Mating Season: Luna Trials novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Cabinet

Rook is in the office first; they hide from Delphine in a tight gap and kiss until a camera light blinks.

I pushed the door with two fingers.

Rook Montrose stood behind the desk in a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

The gray cabinet was open beside him, and a file lay in his hand.

He didn't look surprised.

"Nineteen," he said. "You walk like a guard."

"I walk like a girl who's lost."

"On the second floor, at midnight, without shoes."

"I'm from the coast. We don't wear shoes."

"You're from Ironwood," Rook said.

I closed the door behind me without a sound.

My heart was a hammer.

"Who told you that?"

"Nobody told me. I read your papers before you got here. The forger used a font from a prison supply catalog."

He put the file down and walked around the desk, slow.

I did not bolt.

I held my ground, because bolting is what prey does.

"You're taking my ledger," he said.

"Your ledger?"

"The show's money. Mine to burn, if I find it first."

"Why do you want it?"

"Why do you?"

We stood a foot apart.

He smelled like cedar and cold air, and I could feel the heat of him through my thin top.

"I get a paycheck for it," I said.

"From a man who sells wolves."

"Hiram's not the only man who sells things on this lake."

His mouth moved.

It was almost a smile.

"You've got a tongue, Nineteen."

"My name is Juniper."

"I know what your name is."

He said it low, and my name sounded different in his mouth.

I put my hand flat on his chest to push him back.

I meant to push.

Under my palm his heart was running as hard as mine.

"You marked me in front of four million people," I said. "Do you know how that looks?"

"It looks like I want you."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

He said it plainly, without a smirk.

The air left the room.

"That's a bad plan," I said.

"I have worse ones."

He leaned down.

I turned my face away, and he stopped with his lips an inch from my jaw.

His breath was hot on my skin.

I should have shoved him off.

What I said was, "Don't talk."

I dragged his face back to mine myself.

His mouth was hard and certain, and I kissed him with everything I had.

My fingers went into his hair.

He lifted me by the thighs and sat me on the desk, and papers slid to the floor.

His hand slid under my top and spread across my ribs, warm and huge.

I made a sound I would have denied under torture.

"Say it again," he muttered against my throat.

"Say what?"

"My name."

"Rook."

He growled, and his teeth closed on my collarbone, not hard, just enough that my back arched.

I pulled his shirt out of his belt and found skin, hot and tight over muscle.

"This is stupid," I gasped.

"Completely," he agreed.

His mouth found mine again.

Down the hall a heel clicked on the wood.

We both froze.

Another click, coming closer, then the soft chime of a key card against the lock.

Rook swore without sound.

He lifted me off the desk, kicked the fallen papers under it, and pulled me across the room.

Behind the gray cabinet there was a gap between the wall and the metal, a foot wide.

He pushed me into it and followed, and the cabinet's shadow closed over us.

His whole body pinned mine to the wall.

I could feel every inch of him.

The door opened.

Delphine's voice drifted in, calm and low, speaking to someone on the phone.

"No. The Well is fed on the final night, as always. Hiram's package is on schedule."

I stopped breathing.

Rook's hand covered my mouth, light, not rough.

His eyes found mine in the dark.

"I know," his lips said, with no sound.

She moved around the desk.

A drawer opened, and a drawer closed.

"I don't care what the girl's name is," Delphine said. "She is the lowest rank in the house, and that's all the Well needs."

Rook's hand tightened on my hip.

She was talking about me.

My wolf came up under my skin, furious, and Rook's forehead pressed to mine to hold her down.

"Easy," he breathed. "Not now."

Delphine laughed softly at something on the phone.

"Of course the Alpha doesn't know. He thinks he picked her himself."

Rook's jaw went hard against my cheek.

The phone clicked off.

The lamp clicked off.

Heels crossed the carpet and the door shut.

We didn't move.

My lungs finally remembered how to work.

Rook slid his hand off my mouth and stepped back an inch.

Neither of us spoke.

Then the brass hinge of a small camera, mounted high on the wall above the cabinet, turned toward us.

Its tiny red light blinked on.

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