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His face lit up with a smile, and there was a thump as his shoes hit the floor. He surged forward and kissed me, his mouth warm and soft against mine. The kiss quickly became something deeper, and Luke proceeded to kiss me breathless. By the time he pulled back, we were both panting, and he looked as wrecked as I felt. “So what do you say we skip the ice cream as a reward and go back upstairs and fool around instead?” he asked.

“Abso-fucking-lutely.” After the way he’d kissed me, ice cream was the last thing on my mind. “Think you can make it back up the stairs?”

He shrugged. “Let’s be real, probably not. But maybe if I ask nicely, you’ll carry me?” Then he smiled at me, and it was different from his usual cocky grin. This one was soft and real and a little bit fragile, and I got the feeling not many people ever got to see it.

There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do just to see that smile directed at me again, so I picked him up and hoisted him over my shoulder in a fireman’s lift, because I knew he’d enjoy it—and he did. His laughter bounced off the walls of the stairwell, the sound turning something inside of me warm and soft. And it was as I was walking up the stairs with one hand clamped on Luke’s ass, thinking about how much I liked his laugh, and his smile, and his smart-assery, and all the other things about him, that the realization hit me.

Oh no.

Despite telling myself he was off-limits, I really did want to date him.

I was in so much trouble.

But I barely had time to panic about the fact I was falling for a werewolf before, at that exact moment, I tripped over my untied shoelace—and fell down the fucking stairs.

CHAPTER 11

LUKE

I wasn’t sure what happened, but one minute Hunter was carrying me over one shoulder, and the next minute I was flying through the air as he started to fall backward.

And I should have fallen with him—except some ancient, primal instinct that I hadn’t even known I possessed kicked in, flicking an internal switch. In the blink of an eye, I found myself parkouring off the walls of the stairwell, doing an honest-to-god backflip over Hunter’s head, and shifting into my wolf form right before I landed.

There was the sound of fabric tearing, the crack and stretch of my bones reforming, and then there I was, in all my wolfed-out glory. I hit the ground with a thud, placing myself instinctively between Hunter and injury, a solid, protective wall of fur and muscle. I braced for impact as his body hurtled toward me.

Instead of hitting the steps and bouncing all the way down, Hunter’s back slammed into my flank and he stopped there, with my body acting as a giant furry landing mat. When he came to rest against me with a solid thump, his fingers tangled in my fur and he made a surprised noise, like he wasn’t quite sure what had just happened.

Which made two of us.

Still, relief washed over me. Good job, my wolf whispered. We kept our human safe.

Wait, what?

Our human. He’s safe, my wolf repeated.

I got the safe part, but the our human part? Seriously out of left field.

Is it, though? And oh look, here was my very human brain chiming in, just to add to the chaos in my head. You were sad about this being a temporary thing, remember?

Great. My brain couldn’t figure out how my legs worked without a personal trainer and a workout routine, but apparently it had zero problem recalling the one stray thought I’d had in my post-sex afterglow.

Shut up, I told it.

I nosed at Hunter’s shoulder and let out a soft whine, hoping he was okay.

He lifted his head, his breathing still ragged, and pulled himself to his feet. Then he sat down on the step above me, sagging back against the wall. He looked kind of dazed, and I didn’t blame him. It had been an action-packed thirty seconds.

“You saved me,” he said, running a hand over my fur, and my back arched into his touch as I preened. Hunter took a couple of slow, deep breaths and let them out as he got himself together, all the while staring at me in admiration. “I didn’t know you could change on the fly like that. It was incredible!”

I chuffed out a noise of agreement. Yeah, it had been—even if I hadn’t known I could do it either.

Hunter glanced down at his shoe and then tied a loose shoelace, possibly the cause of him falling down the stairs in the first place. He gave me a fond smile and reached up and scritched me behind the ears. Maybe I should have been offended at him treating me like a dog—I was a timber wolf, thank you!—but the way he was rubbing the ridge at the base of my ears felt really fucking good. It felt so good that before I could stop myself I’d rolled onto my back, and my rear leg was twitching as I pawed frantically at the air with one leg like I was riding an invisible bike.

Oh, absolutely the fuck not.

I rolled over and scrambled back up onto all four legs, closed my eyes, and shifted back. Which meant when I opened my eyes again, my human self was standing in front of Hunter with my dick out.

Oh. Right. I’d forgotten that my clothes were casualties.