Page 17 of Accidentally Wedded to a Werewolf (Claw Haven #1)

Oliver stood in front of Luna’s door the next morning, hands flexing at his sides.

Just knock, he told himself. Why the hell are you nervous? The worst that can happen is she says no and you have to reschedule. Get over it.

He startled as the door at the end of the hall opened, Ben strolling out of the hallway with his car keys in his hand and his work apron tossed over his shoulder, yawning widely.

Oliver tried to look like he was examining Luna’s doorframe for paint chips.

No dice. Ben ran up to the guest hallway, yanking his work apron off his shoulder and smacking Oliver in the stomach.

“Jesus, dude, just knock.”

“Shut up,” Oliver hissed.

“You shut up.”

Then they were wrestling. Oliver had been surprised to learn that most human siblings grew out of play-fighting when they were adults. His grandparents had wrestled with their siblings until they died of old age.

At least they were keeping it quiet, Oliver considered as he shoved his little brother into a headlock. They were being mature about it.

Ben twisted out of the headlock and straightened. “Just talk to your wife, man. You got through the whole dinner without yelling at each other, that’s progress. Not to mention that you two were fucking like rabbits—”

Oliver swiped at him.

Ben leaped out of the way easily. He was always the agile one, speed to Oliver’s strength.

“Go to work, jackass,” Oliver whispered. “And she’s not my wife!”

Ben skipped the rest of the way to the lobby, like an asshole.

“You need to start running again,” he yell-whispered from the lobby. “You’re insufferable when you don’t go for your runs. Like a golden retriever.”

Oliver gestured helplessly at Luna’s door.

“Bring her along,” Ben continued to yell-whisper and skipped out of the lobby.

Oliver stood silently in the hall, listening. Luna’s room wasn’t soundproofed, and there were no signs that she’d heard. Just the same scribbling noises that had been happening since he arrived in front of her door. The occasional swear and the sound of ripping paper.

Oliver gritted his teeth and knocked.

Another swear, then, “Uhhh, come in!”

Oliver opened the door.

Luna threw a notebook under the pillow and stood, hair bouncing.

She’d straightened it, and she was wearing her style of clothes again, all stylish and sleek.

But this time it was a pencil skirt and a flowy blouse, like she was going for businesswoman instead of summer fun.

She’d gone around every single clothes shop in town while Oliver shook in freezing agony back at the inn.

Oliver asked, “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Luna twirled a strand of hair around her finger. She did that a lot, Oliver noticed—tried to be cute to distract whoever she was talking to. It would have worked if Oliver wasn’t so stubborn.

He pointed at the edge poking out from under the pillow. “It looked like a notebook.”

“Oh, that.” Luna waved at it dismissively, shoving the notebook fully out of sight. “It’s…my ideas notebook. For marketing stuff.”

“Top secret?”

Luna laughed, short and sharp. “You could say that. It doesn’t matter anyway—not like I’m going to use any of it.”

She tugged on her hair, her shiny lips pressing into a thin white line. She was nervous, he realized. He almost wanted to tease her for it. But she looked so uncharacteristically shy, and he didn’t want to piss her off before asking the next question.

“I was heading into town,” he said. “Do you want to come?”

She squinted at him. “I feel like the actual question is Can you come with me into town so I don’t pass out on the side of the road?”

He waited. “And?”

“I’m thinking.”

He sighed. Of course, she wouldn’t make this easy.

Luna hummed. Stroked her chin. Hummed some more.

“I do actually have things to do,” Oliver started.

She spoke over him. “What do I get out of it?”

Then she stood there, twirling her damn hair. Oliver wished he didn’t find it so hot. Since when was he into spoiled-rich-girl chic, which clung to her even when she was wearing Sabine’s sleep clothes?

“I’m still pretty disappointed you guys don’t do massages,” she continued. “I was just about to leave a Yelp review.”

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll give you a damn massage. Can we go now?”

She blinked, hand pausing in her hair. She’d been expecting him to turn her down, he realized. But before he could take it back, her pouty mouth curved into a surprised smile.

“I look forward to it,” she said, bending to grab her handbag from beside her bed. “You have taken a course, right?”

“I have a certificate.”

“What, really?”

“No,” he said flatly. “Let’s go.”

* * *

After an argument over how long it would take to put on makeup that led to Luna muttering under her breath as she applied foundation in the car and another argument over how spindly Luna’s arms were, Luna got to push the cart around the hardware store.

Oliver didn’t even know how that last one had turned into a fight.

He didn’t care who pushed the cart. But suddenly, he was yell-whispering outside of the hardware store.

