The slow draw of air through her nose was all I needed to confirm that Sylvie was all but grinding her teeth in mild irritation. I didn’t say anything more. Instead, I just waited to hear her response.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
Somehow she refrained from adding the word “else” to her question. That showed some serious willpower because I had been testing her, seeing if I could provoke her. Doing so could be extremely dangerous to my well-being, but if it revealed that she was just acting, keeping up a fa?ade until it broke, it would be worth it.
But she didn’t crack. Didn’t even give a whiff of being anything but who she claimed to be. And with every further poke and probe, my wolf became more convinced that it had to have her. That
Ihad to have her.
And I was losing reasons to deny it.
“You have no candles,” I told her, opening yet another cupboard.
“Why would we need candles for dinner?”
I turned and looked over my shoulder at her, watching the way her perfect face scrunched up, bringing the dimples in her chin to the fore. I enjoyed it when they were visible. Something feminine about it just struck me.
“No,” she said, shaking her head as she clued in at last, without a word from me. “Nuh-uh. This is not a date. Remember?”
I stared, letting my eyes linger on her lips and trying not to focus too hard on what they would taste like.
“
It’s not a date,”
Sylvie said with a bit more force.
“It kind of is,” I said, turning my back on her to continue looking through the cupboard, well aware it would irk her. “We’re two people, spending time together, to get to know one another, with heavy undertones of physical-“
“Will you stop rifling through my grandmother’s stuff!” she yelped before I could finish my sentence.
Not that I needed to. She knew what I was getting at. I knew that she knew. And around and around it went. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw it all play out on her face too. I had said the quiet part out loud. The closest we’d come yet, to acknowledging … whatever lay between us. I had broken that barrier. Confessed to being interested in her. Wanting her.
She had no idea just how badly.
A sly look came over her face just then. “Youwant this to be a date.” She was nodding as she spoke, her head moving faster as the words came out. “You aren’t just teasing me.”
“Did you think I was lying?” I asked, curious where she was going, and what the look represented.
“Maybe I didn’t believe it,” she said with a shrug. “But now I do.”
“And what does that change?”
“Everything.” She smiled smugly.
“How so?” I wasn’t following her train of thought.
“For starters, now I have the power. All of it.” She was still smiling. “If you want it to be a date, you have to do what I want. Or else it won’t be.”
There were a million holes in that logic that I could drive my truck through, but I let it lie.
“What’s your point?” She had something in mind. But what?
The smile that curled her lips upward was as wickedly delightful as anything I’d experienced before. Various parts of my body threatened to lurch into motion, but I fought them down eventually. Now was not the time for that.
“I want some answers,” she said. “So if you want to know where the candles are, you can start by telling me what happened last night.”
“Last night?”
The smile faded. “Don’t. Just don’t with me, Lincoln.”
“It was a wild animal,” I said, not happy with the half-truth. It might not be an outright lie, but it certainly wasn’t the full truth either. “I never did find out what. I tracked it deeper into the forest but never could pinpoint what.”
She looked at me, obviously trying to decide if she believed me or not.
“I know it’s not that exciting,” I continued. “No bogeyman in the middle of the night to grab me and possess me.”
I let my words slow and slur near the end while also drooping open a corner of my mouth. Then, lifting my arms straight out in front of me, I took a lurching step toward her.
“
Brraaiiiinnssss,” I moaned.
“Very funny,” Sylvie said, crossing her arms and trying to sound serious.
The giant smile on her face betrayed her completely.
“
Brraaiiiinnssss.”
I took another step toward her, my arms bouncing in front of me, reaching for her.
Sylvie rolled her eyes.
“
Caannddddllles,” I moaned, now only one step away from her.
Laughing outright now, Sylvie pointed to the next room over. “Left drawer of the hutch in the dining room. There should probably also be some matches in there too. But they aren’t for eating. Or shoving up your nose. I’m not sure you could spare thebrraaiiiinnpower.”
I stopped and looked at her. “That was bad, Sylvie. Bad.”
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