“Too sexy,” I say as I look in the mirror, and a pair of red heels clunk on the floor when I kick them off so I can strip out of my black skinny jeans. Who knew getting dressed for a friend date with a guy could be so hard? I plop down on my bed and fall back to stare up at the ceiling. “I’m overthinking this.” While it’s true I might change my outfit a few times before going out with the girls, I never take this much time to get ready. I’ve already tried on more clothes than if I were going on a real date.

“Cade and I are just friends!” I yell at myself and bolt up off the bed to grab a comfortable pair of faded jeans. I roll up the hem of the legs and slip on my red shoes again, purposely avoiding the mirror as I walk over to the closet for a slouchy top. I don’t know what I’m worried about. The electricity Cade and I have generated in the past couldn’t be doused if I wore a paper bag, and I shouldn’t be encouraging that with sexy clothes.

I go to the bathroom to do my makeup and glance at the fake eyelashes on the counter. “Nope,” I say, and while my hand hovers over a tube of eyeliner I keep moving to grab my mascara instead. “Friends, Bella,” I remind myself. “Friends.”

I don’t have to control myself when I get to the red lipstick, though. It’s kind of my thing, and I wear it with just about everything and for almost every occasion, so I smear a generous amount on my lips and make a duck face at myself in the mirror. I chuckle as I turn away to go grab my purse. And when my door slams shut behind me, I take a deep breath to settle my nerves.

I can’t stop thinking about Cade, and it’s making me crazy. It’s as if I’m like the guys who get clingy when I tell them I don’t want anything serious. Somehow, the fact Cade and I agreed to be nothing more than friends makes me want to be so much more. I’m experiencing firsthand what it’s like to want what you can’t have. I shake my head at myself as I climb in my car. Even though I understand why I suddenly care about Cade liking me, I can’t seem to stop the feeling.

As I turn over the engine, my phone rings, and I glance at it to see it’s my friend Tally in Canada. I pick up the call and put her on speakerphone. “Hey, Tally, I’m in my car, on my way to paint night. What’s up?”

“Paint night? You?” She laughs.

“Hey, I can be creative.”

“Uh-huh. Are you going to use magic?”

“Not unless I have to.”

“I want to run something by you,” Tally says, and then she describes a spell she wants to create but is struggling to get right. We discuss different options to achieve it before the conversation returns to me. Tally asks, “Who are you painting with?”

“Cade.”

Tally and I became close friends about ten years ago when she would spend time at the LeRoux medicine woman’s house with her grandmother. The two of us did a lot of training together and had a lot of fun. She’s witnessed a few of my drunken indiscretions in bars and on dance floors with Cade, and she knows he’s the one thing I can’t resist. She says, “Paint night my roly-poly round butt. I thought you refused to date the werebear in your clan.”

“We’re getting together just as friends.”

Now Tally cackles. “Oh, Bella. That’s a good one. Don’t they have wine at those things? You don’t expect me to believe you two can keep your hands off each other if alcohol is involved. This idea spells trouble with a capital T.”

I scowl as I flip my blinker on to turn into a municipal parking lot across from the art center. “For your information, I’m turning over a new leaf. I’m tired of meaningless relationships, but I’m not sure how to have a serious one. So I decided I need to have a guy friend to help me figure out how to relate to a man on more than a physical level.”

“Huh. That’s actually pretty smart. But Cade? He’s like your crack. Oh.” She pauses for a second. “You know what? Good for you,” says Tally. “I’d love to see you settle down and have kids of your own. You’re really great with mine.”

“What was the ‘oh’ for?”

“It’s nothing. I got distracted by the fact you might be growing up,” she teases.

“Very funny,” I say. But I smile at her praise and think about her adorable children, who are shifting prematurely into cubs because of their mixed breed. Tally’s alpha let her marry a werebear, which has never happened before. But it’s clear to everyone she and Marcel have a relationship that defies the true-mate bond between werebear only. “Thanks.” I glance in the rearview mirror to make sure I don’t have lipstick on my teeth. “I’ve got to go, but let me know if you need to tweak the spell more. I’m happy to help.”

