Highland Wolf Pact: Blood Reign: A Scottish Werewolf Shifter Romance by Selena Kitt

all as it should be.”
    When she turned, seeing him standing in the tub, soap suds sliding down his skin into the bath water, he took her breath away. She didn’t understand it. Why should the sight of a naked man make her feel so woozy and warm? Her insides felt soft and gooey, like she was melting. It was the strangest thing she’d ever felt.
    Griff met her eyes as she approached, and she wondered if he saw the confusion on her face. He looked at her like he was wondering what she was feeling. She was wondering herself. Slowly, she climbed onto the stool, so they stood face to face, Bridget holding the rinse bucket.
    “Tell me, Bridget…” His voice was soft, his gaze too. “If… if somethin’, some circumstance, some person… made it impossible for ye to stay ’ere, in this temple…”
    She could barely breathe, standing so close to him, and part of her hated him for making her think of these things. The thought of leaving the temple made her stomach clench and her eyes sting. She loved her parents, she loved her home. And this was home. It always would be.
    So why was she suddenly filled with such longing?
    “If tha’ happened…” Griff said. “Then is that as it should be, as well?”
    “Ye make m’head hurt.” Bridget lifted the bucket and poured it over his head.
    Griff sputtered, laughing, rubbing his face clear so he could look at her.
    “Too much thinkin’?” he asked, grinning as she climbed down off the stool, setting the bucket aside.
    “No, I enjoy thinkin’,” she protested, going over to get one of the dry bath sheets warming by the fire. “I play chess wit’ Alaric. But tis folly t’question what is. T’would be like askin’ yerself why y’er a wulver… and I’m a woman.”
    “I’m askin’ myself that,” he said, his gaze skipping down once more to the wet front of her robe. “Righ’ this very moment.”
    “Noticin’ an’ askin’ why’re two very different things.” She smirked, shaking her head as she unfolded the bath sheet.
    “Aye, they are.” He agreed, waiting patiently as she untangled the sheet. “Yer wet.”
    “Pardon?” She blinked at him.
    “Yer shift.” He nodded, his gaze heavy-lidded. “It’s wet. Are ye cold?”
    “The fire’s warm.” It was—but so were her cheeks, and those weren’t facing the flame.
    “Yer goin’ t’need a bath after me.” He chuckled as she shook the sheet, holding it out for him.
    “I’ll be fine.” But she wasn’t fine. She felt quite strange. Her knees shook.
    “Bridget?” Griff tilted his head, frowning, and her face flushed even more.
    “I’m fine.” She felt it happening, the room spinning, her balance gone.
    Griff reached out to grab her by the elbows and she gave a little shriek as she slipped, the stool going out from under her as she fell forward into him, both of them splashing together into the tub. There was nothing else to do, nowhere else to go.
    Griff didn’t say anything, but he caught her, keeping her head from hitting the other edge of the tub, but unable to keep her from sinking into the water. With both of them in it, the water overflowed the tub’s edge, spilling onto the floor in waves.
    “Are ye’ll righ’, lass?” Griff asked, holding her to him as she sputtered and blinked at him in surprise. She found herself stretched out against his naked body in the tub, and when she looked down, she noticed her robe had come untied entirely. Like any Scot, she wore nothing under her plaid—and nothing under her temple robes either.
    Griff’s eyes flashed as he glimpsed her nude form. Bridget saw them, for just a moment, go from that strange amber to red, the hands gripping her shoulders sliding slowly down her arms as they rocked together in the sloshing water. She didn’t need to look down to know what was rubbing up against her hip, hot and hard as steel.
    She half expected him to grab her, force himself inside of her—she was a virgin, still, of course, just as she’d told