Chapter Eight

Emmett woke when the sun entered Petra's bedroom. They hadn't managed to completely close the blinds, knowing the window was hidden from view by trees and distracted as they were by exploring each other's bodies in every way possible. The soft morning light made the scene look vaguely ethereal, bathed in gold.

Petra was pressed up against him as she slept, her head on his chest where she'd collapsed after their last round of intimacy, sometime in the early hours of the morning. In total, he'd barely gotten a scant few hours of sleep, but he couldn't remember ever feeling more energised—or more satisfied—though his body was loudly telling him that it was ready to rediscover his mate's at the slightest opportunity. His mate. For that was what she was, this woman asleep in his arms, her breath warm against his skin. She was his, for as long as she would allow them to remain tied to each other, and he was hers.

He tried not to let himself think what this might mean for the future. Was she changing her mind about wanting to break their bond, or even just coming close to it? Had getting to know him better changed her opinion of him enough that she was comfortable being mated to him? Was it possible that he would actually get to keep this woman?

No. He couldn't think about it, couldn't allow even this slight spark of hope to flare in his chest. She had said it was just for the one night, just to see what it would be like between them, and now she knew. He couldn't allow himself to hope for anything more than that, or the disappointment would crush him.

Desperate to distract himself from the hope trying to send tentacles through his chest to wrap around his heart, he focused instead on the woman snuggled in against his chest. For once he could freely lean down and breathe deeply of her intoxicating scent, and gods, his body had never responded to anything so rapidly, so intensely. Petra stirred in her sleep and snuggled in even closer to him, pressing her face to his pectoral and tucking her hand under the far side of his body to hold herself tight against him. Her leg, already bent up over his, drew up even higher until the side of his thigh was almost pressed against her core.

Well, this erection may never go down.

Were the gods testing him? Some kind of karmic retribution for all the times he'd spent a single night with a woman, and that had been all she'd wanted from him? He just had to lie here, surrounded by Petra's unique scent—not to mention the scent of them together—with the most intense hard-on he'd ever experienced, and not do anything about it?

Fuck that. They were alone, in a bed, and until they separated for the day, he was counting it as still part of their "one night". He was going to satisfy this woman until she didn't remember feeling any other way but physically satiated. He wanted to fulfill every need she had, every need she would ever have—he wanted to feed her and fuck her and keep her safe and cared for and loved every day of the rest of his life—but he would settle for giving her so many orgasms that her voice went hoarse from screaming his name.

Gently, he eased out from under her, rolling her to her back as delicately as he could. A part of him mourned the loss of closeness of having her wrapped around him, but the urge to satisfy her would not be denied. She stirred again as he moved down the bed, and then he pushed apart her legs to position himself between them. Sitting back on his heels so she didn't wake to him looming over her, he wrapped his hands around her thighs once more and squeezed gently. "Petra," he said softly, and she hummed out an acknowledgement. "Petra," he murmured again, leaning down toward her. "Petra, wake up. I want to lick this perfect pussy, baby, and I can't do that when you're asleep."

Her eyes shot open like he'd electrocuted her. "Emmett," she gasped, her voice husky with sleep, immediately reaching to the side of the bed where he'd slept like she thought he might still be there. "Emmett?"

"Down here, pretty girl," he said, once more gently squeezing her thighs, and her gaze finally found him, kneeling over her naked body.

"Did you just… you want—"

"Don't worry, you didn't dream it," he said with a smile, stroking the smooth skin of her inner thigh. "Can I, Petra? I'm dying for another taste of you."

There was a brief moment where he actually thought she might refuse, her eyes still wide, blinking away the remnants of sleep. Then her thighs fell open and she nodded, her gaze not leaving his, and Emmett could finally lower his mouth to her core.

He already knew she tasted like heaven and yet, still, her taste exploded on his tongue like he'd been granted access to ambrosia. The way she arched and writhed under the lightest touch was enough to send bolts of arousal shooting through his body, until he found he was thrusting his hips against the surface of the bed in time with the movements of his tongue over her clit.

