by Selena Scott
“Why not!” Diana said, her hands on her hips. “You didn’t even look at yourself in the mirror!”
“They smell.”
She sniffed them, confusion lining her features.
“Like plastic,” he clarified.
“Ah. Okay. No plastic frames. We can work with that!” She sounded bright and bubbly as she moved a ton of them to one side of the tray, apparently disregarding them.
The next pair she put on his face were so light, he barely felt them there, and he was ready to tell her that that was creepy and that he hated them, when she leaned down to straighten them over his face. Their noses weren’t more than six inches apart as she narrowed her eyes and eyed him critically, her fingers touching his cheeks and ears and then the bridge of his nose.
“Nope,” she decided. “Not quite right.”
She took the glasses off of him and reached back for another pair.
Orion blinked.
She put the next pair on him, doing the same thing, touching his face, his hairline, pressing her thighs into his knees as she leaned over him. This time, she also brushed at his shoulder and straightened his shirt a little. Cocking her head to one side.
“What do you think?” she asked, stepping aside so that he could see himself in the mirror. She came to stand behind him, leaving her palm on his shoulder and leaning her weight into him just a little bit.
What did he think? He think-ed he was about to get a boner in this glasses store if he wasn’t careful.
Then he glanced at himself in the mirror and grimaced. His face in a pair of glasses. There was a boner killer if he ever saw one. “No.”
“All right,” she said brightly. “How did these ones smell? They have metal frames instead of plastic.”
“Bad,” he responded, ornery and milking it.
“Okay. Oh! These ones are perfect!”
She picked up a pair of glasses and again, moved to slide them onto his face. This time, apparently deciding that she needed to get closer, she wiggled in between his legs and stood half an inch away from his crotch. She bent down close enough to kiss him, if that had been her intention, and straightened the frames on his face.
“Mmm,” she said, making a low, tempting noise in her throat. “I like these ones.”
He shifted in his seat, halfway in heaven and halfway in hell.
Friends.
Friends.
Friends, he reminded himself.
His hands twitched at his side as he peered around her and caught sight of her bent-over ass in the mirror. He didn’t even glance at his own face or the glasses there. She licked her lips and his eyes fell to her mouth.
“How do these ones smell?” she asked. “The frames are made of wood, so I thought they might not be as offensive to you.” She leaned forward, planting her hands on his shoulders and took a deep inhale at his temple. “Mmm,” she made that sound again.
He shifted again.
She pulled back, her hands on his shoulders, eyeing him. “These work for me, Orion.”
He wasn’t quite sure what her words meant. But he knew exactly what her facial expression meant. She stood up straight, still between his spread legs, and there were her high breasts. Right there in his face. If he’d leaned forward a foot, he could have taken one in his mouth, wetted her shirt, bitten down. Punished her and pleasured her. Just exactly as she was doing for him right this second.
“Finding everything okay over here?” A man’s nasally voice asked.
Orion jolted, a little surprised to remember that they weren’t the only two people left in the shop. In the world for that matter.
He had to get out of here.
Friendsfriendsfriends.
He needed to hightail it out of here before he lifted Diana’s skirt and took a bite out of her ass.
And he knew, without a doubt, there was only one way she was letting him leave here.
“Yes,” he responded to the man, standing up so fast that he jolted her backwards a few steps. “We’ll take these. She has my prescriptions.”
Diana grinned at him, wide and genuine and thrilled. “And six months worth of contacts as well,” she added.
It was twenty minutes later, as they sat in the gourmet sandwich shop, elbow to elbow at the counter, watching the world pass by on the sidewalk and their mouths chock full of sandwich, that the penny dropped for Orion.
He took a huge gulp of his iced tea, washing his bite down his throat as he turned to survey Diana.
He only needed to observe the satisfied expression on her face to know that his theory was completely and utterly right.
“You played me.”
She covered her mouth with a napkin and turned to him, those stunningly large eyes of hers the picture of innocence. “What’s that?”
“In the glasses store. You completely and utterly played me.”
She swallowed her bite, and took her time taking a long drink of iced tea, her eyes on his over the top of her glass. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, neither confirming nor denying his claim, thus completely confirming it.
He lowered his eyebrows at her. “I may have only been a part of the human world for a year, Diana, but I wasn’t born yesterday. You played me.”
“How, exactly, are you claiming that I played you?”
“You rubbed up against me and shoved your tits in my face until I would have agreed to elective surgery if asked.”
Her eyes goggled as she halfway choked on a bite. “You said ‘tits’ to me.”
Her mouth was full of food and she looked utterly shocked.
He shrugged his shoulders, raising his eyebrows.
Turning to gaze, unseeing, out the window in front of them, Diana mused, “No man has ever said ‘tits’ to me before.”
This was not a surprise to Orion.
