“No idea. He had a bunch.”
Mason felt the heat from Lucy’s body as she peered over his shoulder while he flicked through the albums. His wolf urged him to pick her up, set her on the racks of records, and take her right there in the middle of As the Record Turns. The cashier, a mangy-looking dude with tiny braids in his beard and an unlit clove cigarette dangling from his tobacco-stained lips, probably would have enjoyed the show, but Mason definitely wasn’t into other people watching. Especially Lucy. Even a brief glance from another man sent his wolf into a fit of jealousy. So, he kept his cool and continued digging.
“Will this do?” He showed her one titled Frank Sinatra’s Greatest Hits. The man himself graced the cover with a cocky little smile Mason admired.
“Does it have Fly Me to the Moon?”
“Huh, I would have pegged you as a My Way kinda gal.”
She nudged him with her hip, sending spirals of desire straight to his cock. “Ha-ha. I’m actually partial to Moon River.”
“How apropos.” When she looked at him blankly, he sighed. “Moon River? Werewolf? Get it?”
“Oh God,” she groaned.
What he wouldn’t give to hear her moaning those words in his ear as he brought her to the edge of oblivion, over and over and over again. He pushed the image from his mind, but it was too late. His cock pressed hard and hot against the fly of his jeans.
“So what’s yours?” she asked.
Mason was so distracted by her soft curves grazing his side as she read the list of songs including on the album that he had no clue what she was talking about. “Huh?”
“Your favorite Sinatra song.”
“Oh. Sorry, I’m more of a Dean Martin guy.”
Lucy gasped and slapped a hand to her chest. If she’d been wearing pearls, he had no doubt she would have clutched them for dramatic effect. “Say it isn’t so!”
“Hey, your dad loved Sinatra. My mom was in love with Dino.”
“Mama’s boy,” she teased.
He grinned as he pulled a Dean Martin LP from the rack. “Guilty as charged. I guess we’ll just have to go back to your place and compare. My treat.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you were a glutton for punishment.”
He waggled an eyebrow at her. “You have no idea.”
Lucy blushed furiously and hurried out the door while he paid for the albums. He threw money at the kid behind the register and jogged after her, not wanting to let her out of his sight for a minute. He caught up with her as she entered the curio store again.
“What’s up?” He fell in step next to her.
“Since you bought that for me, it only seems fair that I buy your little ninja dude.”
“His name was Master Fu, and I don’t need a toy.”
“I don’t need a record,” she shot back.
“So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? Arguing over every little thing for the rest of our lives?” He chuckled, but Lucy didn’t.
She paled and turned away to the pay for Master Fu. Mason tried not to feel disappointed over her reticence to admit they were mates. His brain knew she’d come to eventually, and probably very soon. But in that moment, it still felt like a kick in the nuts.
The tension between them on the drive to her place drove Mason mad. He’d never felt so unsure in his life—an uncommon and extremely unwelcome feeling for an alpha. He vowed to let her take the lead, so when he pulled up in front of her place and she jumped out, he hesitated. Only when she glanced over her shoulder and said, “Coming?” did he follow.
By the time he closed her door—he’d had one of his men fix her broken doorknob—she was on the phone with the local pizza place. She gave him a quizzical look.
“Preferences?”
He shrugged.
“Okay,” she said into the phone, “make it a large Hawaiian. Thanks. It’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
“You could have warned me you were planning to ruin a perfectly good pizza with pineapple.”
“Hey, I asked,” she said, leaning against the kitchen entryway, the picture of health and sass. “If you don’t like the best pizza man ever invented, the door’s right there.”
“I’m not leaving until you admit I’m right.”
Mason looked around the living room until he spotted the record player. It was old, but of high quality. Real audiophile equipment that must have set Lucy’s father back quite a bit when he bought it. Lucy winced at the static crackling through the speakers as the needle skimmed over the old vinyl.
“I think I already won.”
Then the music started, and Mason turned to her with his hand held out. “Care to dance?”
“No way, I’m a terrible dancer.”
“I don’t believe it.”
She stepped away from the wall. Just a step, but it was a start. “I swear. One guy at a school dance asked if I had a bug crawling around under my shirt.”
Mason laughed. “Now I need to see you dance!”
He breached the distance between them and clasped one of her hands. It was soft and warm and full of life. “Don’t worry, I’m an excellent dancer.”
“Cocky as ever,” Lucy groaned, but she allowed him to pull her into his arms.
Her lush curves pressed into his chest, his stomach, his pelvis, his legs, driving his wolf wild. Driving him wild. His hands itched to skim those tempting peaks and valleys. Instead, he ground his teeth tight and simply swayed with her in his arms. She kept her hands on his shoulders, as if they were at a chaperoned middle school dance.
“It would be easier if you wrapped your arms around my neck,” he suggested coyly. The look in her eye told him he wasn’t fooling anyone, which he really hadn’t intended to.
“It would be easier if we were listening to Sinatra,” she countered, but she wound her arms around his neck anyway.
They swayed together in the middle of the room until the first side of the record ended. The player had a special feature that allowed it to automatically flip over the album and start the next side without human intervention. They continued swaying through the process, heedless of the fact the player made a hell of a racket doing its job. They were too engrossed in their own closeness to care about anything else.
Until the doorbell rang.
“Pizza!” Lucy cried, pulling free from his hold and leaving him utterly and painfully alone.
He knew she wanted him, he could have smelled her desire a mile away. Yet she denied herself. He didn’t really understand it, but she’d gone through so much in such a short period of time. Take a deep breath, he reminded his wolf, as much as himself. They’d promised to give her space. Taking a deep breath, he adjusted the crotch of his pants and sat on the couch.
Lucy returned with a slice of pizza dangling from her mouth. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she tossed the box at him and kicked back next to him, crossing her feet in his lap.
“Oh God, does everything taste so good when you’re a wolf?”
She moaned with delight. Mason never in his life imagined he’d be jealous of a slice of pizza.
“No idea. I’ve always been a wolf. But I suspect your change is progressing, so you probably have heightened senses.”
In less time than it took for the pizza to arrive, they’d devoured the entire pie—mostly Lucy. Her transformation was clearly using up a lot of calories, making her ravenous. Mason only hoped she’d be hungry for more than food. And soon.
“I don’t think I’ve ever eaten half a pizza before,” Lucy said as she stuffed their grease-soaked napkins in the empty box.
“Half?” Mason challenged.
She laughed and then stood, moving toward the door. “Thank you for a lovely day, Mason. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I had a lot of fun.”
Mason stood too, but he didn’t acknowledge her moon-sized hint. Instead he headed for the stairs. “I did too, Lucy. And now it’s time for bed.”
Ignoring her stuttering and huffing, he headed directly to her room, using his sense of smell to track it down. It probably looked exactly as it did the day her parents died—posters of old boy bands, a few vestiges of her obvious ‘pretty, pretty princess’ stage, and a closet full of outdated clothing.