Emmett had never felt it necessary to do any research about the best way to pleasure a woman; his policy had always just been to do different things until she responded positively to something and then keep doing that. From what his previous partners had said, this was a fairly foolproof approach to maximizing her pleasure.

The issue was Petra was responding to literally everything he did, from swiping his tongue over her clit to pressing one finger, then a second, inside the tightness of her pussy and finding the spot that made her back arch. It was as if she'd never had anyone lick her out while paying attention to what she actually liked. She'd told him the night before that she'd never come from having someone go down on her before and also that she didn't have much experience with the sensation, but surely, it wasn't normal for a female to respond this passionately to every single thing he did to her.

Jamming his hips up against the bed in an attempt to calm down his cock, which was desperate for friction, preferably of the kind his fingers were currently experiencing inside Petra, he sucked gently on her clit, stroking his fingertips over the spot inside her that made her back arch. He could have survived for a month purely on the nourishment of the sound she made, half-cry, half-moan, loud enough to all but echo back off the bedroom walls. His dick throbbed, but he ignored it, repeating the motion, stroking his tongue over her swollen clit over and over, growling against her flesh as her pleasure seemed to meld into his own. Petra's cries steadily grew louder and louder, separated by frantic, gasping breaths, and Emmett focused the entirety of his attention on what he was doing. Reveling in her wetness, licking her sweet clit, curling his fingers against the sensitive spot inside her, and finally trying not to come with only the friction of the bedsheets against him when her cries reached a peak and she clenched tight around his fingers, her heels digging into his back as her thighs locked tight around his head like she was trying to keep him there forever.

Gods, he would stay there forever if he could.

Before she had fully come down from orgasm number one, he decided she would probably benefit from one or two more. Judging from the noises she made as he worshipped her pussy like a man possessed, he didn't exactly think she was complaining.

He wanted to fuck her so badly, it was like the need had taken a physical form and was crushing the other organs inside his chest. He could barely breathe around it. Petra's thighs eventually relaxed, along with the rest of her body, falling languid like he'd worn her out, and he crawled up over her, resting his body alongside hers once more. She couldn't fail to notice his throbbing erection, but at that moment, all he wanted to do—well, almost—was hold her as she came down from the orgasms he'd driven her to.

"I could listen to you make those sounds every minute for the rest of my life," Emmett said, quietly enough that she could pretend not to hear it if she didn't want to. He knew that was pushing it, pressing beyond the ethos of the "just one night" edict. Letting her see how happy he would be if they didn't, after all, break this bond between them.

"Feels like there are some other noises you'd rather I be making right about now," she said, languidly rolling toward him so his cock pressed against the smooth skin of her stomach. "Most of them are the ones that come when my mouth is full, I think." She looked up at him from under her eyelids and the pure seduction in the image was almost more than he could bear.

"If you put me in your mouth, I'm not going to last a goddamn minute," he admitted, not sure this was painting his stamina in the best light but knowing he couldn't be anything but brutally honest with this woman.

"What would you rather I do, Emmett?" she asked, and just seeing her mouth shape his name sent another bolt of arousal through him.

A sudden thought struck him, and his stomach dropped. "I'd sell my soul to fuck you right now, but I don't have any more condoms."

"I do," Petra offered, and a wave of jealousy was just swelling in him when she added with a self-conscious grin, "I'm pretty sure they're still in date. In the top drawer if you'd like to check." The wave subsided, mostly, at the knowledge she hadn't been using them recently, and he scrambled inelegantly to find the box, check they were still in date—they were, praise the gods—and cover himself. Petra watched him with an air of faint amusement, but when he turned back to her, for a brief moment he thought he saw a hunger as deep as his own before she turned it into a teasing grin.

"I guess that's a yes, then?"

"You'd be damn right," he told her, barely keeping his voice steady. "Now, how do you want to be fucked, pretty girl?"

