A Wolf After My Own Heart by MaryJanice Davidson (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

swept and scrubbed everywhere, exposing the blonde wood that made up the walls and making the shed look bigger and brighter, even in the twilight gloom. They’d brought in old carpet remnants for the floor, and they’d found a rocking chair from somewhere for the corner (Lila suspected Macropi’s place). There was a long shelf in the back under the sign (HOT CHOCOLATE HIDEOUT), which had been stacked with mugs, spoons, snacks, and napkins. The lawn lounge chairs had been folded flat and made into a bed with several inches of thick blankets, and the kids had stuffed a bucket with cut evergreen, making the shed smell like Christmas. There was a cordless space heater in the corner, putting the finishing touch on the cozy hideaway.

“She likes it!” Sally squealed.

“You did this?” she asked, stunned. “All this?”

“It was either that or homework,” Devoss said.

“It was Caro’s idea,” Macropi added.

The teenager smiled, then looked down and shrugged. She scribbled and handed over a note. Figured you should have a special place to make Flanders’s cocoa. And yeah…it was either that or homework.

“I love it,” Lila said, and her voice didn’t tremble at all. “I can’t believe you did this instead of homework. Well, I can, but it’s still a lot.”

“Speaking of,” Macropi said tartly, and began shooing the kids back to the house.

“But it’s still the weekend!” Devoss cried as Macropi practically hauled him out by his ear. “And there’s more to the story! Net and Oz and Lila got up to all kinds of cool crap today, and you know they’ve probably only told us half of it. Her nonbulance is gone, disparou, andato! Oz’s hands are all taped up! Nadia left cryptic messages, and I’ll just bet Gomph is involved, too!” Fainter and fainter. “Back me up, Caro. ‘Stop screaming, Mama’s making us leave so Lila and Oz can be alone.’ Oh. Gross. This isn’t over!”

“Well.” Oz coughed and pulled the shed door closed. “That was horribly indiscreet.”

“And audacious.”

“Right. Right!” He stood there, running his hands through his hair like he didn’t know what to do with them. “Yes. I’d never—I mean, we didn’t bring you down here to—there wasn’t a sinister seductive plan being put in motion. That I knew of, anyway. The kids just happened to finish it today. It’s part of the reason Caro and Mama went to town when Harriss tried to burn you out. They needed the finishing touches, and Target’s great for that. Am I doing that thing where I talk too much? Also, if you hadn’t shot him, I was going to use his rib cage for a xylophone, so it all worked oummmmmmm.”

This because she’d had enough already and kissed him. He groaned and kissed her back and then she was groping behind her because she didn’t want to break contact but she did want to get horizontal, and somehow they lowered themselves to the surprisingly comfortable blanket pile. Then she was grabbing at his belt buckle and he was tugging at her sweater and at first she hesitated, but his pants were around his ankles by now and if he didn’t mind looking silly, she didn’t, though she’d never thought of her scars as silly.

“Wait.”

She made her hands go still.

“This morning the plan was to leave you be and wish you a long and happy life because we’ve caused you enough trouble—”

“Presumptuous.”

“Yeah, that’s what Annette said. But then you drove your nonbulance through a dance academy and shot an asshole and then saved that asshole.”

“It was pretty heroic.”

“But I want to know—well, everything.” His hands were on her shoulders and he was almost vibrating with intensity. “I want to know everything about you, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about me. But I also want to—to just put it out there: I want to be with you. I don’t care in what capacity. I’ll take you any way I can get you. Possibly forever.”

“I don’t know if I’m your Rupa. Or your Kama.”

(The look of utter astonishment on his face was a thing of beauty.)

“Wh—how—I don’t—how—Mama Mac?”

“Who else? You know how it is: you’re hanging out on a stranger’s porch mulling over the damage done to your home by the neighborhood racist and you decide to tell someone an origin fable while relentlessly matchmaking. Happens all the time.”

“It’s just a story.”

“I know. And it can stay that way. Let’s just see where this goes. Expecting each other to be their perfect physical and spiritual mate on such short acquaintance is ridiculous. Now take off your pants.”

And then they were kissing again, and her hands went to his belt again, and the space heater might become superfluous because she was very warm, and how had she gone so long without realizing a man’s scorching touch was nothing to fear?

“Oh please, please let me,” he murmured into her neck, and then kissed her throat. “Please, I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

And that was just dumb because of course he wouldn’t hurt her, not just because he was her Oz but because she’d put a bullet into his collarbone if he tried but if he didn’t care about her scars then neither did she.

So she let him tug off her sweater and she got him out of his shoes, which TBH she should have started with instead of lunging for his belt like a sex-starved suburbanite—which she was—and then his pants, and relieved him of his shirt, and then he said something weird

“I’m getting rid of all my turtlenecks. I’m never wearing one again.”

and then he pulled off her leggings and when she turned to toss their clothes toward a handy corner he laughed and laughed at her Harry Potter panties.

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good?13”

“Shut up, you’re the weirdo swearing off turtlenecks.”

And then they were down to their underwear and scrambling beneath the icy covers because a space heater was all well and good but it was still early spring in Minnesota, and nearly dark,