Free Alpha's Howling Desire (BBW Paranormal Romance) by Meg Ripley Page A

Evan was wearing his sunglasses; he was sure he was blushing furiously. “Thank you,” he said awkwardly. “That means a lot to me.”
    Evan shot him a brief smile and nodded. “Ariel is making steak. I should get going. I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow?”
    “Absolutely,” Thomas confirmed. Evan touched the heel of his hand to Thomas’ jaw in a quick gesture of affection and left before the other man could react; he wasn’t quite sure how he should react to what was—for Evan—an extreme level of affection toward he and Susanna. It hadn’t just been that day, or just Evan; Ariel kept sending cupcakes over to them, decorated with cute candy hearts or short, fat squares of chocolate. Julio had offered to mow their lawn each week, and even Natalie, their matriarch, kept inviting them over for dinner. He supposed they were all in need of more company than usual, but he also thought they were treating the two of them more fragile simply because they thought they needed to be sheltered.
    Thomas wanted to be upset about this suspicion, but the truth was that Susanna was having a hard time dealing with being attacked on their own turf. In the five years since they’d committed themselves to each other, she’d seen active duty in their marine unit, while he had never even held a gun past training. She was home now—for good, once her psychologist officially diagnosed her with clinical depression and PTSD. Though the United States deemed her unfit for service, the pride never made her feel useless or broken; however, these last few weeks especially they made her feel like a live grenade: tiptoeing around her, couching their speech in euphemisms and gentle language, and just generally behaving as though she were a downed wire.
    “We don’t want to rush you,” Natalie explained one evening after Susanna angrily asked how long they were going to keep this up. “Please understand, none of us are trying to make you feel weak. We know how strong you are, but we all need space right now, and we appreciate that you might need more than us.”
    After that, she’d become so frustrated and that she wasn’t able to articulate her feelings, so she was choosing to sit out non-mandatory meetings for a while. Seeing the damage done to the humans’ property especially upset her, since Susanna was the only member of the pack who had been turned into a lion, and not born as one, meaning she actually had human family in town. Thomas heard her moving through the house after Evan exited through the front, and he turned his eyes toward the sliding glass door while Susanna walked out onto the patio, holding what looked to be a very stiff drink. Her short black hair was cut just above her shoulders, and it was still wavy and damp from the shower. The porch light made her light brown skin look more pale than usual. Her emerald eyes darkened briefly as they caught sight of the estimates and reports on the table, but she smiled when she met Thomas’ gaze.
    “Evening, Sargent,” Thomas quipped, propping his long legs up on the table, so that his feet conveniently covered most of the plans. “You were right, by the way. It’s cooled down quite a bit.”
    “Mm.” Susanna sat in the wicker chair that Evan had occupied only moments before, tucking her slim, muscled legs underneath her as she started to sip her whiskey. “So, the reports were bad?”
    Thomas balked. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about that! How do you know if the reports were bad?”
    Susanna laughed, a jagged, melodious sound that still made his spine tingle pleasantly whenever he heard it. “Your accent got much stronger, so I already know it’s bad. I guess you’re more upset than you realized.”
    Thomas swore under his breath. “Damn my posh upbringing. You’d think twenty years in Southern California would tame it a bit more, but alas.” He smiled and pulled his legs off the table, gathering the papers into a neat stack in one swift movement.