Page 10 of Redeemed Wolf (Grim Wilds #4)

Chapter 10

Carter

My fingertips were tingling, and I shook out my hands nervously.

“What the fuck am I doing?” I muttered, glancing around to see if anyone was watching me. Because seriously, it felt like I was always being watched. “Just turn around. Go eat lunch in the back room like always. No need to embarrass yourself.”

My body wasn’t listening to directions, though, my legs taking me out through the locked door and making a decision, right turn, down the hall and through the main part of the lab’s offices.

I wasn’t sure how I knew where I would find Silas, but I did. And no amount of second-guessing was going to change my mind about tracking him down, because he felt like a splinter under my skin, poking me again and again, no matter what I did. Needling at me, invading my dreams every night—my very R-rated wet-dream fantasies.

Nobody had ever made me feel like this. I just needed to find out one way or another if there was something there between us. Maybe it was a fluke, some symptom of whatever illness I’d had over the weekend. Maybe now that the fever had passed, I would look at him like I looked at everyone else. He would be a nobody, nothing more than a stranger I’d bumped into at the grocery store.

Except as I drew nearer to him, my heart started to beat faster in anticipation. My palms grew damp with sweat, and no amount of swallowing could clear that lump in my throat. I was excited to see him. Even before I rounded the doorway to the staff lunchroom, I drew in a deep breath, and his scent seemed to invade my senses, flooding my mind and body with his very essence.

Why do I even know what he smells like? That’s so weird! I did, though. It was as familiar as coming home after a trip and recognizing the smell of your own house. He reminded me of a camping trip I thought I might’ve taken once as a kid. Like rain on leaves, mist weaving through trees. Moss and ferns, all green, green, green.

Sighing, I stepped through into the lunchroom, and Silas’s eyes were already trained on the doorway, as if he’d known I was coming.

“Hi,” I said on a breathy sigh.

His lips eased into a crooked smile that did funny things to my insides. “Hi,” he said back.

Another man sat at the table, his eyes flicking back and forth between us. “Uh, hi…” he added awkwardly. “I’m Felix.”

“Mm, yeah, hi. Carter,” I said back, but I couldn’t seem to look at him because that would mean looking away from Silas, and it felt like tearing my gaze away from him would potentially cause me physical pain.

I’d never had a crush before that I could remember, but that was all this was, right? A crush? Because it couldn’t be anything more. It was too fast, and I knew nothing about him besides his first name and that he had a roommate. And if it wasn’t a crush, then what was the alternative? Although the intensity, the heat, the physical reaction just by being in his presence… it was a lot. There was something about him that made me feel… alive . Like I’d been sleeping my whole life and was finally awake for the first time. It was heady, and I might’ve already been halfway addicted to this feeling.

“Do you mind if I join you for lunch?” I asked as I lowered myself into the chair across from him, before realizing I’d left my lunch behind.

“Of course. It’d be my pleasure.” He hadn’t blinked even once since I walked in, almost like he was afraid I would disappear if he looked away for even one second. His eyes were such an intense green, brighter than I’d ever seen them. It must’ve had something to do with the overhead lighting.

“Yeah, sure,” the other guy whose name I’d already forgotten said. “My pleasure too.” He sounded like he was choking back a laugh, and Silas kicked him under the table, making him laugh out loud. “Oh, would you look at that. Time for me to head back to work. Talk to you later, Silas.” He scooted his chair out and rounded the table, patting Silas on the shoulder on the way by.

“And then there were two…” Silas said, smirking, pushing his lunch to the center of the table, offering to share with me.

Being alone with Silas felt dangerous, like it was only a matter of time before one of us pounced. I’d never been what anyone would describe as passionate, had never been inclined to date or anything like that, so this rush of physical sensation was a little disorienting. I wanted to run my hands over his body, mess up that ginger hair of his. I wanted to trace his scars with my tongue, all the way down, as low as I could get.

The back of my pants had begun to dampen with arousal, and Silas’s nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. He balled his hands into fists before slipping them under the table. “Tell me everything about you.”

I huffed a little laugh, picking up half of his peanut butter and jam sandwich. “I only have 30 minutes for lunch.” And I’d wasted three quarters of it debating whether coming here was a good idea or not.

“Then hit the highlights. Are you from around here? Have any pets? What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?”

“Born and raised in Fairhome, no pets, and rocky road. You?”

“I’m from… Boston,” he said, but it came out strained, and for a second, I’d wondered if he was going to say something else instead. “Other animals don’t tend to like me much, so no pets, and I like mint chocolate chip best.”

“ Other animals?” I asked, laughing. “What, like you’re an animal yourself?”

He didn’t laugh, though. A muscle in his jaw ticked once. “No, of course not. I meant other than my childhood pet. I had a dog… named Jude.”

“Jude. That’s a weird name for a wolf. I mean, dog.” I winced, rubbing at my temple where a sharp pain had lanced through me. Wolf? Where did that come from?

