Took a half step toward Adam.
"Sam, please." I couldn't stand it if they ended up fighting.
Someone would die.
The big white werewolf turned reluctantly and walked stiffly, with frequent pauses to see if Adam had moved at all.
Finally, he hopped over the wreckage of the door and was gone.
"Adam?" I asked.
But he didn't answer.
If he'd been human, I'd have bugged him--just to get it over with.
I'd hurt him, and I waited to take my punishment.
I'd been taught you make your choices and live with the consequences long before I'd first read Immanuel Kant in college.
But he wasn't human.
And just then, if I was any judge, he was fighting his wolf.
Being Alpha, being dominant, didn't make that fight any easier, maybe the opposite.
Being stubborn helped--and Adam was well qualified on that front.
Getting Sam to leave helped more.
The only other thing I could do to help was to sit quietly and wait while Adam stared at the wreckage he'd made of my office.
For Adam, screwed-up bonding thing or not, I'd wait forever.
"Really?" he asked in a tone I'd never heard from him before.
Softer.
Vulnerable.
Adam didn't do vulnerable.
"Really what?" I asked.
"Despite the way our bond scares you, despite the way someone in the pack played you, you'd still have me?" He'd been listening to my thoughts.
This time it didn't bother me.
"Adam," I told him, "I'd walk barefoot over hot coals for you." "You didn't take advantage of this thing with Samuel as a way of putting distance between us," he said.
I sucked in a breath.
I could see how he might have interpreted it that way.
"You know that section of the Bible, where Jesus tells Peter he'll deny him three times before morning? Peter says, `Heck no.' But sure enough when he's asked by some people if he's one of Jesus' followers, he says he's not.
And after the third time, he hears the cock crow and realizes what he's done.
I feel like Peter right now." Adam started laughing.