“Okay,” said Bryce. “I’ve pulled my shirt off for you.” He lay on his back. “Now what.”

I swallowed hard, practically having to rip my eyes away.

So. Teach someone who was more a kinetic learner—yes I know this has been disproven, but don’t take this away from me—how to memorize anatomy for a fill-in-the-blank quiz. The first thing to do was get him used to the names.

“Human anatomy,” I said, squinting at the textbook, “and werewolf anatomy, obviously, are kind of similar when we’re, uh.” He had abs. How on earth did this high schooler have abs. What the hell was in werewolf puberty, and when was I going to get some?

“Both human?”

“Don’t be a hot killjoy.”

“But you think I’m hot.”

“I think half the guys in our school are hot, if you remember. Omari being one of them since he’s a lot nicer than you.”

“But you think I’m hot.” He grinned, lopsidedly, and it looked stupid as hell, but he was hot so he got away with it.

“There are twenty cranial-facial muscles,” I told him, pointing, because we were getting off the topic, and while my poker face was useful, I was going to break very quickly if he continued. “The muscles that can’t stop you from talking is called the buccolabial group.”

“Buccolabial group,” he repeated dutifully.

“There are eleven mouth muscles in total.”

“Eleven?”

“I’ll go slow, just for you. But you just have to think about how they function with each other. Lips only move in certain ways, you know.”

“I know,” Bryce said, smarmily.

It was very Chad-like, so it was very hot, I’m sorry, I have a type.

My heartbeat increased a little too, which I’m sure he could hear. “Fuck off,” I said as he laughed to himself. “Okay, moving on from the mouth because you’re dangerous to my average. I have to study this too, you know.”

“But we’ll go back?”

“If you behave.” I touched his neck. “Okay, repeat after me. Sternocleidomastoid muscle.”

"Sternocleidomastoid muscle."

I lay a hand on his upper arm. "This one's a deltoid."

"No shit, Sherlock. I work out."

I ignored him. "Continuing down, we have biceps brachii. Brachialis here between them, and brachioradialis on the lower arm. Show me on your other arm."

"Biceps, triceps, brachialis--"

Oh, shit, he was going through the arm back muscles than I forgot about. Flustered, I turned the page to confirm, but he was more versatile than I thought.

"I think you're better at studying this than I am," I told him.

He shrugged. "I'm shit with anything I don't actively work out. What's next? Keep touching me."

I swallowed. "Uh. External obliques?" I placed a suddenly daring palm at his side. He wasn't ticklish. Werewolves ran hot, but it felt like his heat was practically transferring over to me. I fell overheated and dizzy, mouth dry, unable to think straight.

"Obliques, okay," came Bryce's smug reply.

I dragged my eyes to the page and then back to his body. "And, um. Your abs." My fingers accidentally brushed them as I pulled my hand away, and my heart almost stopped.

"Are they actually called abs?"

"Rectus Abdominis."

"Sure. Rectus Abdominis. Go ahead and fondle them."

I flushed and restrained myself. "Okay, next--"

He reached out and grabbed my hand, placing it over something else. “What’s this called?” Bryce asked. He was smirking now, taking clear enjoyment in my embarrassment. "You ignored this part. Starts with a P, right?"

“It’s called a manboob, you shit,” I said, face raging in red.

Bryce let his head fall back and laughed harder.

Then he stilled.

I pulled my hand back instinctively, blinking. “What’s wrong?”

It was as if he hadn’t even heard me. Bryce’s face went through an entire season of emotions, too fast for me to read, but certainly there enough for me to pause. He grit his teeth, eyes squeezing shut, face turning red. “Shit,” he said. “Shit.”

Confused, I turned my head to look at—

 I heard his heartbeat before I saw it.

“Hey,” I said, quietly. Bryce was lying with his shirt off, hands cushioning his head, on my bed. His happy trail was leaving absolutely nothing to imagination, mostly because I was imagining so many things. I leaned over him, mindful that Bryce’s eyes had snapped open then, dark and beautiful and everything that took my breath away. My gaze trailed away before I could stare at his--um, penis, for too long and met his own. His eyes weren’t blinking, and my breath caught in my throat. He was… “Are you…?”

Bryce didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. His expression said it all, and slowly, he extracted one hand.

The touch was sizzling. Like an electric shock, it spread immediate heat to my cheek, and then where his palm dragged to the back of my neck.

I swallowed. Licked my lips. Felt it impossible to take in air.

Bryce was watching. Waiting.

Suddenly, the room was way too hot. I was in a T-shirt, but I wanted to get up and cool my head. My fingers were sweaty. Overwhelmed didn’t even come close to it. There was nothing I wanted more than to run my hands down his chest, slide my mouth against his jawline, suck on his lower lip.

A rush of heat dropped down between my legs. I was popping a boner over a guy I had the hots for and who’d been aroused by me touching him all over.

