Chapter 5 #2
This was not the cold, hostile wolf who looked at her like she was a threat to everything he cared about.
This was someone completely different. Someone warm, patient, who talked nonsense syllables to infants and smiled when they laughed.
She watched him take the sock-waving boy out of the stroller with one hand, still holding the girl with the other, and settle both babies against his chest like they weighed nothing at all.
He looked up at her then, caught her watching, and the air between them shifted.
Something flickered in his eyes. Not hostility.
Something worse. Something that made her think about what it might be like to see him hold a baby that was theirs, to watch those big hands cradle something they'd made together.
The thought hit her like a punch to the sternum.
She didn't want this. Didn't want to imagine a future with a man who could barely stand to be in the same room with her. But her traitorous heart didn't care what she wanted. It saw him cradling those babies and ached with a longing so fierce she could barely breathe.
"You're a natural," she heard herself say, and her voice came out strange. Thick.
Ryker's gaze held hers for a beat too long. "Babies are easy. They just want to be held."
Unlike me, she thought. I'm not easy at all.
Then Maeve emerged from the bathroom, took in the scene, and let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. "Oh thank god, the baby whisperer. Take them. Take all of them. I'll pay you in baked goods for the rest of your life."
The moment shattered. Ryker's expression shifted back to neutral as he transferred the infants to their mother, and the two of them fell into easy conversation about festival coordination.
Willow stood there, useless, watching him avoid her eyes while he talked to Maeve about vendor schedules and setup timelines.
She couldn't do this. Standing here pretending she was fine while her insides rearranged themselves was too much.
"I need to grab some supplies from the back," she managed. "Maeve, the blessing blankets are on the counter when you're ready."
She didn't wait for a response. Just turned and walked toward the back, forcing herself not to run, not to look back, and not to let either of them see how close she was to falling apart.
The stockroom was private and dim and blessedly quiet. She pressed her back against the door and let herself breathe. In through her nose, out through her mouth. The way her grandmother had taught her when anxiety made her chest too tight.
Except it wasn't garden variety anxiety making her chest tight. It was him. It was watching him be tender and knowing that tenderness would never be directed at her.
Through the door, she heard Maeve's voice, then Ryker's low response. The scrape of the stroller wheels. Maeve calling out, "Thanks, Willow! See you tomorrow!"
The bell over the front door chimed.
Silence.
Willow let out a long breath and pushed away from the door. She needed to get the supplies she'd claimed to need. Flour was running low, and they'd go through twice as much with the festival prep ramping up.
She moved deeper into the stockroom, scanning the shelves. The top shelf held the bulk bags, fifty pounds each. She'd need the step stool, or she could just stretch and hope for the best.
She was reaching up, fingers just brushing the edge of a flour bag, when she heard footsteps behind her.
Her hand froze. She knew that stride. Knew the weight of it, the way the floorboards creaked under his boots.
He hadn't left with Maeve.
When she turned, Ryker was closer than she expected.
The room was already too small, made smaller by the rows of shelving that lined both walls.
Bags of flour and sugar. Jars of honey. Containers of dried lavender and vanilla beans.
The narrow aisle between the shelves left barely enough room for two people to pass, and right now, Ryker was blocking the only exit.
"What are you doing here?" Her voice came out breathless. "I heard Maeve leave."
"She did." His eyes weren't on her face. They were tracking down her body, lingering at her throat before snapping back up. "I didn't."
Neither of them moved.
The air between them felt thick, charged. Her body responded before her mind could catch up, heat spreading through her. The flush in her cheeks wasn't embarrassment anymore. It was something darker, more urgent.
She should step around him. Push past and get back to the safety of the main bakery. That's what a smart woman would do. A woman who wasn't making the same mistake her body kept trying to make.
She didn't move.
Ryker stepped closer.
Now her back was against the shelving, and he was close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off his body.
Close enough to see the rapid pulse at his throat, the way his pupils had blown wide in the dim stockroom light.
