Page 23 of Primal

When I next lifted my gaze to Rob, his head was down, and he was typing on his cell.

“Go, Riley! Knock ‘em all down again!” Alice shouted.

I smiled, spun on my heel, and took a breath. Focused on the next shot and not about shifters. It didn’t work out too well because I only knocked down five pins. By the time I turned back, Rob and his wife were gone.

It was, at most, five minutes later when Alice was taking her turn that Cody showed up. No, he did more thanshow up.He came through the front doors on a mission. He barely looked left and right before zeroingin on me as if he had some kind of homing beacon on me.

That look.

Panties destroyed.

He stalked over. Yup, stalked. But he wasn’t eyeing me any longer. He was giving Pete the death glare. More specifically, his arm casually–and very intentionally–flung along the back of the row of plastic seats behind me.

How did I know he’d arrived? There was a disturbance in the Force, or my nipples just knew. Hell, every woman in the place stopped and stared, he was that hot.

Or they’d all been with him and were salivating for more.

I was.

“Hey Riley. Who’s your friend?” he asked when he stood before me, looming.

I swallowed hard, not in fear, but in arousal.

He was here for me. ME.

I cleared my throat. “This is Pete. He’s Chris’s friend.” I raised my hand lamely and pointed through Cody to where Chris was sitting at the scoring table.

“Mr. McIntire, you looking for Tyler?” Wendy asked.

Internally, I winced.

Cody’s gaze met mine. Held.

“Does your friend Pete want to live?” he asked me, and I sucked in a breath.

Pete laughed. “What?”

I popped to my feet. This wasnotgood. This was a new side of Cody. Averypossessive side. Was this jealousy or just plain territory claiming?

Either way, I wasn’t going to find out in a filled bowling alley. I hustled up the steps away from the lanes, my rental shoes sliding on the carpet with the Vegas-like pattern. Veering around a group of kids with birthday party hats and a few men carrying bowling bags and wearing matching league shirts, I made it to the bathrooms then ducked inside.

I knew Cody followed. Not because I could hear him–which I couldn’t over the rock music that the place played, the arcade noises next to the restrooms, and the clack of falling pins–but because Ifelthim.

By the time I pushed open one of the unisex restroom doors, he was right behind me and shut the door behind us. Flipped the bolt.

He hooked a hand behind my neck and tugged on my ponytail, forcing me to look up and meet his gaze. They were stormy blue. Wild.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, loving the little tug on my scalp. “I thought you were working.”

“I was until Rob Wolf texted and said my mate’s with another man. No, aboy.”

He left work and rushed over here because Rob saw me? His bar was only a few blocks down Main Street, but still. “Cody, I?—”

“Who is he?”

I frowned. “Pete? He’s a friend of Alice’s boyfriend.”

“He seems to want to befriendswith you.”