How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf (Naked Werewolf 1)

“I killed people, Mo! Yeah, they had fangs and fur at the time, but they were people, just like every member of my own pack is a person. Men and women alike. I killed them all. Something in me was able to do that. I couldn’t stomach what I’d done. Everybody tried to tell me how proud my father would have been, how I’d shown myself to be a great leader. And every night, I woke up screaming from the nightmares. Nothing helped. I couldn’t be around my family anymore. I couldn’t trust myself with them. I didn’t deserve them.”

Cooper stared into the fire, his lips barely moving as he spoke. “Maggie could forgive my hesitation. She could forget that I’d killed people in front of her. But when I couldn’t just go back to being her goofy big brother, she started to hate me. She hated me for not being able to accept a position that she was obviously more suited for, for betraying the pack. When I left, it was like she was relieved, because she had a reason.”

I crawled into his lap, part of me expecting him to shy away from me, to shove me away. “What do you want me to do? Yell at you? Hit you? Scream ‘Get away from me, you monster’? Because if that’s what you’re looking for, you’re going to be disappointed.”

Cooper sighed deeply, the tension easing out of his body. He nuzzled his face into my neck. “You’re not angry with me?”

“I haven’t processed it all yet. Mostly, I’m really irritated that you didn’t think I would understand. You hurt someone to help me,” I said. “Do you think I hold that against you? That I love you any less for it? How could I judge you for doing the same for your family?”

I tilted his head up and gave him my best stern expression. He sighed, pressed his ear to my chest, and listened to my heartbeat, rubbing his cheek against my shirt and inhaling deeply.

“Besides, this still doesn’t make you the scariest guy I’ve ever dated,” I said, my mouth twisted into a pert moue.

He frowned. “Mo, I killed eleven people. How many does it take to be the scariest guy you’ve ever dated?”

“Twelve,” I said, shrugging. “That’s my boyfriend body-count threshold. I have to have some standards.”

“You’re a little sick.”

“I’m living with a werewolf. I have to be a little sick.”

18

On the Next Dr. Phil

UNBURDENED, COOPER FELL ASLEEP long before I did.

I drifted off, staring at the stars, mulling over Cooper’s tale. Was it disturbing, knowing that my werewolf lover was capable of killing? Definitely. Had I glossed over that a little to help him feel better about telling me? Damn skippy. And while I knew I hadn’t quite processed my feelings about it, it’s not as if he was murdering fluffy bunnies or even—really—human beings. He’d killed fully grown, capable werewolves who were staging a hostile takeover and would have murdered his family to accomplish it. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have helped him, given the chance.

The more I thought about it, the angrier I became with Maggie. Yes, she was young, but how could she come down so hard on Cooper for having what were likely normal posttraumatic reactions to a mass killing? How dare she make her hurt feelings his problem? Who knew how Cooper might have adjusted and accepted what happened if she’d just kept her mouth shut?

Cooper’s sister needed to know how much she’d hurt him. She needed to grow the hell up. But short of pinning her with a Howitzer and having a forced intervention with Dr. Phil, I didn’t think I would emerge from such an encounter with all of my digits.

However, the image of Dr. Phil yelling Texasisms at Maggie was relaxing enough to put me to sleep.

When I woke the next morning, I could tell something was bothering Cooper. He sniffed the cold, smoke-smeared air, worry furrowing his forehead. He tried to play it off, tried to pretend that he wasn’t rushing us off the campsite, that he wanted to get me back to our bed so he could love me properly. He claimed this was the advantage of camping without a fancy RV or tent. “At the end of the weekend, all you want to do is get home, not spend an hour packing up your gear.”

“You’re just trying to get out of bringing a tent next time.” He once again lifted his face to inhale the breeze. “Cooper, what’s wrong? You keep doing that. You’re not having regrets about talking to me last night, are you?”

“No. Definitely not,” he assured me. “Something smells funny. Has since I woke up this morning.”

“I told you not to eat all that jerky,” I muttered.

“Let’s just get going,” he said, wrapping an arm around me as we headed through the trees.

We hiked for more than a mile, Cooper growing more tense by the step. We hopped over a dip in the trail, and he suddenly stopped, sniffed, and bolted into the trees.

“Cooper?”

“Stay there!” he yelled.

“Oh, yeah, that’s likely,” I huffed, following him as closely as I could. I found a trail of clothes in his wake, so it didn’t surprise me to find him wolfed out when I hit the clearing. He was hunched over something. As I got closer, I saw the thin legs encased in worn hiking boots. Cooper whined and nudged the fallen form with his nose. “What the . . .”

I gently pushed him out of the way and cried out, “Cooper, it’s Abner!”

Abner was flat on his back, his pack still strapped around his chest. His rifle was loaded and unused at his side. There were deep gashes clawed across his chest, dangerously close to his neck. There were dark, slashing stains on his trousers, which I realized were wounds, caked over with blackened, dried blood.

The hair on Cooper’s neck was bristled high as he scanned the trees. His back was turned to me as he paced a circle around us.