Light the Fire (Jackson's Hollow #1)

Chapter 22

They ended up painting the hall and the living room the sort of white color. Jo kept calling it eggshell, but to Ryker, it was just a couple shades away from white so why not call it that? He had a streak of not-white across his shoulder and face as a part of her retaliation for not "understanding the subtle nuances of difference." For her part, Jo was currently trying to scrub a patch of not-green off her cheek; Ryker had been painting what Jo called an "accent wall" with that color.

"I think you got some in my hair," Jo complained, running the washcloth roughly over a lock of her thick black hair.

Ryker was leaning against the counter next to her, attempting to scrub the not-white off his jaw with a paper towel. "You got some in my mouth. We're even."

"Did I?" Jo asked innocently, pulling the cloth over her hair, turning back to the sink.

Ryker turned so that he was angled toward her. That tone of hers, that playfulness, made him want to catch her by the hips, press her back against the wall, and kiss her. But somehow he managed not to. Instead, he reached out and caught her hand, the one with the washcloth.

"You laughed when you did it," he said.

"Hmm, I don't remember that."

Ryker did. If he kissed her, she might still be able to taste it. He plucked the cloth from her hand and smirked before rubbing at the spot on his jaw. "Short term memory loss at your age is a real problem."

Jo glanced up at him, her gaze unamused. "Do you think it's going to need another coat?"

"What, your hair or the wall?"

She reached out and gave him an ineffective shove against his shoulder. "You're hilarious."

"If you're talking about the walls, yes. Another coat. Or two."

Her dark eyes met his, looking both coy and almost hesitant. "Are you going to volunteer to help out with that too...?"

"That was a given," he said. Setting the cloth down, he reached out and gently touched her wrist. "But maybe we could do something else next time."

"Ah, so all your dating plans don't involve chores?" she teased, but she didn't pull her arm away.

Actually, he didn't have any plans. He needed to figure out some other ideas about what human girls liked to do. He'd seen movies and stuff, but the romance ones weren't really his kind of things. And werewolves sort of went on dates, but the dates weren't a part of the process of becoming mates or anything. This was all new territory. "Some do. The next one won't."

"The next one?" Jo's smile was mischievous. "So not only will there be more, but I'm guessing I'm saying yes to them?"

Ryker snorted. She obviously knew he was interested enough for there to be more. Guys didn't offer to do chores with girls unless they were seriously interested. Or, he supposed, unless their moms made them.

And she was obviously interested enough to tease him about there being more dates, rather than avoid the subject all together. At least, that's what he usually did when he was trying to avoid hanging out with a girl he had no interest in.

Which was normally how he operated. That was the nice thing about being a werewolf--if you knew you had a soulmate waiting for you out there, it was hard to become interested in someone else, someone you knew would only be temporary.

Not to mention, he had his dad's situation with Brett's mom as a prime example as to why you wouldn't want to do that.

There had been high school...flirtations, he supposed. But only with both parties understanding it meant nothing.