Silas was watching me carefully. “Are you okay? Do you need a glass of water?”

I nodded. “Please.”

He was up in a flash, pouring me a cold glass of water from the dispenser in the corner. Then he was at my side, passing me the cup, his misty rain scent enveloping me and easing the building headache more surely than any painkiller.

“Thank you,” I whispered, not daring to look up at him. I gulped down the water like a man dying of thirst, then set the glass on the table with a bang, gasping for air. “Sorry, I’ve been sick. I guess I’m not over it yet.”

“Maybe…” he said softly, before reaching a tentative hand out and resting it on the back of my neck.

I choked out a sound, half gasp, half pleasured groan, and for a full three seconds, I was appalled at how starved for attention I sounded, how needy. But then he ground his thumb in, massaging at the base of my skull in a circle, and any shame I might’ve had flew right out the window. Yes, shameless, that was me. My eyes drifted shut, and a long, drawn-out moan slipped from my mouth.

His chuckle was rich and textured, seeming to brush along my skin right along with his talented fingers. “Is that the spot?”

“Seems so,” I sighed, tilting my head to the side without giving it a second thought. I wanted more from him, but I didn’t have the first clue on how to ask.

His phone gave a loud beep, and my eyes flew open. When had I leaned into him like a dog in heat? Gods, what was wrong with me?

I flinched back, shaking off his hand and standing in a rush. “Sorry, I…”

“Need to go,” he finished for me. “It’s okay, I understand. It’s a lot.” His face seemed to soften, even as his eyes grew even more intense, so green, just like his scent. I should ask him what cologne he wore so I could spray my sheets with it. It would certainly give me sweet dreams. “We don’t need to figure it all out today, you know. I’ll wait for you. Whenever you’re ready.”

Half of me was ready for anything he was willing to give me. The other half was… confused. Lost.

“Thank you,” I told him, brushing his hand with mine on the way out the door. I paused and looked back at him, and there was this intense pull, demanding that I stay. “Maybe we could have lunch again tomorrow? I’ll even bring my own next time.”

His eyes flicked up. “It’s a date,” he said, a promise, and the way his tongue traced his lower lip was enough to feed me all week.

I headed back to the lab in a daze, floating so high that I wouldn’t have been surprised if my feet didn’t touch the ground.

My dad was waiting for me, of course. “Hey, I missed you at lunch. Where’d you go?”

“Sorry, I was busy.” He waited for me to elaborate, but I didn’t, and he didn’t push.

“Just make sure you don’t forget to eat something, okay?”

“Mm-hm.”

We got back to work, falling into our routine. I gave him the results of the week’s tests, and he recorded them into his software, graphing it so that it was easy to read trends over a longer period of time.

As we worked in silence, though, my mind kept going back to that image, the memory I’d had after smelling Silas. “Hey, Dad… do you remember that camping trip we took when I was little?” I asked, spinning my chair around to look at him.

He was facing his computer, but I saw the way his shoulders stiffened, before he relaxed and went back to inputting data. When he answered, his voice was casual enough, but almost purposefully light. “Um, I’m not sure. We went camping a few times. Do you remember where it was?”

“No, I don’t remember much. Just this misty forest, sunlight streaming through the trees. When did we go camping?”

He turned his chair to face me, frowning in thought, but there was something off about his expression as his eyes seemed to rake over me, searching for something. “You must’ve been really young, maybe four or five. We went a few times, but you didn’t seem to like it much.”

“I didn’t?” That was weird, because the image I’d had in my mind had been peaceful, filling me with a kind of yearning I couldn’t remember ever feeling.

He laughed. “Hated it! You cried the whole time, refused to sleep in a tent, and you were scared of the dark from then on. I finally gave up trying to introduce you to nature. You’re a city boy, through and through.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, laughing along, even though the statement didn’t resonate at all within me. It was like a chord with one note off-key, a feeling that made me want to cringe away from it. “Well, maybe it’s time I try again. Maybe we could go out to the woods this summer.”

“Hm, maybe,” he said, noncommittally.

I got up from my chair to check on some samples in the sequencer, but I could still feel his eyes on me. Even before he spoke, I had a feeling I knew what he was going to say. “Did you take your pill this morning?”

“Maybe I forgot. I’ll take one now.” I crossed over to the drawer and took out the pill bottle, popping off the cap and shaking a pill out into my palm, but as soon as he turned away, I slipped it straight back into the bottle and put the lid back on. I stared at that plastic container for a long moment, before I dropped it back into the drawer.

My dad had always told me that the pills helped keep me healthy, to stop from having any episodes. I remembered the pain he was talking about, but nothing more. All I knew was that every time I said something he didn’t like, he suggested it was time for me to take a dose. The headaches, the voice in my head, I could understand all that, but what about this misplaced memory and the sexual urges that had been absent up until now? Could it all be tied to these pills? Why would my father want to suppress those? It didn’t make any sense.

What was the worst thing that could happen if I stopped taking them?

I was about to find out.