Her face went blank with surprise, as though shocked he would even bother to ask her. "I thought this was about you."

"Petra, something I want you to know," Emmett told her, tilting her chin up so she was looking him in the eye. "No matter what I'm doing, it's always about you. Your pleasure is worth a thousand times more to me than my own, do you understand? If I have the faintest chance in hell of getting you off, you have to know I'll take it. Whatever you need."

"Emmett…" Petra started, and then interrupted herself by grabbing him around the back of the neck and dragging his mouth down to hers. She rolled them both so he was on his back, and she was lying on top of him, and just when Em thought he might come just from the kiss and her undulating body atop his, she pulled away and sat up.

"Watch me," Petra said, her voice somewhere between embarrassed and determined. "Watch me take my pleasure from you."

"Oh, fuck." Emmett couldn't stop the words from leaving his lips as she positioned his cock and sank down on it, inch by devastating inch, until her ass was flush against his thighs. She rose up, letting him almost slip free from her body, and drove back down, and his eyes rolled back in his skull from the pleasure.

"Nuh-uh," Petra said in a teasing voice, pausing her motions. "Watch me, Emmett."

He forced his eyes back open, forced them to focus on her as she began to ride the length of his cock. The flexing of her thighs and the bouncing of her perfect tits alone would have been enough to undo him, let alone the sensation of being inside her once more. He forced his eyes to stay fixed on her, even as his instincts wanted them to squeeze shut under the onslaught of sensation. When she flicked one of his nipples, his hips jerked up off the bed, bouncing her and setting those gorgeous breasts moving even more. The sly grin on her lips told him she liked that response, and if he wasn't wrong, she was going to do it again. A few moments later, he was proven right, and he managed to grind out between her movements up and down his shaft, "Petra, baby, if you keep doing that, I'm going to come."

"Go on, then," she said, apparently not the least bit disconcerted. "Come for me, Emmett."

He could no more refuse her than he could lasso the moon.

The sensations roiled through him like he was a volcano erupting. How was it that every time with this woman was better than anything else he'd ever done? Better than every time before? Surely, there had to come a point where it just stopped improving, right? Otherwise, Emmett wasn't sure he'd survive it.

He came back to himself gazing up at a very self-satisfied-looking Petra, stroking her fingertips through the hair on his chest as he slowly came down from what may have been the greatest orgasm of his life.

"You are incredible," he managed to grind out, tugging her down so she was lying atop his body and he could wrap his arms around her, her head tucking beneath his chin. If he could have melded them into one being at that moment, he would have seriously considered it. "Gods, Petra, every time I think it can't get better—"

"And every time, it does," she finished for him softly, her breath stirring the hair on his chest. She pressed her lips gently to his skin, and a bolt shot through his chest like he'd just taken an arrow to the heart. "How does it keep on getting better, Emmett?"

Even just the way her lips wrapped around his name was music to him. "I don't know," he replied honestly as he kept holding her close while their breathing slowly evened out.

When she eventually rolled away, sighing deeply at the requirement to get ready for work, her face looked… softer somehow, as though he had broken down a barrier in her. A wall that Petra had been steadfastly maintaining between them had collapsed after what they did last night. However, as incredible as what they had shared had been, he was positive that she was going to start rebuilding that wall as soon as he left her alone. He reached out to take her hand, not letting her completely separate from him quite yet.

"I need to shower," she said softly, glancing down at the body he'd so thoroughly debauched during the night.

"Is your shower big enough for two?"

She looked at him, eyebrows pulling down with confusion.

"You can't imagine I'd give up the opportunity to see you all wet," he added with the mischievous grin he'd perfected as a child.

She laughed. "It might be big enough. I've never tried."

It was. Oh, it was.

And if they weren't careful, Petra was going to be late for work.

