Page 16 of Taken By The Wolves

Reed emerges from the side shed, wiping sawdust off his chest, looking far too pleased to see her. I grit my teeth. He’sgot that look again, the one that always precedes him doing or saying something idiotic.

“Careful, Red,” he drawls. “Keep caressing that slab like that and it’ll start groaning.”

Scarlet laughs a short burst that’s bright and real, and the sound hits me like a punch.

Reed is a pain in the ass, but he knows how to bring joy to people. I don’t. That’s not my job.

I lead. I protect. I carry the weight.

Laughter isn’t part of what makes an alpha.

I wait until Reed disappears again before stepping forward.

“You like this one?” I point to the slab she’s caressing. “We’ve got a few more from the same tree. Took it down last fall. An old black walnut. Finn cried when we milled it.”

She smiles, tucking a strand of beautiful red hair behind her ear. “I might cry, too, when I run my hand across it one more time.”

I’m not prepared for the image she creates of her hands moving over my chest, her lips parting. Fuck. I turn away.

“Cherry, walnut, oak. You name it, we’ve cut it,” I say, trying to rein in the heat rising in my blood. “We can handle any size order. Even rush jobs if the client is worth the time.”

Her gaze pins me. “Am I?”

I tip my head. “You tell me.”

There’s a pause. Tension coils between us, laced with unspoken intention.

Scarlet shifts her weight on her crutch, her jeans hugging long legs and curving hips that are not helping my self-control. She’s not even trying to be sexy, and that’s what makes it worse. Everything about her is unfiltered. Herirritation, her fascination, and her defiance. She holds nothing back and I don’t know how to deal with such transparent, deeply felt emotions.

“You should get off that foot,” I say finally. “You’re pushing it.”

“I’m not glass,” she says, jaw lifting.

No, she’s steel. And fire. And temptation in human form.

“Even steel bends,” I mutter, stepping closer. “And I’d rather not carry you back again if you collapse in the damn dirt.”

She laughs again. “You say it like it was a chore. You didn’t seem that bothered when you had your arms wrapped around me.”

I stare at her, silence stretching. She stares right back, defiant and amused. Daring me.

God, she makes me want to bite something. Her, mostly, in soft places like her ass, her breasts, and the inside of her thighs.

Her neck.

Claim her, my wolf growls in my mind, always impatient.

“I wasn’t,” I say quietly.

And that’s the truth.

She doesn’t know how close she’s come to discovering what I am, what we all are, and the only thing more dangerous than that is how much I want her anyway.

I take a step toward her, caught in the soft part of her lips, and the curve of her palm still ghosting over the walnut slab.

And Iwant.

Fuck, I want her with a desperation that’s almost violent.