“Will do. Have fun tonight.”

“I will. Bye, Tally.”

As I climb out of my sedan, a jacked-up truck pulls into the lot, and I grin when I notice Cade behind the wheel. I wave at him as he drives by me and into the spot next to mine. He gets out, and I see he’s wearing an open flannel shirt over a tight T-shirt, loose jeans, and work boots that are untied. He has a backpack over his shoulder, and I notice his hair is damp when he combs his fingers through it as he greets me.

“Hey, I was afraid I’d be late, but it looks like I got here right on time.”

When he gets closer, I detect the pine scent of his soap, and my knee-jerk reaction is to want to lean in to smell more as I kiss him. As my body begins to warm up, I throw up a mental shield between my libido and my brain. No wonder Tally laughed at me. I really don’t know how to be a guy’s friend. “So,” I say. “Please tell me you’re not artistic and going to blow me away with your creativity.”

Cade chuckles. “Not even close. How about you?”

“Nope. I was just talking to a friend of mine, who teased me about using my magic to pull this off.”

“Don’t you dare. I can’t be the only whose painting looks like a kindergartener did it.” He tugs the door of the shop open for me.

Once we get inside, I say, “We can sit in the back and be the bad kids that get sent to detention.”

“No detention here,” says an older woman as she approaches us. She’s human, and as I glance around the room, I notice most of the people here are except for two werebear girls in our clan who are eyeing Cade. “Every painting is a work of art in my eyes. Go find an easel. I’m Joy, your teacher tonight.”

We wander toward the back of the room to pick our easels. The two werebear girls turn to glance at Cade before they break out into giggles.

I say, “I believe you’ve been made.”

He rolls his eyes and whispers because of the humans present, “It’s the warrior thing. Great for the ego, but it gets annoying.”

“That’s not all they’re interested in.”

He gives me a smirk as he sets his backpack down with a thud. “You think I’m hot.”

Now I roll my eyes. “And you think the same about me. I believe that’s been established.”

“I do,” he flashes me his sexy smile before he expertly opens a bottle of red with a wine key.

A rush of pleasure runs through me at his compliment. After Cade hands me my drink, Joy claps her hands and says, “Let’s get started.”

She demonstrates a few techniques and then shows us the first step to complete. I steal a glance at Cade as he works. His face is scrunched up with concentration, and when I look at his painting, I can tell he’s trying to make it be exactly like the sample. I whisper, “I think this is supposed to be relaxing.”

“Shush. I’m trying to focus.”

I can’t help myself. I reach over with my paintbrush and swipe across his nearly perfect gradient of color. Cade lets out a small noise before he stares at me with his jaw wide open and then says, “You didn’t just do that.”

I grin. “Yes, I did.”

“This isn’t going to end well for you,” says Cade.

“Sure it is.” I flick my fingers and erase the paint streak with magic. “See?”

“Let’s see you fix this,” Cade says as he reaches out and dabs the end of my nose with his paintbrush.

I gasp and reach up to wipe the paint off, but he grabs my wrist. “Don’t make me hex you,” I say.

Cade’s eyes are full of mischief when he leans in and wipes the paint off my skin with his thumb. He freezes, and I swear sparks between us crackle with the electricity. Neither of us moves. It’s as if we’re both trapped in each other’s gaze. I shouldn’t be feeling this way after only a few sips of wine, but apparently, I don’t need alcohol to want Cade to keep touching me. This is the Cade who invades my dreams. The one I can’t keep my hands off when I see him on a dance floor. I glance down at his full lips, which I’ve kissed many times, and they’re tempting-- Bella! I jerk back. “Friends,” I mumble as I stand up quickly, and my stool topples over. “I’m going to go--“ I point off in the distance since, for some reason, the word I’m trying to find escapes me. “Clean up. I’m going to go clean up.” And maybe take a cold shower too.

“Right,” says Cade in a husky voice. He clears his throat and doesn’t make eye contact as he gets up to retrieve my stool. I walk away, and when I glance back at Cade, I notice he’s furiously stabbing at his canvas with a paintbrush. Tally was right. I’m in trouble. Only it’s spelled with a capital C.