He left her working the knots out of her hair in front of the mirror and tugged on his trousers, then retraced their steps from the night before down the hallway to locate her kitchen. After some digging, he found things for toast and coffee and put the kettle on to boil so it'd be at least partway ready before she finished getting dressed. He knew she'd be working on reassembling that wall between them now that he'd left her alone. He was determined to provide for at least one more of her needs before they separated for the day, at which point she would be free to stack as many bricks into that wall as she could. Just because they'd shared the most momentous physical interaction of his life didn't mean Petra wasn't still going to be set on severing the bond between them, which for her would mean recreating that space that divided them and the barriers between them. He just wanted to show her that he could fit into her life, however she would let him, could make things better and easier and a damn sight more pleasurable if she'd just decide to keep him around.

And if there was a voice in the back of his head trying to argue that the longer he had with her, the greater possibility there was of convincing her to give the two of them a chance… well, that was a lesser concern at the moment. Currently, he would settle for her allowing him to be in her life, even if she didn't want to admit that they worked perfectly as mates, just because he wasn't the man she might have chosen for herself, didn't mean he couldn't fit into as much of her life as she would open to him.

She looked terribly surprised to come into the kitchen and find him sitting at her table, the morning's newspaper open in front of him, sipping coffee and eating toast.

"Coffee's in the pot," he explained, looking up and trying not to gawk at the way the dress she was wearing so beautifully fit her body, just enough to be work-appropriate. "I didn't know what you liked for breakfast, so I didn't make toast for you."

"Toast with jam, every day of the week," she said with a small smile as she poured herself coffee. "My sister says I should look for more variety, but I like that it's predictable." She took a deep breath of the steam rising from her mug and the smile turned satisfied. "Thank you for making this. You didn't have to do that."

"I wanted some," he explained, "and it seemed easier to just make a pot so there was enough for both of us."

"You got it perfect," she said, turning her satisfied grin on him. "Most people make it too weak for me."

"I didn't think to ask," Emmett admitted. "I just made it how I like it. But I should have guessed, you prefer things intense." He shot her a wink and took another bite of his toast.

She rolled her eyes and pressed the bar down on the toaster, but her smile didn't disappear. That had to be a good thing, right? That she was kind of laughing at his low-quality jokes?

She took one of the lift-outs of the paper and sat down with it to have her own breakfast, and Emmett had to concentrate on actually reading the paper sitting in front of him rather than just staring at Petra as she ate. Honestly, he'd be happy just gazing at her for hours, but had to remind himself that that would definitely come across as creepy, which was the opposite of the impression he was trying to give. Once she'd finished eating, he cleared away both their plates and came back to stand behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders once she'd put down her coffee mug and digging his thumbs into the knots he found there.

The noise she made was oddly similar to the sounds he drew from her when he was inside her, and he found himself trying very hard not to get aroused all over again. Surely, this was an abnormal amount to be finding himself turned on, even if he was trying to cram as much contact with this woman into the brief period that she'd allowed him. This must be due to the fact that they were early in their bond because nobody could sustain this level and frequency of arousal indefinitely without collapsing of exhaustion.

"We should probably talk," Emmett said after a moment or two of working out the kinks in her shoulders.

"I guess we should," Petra said quietly, the tension immediately crawling back into her muscles.

He decided this would be a conversation better held with eye contact, so he slid back into the chair where he'd sat to eat. "After last night," he started, not entirely sure where he was going with this sentence even as he began it.

"Nothing has to change," Petra said quickly. Strangely, her voice sounded as though she was trying to reassure him, when in reality she was causing a boulder to drop in the pit of his stomach. "We can keep doing exactly what we already were. We agreed, it was just one night. Just an… experiment, to see what it was like with the bond. Nothing has to change."

"Is that what you want?" Emmett heard himself ask. Please say no. Please say you want me as much as I want you. Please say we can give up this ridiculous quest to break our bond and you'll accept me as your mate and let me give everything I have to making you happy.

"It's the best option, I think," Petra said, her eyes gentle.

