Chapter One #2
Not pack-sour. Not rank-heavy. Not the suffocating musk of males who think power is a personality. This is something cleaner. Wilder. Steady and warm and so painfully right that my knees nearly buckle.
My wolf slams against my ribs. Mate.
No. Absolutely not.
The man standing in my doorway is tall enough to block half the morning light.
Broad shoulders fill out a dark t-shirt dusted with sawdust. Faded jeans sit low on lean hips, and a worn tool belt hangs from one hand.
His hair is dark blond, messy in a way that suggests fingers, wind, and poor life choices.
His jaw is rough with stubble. His mouth is soft, full, and parting as if he forgot how breathing works
His eyes find mine. They’re amber, wolf-bright, and stunned.
The box of cupcakes slips from my hand, and Mrs. Bell catches it with reflexes that are frankly suspicious for a woman who complains about her hip every time I ask her to pay full price.
The bakery goes quiet. Not silent. Humans are terrible at noticing supernatural disasters unless someone starts bleeding or naked shifting in public. The espresso machine hisses—a chair scrapes. Someone whispers about blueberry muffins.
But between him and me? Silence. Deep, electric, and dangerous. The bond opens inside my chest like a door I welded shut years ago. Heat pours through, recognition follows, and then panic arrives wearing tap shoes.
My fingers curl around the counter hard enough to hurt. My wolf whines, a sound so soft and aching it almost breaks me. She wants to go to him, wants to press against him, wants to breathe him in until the last ugly shadows of the past finally shut up.
Traitor.
The man swallows, and his gaze dips over me, not crude, not claiming, but hungry. Like he’s seeing something he did not know he had lost until this exact second.
His nostrils flare. “Mate,” he says.
The word is barely more than breath. Still, I hear it. Every wolf part of me hears it. My body answers with heat. My heart answers with terror.
“Nope,” I say.
His brows jerk together. “Nope?”
“Nope.”
Mrs. Bell looks between us with bright, fascinated eyes. “Oh, this is better than television.”
“Mrs. Bell,” I say without looking away from the stranger, “please take your cupcakes and flee.”
“I’m eighty. I don’t flee. I observe.”
The man takes one cautious step forward, and my wolf rises. I take one step back, and he stops immediately. Damn him.
His hands lift, palms open, the tool belt dangling from one hand. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
A laugh bursts out of me. It is sharp enough to cut bread. “That is exactly what men say before they ruin your life.”
Something shifts in his expression. The shock remains, the bond still burning between us, but his gaze softens with understanding he has no right to have.
“I’m Daniel,” he says carefully. “Daniel Reed. I’m the handyman.”
Of course he is. Of fucking course. Because my day was not complete until fate sent me an attractive wolf shifter with broad shoulders and a profession specifically designed to invade my personal space and fix things I refuse to admit are broken.
I point toward the back kitchen. “The mixer is dead.”
He blinks. “What?”
“You heard me. The mixer. Dead. Possibly murdered by overuse, stress, or the fact that it hates women in business.”
His mouth twitches. Don’t smile, I silently warn him. Don’t dare be charming right now. I’m having a crisis. And then he smiles—the bastard.
It’s small, crooked, and devastating enough that my wolf sighs like a cheap romance heroine seeing rain on a windowpane.
I hate everyone.
“You want me to look at the mixer?” he asks.
“I want you to fix the mixer.”
His amber eyes stay on mine. “And the other thing?”
“There’s no other thing.”
“The bond,” he whispers as he leans in.
I lean over the counter slightly, lowering my voice. “Listen carefully, Daniel Reed, handyman, walking bad decision, whatever else you may be. I have had a mate before.”
His smile vanishes. Good. Let him see that I’m not some soft little pastry waiting to be picked from a display case.
I keep my voice steady, even though my chest aches and my wolf presses closer, listening too.
“He denied me. Publicly. Completely. Painfully. I survived it, crawled out of that nightmare, built this place with my own hands, and I’m not letting fate barge in here wearing work boots and cheekbones to tell me what belongs to me.”
Daniel goes very still. Around us, the bakery pretends not to listen and fails miserably. Maisie has stopped moving altogether. Mr. Phelps has returned to stand near the door with his raisin buns. Mrs. Bell is holding her cupcakes to her chest like popcorn.
Daniel does not look at them. He only looks at me.
The bond hums between us, hot and aching. His wolf presses against his skin. I see it in the glow of his eyes, the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers flex like he wants to reach for me and is choosing not to.
Finally, he nods once. “Okay.”
I narrow my eyes. “Okay?”
“Okay,” he repeats. “I’ll fix the mixer.”
“And?”
“And I won’t mention the other thing unless you do.”
My throat tightens. That is very rude of him. He’s supposed to push. Growl. Demand. Make it easy for me to hate him. Men who push are simple. Men who listen are dangerous.
“Good,” I say, because I have survived worse than attractive patience. Probably.
Daniel’s gaze flicks to the flour on my cheek. His mouth twitches again.
“What?” I snap.
“You have...” He gestures to his own face.
“I know.”
“It’s kind of everywhere.”
“I was attacked.”
“By flour?”
“Violently.”
His lips press together like he’s fighting a laugh. My wolf perks up, and I glare harder to compensate. Daniel clears his throat, but there’s warmth in his eyes now. Not pity. Not possession.
Something worse. Amusement, interest, want.
“I’ll be careful in the crime scene,” he says.
Maisie makes a strangled sound behind me, and I jab a finger toward the kitchen. “Mixer. Now.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Oh, that should not do anything to me. Yet, the words roll over my skin, low and respectful and just edged enough to make my thighs press together behind the counter.
Daniel hears the change in my breathing. Of course he does. Wolf bastard. His eyes darken for one dangerous second, amber turning molten. The bond flares, sudden and hot, sweeping through my body like a match touched to dry paper.
My fingers tighten on the counter and his hand curls around the tool belt. Neither of us moves, then he takes a slow breath, steps back, and looks away first.
“I’ll fix the mixer,” he says, voice rougher now.
I nod, pretending I don’t feel shaky. “That’s all you’re fixing today.”
He pauses beside the counter, close enough that his scent wraps around me and tugs at places I have kept locked for years. Then he looks at me again, not at my body, not at the place on my neck where a claim should have been once. At me.
“Good,” he says softly. “I charge extra for emotional repairs anyway.”
The laugh slips out before I can stop it. It’s small, rusty, and almost unwilling. But it’s real.
Daniel’s face changes when he hears it, like that tiny laugh is something precious and my heart does one stupid, reckless little flip. Oh no. No, no, no. Absolutely not.
I point harder toward the kitchen. “Go.”
He goes, smiling like a man who knows exactly how badly I want to throw something at his head. The second he disappears into the back, Maisie rushes up beside me.
“Holy shit,” she whispers.
I stare at the kitchen doorway. The bond glows inside my chest, warm and terrifying. My wolf watches him through my eyes, tail wagging like an idiot. I grab a towel and wipe flour from my face with more aggression than necessary.
“Not one word,” I warn.
Maisie’s grin is huge. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re screaming internally.”
“So are you.” Unfortunately, she’s right.
From the back kitchen, metal clanks. Daniel mutters something under his breath. The mixer gives a protesting squeal, followed by his low laugh.
My wolf sighs again, and I close my eyes. The Moon Goddess has a sick sense of humor. Because fate did not just send me another mate, it sent me the handyman. And Goddess help me, I think I might let him fix the damn mixer. But that is it.
Probably.
Maybe.
Oh, I’m in so much trouble.