Chapter 11
ADELAIDE
“Tell me the food is as good as it smells,” I say, because whatever is happening in the kitchen has been teasing me since we got out of the truck in the parking area, and I’m only human.
North glances at me, one corner of his mouth lifting. “It’s incredible.”
We pass through the metal entrance gates, and I stop for half a second because this place is absurd.
The zoo closes in the afternoon and then, apparently, transforms into a luau by sunset like that’s a normal use of space.
The whole grounds open up wide and glowing, palms swaying overhead, torches already lit around long rows of tables.
A stage is set up at the far end on a scale.
Beyond it all, the ocean is throwing back the sunset in streaks of gold and pink and deep orange.
“This is ridiculously beautiful,” I say.
North’s hand brushes lightly at the back of my shoulder, guiding me forward through the crowd, yet my body buzzes. “It’s popular,” he says. “Sells out most nights.”
“How often do they do this?”
“Three times a week.”
“Wow, impressive.”
He leads me forward, weaving through people with that same excitement as me, but I notice how different North feels from Luca and Ace.
Luca fills a space by force of presence.
Ace pulls one toward him without seeming to try.
North just moves like he expects the world to make room, and somehow it does.
We reach a table right near the stage. “This is premium seating.”
“Only the best for you.” He winks, and damn him for making my knees weak. He sits across from me where we are practically feet from the stage, yet I have to make a conscious effort not to stare at North.
He changed before we came out here. Cargo pants, dark Hawaiian floral shirt, open at the throat, sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
Casual, apparently, which would be easier to believe if it wasn’t every woman’s fantasy.
Three days’ growth of stubble on his strong jaw, auburn hair falling to his shoulders, one side tucked behind an ear, muscles pushing against his shirt, and he appears just effortlessly sexy.
I drag my attention back to his face. Bad idea, because he catches me gawking.
Not smug about it, just aware, which makes it a million times worse. North leans back slightly in his chair and stares at me with that steady, unreadable attention that leaves me burning up. His gaze drops briefly to my mouth before coming back to my eyes.
It’s quick, but still enough to drive fire through every inch of me. I straighten in my chair because apparently I enjoy suffering. Then he gets to his feet. “I’ll grab us drinks.”
He disappears into the crowd before I can answer, and I watch him go, which I absolutely should not be doing. But there’s no helping it. All that muscle, confidence, and that firm ass. Damn! He knows exactly what he’s doing to me.
Which, honestly, should be punishable.
He soon returns with two cocktails in clear cups, orange-pink and cold and decorated with lime, then sets one down in front of me and slides into his seat.
I take a sip and close my eyes for a second. “Oh, wow.”
His mouth curves faintly. “Lava Flow cocktail. Everyone loves them.”
I take another drink and nod. “Yep, I can see why. This is easy to get drunk with.” I giggle and lick the droplet on my lip, catching him staring at my mouth again.
He holds his own drink with his large hand—thick, long fingers. I take it all in because I’m weak. The way the shirt pulls across his chest when he leans back, the tendon in his forearm flexing when he lifts the cup. This is not useful information, yet I’m loving every second of it.
“All okay?” I ask, because his attention has shifted again, moving over the crowd.
“I mentioned to a few people to keep an eye out. Anything off or unfamiliar, they let me know.”
“That’s both reassuring and a little terrifying,” I admit truthfully.
His mouth curves, causing small creases at the corners. “You say that as if you don’t enjoy being looked after.”
I lift a brow. “I guess it’s new for me.” I set my drink down. “Thank you. You all took on a whole situation today that you absolutely didn’t ask for, and now I’m here drinking cocktails at a zoo luau while my life is on fire. Also, I’m aware that makes me a very complicated houseguest.”
His expression changes, softening, and catches me off guard. “You’re not a burden, Adelaide.” And then, because apparently this man enjoys ruining my internal organs for sport, he reaches across the table and brushes his fingers over my upturned palm.
It’s sensual, my entire body tingling. His thumb rests there for a moment. “You do this thing.”
I glance down at his hand, then back up. “What?”
“You act like you have to earn kindness before you’re allowed to trust it.”
I blink at him, and I’m lost for words because clearly I’m not the only one watching closely.
He lets my hand go, leans back in his chair, and doesn’t apologize for any of it.
I exhale slowly. “You are much less quiet than I initially thought.”