His scent wrapped around her. Pine and something woodsy and underneath it, that clean male warmth that made her want to press her face against his neck and breathe.
"Willow." His voice came out rough, scraped raw.
"What?"
He didn't answer. One of his hands came up, braced against the shelf beside her head.
Not touching her, but caging her in, surrounding her with his presence.
His chest expanded with each breath, and she watched the fabric of his thermal stretch across his shoulders. Watched his jaw clench and release.
She should push him away. Should say something sharp, something cutting, something to break this impossible tension before it broke her.
Instead, she held her breath and waited.
His other hand landed on the shelf on her opposite side. Bracketing her. Trapping her.
"I'm trying—" His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, tried again. "I'm trying to stay away from you."
"How's that working out?"
"It's not."
He leaned in, and the last few inches of space between their bodies disappeared.
His chest pressed against hers, and she felt the hard lines of him everywhere. Shoulders, torso, hips, thighs. Felt, too, the unmistakable ridge of his arousal pressing against her stomach. Her breath caught in her throat, and she heard him make a sound that was almost a growl.
Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.
His head dropped, mouth hovering over her throat.
She could feel his breath on her skin, hot and uneven, and the sensation sent sparks racing down her spine.
Her pulse hammered against her collarbone, and she knew he could see it.
Could probably hear it too, with those wolf senses, could track every desperate thump of her heart.
She tilted her head. Bared her throat to him.
The sound he made was primal, torn from somewhere deep in his chest. His lips grazed the sensitive skin just below her jaw. Not a kiss, barely a touch, just the ghost of his mouth against her pulse point. Her entire body went liquid with want.
"Ryker—"
He pulled back.
One second he was there, pressed against her, breath ragged against her throat. The next he was three feet away, chest heaving, eyes wild. The loss of his heat felt like a physical blow.
"Fuck." The word came out harsh, bitten off. He dragged a hand through his hair, and she watched the walls slam back up behind his eyes. Cold. Distant. The man who'd held babies and smiled at their laughter was gone, replaced by someone who looked at her like she was a threat he couldn't afford.
He didn't say anything else. Didn't explain, didn't apologize, or offer her a single word to make sense of what had just happened.
He just turned and walked out.
The stockroom door closed behind him with a soft click, and Willow was alone. Her back was still pressed against the shelf, her legs unsteady beneath her. She could feel the ghost of his heat, the phantom pressure of his body against hers. Her throat burned where his breath had touched it.
For a long moment, she couldn't move. Could only stand there, shaking, trying to remember how to breathe.
Her hand drifted up without conscious thought. Fingers found her throat, traced the exact spot where his mouth had hovered. The skin felt hot, sensitized, like he'd marked her without ever actually touching her.
She hated herself for wanting more.
The bag of flour was still on the top shelf, exactly where she'd left it. Through the stockroom wall, she could hear the faint sounds of the bakery. The hum of the ovens. A car passing on the street outside.
Life continued. The world hadn't stopped just because Ryker had pressed her against a shelf and made her feel more alive than she had in months.
Willow forced herself to move. Her hands trembled as she reached for the flour again, managed to hook the edge of the bag and drag it toward her.
Tomorrow she'd see him again. At the vendor meeting, at the supply check, at one of the dozen other intersections their festival duties required.
She'd look at him across a conference table with the memory of his body pressed against hers still fresh.
The way his breath had caught when she bared her throat.
And he'd look at her with those cold eyes, shuttered and distant, and act like nothing had happened.
She gathered the supplies she'd come for and headed back to the kitchen.
The afternoon light was fading, and there was work to be done.
Croissants to shape, bread to proof, festival prep that wouldn't wait for her to stop shaking.
Her body still hummed with unfinished want, worse now that she knew what his weight felt like against hers.
The festival was eight days away. Eight days of proximity and tension and wanting something she couldn't have.
Willow set down the flour with a thump and got back to work.