Page 38 of Someone Else's Wolf

I lay cuddled up against Peter, fingers playing lazily with his chest hair. We were both naked, freshly showered after sex. I felt pleasantly languid, relaxed and fulfilled in that special way he brought out in me: nothing to do, nothing I needed, loose-limbed and restful inside, content and satisfied in every way.

There's no denying he knew how to take care of his man. Food, sex, comfort, sympathy, affection, and caring. Coming over to see him was a feeling of going where I belonged. Mostly.

I pushed aside the thought of being "his" man. We weren't doing labels. And despite Kirk's cynicism about wolves and possessiveness, Peter was actually pretty coolly collected about it all.

I was the besotted one, and I could live with that. There were worse things.

His body hair was short, dark, curly, and thicker than mine. I never really got tired of it.Guess I love a hairy man.He was rubbing up and down one of my arms distractedly. I was focused on him, as usual, but his gaze was riveted on the TV.

Sports. Turned out, he loved hockey, but I hadn't found out till hockey season had begun and almost every "date" we had was interrupted in one way or another by hockey. Still, there were worse things. I got to be near him, even if I didn't get all of his attention. I admit it was sometimes irritating, but I was getting used to it, and it was kind of cute to see him get so enthusiastic about something.

I'd had him pegged as a nerd, and he could be.Hockey nerd, I thought affectionately. Just because I wasn't into the sport didn't mean he shouldn't get as much joy out of it as he could. He deserved all the happiness in the world.

"Yes!" He beamed at me and gave me a quick kiss to celebrate a goal.

By all sensible measures, I should love sports, too. I'd been a cop and in the closet for years; I'd had plenty of opportunity to practice. But I never had, even though I'd tried.

When I was younger, sports had held the danger and allure of watching hot, fit guys but not letting on that I'd noticed they were hot and fit. It meant trying not to wince when someone got hurt in a "game," and caring more about cute faces and hot bodies than stats — and keeping that fact well-concealed.

It had meant "bonding" with guys who really only cared about sports, and would never accept me if they knew the truth. Trying to remember enough trivia to hold down my end of a conversation. Trying not to let my eyes glaze over, trying to shake the feeling of death hovering nearby, waiting to take me away out of acute boredom. Trying to be someone I wasn't and couldn't become. Casual homophobia, endless games, intermissions, commercials, rivalries, rules intricate and complicated and duller than geometry, bad food and cheap beer. Yeah, I was a snob, right? It wasn't for me, to the point of hating it — probably because I'd tried so hard to like it, to belong.

But Peter actually did like it. And that should definitely not be a source of tension for me. I certainly wouldn't ask him to give it up or change his passion for the game, even if I wished he could focus alittlemore on me sometimes.

There was a knock at the door. "Did you order pizza?" I gave him a surprised look.

"No. Did you?" He looked clueless for a moment, then his attention went right back to the game.

I sighed. "Well, we're naked, and someone's at your door."And it's your house.

"Do you want to answer it?" He looked around vaguely, then handed me a pair of pants from beside the couch.

They were his pants.

"No, I don't want to answer your door looking like I've had sex. Let's just pretend nobody's there."

The doorbell rang again. "Okay," he said, settling back, riveted. He put an arm around me, but I didn't feel like cuddling anymore. The screen was what had his attention, anyway.

I pushed his arm aside and got up.

"Get me a beer if you're having one," he said, not even glancing at me. He settled more firmly into the comfortable spot of the couch now that he didn't have to make room for me.

I padded out to the kitchen, naked and grumpy. My good mood was disappearing fast, and I didn't like it. I opened the fridge and studied its contents.

As always, I was rather spoiled with choice. I chose some of his homemade potato salad and some spinach salad that had shredded chicken and cheese on top.Yum. Everything he made was delicious, and not just because I was usually starving by the time I ate it.

"Shane!" a voice called through the door, exasperated and familiar. "I know you're in there! Would you open the door?"

Kirk? What the fuck?Shit, he was standing on the doorstep announcing that I was in here. He might announce more in a minute. What was hedoinghere?

I looked around wildly, grabbed an apron and threw it around myself, then hurried to the door and pulled it open.

Kirk stepped dexterously inside, waving a hand in front of his nose. "It smells of wolf in here. Wolf and sex." He looked repulsed, but he didn't leave.

"What happened? Why are you here?" I stared at him.

He gazed at me reproachfully with those big dark eyes of his. "You turned your phone off. We have a call."

"What, now?"