Soft fur touched her fingertip, and she yelped and drew back. She cracked an eye open and tried again. Sammy Scrotum didn’t seem to care at all and just went to climbing all over Ryder’s open palm, sniffing his little nose and shaking his little whiskers. He was kind of cute, and one of his black spots was shaped like heart, which she really liked.
She brushed her fingertips from his head to his back and down his tail, then flinched away with a proud grin. “I did it.”
“You fuckin’ did it!” Ryder said, his eyes wide and sparking like blue flames.
As he set the mouse back down on the floor to scurry on its way, Lexi clutched her chest and sighed a gusty exhale. “My heart is going ninety to nothing. It’s like hummingbird wings. Feel it!”
Void of hesitation, Ryder grabbed her boob. “Yep, super-fast,” he muttered in a tone that said he gave zero fucks about her heartbeat right now and was in it for the teat-fondle.
“Ryder, I’m coming in, stop boning,” Harper called from the front door.
“I touched a mouse!” Lexi exclaimed as the dragon-eyed alpha came in with a handful of clothes and a pair of hiking boots on top of the pile.
“You met Sammy?” she asked with a megawatt smile.
“Yes, and he was terrifying and cute, but mostly terrifying.”
She giggled and told Ryder, “Fasten your pants, man.”
Ryder threw something small, oval, and chocolate-colored at Harper, who ducked out of the way. Lexi was going to pretend it was anything but a mouse turd, because sanitation.
Ryder disappeared into the bathroom, and the running water of the sink sounded. Harper set out the clothes on the bed and Lexi picked a pair of black skinny jeans and a forest green tank top to go with the hiking boots. The shoes were a size too big but they worked a lot better than the strappy gladiator heels she’d fastened onto her feet when she was dressing in her skanky saloon girl getup.
Ryder came back in smelling like soap as she was lacing the shoes, and without instruction, he took her costume and hung it up in the closet. “For later,” he declared.
Harper walked out, calling, “Let’s load up. We’re burnin’ daylight,” over her shoulder.
Ryder squared up to Lexi, hands tight on her hips as he sipped her lips. “I liked the costume, but you look good enough to eat out in these jeans.”
“It’s good enough to eat.”
“Hmm?” he asked innocently.
“The saying goes, ‘You look good enough to eat.’”
“You want a piggy-back ride, but on my front?”
“No!” she said, swatting him. “Behave tonight and don’t embarrass me in front of your friends. I want them to like me.”
“Hmm.” He frowned. “Can you use the word behave in a sentence?” he asked as though he was at a spelling bee.
With an eye roll, Lexi strode out of the bedroom and through the living room toward the front door.
“Can I have the definition?” he asked from behind her, a smile in his voice.
Outside, the Bloodrunners were loading up in Ryder’s truck. Aaron and Alana sat in the bed as Wyatt, Harper, and Wes climbed into the back seat.
Ryder pulled the passenger’s side door open for her. Unhelpfully, Ryder squeezed her ass as she scrambled in with the grace of a rhino. She was giggling uncontrollably by the time she settled into the seat. Ryder leaned in and kissed her quick, bit her bottom lip, before he pulled away with a wicked grin. “I like tasting your laughs.”
Crazy man. As he jogged around the front of the truck, she couldn’t help the giant smile that was stretching her lips.
“He makes you happy, doesn’t he?” Wes asked in a strange tone.
Lexi twisted in her seat to look back at him and nodded. “I can’t remember ever being this happy with someone,” she rushed out before Ryder opened his door.
“Good,” Wes said, giving his attention to the window.
“Good what?” Ryder asked, buckling in.
“Nothing,” Wes murmured.
The smile dipped from Ryder’s lips, and he frowned back at the Novak Raven with an upset expression Lexi didn’t understand. When she rested her hand on his tensed leg, he relaxed and offered her another smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Perhaps he and his best friend were fighting.
It was six o’clock and the early evening shadows were just now lengthening in the Smoky Mountains. Ryder rolled down the windows and turned up a country rock song. After a few minutes of driving a back road, he belted out the first line of the chorus and then looked right at her, daring her to sing along.
She did know the song, but she’d never been comfortable singing in front of other people. Her voice was reserved for the shower and when she was alone in her Jeep. But then Harper started humming along in the back seat, and Wyatt chimed in off-key. Even Wes sang a word here and there, so fuck it. The second round of the chorus, Lexi murmured the lyrics at normal, conversational volume.
“Yeaaaah!” Ryder said.
He started singing again, even louder, and after she got control of her laughter, Lexi sang, too. And by the time Ryder pulled to a stop in a meadow on the edge of a cliff, they were all belting out the third song, hacking up the lyrics, but no one seemed to care.
It was awesome feeling so comfortable with these people. She’d always wondered how similar shifters were to humans, and after hanging out with them twice now, they were the most normal people she’d ever met.