"Sure," Emmett said, trying not to let the weight in his stomach show in his face and voice. "If that's what you want, we can do it that way. There are still lots of books to go through at the library, but I don't think they're open as late on Thursdays, so we might not be able to do dinner first if you want to go back tonight."

"Oh, that's fine," Petra said, draining her coffee cup and standing up. "You don't even have to come if you've got something else on."

Was there a diplomatic way to say he'd break an appointment with the gods themselves if it meant he could spend more time with her? Instead, Emmett simply shrugged and finished his coffee. "Not this week. It'll get done faster if we both work on it, anyway."

"Good point. I'll see you after work then?"

"Sounds good," he said, arranging his face into what he hoped was a relaxed smile. "Now, show me how to work this dishwasher so I don't accidentally make it explode while I'm trying to get these plates washed."

He stood and saw her eyes dart over his bare chest, so quickly that if he hadn't been watching her closely, he might not have seen it. Her cheeks went ever so slightly pink as she showed him how to start the dishwasher, and the weight in Emmett's stomach lightened slightly.

Well, it looked like he wasn't entirely back to Square One after all.

* * *

Petra could barely focus on her work. Every time she shifted in her seat, her body gave a pleasurable twinge that only served to remind her of what she had spent the night doing and with whom. Had it been insane to take Emmett into her bed? Once might have been bad enough, but the moment they were finished one round, it seemed that he had been ready to start up all over again. And his focus had been almost entirely on making her feel good, in a way she'd never experienced with past lovers. Most of the time, she'd been lucky to get an orgasm out of the experience at all; with Emmett, it was like he didn't consider his work complete until she'd had at least two or three. Honestly, if that was how he was with everyone, it was no wonder he had a trail of women longer than the Suez Canal in his wake.

That thought was enough to calm her heating blood in the way she probably needed, though she didn't particularly like it. Didn't enjoy the reminder of Emmett's one-night-only tendencies and the number of women he'd graced with them.

Not that, in principle, she had any issue with someone who had been with a lot of people before her. She had her own history, even if it wasn't all that extensive. Besides, she'd very happily said yes when Regan wanted to make their relationship official, and he'd been very much of the new-girl-every-week disposition prior to committing to her. And also after committing to her, though she hadn't known about it for several months of what she thought was an exclusive relationship. The combination of emotions she'd felt after discovering that his version of their exclusivity had lasted barely a month into the almost year-long relationship rolled over her again—horror, misery, betrayal, humiliation—and she stood up from her desk to make her way to the staff room. There was no one else in there, which was good, because all she wanted was to make coffee in peace, without having to pretend nothing was wrong.

She'd just slept with a man who was by no means a carbon copy of her unfaithful ex, but boy, did they have some things in common. She needed time to think over what that meant.

Her thoughts from the night before, when they'd been talking over dinner, ran through her mind once more. What if it wasn't him who had wanted all those liaisons to be one-night-only? He'd admitted to her that he had a history of falling for women within moments. What if he'd thought he was in for something more serious with those women he'd taken home, had been starting to develop feelings for them, only to be treated as nothing more than a one-night stand?

Well, he'd known from the beginning with her that what they were doing was just for one night. Just an experiment, a trial of what it would be like with the bond connecting them, drawing them together. She'd been careful, this morning, to respect his condition of not asking him to leave like a one-night stand, treating him as a friend even as her body had been begging her to pin him to the kitchen table and have her way with him once more. They were still going to find a way to break this bond, even now they knew how good it could be between them, because that was still what she wanted.

Right?

