Being(s) In Love 03 - A Beginner’s Guide to Wooing Your Mate Read Free Page B

to come home.
    Strong, hale firefighters were displaying themselves for the enjoyment of their audience. And maybe it was the spring air, but they weren’t being as coy about it as Zeki remembered the firefighters being in the past. One of the women bent over to pick up a bucket and gave a completely unnecessary wiggle. Others tugged their suspenders into place over their bare chests or pushed them down slowly to let them hang over the backs of their thighs.
    Some of the firefighters were staying dressed. Zeki was going to lament that until the first spray of the hose “accidentally” got one of them. Suddenly, well-sculpted muscles were displayed through soaked, thin white cotton. Zeki allowed himself a low hum for the width of the shoulders, the earthy brown, strong arms, the sheer height and mass that signaled werewolf more than anything else short of the man shifting to a wolf on the spot. Shiny black hair, long enough to be bundled loosely at the nape of the werewolf’s neck, looked like it would be smooth and easy to draw his fingers through. Zeki wondered how long that hair would be if he tugged it free, if it was dripping with water now, leaving trails down that broad back. The thought drew his attention to the ripple of muscle and the jut of the shoulder blades beneath the wet T-shirt.
    One of the other firefighters called out something not exactly apologetic, but the firefighter Zeki had been studying turned to answer with a smile on his face anyway.
    Zeki sat up straight and clutched at his knees. His stomach flipped with cold nerves, which he distantly thought was strange, because his fingers and toes were prickling with heat. He swallowed to wet his dry mouth and couldn’t, not with his throat locked.
    “I know, right?” the male werewolf closest to him commented, no doubt listening to Zeki’s skyrocketing pulse. Zeki didn’t think he was the only one on the patio breathing hard, but he felt like it, blushing hotly like he hadn’t since his first time touching another person intimately. For the sake of his dignity he tried to look away, but his eyes were immediately drawn back across the street.
    Three of the werewolves surrounding him sighed in unison. “Theo Greenleaf,” one of them murmured. Zeki couldn’t tell if they simply enjoyed saying the name or if it was for Zeki’s benefit.
    He couldn’t speak to tell them it wasn’t necessary. Zeki was well aware of who Theo Greenleaf was. One year younger than Zeki and so one class below him all the way from middle school to high school, Theo had always been unbelievably attractive. Even for a were, he’d been handsome and tall. But of course he would be. He was a Greenleaf. Greenleaf was the last name many of the pre-Columbian shifter families had adopted in past centuries when the human government had demanded a surname. To most humans the name Greenleaf meant a family of Native ancestry, a tribe deliberately unnamed to create confusion. To weres, Greenleaf meant old blood shifters with tremendous strength, who weren’t necessarily related, who didn’t want the human federal government aware of their exact background. A group of them called Wolf’s Paw home, and all of them were impressive, even by werewolf standards.
    Theo Greenleaf, Zeki thought, and nearly squirmed in his chair. Names had power, and that particular name had driven Zeki crazy for years. He’d had one class with Theo, AP English his senior year, which Theo, a junior, had been taking because of his advanced test scores. Zeki had managed to avoid speaking to him for the entire school year despite the perfect opportunity. He’d elected to sit in the last row as usual and sneak peeks at the back of Theo’s head rather than approach him.
    They’d known each other, or known of each other, he supposed, like all the kids in town did. But they hadn’t run in the same circles. Zeki hadn’t had a circle, and Theo, despite his looks and his name, had steered clear of the popular