“Damn it, this doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

HOPE: MATING INSTINCT

We returned to my apartment. As we walked into the building, I said, “Thank you, Karl.”

He hesitated, hand on the door.

I touched his arm. “I mean it. Thank you.”

He nodded. As we walked through the lobby, Karl cleared his throat. “I’m sure it might be busy for you tomorrow, but if you can find the time, I’d like to take you to dinner.”

“Dinner? Uh, sure.”

“It’s my birthday.”

The admission was so unlike Karl that I was silent until we reached the elevator.

“I’d ask how old you’ll be, but I know I’ll never get it from you.”

“Fifty.”

I thanked God he picked that moment to push the button, leaving no chance to glimpse my reaction. I’d always guessed Karl was in his midforties, and fifty wasn’t much older, but it seemed a lot older.

I could say it didn’t matter—werewolves age slowly, so physically, Karl’s no more than midthirties, but all that means is that when I’m walking down the street with him, I won’t be mistaken for his daughter. In terms of life experience, he is fifty and that’s what counts.

The elevator arrived and we stepped on.

“Is your birthday tomorrow? Or today?” I asked.

He checked his watch. “Oh, I see. Today, then.”

I stood on my tiptoes and brushed my lips across his. “Happy birthday, Karl.”

Before I could step back, he leaned down. His kiss was almost as brief as mine, but firm. Like his hands on my hips, pressing, but not pulling me to him, making me strain forward, hoping for more. But I only got that one brief kiss. When he pulled away, I found myself arching onto my tiptoes, prolonging the contact until the last possible moment. Then I jolted back onto flat feet.

I thought about what I was doing, the door I was reopening. Was I trying to reopen it? And if I was, did that mean I was closing another? I tried to remember Jaz, but his image wouldn’t form. All I could think about was Karl.

My gaze down, I laid a tentative hand on Karl’s chest. I listened to his breathing, felt the rise and fall of his chest and the warmth of him through his shirt, sensed his gaze on the top of my head, waiting for me to look up. But I couldn’t.

“I hate this, Karl,” I whispered. “Who’d have thought we’d come to this? You and me, snipping and snapping at each other. I hear us doing it, and I can’t believe it. Not us.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You?” I managed a laugh, harsh to my ears. “I’ve been just as bad.”

“But you had a reason to be angry.”

I looked up, finally meeting his gaze. “And, maybe, so do you.”

He inhaled. Exhaled. And looked away.

The elevator climbed another floor.

“Hope…”

His voice was so soft I wasn’t sure I heard him, and I looked up. He touched my chin, fingers gliding up my jaw, so light that when I closed my eyes, I couldn’t feel it. When I looked, his eyes were right there, inches from mine. He tilted my chin up—

The elevator dinged. As the doors opened, we both looked over. In unison, our gazes shunted to the button panel.

“That ‘stop’ button looks pretty good,” I said.

He made a noise in his throat that sounded like agreement. “Unfortunately, if it stops for more than a couple of minutes, we’ll be rescued by the building super.”

“Had some experience with that, have you?”

He gave me a look. “On a job.”

“That’s what I meant. Seducing the marks in an elevator. How déclassé.”

A growl and he grabbed for me, but I quickstepped out of his reach and darted through the doors. He swung in front, caught me and slammed me against the door opening. His mouth crushed against mine, knocking the breath from me. The door bounced against my back, but he only pushed me into it, hands going to my rear, fingers digging in as he boosted me up, pushing between my legs until I straddled his hips.

I wrapped my hands in his hair, legs clasped around him, pulling him closer as he pressed into me, fierce and insistent. My brain whirled, a high made all the richer because there wasn’t a chaos vibe to be found. It was all him. The smell of him, the taste of him, the—

The alarm buzzed right behind my head. The elevator, warning us that its door was blocked.

Karl snarled at it, and I laughed, and he turned the sound into a harrumph, with a glare that said I hadn’t heard what I thought I heard. His lips went back to mine, punishingly hard, and my brain reeled, body arching into his, the ache so sharp that he could have taken me there and I wouldn’t have noticed where we were. Noticed or cared.

He pulled back, my lip caught between his teeth. I shuddered and squirmed against him, and he let out a low growl, then swung me around, in two steps pressing me into the opposite wall, next to my apartment door. He thrust me against it, hard enough that he could let go with one hand and tug the keys from my pocket. Once the door was open, he tried to swing me through, but stumbled, and we crashed to the floor.

When I laughed, he gave me another “pretend you didn’t notice that” glower. I closed my eyes, braced for another bruising kiss, but his lips brushed mine, feather light. I shivered. When I opened my eyes, he was right over me, and in his face was everything I’d seen that Valentine’s night and later convinced myself I hadn’t.

I inhaled sharply and the shock hit me, like a whiff of smelling salts. That morning after flashed back. All the pain, the humiliation. My hands shot between us and I tried to scramble back, but his grip tightened. He leaned down to my ear.

“I won’t hurt you again, Hope.”

He kept his lips at my ear, his breathing shallow, caressing my jaw as he pushed back a lock of hair.

“Never again,” he whispered. “I promise.”

My heart skittered. This was what I wanted to hear. What I’d dreamed of hearing. That it had all been a big misunderstanding.

But it hadn’t been. He’d said so himself. There was no other way to interpret what he’d said.

His lips moved to my neck, gliding along my pulse, registering my reaction. He moved to my throat, light kisses that sent my pulse racing, but I stayed stiff in his arms.