14. Surprise
SURPRISE
huh. so that is why the bakery always smells like wolf…
— gus
Lifting it high over my head, prepared to bash the wolf’s in if it even tries to maul me, I scream and the wolf’s muzzle snaps my way. His eyes—shining brightly against the shadows—are such a familiar shade of gold, I hesitate.
The wolf drops down into a seated position, staring up at me.
Stunned by his reaction, I stare right back at him.
I hear a whine that sounds just like noise I heard upstairs. Realizing it had to belong to him, I watch as the massive predator lowers his head almost apologetically.
And that’s when my terror runs headfirst into something else: recognition. Those eyes… the memory of me asking Riordan what color his fur is and his flat response of ‘black’... the easy way he moves around the bakery like he’s been here a hundred times…
I lower the rolling pin. “Riordan?”
His tail thumps once against the floor, a signal that I take as affirmation.
I goggle at him. “You have got to be kidding me.”
In answer, the wolf shifts. It happens in an instant. One second, I’m looking at a big, black wolf trying to make himself seem smaller and less threatening. The next? I have a big, beautiful, and naked Riordan Lobo standing a few feet away from me.
Oh? Did I mention he’s naked? Because he’s fucking naked!
I squeak. There’s no other way to describe the sound that erupts from my throat as I get my first look at Riordan without a stitch of clothes on.
I’d like to say I didn’t look, but while I’m a witch, I’m also only human.
I stare at his chest, his abs, the path of dark fur that covers his groin, all the way to a half-erect dick that’s one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen—
Riordan frowns. “Pen?”
I squeak again, my eyes jumping back to his face, knowing that mine is on fire.
His gaze drops to the rolling pin, standing there bold as brass as if he isn’t naked. “Were you going to beat me with that?”
I forgot about the rolling pin. I hurriedly place it on top of one of the neat counters as I tell him, “You were a wolf!”
“I am a wolf.”
“You were a big wolf.”
“I’m an alpha,” he says patiently.
“A big, black wolf killed Faith and Olivia! I thought you were coming to get me next!”
His mouth falls open. For a second, he looks like he’s going to argue, but then I think he understands just how bad it looks that he’s somehow in the bakery, walking around in his shifted form, and he just scared the bejeezus out of me.
And he’s naked! I can’t forget he’s naked!
Since I can’t, and since my traitorous gaze keeps wanting to look lower than it should, I finally do what I should’ve in the first place once I realized it was Riordan and not a murderer: I turn around so that I don’t ogle the poor male.
From behind me, I hear muffled laughter, and then, “Are you turning your back because you don’t like what you see, Penelope, or because you do?”
I know exactly why he thinks this is funny. With his shifter nose, he knows exactly what sort of reaction his naked body has on me.
“Why are you naked?” I ask because there’s no getting around it.
“Because clothes don’t come back from a shift. You know that. Besides, nudity isn’t a big deal in shifter culture. I don’t mind if you don’t mind.”
Yeah? Well, it is when you’re a witch.
“Sorry, Riordan, but I do mind. So shift again,” I tell him. “I’d rather deal with you in your fur than without any clothes on.”
Another bout of laughter, huskier this time.
“That’s a shame, witch. But if that’s how you feel…
I didn’t walk over to the bakery in my fur.
I had clothes on. I took them off to shift.
You want me to change back into them instead?
That way we can talk and you won’t accidentally forget I’m not a murderer and bash me in the head with a rolling pin. ”
I jerk my gaze toward the ceiling, determined not to give in to the urge and look at him again. “Where are your clothes?”
“In the pantry.”
That answer makes it harder to resist. “Why are your clothes in Honey’s pantry?”
“I always put them neatly in a bag for when I need them again. I don’t want them ruined for when I have to leave in the morning before I come and pick you up.”
Why does the way he says that make me think this isn’t the first time he’s let himself into the bakery to… to…
Come to think of it, I have no idea what he’s doing here or how he even got in!
Before I can ask, I hear bare feet padding across the kitchen. A pantry door opens. There’s the rustle of plastic, then fabric, and I stare determinedly at a one of the commercial refrigerators on Honey’s wall until Riordan tells me with an amused tone that it’s safe for me to turn around.
When I do, he’s wearing slacks. That’s all. No shirt.
That is not as helpful as he thinks it is, and because I can sense he’s trying to get a reaction out of me—or maybe trying to distract me enough that I lose all train of thought which… fair—I refuse to let him.
Perching my hands on my hips, perfectly aware that I’m wearing a loose sleep shirt and a pair of sleep shorts that his slight smirk tells me he approves of, I demand, “How did you get in here?”
“I might’ve borrowed Max’s emergency key Honey gave him so he can get into the bakery without her. It only works on the front door. I couldn’t get upstairs, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
That’s the least of my worries, though it probably shouldn’t be.
Because I trusted the locks downstairs, I never locked the door that connects the upstairs apartment and the first floor.
I’m only borrowing the apartment for a little longer.
I didn’t want Honey to feel like she wasn’t welcome to come upstairs if she needed to, and since she respected my privacy when the bedroom door is closed, we’ve never had a problem.
