Gone with the Wolf - By Kristin Miller Page 0,3

Not now.”

Oh, this was happening. Right here. Right now.

“Where’d you come from?”

God, she was so dizzy. Was she sitting? Lying down? She pinched her eyes shut, willing his mouth to cover hers again. “I come from the Knight Owl.”

“What? No, I mean which office are you from? Did someone send you?”

“It’s the name of my bar. The Knight Owl. That’s why I’m here.” She was saying too much. She should stop. She should kiss him again and shut him up, too.

She pushed forward, but he’d already pulled away, dropping his hands from her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Emelia, but I have to go.”

Emelia’s eyes flashed open and she spun, landing against the massive wine rack with a thud. “I don’t even know your name.”

Not that she wanted to know. Nope. Didn’t want to look him up in the office directory for a night of fun. No way.

“Drake,” he said, turning back at the French doors that led out of the cellar. “My friends call me Drake. And I have to say, while you probably won’t remember this, you’re the sexiest Little Red Riding Hood I’ve ever seen.”

“Isn’t Drake the name of a plant from Harry Potter?” Heart thudding in her chest, Emelia closed her eyes and laid her head on the rack behind her. “What was it called again? Drake…miss…mandrake! Yup, that’s it. The plant with all the crazy roots.”

When Emelia peeled her eyes open, Drake was gone, leaving her with a warm buzz in her belly, a brain as empty as her glass of Lafite, and the lingering taste of their kiss on her tongue.

Chapter Two

As the sun reached its peak in the sky the next day, Drake stepped out of his limo and onto the busy curb in front of Wilder Financial. If he were the nervous type, his palms would’ve been sticky with sweat. He would’ve adjusted his tie a thousand times on the ride over. He would’ve phoned the office to make sure everything was in order. Instead, his body became rigid, wound tight with anticipation. Knots of tension pinballed around his stomach, and his chest hardened with hot rods of adrenaline.

Struggling to keep his impulses in check, Drake strode through the glass doors of his office building and passed by a gawking secretary, who stood the instant he made eye contact.

“Good morning, Mr. Wilder,” she said, alarmed, pressing down the front of her dress suit.

“Good morning.” Drake didn’t mean to startle her, so he nodded politely and picked up his pace through the whitewashed lobby.

Employees whispered and stared as he passed by, though he couldn’t blame them for their odd behavior. He was the leper CEO of Wilder Financial, the boss who rarely peeked his head out of his office. He hated this part of the building—the sterile and impersonal nature of it—which was probably why he never entered through the sweeping front doors. He preferred to show up via helicopter from the pad on the roof, then take the stairs down to his upper-level office. It was easier to keep snooping noses out of his private life that way, too. If anyone got too close and found out he was a three-hundred-year-old werewolf, he was done for.

But today was different.

Today he hoped to see the blond vixen who’d stolen his wine and stopped his heart. He searched every passing face for some resemblance to the woman from the cellar, spotted beauties of all shapes and sizes, but none of them compared. None of them held a candle to Emelia Hudson.

Would he see her walking the lower hallways or would he meet her on the top floor near his office? He held his breath, impatiently waiting until the moment when he’d see her in the light of day.

He entered a packed elevator, and although he was sure the employees were all going up, they exited upon his entrance, leaving him staring at his own reflection when the doors hissed shut. His dark eyes appeared more strained than normal—probably from the insufficient two hours of shut-eye he’d gotten last night—and his hair was unusually messy, nearly flopping into his eyes. He scrubbed his hands over his face and tunneled his fingers through his hair.

When he hit the forty-second floor—the penthouse—and the doors yanked back, Drake clenched and unclenched his fists, shook out his arms and exhaled.

This was it. The moment when he would see Emelia again and know if the connection between them was caused by the wine or something…else.

Raul Bloomfield, his Beta wolf, charged around the