Free Wolf Bite by Heather Long

found plenty of work in the summer. They are always building something somewhere. But when the bad weather rolled in…” Lightning forked the sky as though giving him additional emphasis. “Work could be spotty. I had one foreman who tried to pay me to stay on through the winter. He would have paid my rental fees and a food allowance, just to be certain I would be there come spring.”
    “But you didn’t want to owe him.” Lexi summed it up in simple terms without an ounce of judgment. “I wish I could do that with Carter.”
    No dislike colored her words. “Why don’t you?”
    She finished the last of her wine and held the glass out to him. “That answer needs more liquid courage.”
    Mason frowned.
    “It’s not that bad, but I’m enjoying being out here with you, the weather and the wine.”
    Enjoying that she ranked him higher than either the weather or the wine, he accepted her empty glass and motioned her toward the chairs. Only when she sat did he leave her. When he returned, he brought the wine bottle with him.
    Despite her earlier words, she didn’t take another drink, but swirled it around the glass. “Neither Mom nor Dad wanted me to move. In fact, I tried to leave for two years after I finished high school. I started with the community colleges there, but then went further and further away to take classes. Dad figured out what I was doing right away and found reasons why I couldn’t take those classes.” Her sigh sounded trapped between aggrieved and amused. “When I discovered what he was doing, I stopped telling him about the classes, then I’d find that my schedule had been changed or the classes were full. Once, my tuition check went to the wrong department and, by the time they sorted it out, the enrollment time period ended. But I knew it was Dad. He was playing games and it was really pissing me off.”
    Her face scrunched on the last and Mason schooled his features to keep from laughing at her again. As adorable as she was, he didn’t think she’d appreciate the humor. Ryan might have been playing dominance games with her, but he’d also been keeping her close to home where he could watch over and protect her. When Mason said as much, his darling Lexi growled at him.
    “Yes, more wolf shit. I got that. So I signed up for some distance courses on the computer. They made him really happy until I applied for an internship in Chicago.” That, Mason realized, had been when her rebellion crystalized. “Dad was furious and tried to reason with me, but I had Me-maw on my side and I’d lived in Chicago before. It’s only a four-hour train ride, a few hours more by bus. It was plenty close, but also far away. I had to practically swear in blood that I would stay in touch, follow his rules, even after all that, he insisted on renting my apartment, but I got to go.”
    She’d won a round, but she’d conceded some to do it. Pride filled her expression.
    “Did you enjoy the internship?”
    “No.” Alexis shook her head. “I hated every second of it, boring drivel, but at the same time, I was free. I could go home and be in a bad mood or wake up and dance around in my underwear—and no one knew. No one judged. Heaven and hell in one city package.”
    “So what happened when you went home?” He prompted, deeply entrenched in every detail.
    A drop of rain spattered against his face and he rose, scooping her—wine glass and all—into his arms before he stepped inside. He had the door closed before the deluge fell and Lexi studied him with an unreadable expression, one he couldn’t decipher even by her scent which remained aroused and intrinsically her. “You really can’t help it, can you?”
    “You would have gotten wet.” He wouldn’t apologize for bringing her inside and he didn’t think she wanted him to.
    Her cheeks dimpled. “I am already soaking wet.” The invitation to his senses dropped a match in his blood. She made no move to leave his arms. Instead, she reached to put