handle the agony that came from a chronic disease.
Eight days ago, I couldn’t turn into an animal, and I hadn’t known that my fate was going to change.
Was it weird to think that someone’s random attack, something that might have killed me, might be the best thing that had ever happened to me?
I felt bad feeling that way, thinking that way, but it seemed to me to be the truth.
With me having taken a seat, my gentlemen mates decided they could too. Ethan and Austin moved to the armchairs, and Eli sat on the other end of the sofa. He didn’t perch, he slipped an arm along the back of it, propped one ankle over his other knee, and sank back.
I didn’t think I’d seen anything more masculine in my life.
Around all this dainty, ancient furniture, all these antiques and little objets d’art, he was so solid and real. Enough that it made me wonder why the sofa hadn’t creaked under our combined weight.
In his dark navy suit, he looked like what he was.
A leader.
His face, so handsome with his broad forehead, those green eyes that reminded me of peridot, the strong jaw and chin, those softly pouting lips, and that beak of a nose? All of it made me feel like I was looking at a Hollywood movie star who was in the middle of an interview with the press.
His suit clung to him to perfection, hanging off his shoulders while cutting into his trim waist, tight hips, and those pants of his revealed just how tall he was. Shiny black leather shoes contrasted with the rich navy, and he was, I thought, a man who invited a woman to undress him without him even having to say a word.
I swallowed, aware that my mouth was full of saliva. Drooling wasn’t a good look, but dayum, Eli was fine.
Beyond fine.
Like twelve out of ten fine.
And I’d seen the goods beneath. I knew the curtains matched the drapes, as it were.
I also knew that, on a good day, I was pretty top notch myself. I was a bit curvier than what might have been fashionable, but it had never stopped men from eying me up like I was their mama’s roast dinner.
And Eli was no different.
When he’d seen me walk into the council room, his eyes had flared wide, then there’d been a simmering heat that had settled inside him, making his entire being glow a bright, hot, lustrous red. It was tinged with pink, not black, and there was no mistaking just how he felt when he looked at me.
I smiled at him, unashamed and unabashed at my interest in him, and he arched a brow, evidently surprised by my response.
I wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it definitely wasn’t sexual appraisal.
If anything, I realized he looked like he was prepared for negotiating.
But what was there to negotiate?
I arched a brow right back at him, then murmured, “You guys have been very good to me, but I don’t think you’ve told me the whole story.”
He frowned, and I got the sense it was hard for him to stay sitting. He wanted to leap up and pace, but he didn’t.
I wondered if he realized his aura throbbed with his desire to move.
A natural fidgeter, I thought, amused. One that often had to keep himself under control.
Either that, or he was someone with so much abundant energy that he had to keep himself on constant lockdown.
That fit more, to be fair. Especially considering his role in the pack.
“If you start drooling, I’ll walk out.”
Austin’s wry comment had me grinning and shifting to look at him. I sank back into the uncomfortable seat and slowly crossed my legs. Amused when his eyes dropped from mine and he followed the movement, watching the very appropriate and not at all high slit of my skirt shift, I felt more empowered than I ever had in my thirty years of living.
I felt like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.
That was how he looked at me.
Like I was flashing him more than just a bit of leg, like I had the promise land between my thighs.
And hell, maybe for these three men, I did.
Maybe what went down between my thighs was a golden promise land.
Amused, touched, and turned on, I let him stare at me until I cleared my throat. When he looked at me again, his eyes contained barely banked lust, and I wanted to tell him not to bank it, to come and spend it