Page 31 of Hungry Like the Wolf

“I’ll be alright. I need to check in on my clients.” She didn’t specify which clients. “Is there a place that I can do some work?”

JJ stretched his long arms overhead with a groan. “There’s one computer with internet in the community center. And you can use the satellite phone if you need to make a call.”

“But there’s internet?”

He winced. “Technically?”

“Technically,” she repeated, deadpan.

“You can browse and check your email, but it isn’t strong enough to stream or do video calls or anything.”

Her stomach dropped. Without the internet, she couldn’t stream. Without streaming, she couldn’t feed. Without feeding, she—she couldn’t think about that. Not yet.

She looked at JJ. He was starting to grow a few gray hairs in his beard and at his temples. Just a few. They’d known each other a long time. And he’d helped her out before. Maybe he would be willing to help her out again.

“Hey, JJ,” she said quietly, “can I ask you a question?”

He turned to look at her, his eyes narrowed. “What’s up?”

“I need?—”

Once upon a time, before Talk Roulette and Voyours, he’d been a lifeline. Someone she felt safe with. Someone she didn’t mind touching, being touched by. He’d been a wolf without a pack, just passing through World’s End on his way to a logging job further north. But then he’d stayed a while. It had never been romantic. Nadja didn’t know if JJ was even capable of that. But it had been comfortable and easy. Two people scratching itches that nobody else could, two people hiding who they were from anyone else who might like to try to know them.

But it had been five years since Agatha had shown up on his doorstep in World’s End with her daughters and countless wounds, both visible and invisible, since he’d gone north to the Cascades and bought property that had once been an old church camp, turning it into a safe haven for any wolf with nowhere else to go.

Since he’d started a pack.

How was she supposed to sift back through all of that to begin to ask for such a favor?

Hey, JJ, I know it’s been a long time, but I’m about to starve to death—well, not death, but a catatonic state—and I need you to boink me real good to save my life. Could you do that, buddy? For old time’s sake?

She didn’t even know how to start. But just as she opened her mouth to try, the bathroom door opened and Robbie emerged, a towel wrapped low around his hips.

“You look like shit, pup,” JJ said, pressing his palms into his knees and standing with a grunt.

“I’m glad the siding matches the walls,” Robbie said weakly, leaning against the wall.

“What?” JJ asked with a laugh.

“You know the joke about the carpets matching the drapes?” Robbie panted. “I’m glad my outside matches my inside.”

“You feel like shit.”

“Piping hot,” Robbie answered with a shaky salute.

“Then we’d best get a move on,” JJ said. He turned back to Nadja. “Find me later if you still need help. I’ll bring your mate back by lunchtime. Come on, lover boy.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to fire back that he wasn’t her mate, but for some reason, she kept her mouth shut. Robbie shuffled toward the door, clutching the towel tightly, his tattooed knuckles looking white under the ink.

“Be careful,” she said.

He looked at her, his whiskey-brown eyes ringed by dark circles, and leaned in. She forced to herself to hold still, to not flinch away from him. She’d expected a hug, but it never came. Instead, she felt the hot, dry press of lips against her forehead, just above her brows.

With his lips still against her skin, Robbie inhaled deeply before pulling back.

“I’ll be careful, Doc,” he said.

And then he was gone, leaving Nadja standing in a cabin in her—what had Robbie called them? her drawers?—and wondering if he’d do that again.