it. “Are you trying to tell me you became a player because you thought it was inevitable?”
Kenji shrugged. The truth was, he hadn’t played around any more than anyone else in his year group—he’d probably done less because he’d known he wanted the right to call Garnet his own since the day of her high school graduation. But his few exploits had gotten blown out of all proportion because wild behavior was expected from a Tanaka. That had irritated him when he was younger; he’d worried Garnet would believe the rumors.
Later, he’d used it as a shield.
No one would wonder why Kenji was relentlessly single if he built a reputation as a man who simply couldn’t decide on a woman. Only Garnet’s brother Steele had never fallen for it. To this day, Kenji’s best friend couldn’t understand why Kenji and Garnet weren’t together. Kenji had never told Steele the truth. Not even Hawke knew all of it, though Kenji had a feeling his alpha suspected. Only the senior SnowDancer healer and the healer in his den had the details, and neither would ever break his confidence.
“That’s a load of b.s.” Garnet’s tone was flat. “Something’s going on with you, has been for a while, hasn’t it?”
He knew he was walking a risky road—his defenses were down and Garnet had a razor-sharp intelligence. Tell her, snarled the part of him that had fallen for her a lifetime ago. Strangling that voice, he luxuriated in the sensation of her against him . . . and stayed. “Me?” A deliberately teasing smile. “I’m an open book.”
“Uh-huh. Why did you stop playing the violin?”
His gut clenched, his body going stiff before he could control the response. “What?”
“Yeah, what?” Her nose touched his, her expression that of a hunting wolf. “You loved making music.”
The last time he’d played, he’d played for Garnet. The idea of putting bow to string when she wasn’t there to listen, it had made him want to break the instrument into a thousand pieces. “I grew out of it.” In the end, he hadn’t broken his violin, had instead locked it in its case and hidden it away at the back of the closet.
“Liar.”
The words, the challenge, shoved past his defenses. “Prove it.”
Narrowed eyes before Garnet began to play dirty, running her hand over his chest and her foot up his calf. He grabbed her wrist even as his breath caught. “I don’t want you to be with me because you think I need skin privileges.” It wasn’t what he’d intended to say, instinct trumping reason and turning his words into a growl of sound.
Letting her claws release after tugging away her hand, Garnet pricked his shoulders with them. Her eyes held a determined and distinctly wolfish light. “Baby, we’ve been flirting for years.” She pressed up against him, small and curved in all the right places and his sweet, private addiction. “I’ve just decided it’s time to do something about it.”
He scowled in an effort to hide his raging need. “I’m getting out of bed.” Gripping her wrists, he tugged off her hands. “I might’ve managed to keep it in my pants for a year, but I’m not good for you.” Let her think he was worried about his ability to be loyal, when staying loyal to her was branded into his bones.
He’d walk on fire for Garnet. She was it for him, had always been it.
“There it is again, a lie.” Teeth showing, she gripped his jaw when he would’ve looked away, her hold that of a pissed-off dominant female. “What the hell are you hiding from me, Tanaka?”
Fuck. “Nothing.”
Growling low in her throat, she pressed up so close that their breath mingled. “Tell me.” It was an order.
His own claws released, his wolf rising to the surface. Baring his teeth at her, he said, “Careful you don’t forget who you’re challenging.”
Her lips curved, pure delight in her expression and that tiny dimple taunting him. “As if you’d hurt me, you big, bad, gorgeous wolf.” A nuzzle of her nose against his, her hand gentling to pet his cheek, his jaw.
Fuck again. “We should go see if Shane is awake,” he said, desperate to escape before he surrendered and took the one thing he wanted—needed—more than he needed to breathe.
Garnet nipped at his jaw. When he jerked, hands falling to grip at her hips, she smiled again, and this time, it was the smile of a SnowDancer with a highly specific goal in mind. “Agreed. But we’ll be picking