Suddenly she saw herself unzipping his jeans as she had at the lake house. Running her thumb over the engorged head of him. Except this time she was lowering her mouth, playing her tongue over him…

Their eyes clashed. The air sparked with electricity and she knew he was seeing the same thing, too.

“Not passive,” he said at last, voice strained as he broke eye contact and leaned forward to grab a chip from his basket of food.

“I thought so,” she murmured, picking up her sandwich again.

He wanted her. As much as she wanted him.

Only her satisfaction was short-lived.

Because the reality of it was that Gideon March would never give the true Claire Morgan the time of day. When all this was over and the curse was broken he’d forget all about her.

Staring into her glass, she studied the melting ice cubes and felt a frown pulling at her mouth. She didn’t want to revert to the mouse again. The submissive. True, she could have continued through life timid and afraid, without ever knowing what she missed. But now she knew.

She knew what it felt like to stand up to her father. To take control of her classroom. To go after what she wanted. Now she knew, and she could never go back. Didn’t want to go back. She smiled wryly. Although she could do without the loss of her soul and feeding on humans every full moon.

He stared at her from across the table, his eyes hard, shrewd, almost as if he could read her thoughts. “Don’t get too comfortable, Claire. You can’t stay like this.”

Of course not. She knew that.

Not if she wanted to live.

Yet a small voice rose up inside her. Were you even alive before you became a werewolf?

CHAPTER TEN

A pack species, dogs are social creatures.

—Man’s Best Friend: An Essential Guide to Dogs

Now what?” Claire asked, eyeing the long length of weathered bar—stained and sticky from unidentifiable fluids—for its dish of complimentary peanuts.

“We wait,” Gideon replied, scanning the room without glancing her way. He thrust a beer into her hand with a terse “Drink.”

Wrinkling her nose, she looked askance at the beer in her hand. She never drank beer. Occasionally, a glass of wine. But never beer. Her father drank beer. By the truckloads.

She stared at the bottle in her hand as if it might sprout teeth and bite her. Looking up, she caught the hulk of a bartender leering down her cleavage from behind the bar. He smoothed a hand over his forest of a goatee and blew her a kiss.