Page 17 of Same Thing
How had he landed here? It was well-known that there were established territories where Werewolves were allowed to live, to keep the human population as safe as possible, so what was Liam doing here?
She was so curious about him. Hell, she’d spent half the night thinking about him. Alese had crashed on her couch, because she’d had about four too many drinks last night, and had just left. Alese made as much noise as an elephant tramping through the forest when she got ready in the mornings, so Nory hadn’t had a chance of sleeping in this morning. Pity. She loved sleeping in on her days off.
She sat there in her sleep shirt she’d bought from a merch table at the last concert she’d gone to with Alese. Her hair was a mess that hung down her shoulders in snarls, but that was okay. She had zero plans today.
A loud knock sounded on her door, and she yelped and jumped a foot off the ground.
Fear trilled through her, and she padded slowly to the door to look out the peephole.
What she found there made no sense to her half-asleep mind.
Liam was standing far back, his hands on his hips, a glare trained toward the parking lot below. He’d already returned the food containers. She’d found them by the door when she’d waved Alese off this morning.
So…why was he here?
Panicking, she stepped back from the door and tried to pat her tangled hair into place. Her efforts were futile, as her hair had decided to take on the shape of a bird’s nest sometime in her night of thinking about the hottest man in the world who was standing on her porch looking like a super model in the early morning light. She squinted at the peephole again.
“I can hear you in there,” he said, dragging bright blue glowing eyes to the peephole.
Nory flinched away from the door, and barely resisted the urge to yelp again, lest mister supersonic dog hearing think she was lamer than he already thought.
She blew out three quick breaths and pulled the door open. “Hey, hello, hi.”
His hands stayed hooked on his hips as he sighed. He looked down at her doormat pointedly, then back up at her.
On the ground lay an empty coffee cup. She recognized the logo from the coffee shop down the street. The plastic lid was halfway from here to the next door.
Confused, she said, “Someone spilled a coffee.”
“That was me,” he gritted out, lifting a hand and owning it. “I don’t know why I’m here.” He made that growling sound and did an about face and headed to the stairs.
Nory peeked her head out and watched him jog down the first few and then turn around and climb back up. “I need something to clean up the mess. Please.”
“You…” She frowned. “You brought me a coffee?”
“Yeah, and then I realized I’ve lost my damn mind, and I tried to walk away, but the wolf decided I needed to set thecoffee beside the door so you could wake up to a treat, and then I got pissed off because I am the boss of me. I am the boss,” he repeated, eyes blazing. “So…” He gestured to the empty plastic cup.
“So, you knocked it over?”
“I kicked it over.”
“Because you are the boss.”
“Don’t say it like that. It sounds weird when you say it.”
She knelt down and picked up the cup, read the label. “Um, how did you know what kind of coffee I like?”
“There’s a coffee shop in walking distance, and I don’t know. It seemed like something you would like doing, so I asked the lady at the register if she knew of you.”
“You…you described me to her?”
“No. I told her your name. I figured she would recognize it if she’s made you coffee before. That thing has like a gallon of sugar in it, by the way. I don’t even think that’s healthy for you. You’re not wearing a bra, are you?”
With a gasp, she looked down at herself, and she surely wasn’t. Nory stood in a rush and dropped the cup, then crossed her arms over her chest. “Sorry. It’s cold and I…get…”Don’t say it, don’t say it!“Nipply.”
His blazing blue eyes were trained right on her forearms. Liam forced his gaze to the ground and said, “I just need some paper towels, and I can go.”
“Go to work?”