Chapter Eighteen

 

Adrian

The storm had well and truly hit Rowan by the time Adrian finally made his way towards Heidi Duke’s house in the woods. Though it was only early afternoon the thick, purple clouds and sheets of rain cast the woods in an eerie kind of twilight, which set Adrian’s teeth on edge when he thought about having to transform in a few hours.

Adrian wasn’t sure what he planned to do; it wasn’t as if he could seduce Scarlett whilst her grandmother was there. He’d wanted to run into her in Rowan, of course, but Scarlett had already been and gone from the market square by the time Adrian had changed back into a human, emerged from the forest and made himself look presentable enough to see her.

But he needed to see her.

He was desperate to see her.

And so Adrian came upon the house sodden and frozen to the core, which was largely his own fault for not wearing a cloak. “So much for running hot,” he muttered through gritted teeth. He guessed even the endurance his wolf form granted him had its limits – and pouring, bitter rain was it. His white shirt was translucent against his skin, his black waistcoat and leggings sticking to him in an uncomfortably thick, slimy manner. His leather boots had long-since soaked through.

It was only when he reached the front door that Adrian realised there was no fire going or lights on in the kitchen, though the lantern above the porch was lit. He became abruptly aware of the fact that there might be nobody in. He didn’t know how he was supposed to cope with that, so Adrian ignored the growing feeling of dread and disappointment creeping up his spine as he knocked upon the heavy door.

He rapped his knuckles politely against the grain at first, then banged more insistently when even he couldn’t hear the sound his hand made over the thunderous wind.

“Tonight is going to be so much fun,” Adrian murmured humourlessly, thinking about how miserable being a wolf in such a storm would be. He only hated Heidi Duke all the more for her damnable, merciless curse because of it.

But all thoughts of the old woman were lost when the front door finally opened and Adrian came face-to-face with a very confused-looking, red-cheeked Scarlett.

Her eyes grew wide as she took in the sight of Adrian, shivering and dripping wet beneath the fluttering light from the lantern above him, which was swinging dangerously in the wind.

“Mr Wo – Adrian!” she exclaimed in disbelief. “What are you doing here? You’re absolutely soaking! Have you taken leave of your senses altogether?”

He tried to smile in response; it came out as more of a grimace. “Quite possibly. Is your grandmother in? I wanted to raid her stores from the mountains.”

Scarlett paused for a moment, eyebrow quirked at the explanation as if she wasn’t sure whether to believe it or not. “She isn’t here,” she eventually said. “Nana and Sam took one of my father’s carriages to travel through to Burdich for some essential supplies. They won’t be back until after nightfall, she said.”

Adrian flinched despite himself. Anything Heidi Duke would travel out of Rowan for in such horrendous weather couldn’t be anything good. But when Scarlett looked at him in concern he shrugged off the flinch as a reaction to the howling wind.

“May I come in anyway?” he asked, gesturing around in the general direction of the storm. “It’s not very pleasant out here.”

Scarlett burst out laughing at the comment despite herself, then retreated from the doorway to let Adrian into the kitchen. It was only after she slammed the door shut behind him that she truly took in just how wretched the man looked.

“Why on earth were you travelling without a cloak on?” she demanded, hands on her hips as she scanned over his appearance with an affronted look on her face. “It’s dangerously cold out there – you could have killed yourself!”

It made Adrian want to kiss her, to see her so concerned for his health. He tried to chuckle through chattering teeth as he shook dripping wet hair out of his eyes like a dog. “I run –”

“Don’t you dare say you run hot, Mr Wolfe. You’re freezing.”

Scarlett’s fingers trailed along Adrian’s arm just long enough to feel how truly cold he was before flinching away from the sodden material.

He glanced around the kitchen. “It’s not much warmer in here, to be fair. How are your cheeks so rosy, Miss Scarlett? And I see you’re once more not dressed appropriately for entertaining strange men – or the cold.”

Scarlett only blushed harder at the comment. Though her night gown was certainly longer than the previous one Adrian had seen her in, the thin straps had fallen from her shoulders, giving him an enticing look at the curves of her breasts and the promise of the rest of her nakedness beneath the thin fabric.

