Page 160 of The ARC Unit: Breach

“Then why ask?”

“Because I wanted to know.”

He took another drag.

“Sometimes.”

I waited, but that was all I got.

“Is it always the same one?”

Wolf looked at me.

I rested my hands between my knees. “You kept saying the same things. Get them out. Move. I figured you weren’t dreaming about an expense report.”

His mouth flattened.

“Don’t push it, Mercer.”

The warning was quiet.

I nodded once. “Okay.”

He looked at me again, almost suspicious of how quickly I had accepted it.

I leaned back in the chair. “I can learn. Occasionally.”

“Debatable.”

The dry answer fit him better.

I glanced toward the snake disappearing beneath the sleeve of his shirt. The question had been sitting in the back of my mind since the first morning I saw the tattoo through the window, but the last time we were on this balcony, he had warned me not to ask about it.

Fuck it.

“Is that connected?”

Wolf followed my gaze and his arm shifted slightly against the railing.

“The snake.”

“Not your concern.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“That was very convincing.”

“You asked,” he said.

“I asked whether it was connected.”

“And I answered.”

“Badly.”

Wolf took another drag and ignored me.

The security light caught the black-and-gray scales around his forearm whenever he moved. “Why a snake?”