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As we left the apartment, he said, “Toe Beans?”
“Obviously.”
“Phoebe’s pancake stacks are the best,” Luke said as he started walking down the stairs.
Anything I was going to say dried up in my throat—because Luke was walking down the stairs.
I wasn’t sure he’d realized it yet. I stayed still and watched as he made it about a third of the way down the staircase before he glanced down. He froze, each foot on a different step.
“Hunter,” he said quietly, like he was afraid to speak and scare off whatever magic was happening right now. “Are you seeing this?”
“Yeah,” I said just as quietly. I didn’t want to break the spell either. “You’re doing great. Can you keep going?”
He lifted a foot, then put it back down and shook his head. “Nope. I know I’m doing it now, so I can’t do it.”
I followed him down the stairs until I was level with him and prepared to console him—I’d had to comfort plenty of werewolves through ego-bruising false starts—but when he turned to face me, his eyes shone with excitement. “Hunter, I made it all this way! Do you know what that means? Dick therapy works!”
He looked so fucking happy that I gave in to the impulse to pick him up and plant a kiss on his cheek. He let out a startled laugh when I set him down. “Fantastic,” I said with a grin that matched his. “Wanna see if you can make it to the bottom?”
His brow creased. “I think I’ve reached my limit, honestly.”
“Want me to help you?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
His smile reappeared. “Gonna carry me?”
I didn’t answer, just hoisted him over my shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried him down the rest of the stairs, and when I put him down, his face was flushed pink. “Thanks,” he said, slightly breathless. “It’s just a shame you’re not here all the time to help me get up and down.”
I opened my mouth to say it wasn’t like I could just move in. Then I closed it again—because why couldn’t I?
I stood there for a second while my brain whirred and clicked and wrapped itself around the idea.
It wasn’t like I had pets to take care of, or a boyfriend, or anyone else I needed to consider.
I could stay.
I could help Luke with the stairs during the day, and with my dick at night—and also during the day, because let’s be real, dicks didn’t care what time of day it was.
“Hunter?” Luke quirked an eyebrow at me. “What’s cooking up in that brain of yours?”
“I was just thinking. It might actually make sense if”—I swallowed around the lump in my throat, because was I really gonna suggest this?—“if I stayed with you. We can really double down on the therapy, and I can help you deal with the stairs, instead of you throwing yourself down them.”
Luke’s eyes went wide. “You’d really move in?”
“Just for a few days,” I said, running a nervous hand through my hair as it occurred to me that he might not even want me there. “Until you’re better. If that works for you.”
“It depends,” he said. “When you say double down on therapy, are we talking crunchy leaf therapy?” He waggled his eyebrows, and it was all kinds of cute.
“I’m talking all kinds of therapy,” I said. Luke might be improving, but we still had a long way to go, and I wasn’t about to lose sight of our end goal just because the sex was amazing.
It was amazing, though.
He gave me a smile that was pure mischief and said, “So what I’m hearing is that you’re gonna collect your stuff and move in, right?”
“Right.” My stomach fluttered, either from panic or excitement, I wasn’t sure.
The only thing I did know for sure was that somehow, despite my self-imposed rule about werewolves, fucking, and getting involved with clients, I was so involved that I was moving in with my client. Who was a werewolf. And who I was fucking.
This was fine.
