SEAL Wolf In Too Deep(62)
She closed her gaping mouth, her eyes tearing up, and her cheeks coloring a little with embarrassment. “No.”
He felt bad, but he had to break through all this crap she’d learned over the years about evil werewolves in fiction. “Well, there you go. You’re as wild as they get because you haven’t learned how to control your more primal wolf instincts, and you didn’t want to kill anyone. For the most part.”
“You have me all locked up in the cabin. What if I felt differently once you set me free?” She glanced out the window at the vista. Before he could respond, she added, “By the way, it’s beautiful up here, like being on top of the world with a view of the lake and mountains. I really do love it here. Just not the confinement.”
“I really appreciate the cabin and its location when I return home from missions. Lots of solitude and wildlife. Nature at its finest. Plus, I can run when I want without having trouble with neighbors or others catching sight of me. As to the confinement, it wouldn’t be safe running off on your own. Not when you don’t have control over the shifting. If you were on your own, what do you think would happen? You couldn’t even go out to get groceries without worrying you were going to shift. You’d have no one to run errands for you until you can get this under control.”
“I don’t plan on running. I’m not stupid.”
“No, you’re not. But you did try to at your place.”
“That was different. I thought you were going to bite me.”
He smiled.
“You know what I mean. That you were going to turn me into one of your own kind. But then I took a bath and shifted. At that point, I knew I really had no choice.”
“As to your point about killing someone, your human personality dictates what your wolf half does. Some of our wolf half is instinctual: protective of pack mates or others, being wary and curious, but our human half still dictates much of what we do.”
She sighed. “Okay, no, I didn’t feel like going out on a hunt and eating rabbits, deer, or any men last night. Not even you. I was just…angry when I jumped at you, all snarly and growly, and I’m really sorry. What did you expect? I’m normally not like that.”
“I know you aren’t. You were just upset about everything that had happened to you and acting on instinct. If you’d really wanted to bite me, you would have. Even though you might think I was keeping you from hurting me, you were a lot stronger than that. You were holding back.”
“I was exhausted.”
“Even an exhausted wolf could have injured me in a major way. Granted, some wolves are nasty. It’s the human half that makes them so. Just like humans are good and bad. So sometimes we have to eliminate them. We can’t go to jail so we take care of our own kind.”
Her mouth was gaping again. Allan supposed it was a lot to take in at once. He needed to shut up and let her eat, and they could talk about nicer things for a change.
“So…you don’t want to date me,” he said.
She started to eat her breakfast and drank some of her coffee. “You know how I said I wasn’t exactly a morning person?”
“Okay, so you don’t want to discuss this first thing in the morning.”
“Allan, no, there’s no way I’m dating you.”
“But you would have until this happened, right?”
She finished up her food and took her plate to the kitchen.
He scarfed the rest of his breakfast down. “Okay, no dating.” But she was living with him, and that was even better. Dating was overrated.
“You don’t mean it,” she said, cleaning up, but he took the pan she was going to wash away from her. She smiled at him, just a little. “Don’t think washing the pots and pans is going to change my mind.”
“Hadn’t even considered it.” She would learn that he was always like that with the dishes. When his mother or sister cooked, he always did the dishes, his thanks for someone else cooking. But if Debbie thought he was trying to win her favor, then he was all for it.
Chapter 17
Debbie was certain the wolf standing next to her, scrubbing away at the scrambled eggs left on the frying pan, had every intention of dating her. He just thought he was going to give her time to get used to the idea. She had news for him. She was never mating any wolf. Ever. Mating for life? No way.
Her neat, orderly little life had been shot to hell when she turned into a werewolf. What did he call them? Lupus garous? Fancy name for a horror-flick creature.
No, she hadn’t come to grips with being a werewolf. And no, she didn’t think she ever could. The whole notion was so unreal. She kept thinking she’d wake up and the nightmare would end. But this was it. Her real life now.
She didn’t see herself as the beautiful wolf he probably saw, but as a scary, snarling, growling, furry, biting predator.
She glanced at him. They didn’t do it wolf style, did they? Ewww.
“What?” he said, not even looking up at her as he finished washing the frying pan. “Don’t hesitate to ask whatever’s on your mind. You need to know everything, but there will be things you’ll think of that I won’t. You can ask any of us anything you’d like.”
“Do you…have sex as wolves?” She figured he’d either laugh at her or say yes, and she didn’t know which would be worse.