Luna was such a sore winner about it, too. Humming all happily, pretending not to strain under the weight with each addition to the cart.

“Are you going to get Jackson to help?” she asked, doing a terrible job of looking unaffected as she pushed the heavy cart down the aisle. “He seemed to know what he was doing.”

Oliver thought hard about wrestling the damn cart off her.

“He’s already told me what to do,” he said. “I can handle it myself.”

“Right, sure. Totally get a novice to do it when there’s a professional right there,” Luna said. Then she frowned. “Wait. I thought you couldn’t work on it until the snow thaws?”

“I can’t work on it until it’s stopped snowing,” Oliver corrected her, scanning the aisle for the type of nails that Jackson told him about. “Just need to get the snow out of the way.”

“Still sounds slippery.”

Oliver squinted at the rows and rows of nails. Why were there so many? How many different types of nails could people possibly need?

A-ha. He grabbed a packet of the correct nails and started, “I heal—”

“Fast. No, I remember.” Luna grimaced as she pulled the cart over, then pretended she hadn’t when she noticed Oliver looking. She even draped herself appealingly against the cart, resting her chin in her hand like she wasn’t panting at all.

“If you get hurt…” she said. “Do I feel it? Because I think I felt a lil’ something when you passed out.”

Oliver’s fingers twitched around the packet of nails. His family was going to shove that in his face for the rest of his life. Then he processed the last part of that sentence.

“You what? What did it feel like?”

Luna shrugged. She scratched the corner of her mouth, which was sticky with gloss yet again. He wished it didn’t look so appealing.

“It didn’t feel like passing out,” Luna said. “I just…knew that something happened. Is it more intense for you since you’re a wolf?”

Yes, he thought. He hadn’t been so lost to the whims of his wolf since he was a teenager.

He was attuned to her scent, keeping an ear out for where she was in the inn and having to stop himself from burying his nose in her neck when she passed.

And that wasn’t even counting the bond, which dialed everything up to eleven.

He could sense where she was and feel her emotions if he focused, and sometimes even when he didn’t.

There had been so many moments during sex where they’d leaked through, her passion blurring into his so easily that he hadn’t been able to tell the difference.

“Not if I don’t focus on it,” he said, dropping the packet of nails into the cart.

Then, when she raised her brows expectantly, he added, “Like I said, it depends on the bond. Ben and Sabine know what each other is feeling and where the other is most of the time. Grandmother and Grandfather could read each other’s minds without even trying.

Uncle Roy and his wife, too. They had to block it out.

Even when they severed the bond, they could still hear echoes for years. ”

“He was married?” Luna laughed, then covered it up badly with a cough. “What was she like? Long-suffering?”

He bit his cheek to stop his smile. “Georgia was sweet. Funny. Didn’t put up with his crap.”

“Wolf?”

“Human,” he corrected. “It didn’t end well. He still won’t tell us why, but we’re betting it was his own damn fault.”

“Shocker,” Luna muttered. She was so busy watching Oliver that she didn’t notice the orc she was about to run into, and Oliver had to grab the front of the cart and yank it to a stop.

“What are— Oh!” Luna’s irritation slid quickly into awkwardness. “Hi! Oh my god, sorry!”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Nick Wicker with a dismissive wave. He had engine oil on his shirt yet again, and Oliver wondered if this guy ever washed his clothes.

Nick winked at Oliver. “Ollie! How’s life with the new wife?”

“Not my wife,” Oliver said hastily. “Bye, Nick.” He tried to push the cart away. But Luna was already talking.

“We didn’t even know each other’s names when we got ‘bonded,’” Luna said. “I have a fiancé, so…”

“Ooookay,” Nick said with a nervous laugh. He was still smiling, but all of a sudden he looked like he regretted bringing it up. “That’s…modern.”

“My fiancé knows everything that’s happening,” Luna continued, eyes and smile far too wide. “He’s very happy.”

Nick’s brows hit his hairline. “Wow! Okay! That’s great for you guys.”

Luna nodded. “And how’s the weight lifting going?”

Nick’s grin twisted in confusion. “Uhhh. It’s fine?”

“Are the flour bags working?”

Whatever the hell that meant, it wiped the smile off Nick’s face.

“I gotta go,” Nick blurted, and headed into the next aisle so fast his cart wheels screeched.

Luna caught Oliver looking and started, “When I ran into him the other day—”

“I do not give one single fang about Nick Wicker,” Oliver assured her, pushing the cart back into a straight line. “Why do you have to say it like that? He’s very happy?”