Free Idler (Norseton Wolves Book 3) by Holley Trent

the species, you know. I turn it on when I need to.”
    “You’ve demonstrated that.”
    She canted her head and narrowed those beguiling eyes at him.
    “What?”
    “I think it’s clear I have high expectations.”
    “I gleaned that.”
    “You gotta understand where I’m coming from. The first guy I was paired with during a mate match was a shit stain of wolf. The kind no one would ever worry about usurping an alpha. The kind so shiftless, you’d have to roll him out of his bed in the morning so he didn’t piss himself.”
    “You made that judgment pretty quickly.”
    She shrugged. “After a while, you learn how to peg them. You know what to look for, and what all the earmarks are. I know too many wolves just like him. Weak, and with no ambition. The same kinds that’ll turn their daughters over to monsters and hand over their entire paychecks to their alphas because ‘alpha knows best,’ right?”
    “Not a practice we have here. Alpha’s never collected dues.”
    “Of course he wouldn’t, though. You guys see Adam as a sort of surrogate father. He wouldn’t start skimming off your paychecks after spending so many years raising you into something almost tolerable.”
    He scoffed and yanked on the door handle. “Yeah, you can just—”
    She grabbed his wrist and gently pulled his hand from the knob, squeezing it. “I usually mean what I say. You may not like the words, but they’re my truth. They’re not always meant to be hurtful, and I’m sorry if they are.”
    Some of the tension in his spine eased away the longer she rubbed the top of his hand and massaged between his fingers. Her hand looked good there, atop his. Like it belonged.
    “Can we move away from the door?” she asked softly. “It’s easier for me to have a conversation if I don’t think you’re going to bolt.”
    “I’m not to going to bolt. I just have some things to do.”
    “There’s a film of dust on your videogame console. I considered cleaning it, but I figured you wouldn’t notice.”
    “I would have thought you wanted me to work hard. Isn’t that what you said?”
    She pulled him away from the door—or rather, he let her—and he followed her inside. She didn’t move to the sofa, though, but through the living room and down the hall. They went the past the office and into the bedroom, where she stationed him at the foot of the bed and had him sit.
    “Great job painting in here, by the way. You have good taste in colors.”
    “I don’t have any taste at all. I asked Mrs. Carbone, and she told me to ask you, but—”
    “But you didn’t want to talk to me.”
    He shrugged. “If I want to be yelled at, I can present myself to Alpha for a proper berating. He does it better than anyone.” Alpha could have a guy shaking in his boots and regretting the day he was born, but Lisa…Lisa was just too fucking efficient at getting to the quick. Her cuts were deep and deadly, and they weren’t the kind he was used to bracing himself for. He couldn’t use acerbic barbs and preemptive insults on her like he did on the guys. She and Colt were too intimate. Her words were too personal.
    He leaned back onto his forearms and watched her tug at his belt buckle. “What are you doing?”
    “I find it easy to get a man to talk when I’m touching him, but it’s even easier when he’s naked.” She had his button open and fly down before he could think to grab her hand.
    “Number one, how many men did you go through before you learned that? And number two, what should I be talking about?”
    “None of your fucking business, and you .”
    He disagreed that it wasn’t his business, but wouldn’t press. It probably wouldn’t be a great idea for them to start spitting out numbers because of that “jealous wolf” thing. It didn’t matter if she was Colt’s now. He’d want to eliminate everyone who’d come before him just in case she changed her mind. “What about me?”
    “Let’s start at the beginning—you as a