Longing for Wolves (Shifter Country Wolves Book 5) by Roxie Noir Read Free Book Online Page B

the other, his unsteady eyes on Sam’s face.
    Calder was drunk as hell , too.
    Sam finally moved. He leaned one forearm against the doorframe and looked over Calder, feeling for once like he had the upper hand, as surprised as he was.
    I could just shut the door , he thought. Let him know how it feels to be left alone with no clue what happened. I could just turn and walk away. Give him a taste of his own medicine.
    He didn’t. A soft breeze blew through the porch, and Sam let those thoughts blow away. Years ago he might have slammed the door, but now, petty revenge was pointless and he knew it.
    That didn’t mean he wasn’t above letting Calder sweat a little, standing half-dressed on the porch.
    Let him think I might close the door , Sam thought. He waited long moments before he spoke.
    “Okay,” Sam said at last. “You coming in?”
    He stepped back and opened the door. As Calder walked past him he closed his eyes. Just the way his former mate moved was so familiar that it hurt to watch, and he closed the door. A stray moth circled a floor lamp.
    They looked at each other again, and Sam knew that Calder hadn’t planned past the front porch. The smell of whiskey was practically coming out of his pores and he jammed his hands into his pockets.
    “Nice place,” Calder said at last, looking around.
    “Thanks,” Sam said. “I like it.”
    Silence.
    “Can I get you a drink or something?” Sam asked. It seemed like something a person would say at this point.
    “Water?” Calder asked.
    Sam nodded once. He went to the kitchen and filled two glasses, then brought them back into the living room where Calder stood, staring around.
    He was wearing a white undershirt and gray pants that looked like they were from a suit. No shoes, no other shirt. Both the pants and the shirt had unmistakable teeth marks torn into them, the obvious shape of a wolf mouth.
    “You coming from somewhere?” Sam asked.
    He tried not to look at Calder too much. Somehow, Calder looked exactly the same, like he could have left yesterday.  
    Sam could feel the old, familiar ache resurfacing, just looking at the other man. That rush of pure desire . He forced it down as far as it would go, trying to bury it somewhere deep inside himself.
    “Greta’s rehearsal dinner,” Calder said, swallowing water.
    “You forgot most of your suit,” Sam said.
    Calder looked down.
    “Yeah,” he said. “This was kind of an impulse thing. Most of it’s still in the parking lot, I think.”
    He looked around again, still standing in the middle of the room.
    “You live here alone?” he asked.
    Sam nodded, then swallowed.
    “Yeah, it’s just me,” he said. “You still traveling?” he asked, his heart thundering.
    Is this where we talk about our lives? he wondered. Where I say I’m still single and he whips out his wallet with pictures of his mates and his kids?
    “Still traveling,” said Calder, and he looked down into his water glass. “I did twenty thousand miles last year. I went to Alaska for a month.”
    “You see the northern lights?” Sam asked, the first thing that popped into his head.
    “Nah, I was there during the summer,” Calder said. “It’s light for so long that you can’t really see them then.”
    “I’ve heard they’re incredible,” Sam said.
    He looked down into his glass, a knot in his stomach.
    Just ask what you really want to know, he thought.
    “You traveling alone?” he asked.
    Calder looked at him again, and Sam’s breath caught in his throat.
    Worse, he’s mated and unhappy and now he’s drunk in my living room , he thought. I’m some sort of backup plan for him .
    “Yeah, just me,” Calder said, then laughed. “Me and the open road.”
    Sam took one more sip of his water, then put his glass on an end table. He took a step forward and looked Calder dead in the eye. His entire being screamed , every emotion rushing through him at once, but he forced himself to stand still, look into Calder’s