Hunt Me! I Crave the Chase (Spooky Boys #3)

I must’ve smelled disappointed, because it didn’t take long for him to give in. He was just a softie like that. He sighed, shoulders slumping. “You will not take my word for it?”

“Please?”

“Fine,” reluctantly Mutt moved out of the way. I lifted my head to see my reflection, and immediately wished I hadn’t. “You’re a fucking liar,” I said, jaw dropping. Because I looked like shit.

Worse than shit.

There were bags under my eyes—that wasn’t new—but the hair right at the front of my head that had been shaved down to fuzz was. I literally had a massive bald spot. That alone sucked balls, but paired with the dark bruises all over my face, I looked like I’d been through a fucking meat grinder.

The stitches were probably the cleanest part of me. Everything else was just…

“I look like a wreck.” I blinked. “A car wreck,” I added, because it was funny, even though it wasn’t.

Mutt growled.

“Dude.” I couldn’t stop staring. Horrified, I turned to look at him. “Dude my hair.”

“Had to shave it so we could do stitches.”

“I literally do not even remember this.” I’d been pretty out of it though—so I suppose I wasn’t surprised. I just…fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “You are such a liar. You said I looked beautiful.”

“I wasn’t lying.”

“Fuck you. The front of my hair is fucking gone, man. I look horrible.” And I did. And it was awful. And oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “I look like ginger Homer Simpson.”

“Jeffrey.” Mutt caught my wrist, dragging it up to his chest. My palm lay flat across his heart, and he ducked his head to meet my gaze. “I wasn’t lying.”

I knew what he was trying to say. That all I had to do was listen to his heart to know he was telling the truth. But I didn’t speak wolf-boy-heart-magic, and therefore couldn’t believe him.

“Jeffrey,” Mutt said again, dipping low enough our noses brushed. He blinked those ridiculously long lashes at me, and my heart thumped unsteadily. His warm breath brushed against my lips and I was lost all over again—but this time I was lost inside his eyes. “Sometimes I wish you were a wolf. Not because you aren’t perfect the way you are—because you are. But because I think…if you could scent how I feel about you—if you could feel the way my heart beats when you’re around. If you could hear my truths, I could make you happy.”

My heart hurt.

“You do make me happy,” I said, surprised that it was true. Mutt was too, apparently, because his eyebrows shot up, and the cockiest, happiest grin I’d ever seen spread across his face. His tail thumped against the cabinets.

“And you are beautiful,” he said softly, his heart thumping beneath my palm.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, eyes burning a little.

For the first time in months, I almost cried. Sure my body had done the motions, the shaking, the anxiety, the aching throb of too sharp breaths. But no tears had spilled. Not for a long, long time.

“I wish I could tell too,” I admitted, and it hurt. It hurt so bad.

“I know,” Mutt bent down, lacing a gentle kiss against my fuzzy temple.

“Will you help me shave the rest of my hair?” I asked, voice hoarse. “I don’t think I can.”

I looked fucking weird with only the front of my hair short.

“Of course.”

Mutt set us up in the kitchen. Theo was nowhere to be seen, probably because he was nosy as hell and overheard our entire conversation in the bathroom. Mutt sat me down on a chair, and helped me pull my shirt over my head so it wouldn’t catch on the stitches.

He grimaced, frowning at the bruises that blossomed across my chest.

He’d made that face every time I got naked over the last two days.

Like it physically pained him to see me hurt.