Page 87 of A Wolfe in the Woods

The thread slipped from her fingers then. She bit it off clean and patted Jonathan’s arm. “There,” she said, satisfied, like she’d just hemmed a shirt instead of stitched flesh. “Good as new.”

Her voice shifted, graver now. “Whatever it was you heard…it doesn’t belong to this world.” Her voice softened, though it only made it worse. “Jon-boy was right to stop ya from answering its call.”

I felt goose bumps break over my arms. Jonathan seemed to notice because he squeezed my hand gently and glanced over to me.

May’s mouth tightened. “It’s an evil place,” she said, her tone final, her judgment long passed on that place.

Jonathan nodded but didn’t speak, like he’d heard this before and knew more than he was willing to share.

The way he avoided my eyes made me realize…this story wasn’t folklore to him. It wasmemory. This was his history, his family’s history, entwined with that place in these woods. And suddenly the distance between the world I thought I knew and the one I’d stepped into felt immense.

A shiver passed through me.

Whatever that place was, it wasn’t just a myth to him.

I shifted in my seat, unease coiled tight in my stomach. “What I don’t understand is…why choose to live so close to something like that?” I asked. “Doesn’t it scare you living up here with it so near?”

May didn’t answer at first. She reached for her mug, sipped, then set it down with care.

“My whole kind is from here,” she added, eyes steady on mine. “Besides, it’s not too close. Ya know that ’cause it took you a few hours to hike it and ya have to know the way. And ya won’t find it unless you’re tryin’ to. It keeps hidden for a reason.”

She adjusted the shawl around her shoulders, her tone unbothered but not dismissive.

“Whatever once lived there died there long ago. And whatever that place holds now, well, it stays put. It doesn’t come wanderin’.” Then her gaze shifted slightly. “Speakin’ of stayin’ put…” She tilted her chin toward Jonathan. “Jon-boy won’t ever be takin’ ya on a tour out there again. Ain’t that right?”

It was more decree than question.

Jonathan didn’t flinch. He nodded once, slow. “Yeah. I think we’ve got more than enough moonshade berries.”

By the time we stepped back out into the night, the air had cooled. Clouds had gathered, veiling the stars, and the path between cabins lay in complete blackness.

Jonathan held the blanket tighter around his naked shoulders. After a few steps, he muttered, “I should probably get some clothes on before walking you back.”

I glanced at the blanket draped around him. “But I like this toga look on you,” I teased. “It suits you.”

He let out a low chuckle, leading me away from the main path toward my cabin and wrapping around the reception cabin. “Keep up the flattery and I may never get dressed,” he warned.

Up ahead, I could make out the faint outline of a porch light, flickering like a dying ember.

The cabin we came to was the one at the farthest end of the lake but a short distance away from reception. When we stopped at his front porch, he muttered, “I’m not used to visitors. I have to warn you—it’s a mess.”

“You should see my apartment when I’m on a work deadline,” I said lightly, tossing a small smile. It wasn’t quite the truth—I was allergic to clutter—but I wanted to put him at ease, given the way his shoulders had bunched up at the admission.

He opened the door, nudging it wider with his foot, and stepped aside to let me in.

Inside, the warmth hit me first. Then the scent…a mix of cedarwood, ash, and worn leather. Not unpleasant, just undeniably him. His cabin was cluttered but lived-in. Papers and books stacked along one table, boots by the door, a flannel draped across an armchair, as if he’d gotten distracted while getting dressed.

“It’s my first time actually being in your space,” I murmured, taking it all in.

Jonathan closed the door behind us and exhaled. “Like I said, no one comes in here,” he said, peeling the blanket off and tossing it across a chair. “Except May.”

Under my lashes, I eyed his exposed body without trying to make it obvious. The ridges of muscle lining his back, the way they shifted under his tanned skin as he moved…it was oddly mesmerizing. The fresh stitching along his arm looked like a line of dark ink down his bicep.

When he disappeared down the hallway, I was too curious not to follow. Lingering in the doorway of his bedroom, I saw it was pretty bare bones but comfortable. A king-sized bed, the coverlet a little rumpled but neat, a dresser on the opposite wall beneath a window that looked out over the lake. A navy-blue patterned rug lay beneath the bed.

Jonathan crossed to the dresser, and I watched as he pulled out a pair of loose pants, tugging them up his legs. I only got to momentarily appreciate the firmness of his backside before it disappeared from view, even though I vividly remembered sinking my fingernails into the flesh there when he was deep inside me.

I shivered…but then shook myself. After the events of today, and after May’s warning, remembering how Jonathan Wolfe had felt between my thighs was the last thing that I should be contemplating.