Even Gus would wait patiently out in the hall for me to come out and join them downstairs if he wanted my company, though that’s more because he can’t open my door on his own than because he has any sense of personal space.
I purse my lips. “Why are you here?”
Riordan looks confused. “I told you.”
What?
“No. No. You definitely did not tell me you were planning to break into the bakery and sleep naked in Honey’s kitchen.”
“I wasn’t sleeping naked,” he argues. “I was patrolling in my fur because I’m more attuned to danger when I’m my wolf.
You’re the one who looked like you were going to murder me, and since I’m doing all of this so no one murders you, I figured I should shift and speak to you instead of continuing to scare you. ”
“You didn’t scare me!”
He snorts. He doesn’t call me a liar, but he doesn’t have to.
I roll my eyes. “Okay. Maybe I was a little scared when I heard someone down here.”
“Well, you don’t have to be. It was just me.”
“I don’t think you understand that that doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Why?” asks Riordan. “I told you I wasn’t leaving your side until the murderer was caught.”
Oh.
Oh.
That’s right. He did. Then again, he hasn’t. Not really.
For the last week in particular, Riordan has been there almost every time I turn around. He takes me to the library. He drives me around Moonburrow. He spends hours searching the woods with me, then finds reasons to take me out to eat.
But, all along, I thought he went home at night only to appear at the door at nine o’clock.
Apparently not.
Goddess damn it.
“This is my fault,” I say in a tiny voice, backing away from him.
Riordan’s expression goes wolfishly alert. “What is?”
“This.” I gesture between us. “You being here. Following me everywhere. Patrolling the downstairs after dark. Shit, Riordan. Do you even sleep? What did I do to you?”
“You didn’t do anything—”
He’s wrong. “I cast a spell.”
“On me?”
I nod miserably. “Honey wanted me to cast a locator spell. To find you and bring you back to Moonburrow. And I did because she asked, but I didn’t think it worked, and then, suddenly, there you were, and now you feel like you have to be at my side every minute and every hour and it’s all my fault!”
For a second, he only stares at me. Then Riordan rubs his jaw. “Penelope… I say this with all the love in the world, but your magic isn’t very… accurate.”
I sniffle. “I know that.”
“So why do you think it did anything to me?”
“Because you came back!”
His brows rise.
“You were gone for two months. I cast a locator spell because Honey wanted you home, it fizzled out, and then Olivia died and suddenly you came back. And ever since then, you keep insisting you can’t leave me alone.”
Something in his expression changes. “Pen.”
“What?”
“Did you feel the spell attach itself to me?”
“No.”
“Do you see any magic on me that wasn’t already there?”
I hesitate, realizing what he means. All along, I’ve noticed the neon green wisps that surround him, but that’s all there is. I don’t see any hint of another spell, and especially not one with my own magical signature.
“No,” I whisper.
“See? Pen… I’m not here because your magic says that I have to be. If you don’t believe anything else I say, please believe that.”
“But—”
“No ‘but’. I’m a wolf.” His voice softens. “Magic has a scent, Pen. Especially magic that’s attached to me. I’ve lived with a curse for fifteen years. I know what it feels like when a witch gets inside of my skin.”
Oh. That actually makes sense. But if the locator spell didn’t make Riordan come back, and it isn’t forcing him to stay near me…
I can’t bring myself to think about the second part of that. But the first…
“Then why did you come back?”
His expression softens. “I would’ve come back to Moonburrow a lot sooner if I knew that you were trying to call me home.
But, trust me… I only returned when I did because Max told me that Olivia Frost was dead and we had a wolf killing witches.
” He reaches out slowly, giving me plenty of time to move away before his fingers brush a strand of hair behind my ear.
“I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if anything happened to my sweet witch. ”
My sweet witch.
I stare up at him, suddenly very aware that he’s still shirtless, that it’s the middle of the night, and that there isn’t any magic forcing him to stand in Honey’s kitchen but that he’s here because, for reasons of his own, he refuses to leave me unprotected.
My lips part.
He gives me a small almost-smile. “Why don’t you go back to bed, Pen? We’ll finish this talk in the morning.”
I fall back a few steps. “You know what? That sounded suspiciously like an order.”
His face goes blank.
I regret saying it just as quickly. “Sorry.”
“No.” His voice turns quiet. “Don’t apologize. You’re right.” Like me, he takes a deliberate step back. “Would you please go upstairs and get some sleep? We have another section of Garnet’s map to check tomorrow.”
I look at him. At the male who corrected himself the second I reminded him what his words could do.
I hesitate. “Are you going to get some sleep?”
He nods. “I will. Don’t you worry. And I’ll be knocking on the door at nine o’clock just like I have ever since we started this dance.”
Murmuring my good night to him, it isn’t until I’m back in bed, staring at the ceiling, that I think about what he said.
Dance.
What a funny thing to say.
Dance.
What a funny thing to refer to this shifting relationship we have, especially since I’m one hundred percent sure that, when Riordan does fall asleep tonight, it’ll be in the kitchen downstairs beneath me…
It is a strange little dance we’re doing, isn’t it?