When she realised Adrian’s attention had very much diverted from the cold to her body she gulped slightly, then turned for the corridor. “I have a fire going in my bedroom. Come through and take your clothes off to dry by it.”

“Well that is quite possibly the most wonderful invitation I’ve ever received,” Adrian remarked, his tone filthy as he began to unlace his shirt with fingers made clumsy from the cold.

Scarlett threw an expensively-woven towel at Adrian’s face. “You can make jokes when your teeth stop chattering, you idiot.”

Adrian was thoroughly enjoying this version of Scarlett; he could only assume it was how she looked after her brothers. And so he complied, wincing as he struggled out of his sodden clothes and boots full of ice water. When Scarlett finally turned to face him once more he was rubbing his hair dry with the towel whilst the rest of him was stark naked, revelling in the heat from the fire. She immediately looked away again.

“The towel was to cover your – you know.”

Adrian could only laugh. “Are you embarrassed, little miss? You’d have seen a lot more back at Mac’s tavern if I hadn’t…had a fit.”

She glanced at him for half a second before busying herself with picking up his discarded clothes, laying them over the metal grille that stood in front of the fire to protect the floor from getting scorched. Adrian followed suit and picked up his boots, resting them by the hearth before retreating from the flames as quickly as he could without raising any questions pertaining to his unreasonable fear of them.

“Your scars,” Scarlett ended up saying, sparing another glance at Adrian’s chest, and then another. “You weren’t lying about them.”

“Of course not,” he replied, turning around to give Scarlett a full view of the ones on his back, too. Though most of his scars were now years old and well worn into his skin, there were a few from the turn of the year that were still shiny and new. “Do they make me less handsome?”

Scarlett snorted derisively. “You must know that they don’t.”

Adrian flung himself on top of Scarlett’s bed before she could stop him, revelling in her scent even as she let out a noise of shock at his literal and figurative boldness.

“Don’t lie on my bed when you have nothing on, Adrian!” she complained, rushing over as if to push him off before thinking better of it when she ended up staring far too long at his entire body stretching out in front of her.

He could only grin. “I’m tired from my long journey through the storm. I need to rest, do I not? How do you smell so good, Scarlett? What is it that you use?”

Scarlett froze to the spot, shocked to speechlessness by the dramatic change of subject. She faltered for a moment before replying, “It’s an oil that my mother – that Frances – has always used. Her grandfather was from somewhere abroad. I loved the way she smelled, so my father started importing more of the oil just for me to use years ago.”

Adrian sighed contentedly as he closed his eyes and nuzzled into the sheets of her bed. Usually it was only as a wolf that he could fully appreciate the smell of her, but literally surrounded by objects belonging to Scarlett he could finally experience it as a human. The vanilla was so fragrant he could almost taste it.

“So good…”

“Adrian…?” Scarlett murmured uncertainly, for it very much seemed as if the man truly was intending to rest as he said. “Are you really just going to sleep on my bed?”

Half-opening his eyes he peered at Scarlett, the hint of a smirk playing across his lips as he said, “Am I really just going to sleep on your bed? What are you hoping for, Miss Scarlett?”

Scarlett ran a hand through her hair – a gesture that was simultaneously nervous and annoyed – before making to turn from Adrian. But he flung an arm out and grabbed her far more quickly than Scarlett could ever have imagined a human was capable of moving and, before she knew it, Adrian had pulled her onto the bed and held her in place above him. Scarlett’s eyes grew wide for a moment, then her eyelashes fluttered down as Adrian gently stroked the inside of her right wrist with his thumb.

“I’ll be honest, Red,” he purred, his eyes like fire in the warm glow of the room as he stared up at Scarlett’s uncertain, excited face, “I have no intention of sleeping whatsoever. What about you?”

Her eyes grew heavy-lidded. She took a deep, shuddering breath. Then Scarlett reached down until she was almost close enough to touch Adrian’s lips with her own. Tendrils of her dark, lustrous hair tickled the skin of his cheekbones.

“I don’t feel much like sleeping, either.”

Adrian’s mouth was on hers before Scarlett even finished the sentence.