Wolf kept his word, and my ass was no doubt going to be bruise tomorrow from the pure strength I had to muster to stop myself from being thrown over the other side of my desk from the pounding he gave me. I liked to joke that Wolf was an old man, but truth be told, he’d proven to me many times that he was still kicking.

But my ass was the least of my problems. I stood looking at myself in the mirror, wondering what the fuck I was doing. My red little number came down to the bottom of my ass, and it was what I had been planning to treat Wolf to as my birthday surprise to him.

What I hadn’t planned to treat him to was the jacket on my back.

That jacket being the “Property of Wolf” cut I was practically glaring at in the mirror. The same one that Mallory had so kindly ordered for me, thinking that Wolf and I were already officially old lady and old man like the rest of the club did. Mallory had dropped by my office in the morning to give me the privilege of being one of the first to see her new property jacket while also handing me mine.

I had opened my mouth, ready to blurt out my actual status with Wolf—his confession of love and my absolute confusion about my own feelings—but before I could, Kay had the thing out of the box and on my shoulders before I could argue.

She shoved me in front of the standing mirror on the back of my office door and spun me around before I could argue.

I couldn’t breathe.

I near verged on a panic attack when suddenly everything hit me at once. I wasn’t one of those people to believe in “moments.” Just like eureka moments, they belonged in story books or movies. Certainly not ones starring me.

But it had been swelling in my chest ever since Wolf had told me he loved me on the rooftop last week, and it all came slamming into me in said moment.

I should never have been one to realize I was in love with a man by having his name stamped on my back. Not me. Never me.

But I did.

And now the words were like a balloon filling my mouth, making me want to spit them out as fast as I could. But when I had been wondering what to do, Wolf had snuck into my office, and I panicked, shoving the cut and the box in my evidence locker.

I looked at the cut now hanging over my dress and turned to face myself in the mirror. My dark makeup and grim expression made it seem like I was facing a firing squad, not a confession of feelings.

I sighed.

“What is that?”

I shrieked in surprise, spinning on my heels to see Wolf’s dark, wide eyes. They were fixed like weights on the cut that suddenly felt heavy on my shoulders. My hands reached up to fist the material, trying to alleviate some of the weight.

“This is... um…,” I mumbled for the first time in my life.

Fuck, I wasn’t prepared for this.

“A property jacket?” Wolf offered, stepping into the room and quietly shutting the door behind him. “With my name on it?”

“Well, yeah. But this… it doesn’t mean—”

“I think it does,” Wolf interrupted, catching me before I quickly came up with any excuse to ruin whatever the fuck I was attempting to do.

“It doesn’t,” I snapped back on reflex.

Why was it so hard for me to be honest?

Wolf smirked, stepping into my space as his hands reached out to touch the cool leather. His fingers slid under the collar and slowly drifted down the length of the jacket until they reached my waist, where his hands stopped but didn’t let go. “Say it,” Wolf whispered, the rumble of his voice drawing me closer toward him. He leaned his head in towards mine, swallowing me into his bubble. “Say the words.”

“I...” I took a deep, shuddering breath, my eyes looking up to catch his. It was like they suddenly grew a gravitational pull, dragging me into their depths with such a force that my body screamed to resist. I could feel myself wanting to fight what I knew would change it all, and despite the urge, looking into Wolf’s waiting face, patient and absorbed in me, I couldn’t hold it in. “I love you,” I blurted.

It wasn’t my most graceful announcement, nor my most confident one, my body bracing for the impact the second the words were out, but I had said it, and when I found the courage to look up, it only took a second for me to know I wasn’t wrong.

The smile that Wolf returned had the ice around my heart turning into a puddle of mush. I wasn’t a mushy person, but all of this felt so sweet, so warm and gooey, and if I had to admit it, made me want to throw up in my mouth just a little bit. The words felt almost... changing, as if some part of me was now different from the rest. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit frightened by the change, but there was a different part of me, a bigger part of me, that welcomed it. That wanted it.

I shook my head, Wolf’s smile suddenly becoming contagious.

“What have you done to me?” He chuckled, taking the words right out of my head.

I opened my mouth to answer, but Wolf’s mouth took mine instead. It wasn’t like the hot, rough kisses we’d shared before. This one was soft, slow as he kissed my lips, pulling them into his mouth as if he was tasting them for the first time. When his tongue slipped into my mouth, it was gentle, exploring with a patience that had a slow-burning heat rising from the tips of my toes across my whole body.

My hands held on to his waist, scared my knees were about to collapse underneath me.

I was panting hard when his lips pulled away from mine. They weren’t gone long, though. They moved to the edge of my jaw, his short beard and lips tracing the curve of the bone until he met my ear, where he placed a trail of kisses down the length of my neck to my collarbone. My legs quivered and my mind went fuzzy just from Wolf’s soft kisses, his hands holding on to my waist as my own hands weakened on his hips. “W-Wolf,” I breathed. “We can’t.”

He ignored me, his lips moving between the valley of my breasts, generously exposed by my little red dress.

“Your party,” I continued my futile excuses, knowing that I would probably kill him if he stopped doing what he was doing for some fucking party.

“It’s the president’s party,” Wolf grumbled, the tremor on my skin sensational. “The president can do whatever the fuck he wants.”

“Oh,” I breathed, my fight lost as his finger slid down the cup of her bra, brushing the tip of my nipple. “Thank fuck for that.”

Apparently, Wolf and I were the only ones who thought that.

“Wolf!” Kay’s voice bellowed from the other side of the door, her fist banging against it. “You better put your dick away and get out here before I come in there and drag you out myself.”

“Fuck,” Wolf hissed, his head dropping onto my shoulder. “There goes my boner.”

I fought the laughter bubbling out of my chest, not doubting for a second that Kay would come in here and be able to drag him out by force if need be. The woman could move a mountain if she wanted to.

Wolf lifted his head, his eyes twinkling down at me. “We’ll finish this later.”

“If you last that long,” I purred, offering him a wicked grin that made his eyes turn from lust to confusion and then concern in the blink of an eye.

He didn’t get time to think too much about it, however, because true to her word, Kay barged in two seconds later and Wolf was dragged outside.

Time to get the party started.