Page 340 of Pucking Feral: Part Two

Wraith huffs softly. The tension in his shoulders loosens a little, and I step off the boulder. He's already wrapping a dry blanket around my shoulders.

Mother hen.

A shirtless, beautifully terrifying, obscenely muscled mother hen.

I pull the blanket tighter around myself to warm up while Valek crouches beside the fire. He lays the fish on a flat rock and opens the cooler I'd thought to pack in the SUV before we left. Most of the things that have made camping possible are things that occurred to me because I wasn't going to be caught with lackluster camping supplies unawares again.

Wraith sinks onto a log beside me with a tired groan, resting his elbows on his knees. The movement hunches his shoulders and makes every muscle in his back bunch again.

I let myself stare. He glances warily up at me through his dark hair falling over his face, still clearly worried I don't like what I see.

He's going to worry forever, I'm sure.

So I climb onto his lap and sit on his solid thigh, where I always sit whenever I get the chance, and reach up to turn his face toward mine. I kiss his sharp teeth and he freezes, blinking wide-eyed at me, and then my naked body on his lap, his ears turning red.

Fuck, he's cute.

Valek starts unpacking, pulling out bread, trail mix, dried fruit, crackers, everything. "For the bleeding heart alpha," Valek says, completely sincere, holding up a jar of peanut butter.

Wraith’s expression collapses.

Valek pauses with the jar in one hand. "You don't like peanut butter?"

Wraith gestures at his exposed jaws. Do you know what that would look like?

Valek blinks, his silver eyes flicking over Wraith’s face, then the peanut butter, then back again. “Um.” He turns the jar slowly. “A mess…?”

Wraith groans and buries his face in both hands.

Valek’s expression softens more than I've ever seen it and he puts the peanut butter back in the cooler without another word.

I slide off Wraith’s thigh, keeping the blanket around myself as I crouch beside the supplies. “There has to be something in here that doesn’t involve coating your entire face in Skippy.” I lift three packs of instant ramen above my head. "Like these. Or we can make soup. But they only had tomato, so…"

Wraith lowers his hands.

I can eat noodles.

“I know.” I shake the packages. “You ate pho.”

In the dark.

Right.

I glance at Valek, but he’s already carrying the fish to the river with his switchblade and a flat rock, giving us space without making it obvious.

Sneaky bastard.

“Okay.” I pull the blanket tighter and kiss Wraith between the eyebrows. “You don’t have to eat in front of us.”

His jaw flexes.

Then he shakes his head.

I do.

My chest squeezes.

I don’t argue.