Page 29 of Willing Prey
TWENTY-FOUR
Claire
On day twenty-nine, it pours. It’s been raining the past few days, the weather matching my mood.
Since seeing Keith at the Alley, I feel like I’m waiting to be struck by lightning—and not the sexy kind.
On the Shane front, there’s no mention of the two almost-kisses, and he doesn’t summon me for a hunt.
Anxiety grows alongside insecurity. Whatever I thought was building between us must have been in my head.
I’ve bored him so much that he doesn’t even want to give me a farewell chase.
I tell myself I should be grateful. I’m getting paid for nothing.
Even so, I’m a tangle of hurt feelings and sexual frustration.
It’s my last evening, and we’re both in the living room. Real Estate Wreck is playing, but I’m not paying attention. I’m too busy stewing in irritation. I knew what this was walking in, so there’s no one to blame but myself for any dashed hopes.
“How’s the bite healing?” Shane’s question comes out of the blue.
“Fine,” I say quickly.
“Are you using the scar cream?”
“When I remember.”
It’s not that I want the bite to scar, as much as that I don’t mind if it does.
After studying it with a hand mirror and a few contortionist tricks, I’ve decided I like it.
Like the idea of having a physical memory of my time here, even if I wish it weren’t ending.
I keep reminding myself that if he was going to ask me to stay another thirty, he’d have done it by now. But maybe? a voice inside me whispers.
With nothing to lose at this point, I decide to be bold. “Are you hunting tonight?”
His eyes snap to me, so fierce that I wonder for the millionth time in the last month how I talked to him at the Christmas party without noticing how fuckable he is.
It’s not just that he’s good-looking. Tons of men are, and I don’t want to fuck them.
It’s an energy. A wildness thrumming beneath his skin, a barely contained brutality waiting to be freed.
Now that I know it’s there, I’m drawn to it.
My own vicious side needs embarrassingly little coaxing to come out to meet his.
Sitting here but knowing what we could be doing is agony.
“Do you want me to hunt tonight?” he asks.
Interesting.
“I want you to do what you want. But it is the last night…”
Ask me for another thirty.
Ask me for something.
Let me know I’m not imagining this.
Shane’s nod is slight but there. “Would you want to try something different?”
My heart stops.
He’s quick to add, “You can say no. The contract states all sexual activities are to take place outside. But I don’t want you out in the storm again.”
“Wait, what?” The words come out in a rush of relieved laughter. “You haven’t been hunting the last few days because you don’t want me to get wet?”
A corner of his mouth curls into an almost snarl, calling attention to the fact that he didn’t shave today. He looks annoyed, but I’m not sure why. “Your lips were blue when you got back the other night.”
“They aren’t blue anymore.”
He scoffs.
“How about an indoor hunt?”
That seems to change his mood. The scowl’s been replaced with interest, and he tilts his head to the side as if considering whether I’m a worthy opponent for an in-house adventure. I wait. At last, Shane gives me a wicked smile, one that makes my stomach flip-flop with anticipation.
“Three minutes.”