She took a long sip of the coffee she'd finished making without realizing and wondered what she was doing. Was she really questioning the certainty she'd had that being bound to Emmett would only break her heart? Look at what happened with Regan. Men like that, men who were used to a smorgasbord of beautiful women, weren't satisfied with girls like Petra Dalman. She would never be enough for him, and he would start looking elsewhere, and she would have her heart broken all over again. Yes, even with how phenomenal they'd been together physically, she would never be interesting enough, beautiful enough, just enough to fulfill the requirements of a man like Emmett, even if she let down all her guards and handed him her heart on a platter the way this bond between them was urging her to do. She'd had one night of sleeping curled up against his chest. That would have to be enough for her, as they worked toward finding a way to destroy the bond and all it meant. She'd go back to her predictable, reliable, organized life, with its highlights of doing work for her Alpha when needed and keeping Apex River running smoothly the same way she did the department where she worked. And Emmett could go back to falling for a new woman every week, and—no. No, it hurt too much to think about that just yet. First, she'd need some space from the glory of their intimacy, the moments when he'd looked into her eyes while he was inside her and she would have sworn he was seeing all the way to her soul. She'd need some distance from that before she could consider the concept of him being with someone else without it being exquisitely painful.

Maybe once the bond was broken, it wouldn't hurt so much to think of losing him to another woman.

Maybe then she could tell herself she wasn't losing him, but rather she was setting him free. She was saving herself from years of future heartbreak as he either came to resent her for not being enough to satisfy him or decided to betray her like Regan had. And she'd be trapped in their bond, unable to fix what was wrong between them because what was wrong was her, who she was, and soon everyone would know that she was the wolf who couldn't even keep a male who was bonded to her satisfied. Everyone would know that she wasn't enough.

She'd been standing with the coffee in her hand for gods knew how long. Long enough that it was now only lukewarm. She drank half of it before deciding this was punishment she didn't deserve, emptied the cup down the sink and rinsed it out. There was work to do, dammit, and if there was one thing Petra was good at, it was her job. She refused to allow this man, and the incredible things they'd done together last night, to negatively affect her work.

She settled back at her desk and buried her head in the mountain of paperwork that had collected while she'd been distracted. And if she still wasn't quite at one hundred percent efficiency—if she couldn't stop herself from occasionally reliving the way Emmett had growled praise against her flesh as he'd driven her halfway to insanity, or gazed at her like she was offering him the world on a platter when she wrapped her legs around him and tilted her hips to take him deeper—well, that was surely not abnormal after the kind of night she'd had. But she was going to get through this mountain of work if it killed her, and then she was going to go back to the library and find out how to break the bond between them.

And someday, a little hopeful voice in the back of Petra's mind said, someday she would find someone who didn't mind that she wasn't all flash and excitement. Who wanted a woman who was organized and prepared and methodical? Someone for whom she would be enough, just as she was.

At lunch she went back to the café where she'd seen Emmett that time without thinking. When she realized, a few steps from their door, that part of her was hoping she'd accidentally run into him again, even though she had seen him just hours previously, part of her wanted to turn around and walk the other way, find somewhere else to eat and not allow herself to grow accustomed to Emmett being present in her life. She couldn't get used to seeing him so often, or it would hurt more when they found a way to break the bond and he stopped wanting to spend time with her. She forced herself to keep walking, rather than change her routine just because there was a man involved—it wasn't like he would have known she was going to be there, she told herself, so if he was at the café, it was his choice and nothing to do with wanting to spend time with her.

At first, she didn't see him; he was tucked in a corner, almost as if he was hiding. She wasn't sure whether she should go over, since they'd seen each other just that morning and he looked like he was trying to hide and also because he looked engrossed in the book he was reading, which had… a shirtless man in a kilt on the cover?

Okay, she had to know what was going on with that.

She collected her sandwich and weaved through the tables until she was standing in front of him. The book he was reading was called The Scotsman's Bride, and if she wasn't mistaken it was a romance novel of the kind her mother had collected when she and Francesca were young, which they'd been forbidden to read.

Not sure what else to do, she murmured, "Hi, Emmett," and watched as he realized that she was there and immediately slammed the book down on the table so that the cover wasn't visible.

"Petra," he said, shoving the novel out of sight. His eyes were as wide as coins, and as she watched him take her in, their color slowly shifted to bright silver.

