Chapter 09

Cinnamon sugar and spice. I faltered, the smell damn near taking me out by the knees. I’d know it anywhere.

There was a small shop in West Bend owned by a woman named Margot Wylan. Her tiny boutique specialized in lotions and candles, mostly custom-designed. When Genevieve and I were nineteen, she discovered the shop and hired Margot to make her a custom lotion. Cinnamon sugar and spice. Everything autumn in a bottle. Everything Genevieve in a bottle.

I burned the fucking clothes on my back when I left just to get rid of that smell. It’d clung to my skin for fucking weeks, taunting me.

There was no fucking way it could be here. Margot never commercialized the scent. It was strictly Genevieve’s.

And that meant…

I swallowed hard. My heart hammered painfully against my rib cage, and my wolf raged hard, pushing against my control. My skin vibrated with horrible anticipation as I made myself follow it. Down the hall… left… another left… and I found myself at the loft overlooking the entryway and dining area.

And there she was, my whole heart in all her sunshine glory. God, she was fucking gorgeous. That smile of hers had my heart in a vice grip, ripping the air right out of my lungs. I leaned into the wall for support and stuck to the shadows, not ready to face her yet.

Instead, I watched her. A fucking stalker in the shadows. A coward unwilling to face my fucking mistakes.

Fuck, she looked good. A tiny tank top and cutoff shorts accentuated every sinful curve from her perfect tits to her tapered waist to her shapely legs. The pristine and proper woman I knew was gone. Her curls were defined and gorgeous, framing a face that’d make Aphrodite jealous. Full lips, bright eyes, long lashes. The woman glowed with excitement as she and Nolan dropped the bags to the floor.

The things she did to my heart.

And to my dick. Time has done nothing to quell just how fucking attractive I found her. I ached for her. I wanted my hands on her. My mouth on her. My dick inside her. What a fucking time to be in gym shorts. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do to hide the raging hard-on the woman left me with.

Raven’s obnoxious squealing as she ran across the clubhouse to hug Genevieve, Declan’s loud laughter as he and our brothers fucked around, Roan’s drunken shouting. All of it faded into nothing as I locked onto Genevieve’s laughter. The sound was liquid honey slipping down my spine, laced with memories that haunted me.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I had to get out of there.

Lock-legged, I forced myself to walk away.

Earbuds in with angry music blaring, I veered down a side street and pushed myself harder. Sweat coated my skin, strands of hair stuck to my brows, and my muscles fucking ached, but I kept going no matter what it did to me. Sure, it was fight night, and I was the main source of entertainment. Running my ass into the ground was a surefire way to get my ass kicked by men looking to put me in the ground.

But fuck…

I had to get her out of my system.

I had to make it through the next few days.

Weeks.

Fuck, I had to make it through the next few months and years.

Everything was different than I’d imagined. What a fucking moron I was. Had I thought I could show up after three years and it’d all be okay? It’d all be better?

I’d pushed Nolan at her, so their extreme closeness didn’t surprise me. Well, maybe a little. They looked closer than I remembered them being—even opting to room together. But my brothers? Shit. They were all close to her. That much was obvious. Genevieve had taken my place in my family.

What the hell was I supposed to do with that? Where the hell did I belong? I didn’t even have a place in my own fucking family anymore.

What the fuck was I thinking about going back to Cedar Harbor?