“That’s because they see the hair and the eyes and the shoes and the skirts and the ‘that’s highly inappropriate, Mr. Wolf’ and they think you’re fancy. So they don’t say things like ‘tits’. But I’m figuring you out, Diana.” He shook his sandwich in her direction. “You’re not fancy at all. You just know how to get what you want. Sometimes that’s for your employees to be on time to work and get their jobs done. Hence the—” he waved his hand up and down her generally spic and span appearance. “And sometimes that's for your clients to agree to some dumbass glasses. Hence the—” He leaned forward and shook his chest like he had a nice rack. “And sometimes that’s just a sandwich. Hence the—” He demonstrably shoved the last gigantic bite of sandwich into his mouth, just barely finishing his before she finished hers.
She stared at him, looking torn between laughing and leaving. “I should dump this iced tea over your head.”
He shrugged again. “It’s annoying when someone figures out your game.” His eyes slanted to hers. “Get used to it.”
“I thought you were a nice man.” Her eyes twinkled with something, squinting in a flirty way he knew she couldn’t quite control.
“I am a nice man. I also told you I was the best hunter out of everyone in my family. Which means I know how to read animals. And you, Diana, pretend to be fancy. But you’re an animal just like the rest of us.”
“You aren’t so hard to figure out, yourself,” she told him smugly. “All it took was some tits to the face and bam. Putty in my hand.”
He was enjoying this way too much. Hearing Diana say tits was making him want to laugh way too loud for this restaurant, bend her over backward, kiss her very soundly.
“Yeah, well, you’re in for a surprise. Because you may have gotten me to agree to buy them, but there’s no way in hell I’m wearing those glasses.”
She shrugged. “That’s your business, I suppose. Far be it for me to tell you what to do with a gift.”
“A gift?” He lowered his brows. “What do you mean a gift—” He groaned and dropped his face into his palm. It hadn’t occurred to him yet that he hadn’t paid anyone at the store for the glasses. This w
hole currency thing was a little new to him and he hadn’t questioned it when Diana had just arranged to have the glasses dropped off at his house when they were ready later in the week. “You bought those for me?”
She finished off the last of her potato chips and dusted her hands off, smiling smugly at him. “Sure did. A gift from me to you.”
“You’re an evil genius. Now, not only do I have to wear them, I have to freaking treasure them.”
Her playful expression softened and the teasing energy between them waned into something velvety. “You don’t have to treasure them.”
He huffed. “You know I’m going to. You could toss some old tin cans into a box and give it to me for Christmas and you know I’d treasure it.”
“I’ll add tin cans to my shopping list come holiday season.” Her words were joking but her expression had gone very serious. “Orion—”
“I’m tired,” he told her, cutting her off intentionally. He had an intuition that she was just about to tell him that things were getting too confusing between them. That sleeping next to one another and flirting and spending all this time together wasn’t going to work for her. “I think I’ll just hop on the bus.”
There was no way he was going to get in a car with her and give her twenty minutes to let him down gently. If she wanted to do that, she was going to have to chase him down.
“Oh.” Her eyes went wide when he cleared up their baskets and trash at warp speed, holding out a hand to help her hop down from her stool. He saw her glance at her watch and he knew, just from the light in the sky that it was barely past six. She’d probably been expecting them to pass the entire evening together, if not the entire night.
But no way was he giving her that much of an opening to explain that things needed to go back to the way they’d been. Back to distant and aloof and her always frustrated with him. He knew that some scared part of her preferred it that way. And honestly, he’d give her almost anything in the world. But he wouldn’t give her that. He wasn’t moving backwards with Diana. It was a nonnegotiable for him.
He leaned down, kissed her firmly on the cheek and gave her hand a squeeze. “Maybe we’ll have dinner next week.”
And then he was gone, leaving her standing in the sandwich shop while he flagged down the bus that was just passing.
CHAPTER NINE
A week later, Diana was sitting in her bed, the covers pulled back while she rubbed lotion onto her hands and face. She slid the cool, smooth sheets over her legs and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom.
Four more times she’d had dinner with Orion.
And four more times he’d bailed extremely early into the night. She had no idea what to make of it. He wasn’t tiring of her company, Diana was positive. Because he never left without figuring out a time he could see her again soon. He was now the person that Diana saw the most often out of anyone in her life. Even most of her employees and clients she only saw two or three times a week. Orion was quickly surpassing that.
Besides, this evening, right before he’d practically sprinted after the city bus passing them by, Diana had grabbed his hand, sensing he was about to flee. “It’s still early,” she’d said to him.
“I know,” he’d replied in a quiet voice. “Dinner in two nights? I’m working tomorrow night.”
She’d still held his big, warm, callused hand in two of hers, squeezing down gently on his palm. “Sure. But what about tonight? You really have to go? We haven’t read any of the book in a while.” Not since they’d fallen asleep on her couch and she’d jumped into his arms the next morning.
His expression had been torn and desirous and… trepidatious. He’d taken a long, deep breath, his eyes bouncing between hers. “I’m not gonna wear out my welcome, Diana. I’ll see you in two days.”
And then he’d been gone.