"Do you mind if I sit?" she asked. "I didn't mean to disturb you." She bit her lip. "You can keep reading if you want. It looked like a good book."

He dropped his head into his hands and groaned when he realized that she'd seen what he was reading, and she could almost see the process of his thoughts as he decided to be upfront about it. He heaved out a breath. "It's… actually not bad. Raj gave it to me. I think he's been reading them for tips with women, and his take was that I could probably use some, given our… situation."

"Be honest with me," Petra said, trying and failing to hide her smile. "How many of these have you read?"

"A couple," Emmett admitted. "Every time I finish one and give it back, he's got another one lined up. They're all about arranged marriages in old England—or Scotland, for this one—and how the characters overcome their initial dislike of each other to fall in love."

"Wait," Petra said in a mixture of shock and disbelief. "Is he giving these to you as some kind of instruction manual for… us?"

"Well, it worked, didn't it?" Seeing her horrified expression, Emmett laughed. "I'm kidding. I'd never use the tactics these gents employ in an attempt to appeal to their women. Like, half of them involve kidnapping, and I've no real wish to be arrested."

"You haven't been subtly employing the Scotsman's tactics in an attempt to, I don't know…"

"Get you into bed?" Emmett asked with a laugh. "No, you don't have to worry about that." His bright silver eyes focused on hers with laser precision. "Last night was just me."

"That's… good, I guess," Petra managed and took a big bite of her sandwich to avoid saying anything else. She wasn't sure why the concept disturbed her so much, just that the idea of Emmett dispassionately employing strategies used by fictional Victorian-era males to seduce their arranged marriage wives as a method of getting closer to her made the bottom drop out of her stomach. Because you want the man you felt so close to just to be him, not the result of some procedural approach he'll use to seduce other women in the future, once you're free of each other, said the painfully logical voice in the back of her head, and Petra shoved it as far away as she could.

"I don't think I'm capable of anything else with you, Petra," Emmett said quietly, looking down at his own lunch. "I can't keep my head on straight enough to mind my own mouth when I'm around you, let alone use some unfamiliar seduction tactics demonstrated by the Viscount of Hillsbuckle. I just read them because it seemed to mean something to Raj, and honestly…" He paused, biting his lip. "Look, a lot of them really aren't bad."

The bottom of her stomach seemed to slowly return to its usual place, and she sent him a small smile before taking another bite of her sandwich.

"How was work this morning?" he asked, clearly taking the opportunity to change the subject.

"Not as productive as I'd have liked it to be, but I still got a bit done," she said, licking crumbs off her lips. She saw his eyes catch on the movement and felt her cheeks color.

"Why wasn't it productive?"

"I was a little… distracted," Petra found herself admitting.

"Ahh." Emmett drew out the word with a knowing, self-satisfied smile, and she desperately wanted to lean across the table and kiss it right off his face.

"It's not funny," she protested. "There's a heap of work to get done. We have another town hall meeting on Monday, and I think I've talked a few more of the vampires into coming, but I have to make sure everything is ready because Della won't be back until the end of next week, so I'll have to take the meeting."

"Oh, Della's coming back? Leo must be thrilled."

"From what I've heard, he's been trying to talk her into taking longer off work, actually," Petra said. "He's worried she's not healed enough to return. He might have a point, I don't know. I haven't been to see her since she got out of the hospital, just talked to her on the phone," she admitted. "She sounds like she's doing better, but almost burning yourself out is pretty damn serious. I wouldn't be surprised if she needed more time."

"I can drop in over there this afternoon if you want a status report," Emmett offered. "I'm only working a half day."

"And then the library this evening?" she asked, reminding him of the discussion they'd had over the breakfast table that morning.

"What time do you finish work?"

"Usually around five, five-thirty," Petra said. "I could be over there a bit after six."

"I'll meet you there," Emmett said. "With a Della-and-Leo update if you like."

"I feel like a bad friend, that I haven't been over," Petra admitted. "There's just been so much going on, I just haven't found the time. I've spoken to her on the phone a couple of times—that has to count for something, right?"

