Page 26 of Primal

I smiled like a fool.

Yes. Come,and I’ll take care of you.

I stared at what I wrote, then rearranged the words.

I’ll take care of you, and you’ll come.

Now all I had to do was wait until tomorrow.

12

RILEY

I wasthe kind of girl who’d been dying to be an adult since she was ten. I was sure it had everything to do with my mom leaving when I was so little. It wasn’t the urge to grow up and leave home that some young people had. It was more out of me trying to take the place of my mom. I wanted to fill her shoes–or at least those of arealmom–and create that sense of home that I never had. I wanted to make a family of my own, one with a mother–me–and a father. Kids. Holidays. Soccer games. Ballet. Swim lessons. All of it. I wanted to be there for my kids when they came home from school. Bake cookies for the various holidays.

Instead, since Mom ran off, it’d been me and my dad. No homemade treats. No mom hugs. As an adult, I could make what I wanted and not just sit on the sidelines.

So the satisfaction of getting to go to a bar before I was twenty-one went beyond every college kid’s desire to party. It made me feel like I finally arrived. I crossed that finish line into adulthood that I’d been gunning for since I was a young girl.

Maybe having a guy eat my pussy was also part of it. Oh… and finger me in a public restroom. Especially when the guy was the one whose bar I was visiting. He wantedme.

His texts the night before had been demanding. Possessive. Naughty.

I loved every one of them.

Every minute at work seemed like five, but the time finally came. I strutted through the door at Cody’s Saloon wearing a crop-top, short skirt, and cowgirl boots like I owned the place.

And–oh my God–if Cody and I really became an item, I kind of would.

But I was getting way ahead of myself.

He’d mentioned about me being his mate. That our bodies were made for each other, or something like that, but I’d been too intoxicated by his nearnessto ask questions. Not just nearness. His mouth and fingers. Like he said, I’d been come drunk, too sated by all the orgasms.

After all that, I had no idea what he meant by any of it.

My takeaway had been that our bodies were super compatible, so I’d thought it was just about sex. Then he’d refused to take my V-card.

The whole thing felt like a fuzzy dream, and I wasn’t sure if I’d made it all up. What girl had a guy like Cody follow her into a restroom and make her come… and nothing else? After everything we’d done so far, which wasn’t all that much but a lot for me, I still hadn’t seen or touched or sucked his dick.

I’d gone out on a few dates before. Matt had asked me. I’d said yes. We’d gone to get ice cream at the Sweet Cow seasonal drive in. I’d known what was up. I’d known when he kissed me and told me I wasn’t good at it that it was over.

It had sucked, but it had been clear cut.

Cody?

Confusing!

The moment I walked through the front door of Cody’s and spotted him behind the bar, his eyes snapped to mine. By his look alone, I knew he’d meant what he said.

He was real. The thing between us was real. I could tell by the intensity of his gaze. The way his eyes flashed amber even across the bar, as if I glimpsed his wolf lurking beneath all that hard-packed muscle.

A half dozen other men looked my way, too. I was sure I looked like fresh meat–dressed to kill, young, and not a regular. Some faces I recognized. It was a small town, and Dad was deputy sheriff. But these were adults, not kids. This was… different.

One man smiled as he approached. Stood right before me. “Hey, pretty girl. Never seen you before.”

Yeah, I hadn’t seen him before either. While he didn’t send up any creepy vibes, I realized this was how adults picked each other up. Bars. Bad lines.

“Nope,” I replied with a fake smile, hoping it would get him to look for a little fun elsewhere.