Impulse: Southern Arcana, Book 5 by Moira Rogers

slow. After Josh, she hadn’t let the men go slow. Her independence had been too hard-won to let any guy have more than a few hours.
    Until now. Until him . “I don’t know. Slow isn’t really my thing.”
    He leaned closer. “It’s mine.”
    All she had to do was lean back an inch, and his body would be stretched out along hers, warm and hot and perfect. His command held her rooted in place. Not fear or obedience, just pleasure at the freedom of knowing she didn’t have to do anything. “All right.”
    Julio hummed, as if her answer really had been one. “You want dinner or a swim?”
    Cold water. Lots and lots of cold water. “We had a late lunch. I could swim.”
    “Got your suit handy, or are you feeling adventurous?”
    It sounded like a dare, so she pulled away from the counter and tugged the sports jersey over her head.
    He guided her hip, applying enough pressure to turn her to face him, and let his gaze rove over her. “You like this,” he murmured, running a finger over the lacy edge of one bra cup. “The girly ribbons and shit.”
    “Sometimes.” She needed something to do with her hands, something that didn’t involve ripping his shirt in half. So she caught the end of one of her braids and set about freeing her hair. “Have you been studying my underwear?”
    He smiled, slow and easy. “Only when you take off your clothes.”
    “I’m a shapeshifter. I take my clothes off a lot.” A day spent tightly plaited left her hair tumbling around her shoulders in gentle waves, which had been the entire point. “Are we going to find someplace to run this week? I get antsy if I don’t get to every few days.”
    “Tomorrow.” He slipped one finger under her bra strap. “There’s an unofficial alpha in town. Carmen and Alec met him when they passed through last summer. We’re going to go introduce ourselves.”
    The world narrowed to his skin touching hers. One square inch at most, and she was already hot enough to hump his leg. Her gaze dropped without her permission, sliding past his belt and its shiny silver buckle to where his jeans stretched over the early stages of what would almost certainly be an impressive erection.
    Totally unfair, that he wasn’t raging hard and five seconds from fucking her over the counter, and she opened her mouth to tell him so before his words fully registered.
    Unofficial alpha. Other wolves.
    Shit. “Are you sure you want me to come with you when you meet them?”
    He didn’t pretend not to understand. “You think they’ll give you a hard time?”
    Most unfamiliar wolves did. Those who had been born shapeshifters looked down on the other breeds, and the turned ones had to fight harder against animal instinct and the certainty that she was an interloper in their territory.
    Even the ones who didn’t loathe her rarely respected her, and that might be worse. Julio could probably handle repressed hostility, but she doubted he’d react well if any of them sized her up as an exotic sexual thrill, the kind they’d brag about to their friends later.
    The last thing the Southeast council needed was Julio getting into fights over a coyote. “I can handle it if they do. I’m used to it. I don’t want to go and leave you stuck thinking you have to defend my honor, though.”
    Julio cupped her jaw, his fingers tickling the delicate skin behind her ear. “Let me worry about that, okay?”
    His touch stole her breath, turned her reply into a whisper. “I have to worry. I know you’ll protect me from anything, but I don’t want to make your life harder.”
    “Nothing about this is hard, sweetheart. It’s a vacation. Easiest thing in the world.”
    He pulsed with confidence, with dominance. Sera let it go as she gave him her best big-eyed look of mischief. “Nothing’s hard? I’m hurt.”
    Julio growled, picked her up in a surge of flexing muscle and dropped her on the counter. “Remember what you agreed to? No touching me until I say? Now tell me if you’re