Loner (Norseton Wolves #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

he said. “Sorry if I seem distracted.”
    “You’ve seen it before?”
    “Most of it. Something always happens to pull me away at the end. No work in the house. Got it. Guys don’t come here much, anyway.”
    “Why?”
    “I like quiet. Hard to get, sometimes.”
    “Is my being here bothering you for more reasons besides your revulsion of my appearance?”
    “No. Your energy is more or less psychically neutral. Doesn’t take up a lot of space. I don’t feel crowded with you here.” He dropped the remote and swiveled to face her. “And what? ”
    “You don’t have to say anything to placate me. I get it. You were expecting a certain kind of woman, and you didn’t get that. Unfortunately, I am what I am, and I try to be confident in spite of it. That’s hard sometimes.”
    “Is this about you being half-wolf? I’ve never heard of that being a problem.”
    “It’s more a problem than you would think in some packs, but this isn’t about that. It’s about me looking like I’d bring up the rear in a pack race.”
    “You seem to be in good enough shape, and your wolf is…well, she’s…incredible. She’s so pretty. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wolf with such red fur.”
    Incredible? The wolves in her father’s pack would have probably threatened to burn her at the stake for being a furry, red aberration. “Don’t bullshit me.”
    “I’m not. The…the goddess is said to have had red fur in her wolf form.”
    She did?
    Stephanie gnawed on her lips, considering it. She had never heard that, but most of what she’d learned about the goddess had been through the veil of dreams. Everything else was in scraps here and there from her mother, and Mom was certainly no expert.
    She looked at him and found him staring at his hands again.
    “You’re missing your show.”
    “It’s not important. Tell me why you’re angry at me. I don’t understand what I did wrong.”
    “That’s part of the problem. You don’t even know you’re doing it.”
    “What am I doing?”
    “You looked at me like I was garbage.”
    “When?”
    “In the living room, when I took off my shirt. Your gaze went right to my doughy bits.”
    “What ‘doughy bits?’”
    “Don’t play dumb.”
    “Really. Show me what I was looking at.”
    She pointed to the television. “Commercial’s over. It’s getting to the good part.”
    His jaw flapped silently for a few beats, and his gaze flitted between the television and her face.
    “You actually want to see that?”
    “It’ll repeat.”
    “Eventually.”
    He growled and turned off the television. “Tell me what I did wrong.”
    “When I was on my back on the sofa, you closed your eyes when you saw me. You looked away.”
    “You were naked.”
    “Yep.”
    “And I was hard.”
    “And…”
    “I think one thing is related to the other.”
    “In my experience, most men can get it up in spite of what they’re looking at if they try hard enough. Once they get inside, it all feels the same.”
    “You’re nuts.”
    “Why?” Her voice cracked in that way it always did when she argued with her father. It didn’t matter that she was right, usually. He had a knack for making her feel like everything she said was wrong—like everything was her fault. “Because I called you out on it?”
    “You asked me to—”
    “I know what I asked you to do. I was desperate. I shouldn’t have expected tenderness.”
    Gaping, he scraped a hand through his hair and fixed that intense, dark stare on her. So familiar, and yet she couldn’t put a finger on why. “We’re supposed to get married in a few hours, and you already hate me.”
    “Other way around.”
    “Whatever you think I did, tell me what it was now, so I can call you a liar.”
    “You were repulsed.”
    “No!” He shook his head and gave his hair a quick yank. His energy flared, electrifying the room before he closed his eyes and snapped it back in.
    She rubbed the prickling hairs on her arms and pulled in a deep