And she’d been left to think about those words -obsessively- for hours. What the heck did that mean? He wasn’t going to wear out his welcome? She honestly wasn’t sure how much more welcoming she could be at this point. Didn’t he know at this point that ‘reading their book’ was code for spending the night together? She’d practically begged him to come home and fall asleep with her. She was penciling him in to every single night he asked for. She was viciously aware of the fact that every single night that he didn’t have work he was asking to see her.
But he seemed committed to keeping things casual. They never even ate at restaurants where there were waiters! She loved his laid-back nature, his lack of a need to impress her, but for cripes sakes! The man was going full-sandwich on her!
It was with that thought in her head that Diana reached over to her nightstand and pulled up his number on her phone. Though he used to call her all the time, just to leave her a message or say good morning or good night, they hadn’t had a phone call with one another since she’d laid down the law about their friendship. Not once had he pushed her on that, broken the rule.
A few seconds of ringing and then his deep voice. “Diana?”
“Are sandwiches your favorite food?”
There was a pause, some rustling on the other end of the line. And in such an Orion sort of way, instead of balking at her out-of-the-blue question, he just answered it. “No. They’re the only type of food I know how to make. But noodles are my favorite food. Thai noodles. Or the kind that come in clear soup.”
“Then how come we’ve never eaten noodles together?”
There was another long pause. She knew that he was trying to read between the lines. Most likely he was failing, considering how little experience he had with human culture. But even someone who’d been born and raised around humans might have lost her train of thought in this conversation.
“I’m getting that feeling,” he eventually said. “That I get when you’re saying one thing but you’re actually asking me another.”
God.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. When, when, was the last time that someone had said something that honest to her? Seriously. Had she ever been involved with a man who not only didn’t play games, but gently, sweetly, didn’t let her play games either? Had she ever been with a man who’d figured her out so quickly? Who knew just how fancy she wasn’t?
She pulled up her knees to her chin. Something she hadn’t done since she was a girl. Since she’d just lost her mother and she needed to hug herself so hard for fear she’d fly apart at the seams if she stopped.
What was she really asking him? She owed him that much. At least that much.
“Why do you keep leaving so early after dinner?”
There was a pause so she kept going. “Why don’t we ever eat at my house? Or at a restaurant where we can take our time?”
He still didn’t speak.
“Why don’t we read together anymore?” she asked. “Why aren’t you here with me right now?”
The last question had her heart banging against her ribs so hard she heard the tremor of her heartbeat in her voice. Her blood was moving through her veins in big, lusty waves, like white caps crashing over the edge of a boat. She could only grip her knees with one arm, the other was holding the phone to her ear, but her arm started to ache with how hard she hugged herself.
Just a few weeks ago, this man had been a pest. An attractive pest, one who she hadn’t quite known what to do with, but a pest nonetheless. And now, here she was, worrying that she needed him so badly his next words had the power to make her curl up and disappear.
She breathed into the silence, trying to calm herself.
“Do you want me there with you right now?” his deep, deep voice asked her quietly, gently.
“I don’t think I would have called if I didn’t.”
“Diana,” he reprimanded her sweetly for her evasive answer.
She sighed. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I want you here.”
“You still have the book?” She heard him rustling around, the distinct sound of shoes clopping on the ground.
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
The line clicked dead and then all she could do was wait.
***
She met him at the door in a set of cotton pajamas that had his mouth drying out at the sight of them. Swishy pants around her ankles and a loose, little halvsie shirt that showed a tantalizing stripe of skin above the waistline of her pants.
The expression on her face instantly sobered him, however. She had her lip pulled between her teeth and her eyes were unusually shiny. Her hair tumbled everywhere, making her look much younger than she actually was.
“Hi,” he said, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.
“I’m so embarrassed,” she whispered, to his chagrin.
But then to his utter delight, she walked forward and pressed her forehead directly into his sternum. She was so embarrassed she was hiding her face, sure. But it was his chest she was hiding it in. He’d never, in his life, felt a more heady affirmation of his place in the world. It wasn’t her weakness that was doing this to him. It was her vulnerability. To be this vulnerable, it took bravery. He knew that much was true just from watching Phoenix recover from his injury over the year. Nothing made a wolf more aggressive than vulnerability. Though he’d been in his human form, Phoenix had griped and scowled and pushed nearly everyone in his life away. Until Ida. Until something had clicked and he’d let Ida in. He’d allowed himself to be vulnerable and Orion had seen how much courage that took.
Orion might have had considerably more experience tracking deer than he did figuring out the inner workings of the human psyche, but he could see the similarities between Diana and Phoenix. He saw just how many mechanisms Diana had for keeping people, anyone really, at a distance she’d deemed to be safe.
But not right now. Right now she’d asked him to come over. She was blushing and clutching him and rocking her forehead against his sternum like she’d burrow herself inside his chest if she could.
He stroked his two palms down her back, not letting himself linger at the smooth-hot strip of skin above her pajama pants. “What’re you embarrassed about?”
