Page 34 of Choosing the Rejected Mate

Behind the door, I hear her laugh softly to herself, a small disbelieving sound, and my mouth curves.Maybe slow will not kill me.Maybe slow is the first thing I have ever done right.

Chapter Five

Running Wild

Holly

I wake up with my hand on my mouth.

Which is dramatic.Accurate, but dramatic.

The memory of Daniel’s kiss lingers there like a bad decision wrapped in cinnamon sugar.Warm.Sweet.Dangerous.The kind of thing a woman with sense would avoid.

Naturally, I press my fingers harder against my lips and sigh like an idiot.My wolf stretches beneath my skin, smug and entirely too pleased with herself.

Mate.

“No,” I whisper into the dark bedroom.“That was a kiss.People kiss.Humans kiss.Drunk bridesmaids kiss strangers behind reception halls all the time.It doesn’t mean anything.”

My wolf gives me the emotional equivalent of a slow blink.Rude.

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling.The apartment is quiet, washed in the blue-gray light before dawn.Below me, the bakery waits.Ovens cold.Counters clean.The repaired mixer is probably plotting another breakdown because apparently appliances love drama.

Everything is normal.Except my mouth still remembers Daniel.My waist remembers his hand.My body remembers the rough scrape of his voice when he said,Good girl.

Heat floods me so fast I kick the blanket off.“Nope,” I tell the room.“Absolutely not.”

The room does not answer because it has manners.My wolf does not.She presses closer to the surface, restless and aching.For the past two years, she has been quiet in the mornings.She wakes with me, breathes with me, watches the world through my eyes, but she rarely pushes.Rarely asks.

This morning, she wants out.I feel it in my bones.The need to run.To stretch beneath the trees.To feel dirt under paws instead of tile beneath feet.To move so fast the past can’t catch us.

My throat tightens.

I have shifted since the rejection.Of course I have.A girl can’t keep her wolf locked away forever without damaging both halves.But I do it alone.At night.Far from town.Quick little runs through the woods behind my apartment, always close enough to return before dawn.

Never with another wolf.Never beside someone.