To: andrew.s@fangandclaw.com
From: west.k@fangandclaw.comSubject: You current assignment.There are some things I would like to discuss with you about your article on the werewolf hotels. Please stop by my office when you have a minute.Knight WestEditor-in-Chief, Fang and Claw Magazine.Sue read over the email several times, her heart firmly lodged in her throat. Her first thought was that it was so professional and impersonal, like what had happened between them had meant nothing, which it very well could have to Knight.Then she remembered the email she had sent Sarah and the shit storm that had followed.He could just be acting super professional so as not to draw the wrath of HR Lady, Sue thought. No one wants another seminar.Steeling herself, Sue got up from his desk and walked over to the elevator. Maybe Knight really did just want to talk about the article. She hadn’t been there very longKnight wasn’t typically a homebody. He owned a spacious apartment in the city not far from work, but he rarely used it for anything other than sleeping. His cleaning lady, who he had yet to actually run into, had the easiest job ever. Still, he found himself feeling apprehensive as he put his bag of groceries down on the counter and started preparing dinner.He had grown up in the kitchen alongside his grandma, soaking up all of her culinary knowledge. He didn’t often make the effort to cook, but when he did, he went all out.He bought some fresh pasta sheets from the supermarket, not having the time or energy to make that himself, though he would never tell his grandma.With some calming classical music playing softly in the background, he painstakingly crushed and sautéed garlic bulbs with some finely chopped onions and added ground beef and a thick tomato-and-basil sauce. By the time his doorbell rang, the filling for the ravioli was
It was half an hour later that they sat down at the table and started eating. As Sue took her first bites of the ravioli, Knight couldn’t keep his eyes off him. The wolf in him felt elated when Sue closed her eyes and moaned. He felt proud that he had provided for Sue in such a satisfactory way. While they ate, Sue must have noticed the way Knight was watching her so closely. So she finally stopped eating and gave him an amused look.“Why do you seem to like feeding me so much?” Sue asked. “I mean, you look genuinely happy at the sight of me eating.”Knight shrugged dismissively. “It’s you accepting the food. It’s a wolf thing.”“No, don’t do that. You aren’t allowed to do that. From now on, you can never answer a question with a simple, ‘it’s a wolf thing,’” Sue insisted as she speared another ravioli on her fork.Knight sighed and rested his elbow on the table before leaning his head on it. “It’s hard to e
After taking a quick and efficient shower together, in which Knight cleaned Sue thoroughly with a sponge, the two of them dried off and got into bed. “So,” Sue said, speaking quietly in the darkened room, “will I be fed again in the morning?” Knight grinned at her cheeky tone. “Sure, considering I didn’t exactly feed you much tonight.” Sue frowned and turned onto her side to face the werewolf. Knight sounded annoyed at himself over the way their night had progressed. “Is something wrong?” “No,” Knight quickly assured her. “It’s just a werewolf thing.” “Oh my god. I told you already, no using that as an excuse for everything,” Sue cried. Knight turned onto his side, too, so that they were looking at each other. “It’s the feeding-you thing again. I put my own needs before yours. It makes me...uncomfortable.” “What are you talking about?” Sue asked. “You barely ate anything before I jumped you.” Sue grinned at Knight’s obvious care for her and rested her hand on Knight’s waist.
Knight had not woken up in a good mood. He hadn’t slept well at all and his usual morning coffee didn’t taste quite right, even though the barista insisted that everything was the same as always. Including that first night at Sue’s, and the following night at Knight’s, the two of them had shared a bed for four consecutive nights.Above everything else that was pissing him off that morning was the knowledge that the only thing different about last night was that Sue had stayed at her own place.Knight hadn’t thought it a big deal when Sue told him that her new friend Andrew—who apparently worked for him, but Knight couldn’t have picked out of a lineup—had asked her to have drinks with him.It was ridiculous that after just four nights, Knight was so used to having Sue’s body beside him, and her scent in his nose, that he couldn’t sleep without it. It pissed him off, in fact.As the morning wore on, he managed to shake his bad mood a little. He found that focusing on work, the routine
Sue woke up on Saturday morning wishing she could stay there for the day. She cracked open an eye and glanced over at the clock on her nightstand, squinting her eyes at it to be able to read the time without her glasses.It was nearly eleven. She closed her eyes again and rolled over to the other side of her bed. It was empty. That shouldn’t have been strange, but it was. She had only been...whatever they were...with Knight for less than two weeks. She shouldn’t be so used to the werewolf sleeping beside her, but she was.She knew that she should get up, maybe pack a bag for her stay at the werewolf hotel. She should also take a shower and do some laundry.Guess I should get up, she thought to herself even as she buried deeper down under the covers. Just five more minutes can’t hurt.The next time she opened her eyes was because she received a text alert on her phone. She reached over to grab it and saw that another forty minutes had passed.“Shit,” she said as she rubbed her gritty e
The early afternoon sky was warm on Knight’s skin as he waited in line at the coffee cart. He knew Sue well enough now to know that the human had trouble getting up in the mornings. Even though it was already past noon, he was sure that Sue was still dragging her ass. He had tried calling Sue to let him know that he was coming over, but her phone had been engaged. He knew to order Sue a coffee filled with enough sugar to kick-start her brain. As he waited behind two young women, he started thinking that he should probably discourage Sue from all the sugar she eats. It was then that he realized he wanted Sue to be around for a long time.A surprised smile spread across his face as he stepped forward to place his order. He split the difference and ordered an only mildly sweet coffee for the human. Just as he was paying, he felt his phone vibrate in his back pocket. He slid it out and glanced at the screen before answering it.“Hey. I’ve been calling you,” he said as he put their drink
The drive to the hotel was, in a word, tense. Knight kept his eyes forward as he drove them there, making minimal effort to have a conversation with Sue. For Sue, awkward silences were unbearable. She had the tendency to ramble away in an attempt to fill them.She was in the process of blathering on about what little she actually knew about fracking when she suddenly remembered the promise she had made to Sarah.“Oh shit,” she said as she slumped back in her seat. Knight looked over at her for the first time in a while.“What? You forget something?”“Kind of,” Sue said, cringing at what she knew she had to do. “Sarah called me. She and Jared are having some issues and she called off the wedding.”Knight didn’t seem surprised or particularly bothered by the news, so Sue kept talking. “Apparently Jared’s been acting weird and distant over the whole thing, so I told Sarah that you’d talk to him.”That got Knight’s attention. “Why would you do that? Why would I get involved in their rela
Knight had been to his grandpa’s hotel on several occasions. He and his mom had been for dinner a few times since it opened last year and he had stopped by in its early days to see how things were going. His grandpa wasn’t exactly hands-on with the place, leaving the day-to-day stuff to the manager. In fact, Knight was pretty sure that his grandpa hadn’t even been out to the place in months, which was why it was such a shock to see the man standing in the lobby talking to Knight’s mom.“What’s the matter?” Sue asked as Knight stopped dead in his tracks the moment they set foot through the door.He saw his mom discreetly scent the air before she turned to him with a big smile on her face.“Not a word about Angel,” he quickly warned Sue. He didn’t want his mom to get upset. Sue nodded quickly, needing no further explanation, for which Knight was grateful. Knight smiled back at his mom and slowly walked over to her. He wasn’t nervous about introducing her to Sue. He just hadn’t planned