A real smile pulls at his mouth. “I was being polite at lunch. You were having a rough day, so I didn’t want to crowd you.”
That… isn’t the answer I expected, and somehow it’s worse for the state of my rapidly collapsing self-control. “I’m not sure this version of you is any safer,” I tell him.
“No,” he says easily. “Probably not.”
God.
The torches around us burn brighter as the sun drops lower, throwing gold over his skin and catching in the open collar of his shirt.
I shouldn’t be noticing the shape of his throat, the strong line of his forearms resting on the table, or that when he stares at me, he does it as if he’s already decided I’m worth his full attention.
I am, very unfortunately, noticing all of it.
North leans in a little, not enough to crowd me, just enough to make the air feel tighter between us. “Tell me one real thing about you.”
I blink. “That sounds suspiciously intimate for pre-dinner conversation.”
“It’s one thing.”
“You first.”
He nods once. “I hate sleeping in, love early mornings, take my coffee black, and I can’t stand liars. I was sixteen the first time when I got stabbed, and I learned pretty quickly after that not to assume anybody’s harmless.”
I blink at him. My fingers tighten around my drink. “Wait, what?”
“I was sixteen.”
“No, I heard the age, North. I’m stuck on the stabbing part.”
That earns me the smallest upward curl of his mouth. “What happened?” I ask.
He holds my gaze for a second, seeming to decide how much to give me. “Long story.”
“Sounds intense.”
He shrugs, the corner of his temple pulsing, telling me it was very bad, so I leave it.
“Is that where all this mysterious Alpha menace comes from?” I ask, because I need to lighten it or I’m going to start asking questions I’m not sure he’ll answer.
“No,” he says, all cocky. “That part’s natural.”
I laugh despite myself.
Then he adds, quieter, “It just taught me early on that people show you who they are if you pay attention.”
I swirl my drink once, then hear myself say, “Fine, my turn. One real thing about me. At one of my jobs, I slept with my boss, and it turned out pretty badly.” The words are out before I can dress them up into something safer.
I give a small shrug and look down at my cup, already wondering if maybe that was too much, too fast.
North doesn’t even blink. “How badly?”
I glance up. He’s watching me with that same unreadable focus, but there’s nothing casual in his voice now.
I let out a breath. “Bad enough that I ended up here on an extended vacation.”
His jaw hardens. “Then he’s a fucking idiot.”
The laugh that slips out of me is quieter this time, more startled than amused, and the second it does, I want to take the whole thing back.
I’ve said too much, and I don’t even know why I blurted it out, except North has this unnerving way of making me want to bring the truth a lot closer to the surface than I should.
I glance down at my drink. “I probably shouldn’t have shared that.”
“No,” he says. “But I’m glad you did.” His gaze is fixed on me, calm on the surface and dangerous underneath. “If he put that look in your eyes,” he says, “he’d want to pray I never meet him.”
I need to get us off the topic of Daniel before I say too much or he asks questions. So I take the easiest turn available. “Can I ask you something?” I say.
North’s mouth quirks up at one corner. “You’re going to regardless.”
“Absolutely.” I take another sip of my drink, buying half a second. “Are you the pack Alpha? You give off the vibe.”
He doesn’t answer straight away. “We don’t formally designate,” he says at last.
“But?”
His gaze settles on me, steady and far too aware. “But I’m the one who assesses first, who makes the final call, who they both come to.”
That tracks, irritatingly well.
“Drives you crazy, doesn’t it?” he adds. “That I’m harder to read.”
I huff a laugh. “A little bit, yeah. I’m used to having people figured out faster.”
“I can tell.” There’s enough in the way he says that to send a shiver down my spine. Not because it’s cold, but because he’s already three steps ahead of me and in no hurry to announce it. And God help me, there’s a part of me that likes that. A reckless, poorly supervised part.
My attention drops to his forearms instead, partly because I need somewhere else to look and his sleeves are rolled to the elbows and the ink there has been distracting me. “Tell me about those.”
He glances down once, then extends his arm across the table without hesitation.
The torchlight lights up his skin, and the tattoos sharpen into detail.
A wolf’s eye on the inside of his left forearm.
Across the other arm is a topographic mountain line, all clean black contours.
On the inside of his wrist, neat-script coordinates.
I trace the air above the wolf without touching him.
“The eye?”
“Reminder to see what’s coming before it gets close.”