Henry stopped walking and pulled me into his arms. His lips found my neck as I twined my arms around his broad shoulders. He really was a whole mountain range. “But what if you got lost?”
“If I got lost?”
“Yeah. What if you wandered into those woods over there and got lost? What if I happened to find you? I am highly skilled in wilderness rescue. Would I still have to stay away?”
“I guess not.” I ran my fingers through his hair and I was hit with a memory of the night we spent together in Tahoe. I hadn’t been able to keep my hands out of his hair. It was soft and wavy, and every time I pulled, his eyes would darken and he’d get even more wild. “It’s not like I meant to get lost.”
“Of course you didn’t.” He held me tight, groaning into my skin. Then he slapped my backside and said, “All right then. On your way. Pay no attention to the trail, and if a wolf tries to eat you, well, I can promise it will work out very well for you.”
A giggle slipped over my lips as he smacked me again, pointing to the trees beyond the paved walking path. I had no idea what was happening. “Wait. What are we doing?”
“You have five minutes to get lost. Three if I remember that I haven’t woken up with your ass in my lap for days.”
I flattened my palms on his chest. “That sounds a little”—I swallowed an entire stress boulder—“risky.”
He brought his hands to his waist as he stared down at me, tapping his fingers against his belt the way he always did when he needed a minute to think. I liked that I knew his mannerisms now, his quirks. Like the way his brows arched and his lips curled and all his different smiles. The way his scruffy jaw tightened and clenched and the way it felt under my palm. The way his entire expression could shift from light to dark, and all the things that meant.
“If you don’t want to get lost in the woods, Whit, you shouldn’t go in there.”
I took a step back when his words sank in. I nodded, shoving my hands in my jacket pockets. “You’re right.”
He understood my boundaries. He respected my limits. He heard me when I spoke. He cared about the things that were important to me. And that was why I walked right off the trail and into the woods.
It was darker in here, the canopy letting in fingers of light where the trees had given up their leaves. And it was quiet, the hum of the city fading away even more than on the trail.
I didn’t have a lot of experience with outdoorsy things, especially of the walking-in-woods variety, but I kept going. We were in the middle of Boston after all. There had to be a street on the other side of this.
While I was busy wondering where I’d end up if I did wander all the way through these woods, I failed to notice my wolf sneaking up behind me.
