Page 19 of The Cuddle Clause

She laughed, but it wasn’t her real laugh. It wasn’t the laugh that crinkled her nose and made people fall for her by accident. No, this laugh was uncomfortable and awkward.

“You know,” the guy went on, his eyes dipping far too low, “your smile could cause accidents. Literally. I’d probably crash my car looking at you.”

I clenched my jaw so hard, I heard something crack.

She leaned back slightly, as much as she could manage with the wall behind her. “You should probably keep your eyes on the road, Jeremy.”

He leaned in even closer to her. Close enough I felt my entire body go still. “Not a chance. Not with you standing there looking like sin in heels.”

She blinked, clearly not knowing how to respond, before her gaze slid sideways and locked on me. Challenge accepted. I moved before my brain caught up. Three long strides. No hesitation.

I slipped in beside her and put my hand on the small of her back, leaving no space between us.

Maggie didn’t flinch or pull away. She leaned into me. Just a little. Just enough to drive me insane.

“Oh, Roman,” she said sweetly. “Have you met Jeremy?”

“He’s twelve.”

Jeremy frowned. “I’m twenty-four.”

“Still twelve emotionally,” I muttered.

Maggie snorted, and we turned and walked toward the dessert table without giving Jeremy a chance to interject. My fingers still tingled from touching her.

“What was that?” I asked quietly.

She crinkled her nose in a way I refused to find cute right now. “What?”

I stopped walking and looked at her. Really looked at her.

“Be careful, Mags,” I said, voice low. Seeing her with Jeremy, knowing Lucien had eyes and ears everywhere, was too much for me, and I felt my control slipping a little. I didn’t know what to do with everything swirling in my chest. “You know how much scrutiny we’re under.”

She gave me a curious look, like she was trying to figure out what had gotten me so twisted up. My body ached with the heat, the tension, the instinct to claim. I could still feel the phantom warmth of her back under my hand.

I wanted her. Right here, right now, against the damn waffle tower if it came to that.

But I couldn’t.

She was healing. She was human. She wasn’t mine. And if I touched her now, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

I saw red. Not rage, exactly. Not violence.

It was something deeper. Older. That bone-deep wolf-thrum that made my body tense and my instincts go ballistic.

I was pissed and turned on at the same time.

How dare someone else flirt with Maggie in front of the whole pack? How was I supposed to pull this off?

Maggie turned and walked away, that damn floral dress swishing like it knew exactly what it was doing to me. Her hair caught the sun and haloed around her like she was some kind of summer goddess with no concept of consequences.

Wait. Was she leaving?

She was. She was leaving without me. And I hated how much that stung.

I muttered some excuse to a council member’s wife who was too busy gushing over a hand-stitched table runner to notice my retreat. I slipped out the side door, every nerve in my body tuned to her.

The garden stretched out in wild elegance—stone paths and manicured hedges, roses curling around wrought-iron arches like they belonged to a different century.

It was too curated. Too perfect. And still, all I could think about was how her perfume lingered on my shirt and how close she’d leaned into that guy’s space like it meant nothing.

I found her by the koi pond.

She stood near the edge, arms loose at her sides, staring into the water like it had answers she didn’t. Her reflection rippled and shimmered, so did mine as I approached, quiet but not subtle. I didn’t want to be subtle. Not right now.

I stepped in close. Closer than I should have.

Maggie turned slowly, chin tilted up, like she was ready for whatever this was.

“If you’re gonna flirt with other wolves…” I said, my voice dropping low, deliberate, even though I knew I wasn’t giving her enough credit as the words left my mouth. “At least wait until I’m not in the same damn room.”

She folded her arms across her chest, lips flattening into a challenge. “That’s not fair. You wanted fake. This is fake.”

That shouldn’t have hurt, but it landed like a punch to the ribs. I didn’t even know what part of that dug in the hardest—her saying it, or me knowing it was partly true. The worst part? I’d started to forget what was fake and what wasn’t.

We stared at each other, and something snapped tight between us. Tension wasn’t even the word. It was like the air before a storm or that beat of silence before a fight or a kiss. My pulse pounded in my ears. My eyes dropped to her lips.

God, her mouth.

I reached up before I could talk myself out of it and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She didn’t move. Didn’t stop me. Her skin was warm. Her breath hitched, barely, but I felt it.

We were close enough to count freckles. Close enough that one wrong move would mean no more pretending.

I wanted her. Right then. Right there. No brunch. No pack. No rules.

Then we heard the scream. A high-pitched, theatrical wail followed by a splash loud enough to scare the koi into next week.

We both whipped around to see Seraphina in the koi pond, arms flailing, hair soaked. Her dress clung to her like she’d planned this exact moment from her Pinterest board labeled Damsel Chic.

“Oh no!” she cried, already flipping her hair for maximum wet-drama. “I slipped!”