"Being too busy to drop in and have tea when you're covering both your job and someone else's doesn't make you a bad friend," Emmett said, his voice soft. "Don't think that about yourself, Petra."

"I'll try to find time this weekend," she said, trying not to think of the work she'd counted on having time over the weekend to finish—all the preparations for the meeting that Della would usually run, but had fallen in Petra's lap along with much of the rest of the project. She could spare an hour or two to go and see Della—it was kind of pack business anyway, since Della had been injured in a fight for the role of Alpha of Blue Crescent. Leo would almost definitely be there, and she could see how he was settling into his new role and report to her own Alpha. There, that justified taking the time to go over and tell Della all the gossip she'd missed.

Petra had missed having her friend around. It wasn't just that much of Della's workload had fallen to Petra, and it would be a relief to be able to hand at least some of it back. It was a pleasure just having Della in the office. Petra hadn't realized how much the witch's positive attitude affected the energy of the entire office. It would be good to have her back.

She took another bite of her sandwich and used it as an excuse to let her eyes roam over Emmett as he ate his own.

"Raj and I will be at Leo's tomorrow night," he said after he'd finished his mouthful. Gods, his voice was beautiful. She felt it like butterfly wings tracing over her exposed skin. "We try to do a sports night regularly, watch the game, see if we can drink enough to actually get a bit tipsy."

"Now that would be an endeavor." Petra laughed. "And a sight to see, all three of you working at getting drunk."

"I think we've managed to do it successfully once in the last few years," Emmett admitted. "There's barely enough beer in the entire city to effectively get three werewolves drunk."

"Sometimes this advanced alcohol metabolism thing is a good thing," Petra said, "And sometimes all I want is to get drunk enough to stop my brain from whirring and just have a good night, without having to drink several entire bottles of spirits."

"You could come if you wanted," Emmett said. His eyes widened slightly after he spoke, as though he hadn't thought through the invitation before it left his mouth. Hurriedly, he added, "Della will be there, and I'm sure she'd appreciate the company of more than just Raj and me yelling at the screen. We're not exactly great conversationalists once someone turns the TV on."

"I'll give her a ring," Petra promised, "see if she'd be up for some company." She glanced at the time. "I've got to be getting back to the office. It was good to see you." Do you come here often? she wanted to ask. If I keep coming back for lunch, will I see you again? Because I feel about five times more energized having spoken to you. Because I'm only saying goodbye to you until this evening, and still, I don't want to.

She sent him a smile, ignoring the urge to lean across the table and kiss him goodbye. As she was reaching for the empty bottle from the drink she hardly recalled consuming, he reached out and grabbed her hand. Petra froze, feeling her eyes widen in surprise. With his own eyes still as silver as freshly minted coins, Emmett ran his thumb over the inside of her wrist, where apparently every one of her nerves had decided to go into hyperdrive. An electric line seemed to connect the spot directly to the place between her legs that he'd worshipped with his tongue that morning, and with every swipe, she felt her arousal growing. This was insane. He was touching her wrist—how could it be turning her on this much? Back and forth, back and forth, his thumb moved, and then a smile stretched across his absurdly kissable lips, and he released her hand. "I'll see you tonight."

Slightly shell-shocked, Petra collected the last of her rubbish, dropped it in the bin, and went back to work.

She was significantly less productive that afternoon than she'd wanted to be, because every ten minutes she seemed to daze out into a recollection of how secretively erotic it had felt to have Emmett stroking her wrist. It was the only time he'd touched her during their entire lunch, she realized, and that alone had been enough to have her mind recalling it—and interrupting her workflow—several times an hour. She would have to be careful not to touch him at the library this evening, or she'd never be able to focus on the books they were supposed to be going through. The books that would help her break the mating bond that tied her to the most incredible man she'd ever met.

Putting her head down, Petra pushed away any and all thoughts of Emmett and the bond and buried herself in her work once more.