Lynx Northern Shifters 3

little interest in Jonah’s studies.
    However, Trey hadn’t put his arm around Jonah again.
He shouldn’t think about Trey’s arms. Trey had only hugged him yesterday because Jonah had become too emotional. Which he didn’t plan on doing again. Jonah didn’t want to lose Trey’s good opinion of him by showing weakness.
As they headed to bed, Trey announced rather abruptly, “In two days it’s the full moon.”
For a moment Jonah stared down uncomprehendingly as Trey settled himself onto the cot. Then he recalled the werewolf mythology. “The moon makes a difference?”
“Yup. We run at nights during the week of the full moon. It’s unwise for a wolf to fight the strong pull of moonlight.” In the dim firelight, Trey turned on his side and faced Jonah’s cot. “Given how cold it is, I’m not going to shift back to human during the day, it’ll cost me too much energy. So…do you want me around here, or should I take off for a week?”
“Here,” Jonah said in a low voice, trying not to admit how much it meant to him for Trey to stay. The idea of Trey taking off was abhorrent, as if someone was snatching away a gift, a much-needed gift.
“Good. I’d rather be here anyway.”
The next two days passed in a blur while Jonah hugged that knowledge to himself. Jonah was always talking about himself. He tried to ask things about Trey but it was hard, because the man didn’t want his questions. He never looked angry, let alone mildly annoyed, but it was clear from the change in his body stance that Jonah’s questions weren’t welcome.
But where was Trey from, where did he work, and what had happened to his family, including the unstable brother? Jonah had no answers to these questions. And wouldn’t for at least a week because now Trey was all wolf all the time.
Yet Jonah kept on talking when Trey-the-wolf returned for his daily sleep. His words kept flowing, until Jonah felt like he’d revealed everything there had ever been to reveal about himself to Trey as human and as wolf.
The one thing he did not, could not , reveal was the fact that he was attracted to Trey. Jonah swallowed at the thought, trying not to panic. It didn’t matter right now, when Trey was wolf. Jonah could ignore it then, his attraction being all a memory. But when Trey-the-human returned, he was going to have to be careful not to let Trey realize Jonah’s thoughts were more than friendly.
The truth was, Jonah didn’t know how this had happened—or even when . Trey had loped off into the moonlit night and Jonah hadn’t even been self-aware enough to realize he was developing a crush on the man. Or maybe Jonah had been keeping his head buried deep in the sand, stupidly longing for another hug from Trey without recognizing what that signaled. But for God’s sake, when he’d first met Trey, as human, he’d almost thrown up. He’d wanted Trey to stay away from him.
The turnaround was giving him whiplash, even if he understood at an intellectual level that he’d been deprived of human companionship. Somehow, once Trey had turned wolf and Jonah had relaxed his guard, he’d lurched in the opposite direction from fear of Trey to, let’s face it, infatuation . He couldn’t stop thinking about Trey and about those few times Trey had touched him. It was clear Trey had only done so to reassure Jonah in one way or the other. Well, except that time Trey took Jonah’s face in his hands to examine him. Why had he done that? And had he found Jonah wanting?
Fuck . Jonah shook his head. It would have been easy to regard Trey as a visitor, as a friend. But no, Jonah had to make it difficult for himself, had to think about Trey in other ways, ways unwelcome to Trey . That was the key point to remember.
Jonah pulled in a long, calming breath. He needed to stop thinking along these lines. Otherwise, things were going to get awkward and unpleasant quickly. Jonah required a strength of mind he feared he didn’t have. He worried about getting hard by accident and Trey being repulsed.
And so, as the days wore on and Trey’s human return became imminent, Jonah became more and more tense.
Enough so that one afternoon, Trey came up and carefully licked one of Jonah’s hands, rather like the first evening when he’d done it. Jonah wanted to kneel beside him and wrap his arms around the wolf, but he couldn’t reveal that much of himself. What was so wrong with him that even the wolf knew he was stressed?
Then he hit on a solution to his