Chapter 12 #3
“You were skinnier in high school,” Caleb says around a mouthful of carbs.
“I wasn’t skinny,” Boone snaps, pouring me a mug of dark roast coffee before I can even ask and sliding it into my hands with two packets of raw sugar. “I was seventeen.”
Before I can take a single sip, the back mudroom door swings open with a sharp clatter.
Two enormous, shaggy hunting hounds—a brindle hound and a grey mastiff mix—trot into the kitchen, tails thumping against the cabinets.
The mastiff, Barnaby, limps heavily on his right front paw, holding it off the hardwood floor with a pitiful whine.
Behind him, Rusty, an older hound with scarred ears, noses straight for my knees.
Thomas looks up from his ledgers, his brow furrowing. “Barnaby, what’d you get into now? The creek shale?”
He reaches for the dog’s leg, but Barnaby flinches back, tucking his tail between his haunches and letting out a low, nervous rumble.
“Hey,” I say softly, setting my coffee mug down on the counter.
My brain clicks into veterinary autopilot before my social anxiety can catch up. I drop onto my knees on the cold kitchen floor, ignoring the pine planks under my pajama pants. Barnaby watches me with wary, bloodshot brown eyes.
“Hey, sweet boy,” I murmur in my quietest clinic voice, extending the back of my hand so he can catch my scent. “Let me see. You’re okay.”
Barnaby sniffs my knuckles, his wet nose twitching against my skin. After a second, his tail gives a tentative thump. I gently run my hands down his muscular shoulder, feeling for any heat, swelling, or joint tension, then cup his lower leg and lift his paw.
A sharp wedge of river slate is wedged deep into the large center pad, surrounded by a thin ring of dried blood and grit.
“Linda,” I call out, keeping my eyes on the dog. “Do you have clean tweezers and antiseptic wash? Iodine or chlorhexidine if you have it.”
“First aid kit in the pantry,” Linda says immediately, moving with quick, quiet efficiency.
She returns seconds later with a plastic kit and a roll of self-adhesive vet wrap. Boone drops down beside me, his large hand resting flat and steady on Barnaby’s flank. His touch has an instant calming effect—that innate alpha presence that makes animals relax by instinct.
“Hold his head gently against your knee,” I tell Boone. “Don’t let him jerk if it stings.”
“Got him,” Boone says quietly.
With steady fingers, I grip the edge of the stone with the tweezers and pull it free in one smooth, angled motion.
Barnaby lets out a tiny yelp, but Boone’s low, soothing murmur keeps him still.
I flush the wound thoroughly with iodine, check for remaining fragments, dab it dry with sterile gauze, and wrap the paw in neat, even layers of purple bandage, leaving his toes visible to monitor circulation.
“Keep him off the rough gravel for two days,” I tell Thomas, standing up and brushing dog hair off my knees. “Change the dressing if it gets wet, and check the edges for swelling. He’ll be fine by Thursday.”
When I look up, the entire kitchen is dead silent.
Caleb is staring at me with his toast frozen halfway to his mouth. Thomas is looking at me with a slow, deeply impressed nod, his dark eyes warm with quiet respect. Linda is beaming so hard her eyes crinkle at the corners.
And Boone... Boone is standing beside me with his chest puffed out so far he looks like he might explode with pure, smug pride.
"Told you she was smart," Boone says, slinging a heavy arm over my shoulders and pressing a loud, obnoxious kiss to my temple.
"Stop," I mutter, my face burning, but I lean into his side anyway.
Tuesday afternoon reveals a side of Boone I've never seen on campus.
At Creature University, everyone knows Boone Kinkaid as the star football player, the honors student, the guy who carries my backpack across the quad. But here, on his pack's territory, he's the future alpha.
I sit on the broad cedar porch wrapped in a thick wool blanket, flashcards spread across my lap, watching him work.
Over four hours, half a dozen pack members come up the gravel drive.
A young couple asks about timber harvest permits for their property line.
An older shifter named Greg brings maintenance blueprints for the community snowplows.
Boone doesn't rush them. He stands on the gravel in his heavy canvas coat and work boots, listening with absolute patience. When he speaks, his voice carries that deep, calm authority that doesn't need volume to command respect. He makes decisions quickly, fairly, with total confidence.
Watching him command not just a room but an entire ridge makes something hot and dangerous coil low in my stomach. He's only twenty-one, but the weight of the pack on his shoulders makes him look ten feet tall.
When he finally climbs back up the porch steps, stamping snow off his boots, he catches me staring.
"What?" he asks, lips curving into a slow smirk.
"Nothing," I lie, flipping a flashcard. "Just wondering how many forestry permits you have to sign before you're legally allowed to take a nap."
Boone chuckles, reaching down to tug the edge of my blanket. "Come inside. It's freezing out here."
That night, after the house finally goes quiet and the lights downstairs click off, the atmosphere in Boone's childhood bedroom shifts completely.
We're both exhausted, but the second that heavy oak door clicks shut and Boone turns the lock, the restraint we've been clinging to all day shatters.
Boone grabs my waist from behind, pulling me back against his chest before I can reach the bed.
His mouth finds the sensitive curve where my neck meets my shoulder, right over the silver scar of my mating mark.
He bites down—gently, just enough pressure to make a sharp, breathless gasp tear from my throat.
“Boone,” I whisper, my fingers digging into his forearms. “Your parents...”
“Door’s locked,” he rasps against my skin, his hands sliding down to grip the hem of my oversized sweater. He hauls it up over my head in one rough movement. “And I’ve been watching you all damn day.”
“I was doing flashcards.”
“You were looking at me on the porch like you wanted to climb me,” he growls, spinning me around and lifting me onto the edge of his wide wooden desk.
Papers and Pilot G2 pens scatter across the blotter, but neither of us cares.
Boone steps between my parted thighs, his large, calloused hands sliding up my bare ribs, his thumbs brushing over the lace of my bra until my nipples pebble against the fabric.
His amber eyes are dark, glowing with pure full-moon heat.
“You’re so fucking beautiful, Maisie,” he mutters, his voice thick with reverence. “Smartest girl in the room. Fixing dogs on my kitchen floor.”
“Boone, please,” I whimper, arching my back as his mouth trails down my throat, over my collarbone, and closes hot and wet over the swell of my breast through the lace.
He doesn’t rush. He strips my sweatpants down my legs and tosses them onto the floor. When his fingers slide between my thighs, finding me soaking wet and trembling for him, a low, guttural groan rips from his chest.
“So wet for me,” he whispers, working me in slow, filthy circles that make my hips buck off the desk. “Look at me, Maisie. Open your eyes.”
I open them, panting, staring into the burning gold of his gaze.
He unbuttons his jeans and kicks them off, then lines himself up at my entrance. He’s massive, thick, and burning hot. When he pushes inside—slow, relentless, filling every single inch of me—I bite down on my bottom lip so hard I taste copper to keep from screaming.
Boone instantly catches my chin with two fingers, pulling my lip free. “Don’t bleed,” he whispers fiercely, his brow damp with sweat. “Squeeze my shoulders. Bite my neck if you have to. But let me hear you.”
He starts to move. It’s slow, deep, and devastating.
Every thrust rocks the heavy desk against the wall, but Boone keeps his hands clamped on my hips, holding me flush against him so not an inch of friction is wasted.
The pressure is unbearable, sending waves of white-hot pleasure radiating straight through my mating mark, pulsing through the bond until I can’t tell where my heartbeat ends and his begins.
“Boone... oh God, Boone...”