a wolfish gold, his own wolf’s heart beat huge and hard inside its chest. That wolf, too, loved her. And that wolf, too, knew they had to let her go. But the animal was closer to its primal self, possessiveness in its veins.
Tugging out of her hold before that primal heart could give in, he nipped at her jaw.
“Kenji!” She laughed again, and the sound, it was like warm rain over his senses.
When she growled playfully and threatened to nip at his nose in vengeance, he danced out of reach and would’ve loped off toward his room. Except the pups had seen them tussling and ran excitedly back to join in the play. So of course he tumbled with them while Garnet let tiny pups climb all over her, her eyes bright and her hands gentle on their squirmy little bodies.
He finally slipped away—his grandfather’s pendant gripped carefully in his teeth—when the now happily exhausted pups started curling up to nap right there in the corridor, piling on top of one another to snuggle in. He knew they’d be fine—during rainy days in particular, he’d often had to avoid more than one furry bundle in the corridors of his own den. Their caretakers would eventually track them down and carry them back to the nursery.
Once in his room, he decided to leave off the pendant since he’d broken the rawhide tie when he took it off. Shifting, he ran the smoothness of it between his finger and thumb for a second, his heart clenching as he remembered the bighearted, loving man who’d given it to him. He was glad his grandfather had never known the long-term repercussions of the joyous trip on which he’d taken Kenji when Kenji was a boy. It would’ve killed the older man.
Breathing past the ache of a grief that still caught him unawares sometimes when he thought of his grandfather, he was in a fresh pair of jeans and a white T-shirt by the time Garnet made it to outside his room. Reaching out to ruffle his hair, she said, “You lost the colors.”
He’d bent instinctively so she could reach, had to force himself to straighten. “I feel naked. Like my butt’s showing.”
Dimple appearing, she pulled out a glitter pen from her pocket. “Want me to go wild?”
His shoulders shook at the gleam in her eye. “Where did you get that?”
• • •
“Found it in the break room before our meeting, meant to drop it off with the school supplies.” Slipping the pen back into her pocket, Garnet curled her fingers into her hands, the sensation of Kenji’s hair against her palm a living memory. Warm silk, heavy and glossy. “You’re still good with kids.” She’d always thought he’d make an incredible father if he’d only stop his crash-and-burn approach to relationships.
“My mom says it’s because I’m half-pup myself.” The dangerous, heartbreaker smile that creased his cheeks made it clear he didn’t consider that an insult. “You still intending to have as many as you can?”
She blinked at the realization that he’d remembered her dreams, but then, Kenji had a habit of remembering things she’d said to him . . . and vice versa. As a teen, he’d once found her an out-of-print comic book for her collection after she mentioned it exactly once. Not long afterward, she’d tracked down a particular candy bar he wanted to eat.
They’d always taken care of one another in small ways, right up to the night Kenji had broken them in two. Hurting and angering her so much that she’d been blinded by it.
“Yep,” she said, her resolve to figure out the mystery of that night set in stone—she’d know the truth before Kenji left the den. And if that truth was a painful one, if Kenji had simply changed his mind and no longer cared about her, so be it. But given his behavior today, she didn’t think the answer was so simple.
“You always used to say ten was a good number.” His smile deepened and yes, there was no one more gorgeous than Kenji Tanaka when he smiled that way.
“I might’ve been a little off base there.” Her dry response made him chuckle; the sound, it sank into her bones, made them ache. “But three or four, absolutely.”
Kenji rocked back on his heels, his thumbs hooked into the back pockets of his jeans. The action pulled his T-shirt across his chest, defined the ridged planes of his body. “With your family’s track record of fertility, I figure