Full Moon Rachel Hawthorne (top 10 novels .TXT) 📖

everyone multiple times—and a couple of the waitresses, who’d been around since the dawn of time and called everyone “Sugar.”

I slid into a horseshoe-shaped booth in the back corner. Connor nudged up against me. As Kayla settled in on the other side of me, with Lucas beside her, Brittany said, “I’m gonna go shoot some pool.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Connor asked.

“Not really. I’ll catch you later.”

She caught a guy’s attention at the bar, and he followed her into the pool room. He was tall, with lanky black hair and a couple of days’ beard growth.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Connor said. “I’ve never seen him before.”

“Considering everything that’s going on, shouldn’t we be wary of strangers?”

“I don’t think we want to get paranoid,” Lucas said.

“It’s not being paranoid when you’re actually in danger,” I pointed out. “There are a lot of people in here I don’t recognize.”

“It’s summer. Tourist season.”

Connor ran his hand along my shoulder. “Lucas is right. We can’t suspect everyone.”

But suspecting no one seemed equally dangerous to me.

After we gave our order to the waitress—burgers rare and fries all the way around—I relaxed against Connor. We’d spent several months apart while he’d been away at college. Maybe that was partly responsible for the strangeness I was feeling with him. Maybe we just needed to get back in sync. He put his arm around me and started toying with my hair. He always liked messing with my hair. He nuzzled my neck.

“Connor,” I whispered.

“What?”

“We’re in public.”

“So? It’s dark over here.” He tipped his head to the side. Kayla and Lucas were talking low and snuggling, acting as though they were totally alone. “I’ve missed you, Lindsey. It just seems like we haven’t really had any time together. We’re taking another group out tomorrow. Have to be all responsible.” He wrapped his hand around my neck and stroked the underside of my chin with his thumb, causing shivers of delight to race through me.

“It’s really hard with you being away at college,” I admitted.

“One more year, and you’ll be there. Right?”

“I hope so. I’m losing my enthusiasm for school. I seem to be losing my enthusiasm for everything lately.”

“Including me?”

I released a self-conscious laugh. “No.” Then I thought about how strained things seemed to be between us lately and a thought occurred to me. “Are you interested in someone else? I mean, did you meet someone while you were away at school?”

“No. But things are different between us. I’m not sure what it is.” He lifted my hair and nuzzled my neck again. “And it bothers me that I can’t read your thoughts.”

I felt the heat of his lips against my neck and went with it, drifting into a languid place where everything felt good. “You mean when you’re in wolf form?”

“No. Like now, when I’m in human form. Lucas can read Kayla’s mind anytime, regardless of his form.”

“What?” I jerked back. “Is that true, Lucas?”

He moved away from Kayla’s lips as though I’d just woken him up. “Is what true?”

“You can read Kayla’s mind even when you’re not…” I glanced around. A guy at the bar jerked his gaze from us to his mug. Had he been watching us? Who was he? He gave me the creeps. He was big, with a shaved head and barbed wire tattoos around his biceps. He looked like someone who might have just stepped out of prison. Definitely not a lab tech…but who knows? I shifted my attention back to Lucas. “You know.”

I didn’t want to say a wolf aloud. Not everyone here was one of us, so we always had to be careful about what we said when we were here.

Lucas shrugged and leaned forward, across the table. Quietly, he said, “We can both read each other’s thoughts anytime.”

“Eww! You’d never be able to have a private thought.”

“We can sense when the other wants privacy. We turn it off,” Kayla said.

I looked at Connor worriedly. “Is that the way it’s supposed to be? My parents never told me that.”

“Mine didn’t mention it either. Maybe it’s like sex. They’re not comfortable talking about it.”

“Actually,” Lucas began, “I think every bond is different. The first time I saw Kayla it was like I was standing too close to a bug zapper.”

“Oh, that’s romantic,” I said, while Connor chuckled gleefully at the gross image.

“It was like an electric charge,” Lucas explained. “It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was…a little unsettling.”

“No matter the species, it seems guys are all alike,” Kayla said, smiling. “Shy about the L-word.”

“I’m not,” Connor said. “I’ve loved Lindsey ever since she bloodied my nose because I took her chew toy.”

My heart stuttered at his casual use of the L-word. In our relationship I was the one who was shy about using it. I always had been. I adored Connor, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever told him I loved him. Now certainly wasn’t the time. I slapped his arm playfully. “It was a teething ring and I was only a year old. I don’t even remember it. But my parents always bring it up anytime our families get together.”

“That and the naked videos.”

“What’s this?” Kayla asked, laughing.

I groaned. “I was two, Connor was four. We’d been playing in a splash pool. We took off our clothes and got in the sandbox. Makes sense to me. You don’t get in a sandbox with wet clothes on.”

“And I haven’t seen her naked since,” Connor said.

But he would. During my first transformation. Clothes hamper our ability to transform. Despite what happens to the Incredible Hulk, shirts don’t rip off and pants don’t stretch. I felt myself blush as Connor wiggled his blond eyebrows at me. For a species that had to divest itself of its clothing under what we considered natural circumstances, we were a modest bunch.

Thank goodness, the waitress brought our burgers over and conversation stopped as we wolfed them down. So to speak. Generally, we enjoyed nothing as much as we did warm, red meat. Although I did also have a weakness