down in pain.
“We’ll get to that,” Wolfie promised, tweaking my nose, which just annoyed me even more. “But it sounds like I now owe you a real, human date.”
***
“First dates are supposed to be awkward, right?” Wolfie asked after we were seated in a booth at the only restaurant in town—a Mexican joint with flashy sombreros lining the walls.
“Why? Do you feel awkward?” I asked. Wolfie never looked like he felt awkward, although he certainly seemed to prompt that emotion in the people around him. Just a few minutes earlier, the alpha had stared into the eyes of the man who held the door open for me until the guy let go of the handle and nearly crushed me with the closing door. I gathered the glare was due to Wolfie feeling possessive, because after the guy fled, my date had just smiled contentedly. The werewolf across from me hadn’t felt awkward about that faux pas though, and he certainly didn’t seem to be feeling awkward now either, so I was stumped by his question.
“Nope,” Wolfie replied, carefully easing the wrapper back onto his straw so he could shoot it across the room … again. “I just wanted to make sure you were getting the human-date experience.”
I had to laugh … and to put my hand over the straw to prevent him from firing round two. “I think this part of the date is where we’re supposed to get to know one another,” I explained, feeling like I was twenty years older than the guy across from me.
“Oh, right,” Wolfie said agreeably, pulling a printout from his pocket. He read over the page, mumbling to himself. “Who’s my best friend? You know that already. Do you have a nickname? Terra the Terror—pretty good. How about this—what was your family like growing up?” The alpha turned his gaze back on me and it was all I could do to restrain myself from reaching across the table and kissing him again. He was boyfully mischievous … and irresistible.
“Okay, you’re right, this is stupid,” I agreed. “What do you want to do on our date?”
***
We parked at an overlook, the valley spreading out below us and the first stars starting to blink to life in the indigo sky. Wolfie had selected a battered pickup truck from the three vehicles parked in front of the pack’s compound when we first left, and I’d initially thought that was a bit of a strange date ride. But now I realized that Wolfie had planned from the beginning to take me here, and hadn’t wanted a center console to stand in his way.
The alpha unbuckled his own seatbelt, then reached around to unsnap mine as well. As he pulled the straps away from my body, they grazed my belly, and I shivered in anticipation. “Are you still scared of me?” Wolfie asked, pausing as he misdiagnosed my tremor.
I shook my head. “No, that was a different kind of shiver,” I answered, my voice husky with emotion.
The wolf in my date’s eyes seemed even brighter as Wolfie smiled down at me. “Okay, so this is the lesson I had planned earlier,” he rumbled, his voice deepening as he scooted closer along the seat. “Your wolf and you share the same body,” he breathed in my ear, running one finger very gently down the side of my neck. “I want you to feel what she feels when I touch you here … and here … .”