Bryce’s nostrils flared. For a moment, I panicked. There was no way, I told myself. I was reading the signals all wrong, the same way I had back in my old school, overthinking and trying to find meaning in all the wrong things. Humans were nothing like the literary canon we had to study in Academic English classes. You couldn’t just analyze them, or find symbolic meaning in the smallest of gesture. There was gay subtext in Lady Audley’s Secret, but it doesn’t mean there could be more here. I’m hoping for too much. I’m wanting too much. What I want doesn’t just…

Then Bryce lifted his chin up, eyes still on me. It might’ve been the most incomprehensible gesture to a human, maybe even labeled holier-than-thou mocking, but I saw enough that it was deliberate.

I could see his throat.

I didn’t know much about werewolf culture, but I knew exactly what this meant on an instinctive level. Just seeing that expanse of neck went down to my bones, a lightning strike to my muscles that froze me stiff as much as it had the blood thrumming through my veins. My mouth was dry, tongue stuck to the roof of it. Downstairs, the Food Network was playing on Uncle Tsu’s TV as he meandered around the kitchen, cooking. Our phones were still plugged into the energy ports and charging. Our bags were scattered in a heap next to the bed. Bryce’s mouth was parted slightly, his neck was thick, his clavicles lickable and his throat was—god. Fuck.

I lowered my head.

It was so quiet. Outside, you could hear the faint sounds of people talking, but it was as if it was all muted. Another world away, impossible for us to follow, forbidden from intruders. This room was ours, private, with just us.

I put my mouth at his throat. Pressed my lips there, and had no idea what to do.

A sigh left Bryce’s lips. He ran his fingers up the nape of my neck to the hair at the crown. He turned his head, and kissed the side of my head. “Lie down,” he rumbled at me.

He didn’t have to ask me twice.

My heart hammered loudly in my chest. I rested my cheek obediently against his clavicle, let my body press against his torso, my lower body still half-sitting on the bed beside him. One nudge from him and I corrected it so that I was lying down properly just like him, close enough to hear his own heartbeat--equally fast—and feel the slight tremor of his hand.

I was close to him, so close, and yet I had no idea where to even begin.

“Bryce?” I had to ask. But after I said his name, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go on with the question.

“You can’t tell anyone,” was Bryce’s answer. It was as choked as it was quiet. Vulnerable, in a way I suddenly wanted to see on his face. I raised my head up, propping my chin on his chest and his hand fell away loosely. Bryce was looking up at the ceiling, lips pressed firmly together as if he couldn’t trust himself to continue. His normally immaculate and breezy-looking hair looked flat in this moist heat, strands scattered across his forehead. He looked as beautiful as he had the first day I’d seen him.

“Because you’re an Alpha,” I inferred.

His jaw clenched. “Because I’m supposed to take over the pack.”

I don’t know what possessed me to do it. Sure, I’d fantasized like any guy about what it’d be like to be with someone. A strong back, beautiful thighs and arms, a fantastic ass—who wouldn’t have, right? This was different, though. This was real. Because it was, because it was important, I turned my head and took his hand. I curled my fingers into the spaces between his, and I held it just like that. I held it and marveled at the fact he hadn’t taken my arm off for it, held it and thought that I’d never even come close to doing this ever, and I said, “I think I like you.”

Bryce barked out a laugh. He sat up with a start, knocking me gently to my back on the bed, and then turned to regard me. “You think?” The unsure expression had been replaced with exasperation. “Everyone likes me. There is no ‘I think’ about it.”

“Big ego there,” I drawled. I hadn’t let go of his hand, though. I took advantage now. I dragged it to my mouth, feeling somewhat daring. “The fact that you might like someone is that much of a shock?” I kissed his knuckles, feeling giddy.

“No one wouldn’t like you.” He hadn’t stammered one iota.

I flustered. I didn’t think he’d be so forthright with it. “Thanks?”

It looked like Bryce hadn’t thought that far ahead either. He bit his lower lip.

“So,” I said, eyes glued to that. “Is this the part where I kiss you?”

“If you want,” he said. He seemed hesitant to move.

“You ever kissed someone before?”

“Of course.” Except Bryce’s entire body was tensed up as if he were going to bolt at any second. I found this hilarious. I was the inexperienced one and Bryce here was just…losing it quietly on the inside. For me, this was exciting. This was something I wanted to do, so, so much.

I shuffled closer, slowly, entertaining the thought of him just straight out knocking me out in a desperate attempt to escape. Wouldn’t have been the first time I’d been socked by an errant basketball. I leaned in closer, taking in how he was tracking the motion. A small gesture from me meant a stiffening twitch on his end. “So why do you look like I’m holding your chastity hostage?”

“That’s not it.” His lips were right in front of mine. “They weren’t you.”

“Romantic,” I said, leaning so close that the word was caressed against his mouth. I couldn’t help it. I was grinning so widely now. “I’m definitely sure I like you now, then. Can I kiss you to find out?”

Bryce swore. He fisted my shirt with one hand and kissed me stupid on the bed, and kissed me stupider until all I could think was about kissing him more.

I think he meant yes.