What a tragically timed accident.

I groaned.

There wasn’t another soul in sight except for Maggie, and if Seraphina drowned in Lucien’s koi pond, I’d be the one stuck filling out paperwork and fielding questions about aquatic death rituals.

So I sighed, pulled my shirt over my head, and crouched near the edge.

“Grab my hand,” I muttered.

She clung to my hand like I was a hero from a romance novel. Her fingers lingered. Her chest heaved in exaggerated gasps even though she’d barely gone under.

“Could you… could you hand me your shirt?” she asked. “I need to dry off.”

I handed it over, already regretting every decision that had led me to this precise moment. She dabbed at her face, which, might I add, was suspiciously dry.

And then I looked up. Maggie was a few steps back, hands over her mouth, body shaking with laughter she was desperately trying to smother. Her eyes sparkled. Her whole face was lit up with delight.

I gave her a look that said don’t you dare.

Too late.

She burst out laughing. Snort-laughing. Doubling over like she couldn’t breathe as I stood there, shirtless and covered in koi water and humiliated chivalry.

“This brunch is cursed,” I muttered.

Maggie just laughed harder.

And God help me, I wanted her even more.

The guest bathroom on this floor had eight gray floor tiles across and twelve down. I knew that because I’d been counting them for ten minutes. Over and over. Maybe if I memorized the layout of the grout lines, I could convince my nervous system to shut up.

I paced back and forth, headphones in, volume on loud. I kept the filtered wind and rain sounds saved on my playlist for emergencies. This counted.

I was officially absolutely overstimulated.

Too many people. Too much movement. Every brush of fabric or handshake had layered static into my skin until I wanted to claw it all off.

The collar on the shirt I’d borrowed from Lucien after the fiasco with Seraphina was too tight and felt like a straitjacket.

My jaw ached from clenching, the throb radiating through my molars.

I’d done everything right—made eye contact, smiled at the right moments, shook hands, told the jokes, hit the lines. Played the part down to the last detail. Hell, I even saved Seraphina from the koi pond, for fuck’s sake.

Years of practice had made me damn near surgical in my ability to mask and maneuver through social interaction. I never let my discomfort bleed out far enough to make anyone else uneasy. I’d learned to swallow it, to store the fallout for when I could deal with it alone.

But sometimes, the mask slipped. It didn’t happen often, but enough to remind me I was still human under all the polish.

Tonight, I was just glad I’d gotten out before the cracks showed. Before I made a scene.

Just twenty more minutes, and I could shift and run. Get this suit off, get rid of this fake calm. Twenty minutes and I could drop the mask and breathe.

I stopped pacing and pressed my back to the wall, hands flexing open and closed at my sides. I rubbed my thumb along the grout seam again and again. Counted the tile edges with my eyes. Breathed in for four. Held for seven. Exhaled for four.

It wasn’t working.

The violin music from the main room leaked in through the wall like a taunt. I pressed the volume button twice on my headphones, and it blocked out the world a little better. Still not enough.

The door creaked open. I flinched. The sound hit me wrong—too sharp, too sudden. But then I saw Maggie.

No click of heels. No overly bright expression or worried cooing.

Just her calm eyes that didn’t try to dissect me.

She didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask the wrong questions.

Didn’t crowd me or flinch or freeze like most people do when they find the weird shifter hiding in the bathroom having a meltdown mid-event.

She sat down cross-legged on the cold tile and offered me the tiniest smile. Then, barely audible under the static in my headphones, she started humming a low, steady sound that was more like a heartbeat made into music than a melody.

Something about it anchored me. My lungs found a rhythm. The tightness in my chest eased.

I sank down slowly, my back sliding down the wall until I was sitting beside her. She didn’t react. Didn’t fill the silence. Didn’t try to make it anything it wasn’t.

I felt the static lift, bit by bit. It didn’t vanish completely, but it became more manageable.

We sat like that for what could’ve been five minutes or five hours. Time got fuzzy when I wasn’t spinning. Eventually, I let my body relax just enough that my shoulder brushed hers. Maggie shifted slightly so our arms touched.

The relief that bloomed in my chest was like stepping into warmth after hours in the cold.

My voice surprised me when it came out. Low. Rough. Honest in a way that made my ribs ache. “I’m sorry about earlier, Maggie.”

She didn’t even blink. “Neither of us have a guidebook for this, Roman. But we’ll figure it out together.”

That cracked something open. I pressed my forehead to my knees, breathing slowly, deeply.

She didn’t move.

She didn’t leave.

Her presence filled the space without pressing on it. She didn’t fix me. She didn’t have to. Her being next to me was enough.

The bathroom was still too bright. The tile was cold. The violin music still hummed behind the walls.

But I wasn’t drowning in it anymore.

And she didn’t run.