“Twenty-four.” His voice was a little rough. “Kat had just turned seventeen and started college. She looked all grown-up on paper, so it wasn’t hard to convince them to let her stay with me, but… Well, you know Kat.”
“She’s a handful?” She tried to imagine barely being more than a kid herself, losing both her parents to a car crash and finding herself suddenly responsible for a teenaged cousin. Her heart ached for him, and she reached for his hand. “You did a good job, Derek.”
“I did as well as I could.” He tugged at her hand, pulling until she slid into his lap, seated sideways with her legs stretched out along the couch. He curled both arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder, his breath tickling her neck. “I resented it for a long time. Obviously there’s some sort of magic or psychic power or whatever in our family, but my mom and I were human, and my father might as well have been. But Kat’s mother… She was involved in some crazy shit. Psychic cult shit.”
“People look for answers. Things to believe in.”
“I guess. Kat’s dad kept her out of it, mostly. He and my father understood each other. My aunt was crazy, and they were her brother and her husband. They thought they could make it better. Or make her better. In the end all it did was get the four of them killed.”
A shiver took her, and Nick pulled away enough to look into his eyes. “It was an accident, wasn’t it?”
She’d never seen him look so tired. “I was trying to get custody of Kat. I couldn’t exactly tell the police that I thought a telekinetic might have sent their car through the guard rail.”
And there it was, the sad reality of supernatural life. As choking and rigidly structured as wolf society was, at least there was a structure, a ruling body to which one could appeal for help. Derek would have had no one. “I’m sorry.”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “Jackson and Alec looked into it after Kat started working for them, but it had been two years by that point. I guess there’s a file in their office somewhere… Kat went through a phase where she was pretty obsessed with it, but all I wanted to do was keep her from following the trail back to whatever cult her mom was tangled up in.”
“I don’t blame you.” Kat was strong, and there were plenty of supernatural groups—essentially terrorists—who would gladly twist her abilities to suit their goals. “She’s had enough tragedy. You both have.”
“That’s life, I guess. Finding the good stuff in the tragedy. The supernatural world blows, except for the awesome people you can meet. Like hot shapeshifting bar owners.”
“Are we back to easy and expedient?” She nuzzled his cheek. “What about your first kiss? I want to know.”
“Jennifer…something.” He laughed. “We used to spend part of the summer in Boston, visiting Kat’s parents. I was fifteen and had just shot up to six feet, and Kat’s babysitter was a smoking sixteen-year-old. I convinced her I was twenty, and she thought I was hot shit. Then she found out how old I really was and never spoke to me again. You women and your older men. You break a guy’s heart.”
She couldn’t resist teasing him. “Uh-huh. So you’d rather I went and found someone younger, that’s what you’re saying?”
He nipped her lower lip. “Miraculously enough, I find myself more forgiving of the trend as I grow older.”
“I wonder why.”
“Like I said, it’s mysterious.”
“Not so much.” She studied him, curious. “First love.”
His body tensed, just for a second. Even after he relaxed, his laughter sounded forced, his voice strained. “I thought I was in love once. We’d been together a year when my parents died, and she was great through all of it…until I told her I had to come back to New Orleans. She was human. I couldn’t explain why Kat had to stay here.” He shrugged one shoulder, the muscles bunching under her hand. “It got ugly. She got mean. It went to hell so fast maybe it was never love at all.”
He hurt, and Nick wanted to make it stop. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, it’s okay.” The corner of his mouth ticked up. “It means I understand that you have to help Michelle. That’s what good people do. They take care of the ones who need them.”
It was one thing they had in common—responsibility to others. “It still sucks sometimes.”
“Yeah, it sure the hell does.” He stroked his thumb along the side of her neck. “What about you? Any ex-boyfriends gonna come after me?”
There had been casual dates and a few steady ones, but nothing important. Nothing like Derek. “I haven’t had much time. I don’t have a general manager at the bar, so I’ve been handling most of the day-to-day stuff myself.”
“By choice? Or because the bar can’t support a manager?”
“Mahalia didn’t have one, and I guess I just haven’t gotten around to hiring one yet.”
“So if you found someone interesting enough to make time…” He flashed her a wicked grin. “We could have a date outside the house some time. One where we keep our clothes on.”
“Hey, that was my plan all along, before life intervened.”
“I’m derivative.” His fingers tickled up her back, brushing along the line of her bra. “I’m also considering stealing your bra.”
Nick reached back and slapped at his hand. “You didn’t earn this lingerie. You lost the game.”
“It wouldn’t be stealing if I’d earned it.”
“Thief.” She didn’t care. She just wanted to kiss him.
So she did, his jaw first and then his lips. His fingers crept back up to her bra strap, and he unhooked it as his tongue teased just inside her mouth.
Nick bit his lower lip and pulled away. “Ready to admit to your ulterior motives?” she asked softly against his ear.
“I wasn’t aware they were very ulterior.” The wet heat of his tongue dragged along her jaw, and he laughed, low and dirty. “The mating urge may not be scrambling my brain at the moment, but I’m still a man with a really hot chick in his lap.”
“I was talking about the strip poker.” At least, she thought so. It was hard to remember with his tongue on her skin.
He found the sensitive spot above her pulse. “Does anyone suggest strip poker for innocent reasons?”
The telephone interrupted Nick’s answer, and she groaned. “Hold that thought.” She handed him her lace bra. “And this too.”
He yanked her back and nipped her neck once, then released her. “If we weren’t at Shapeshifter Alert Level One, I’d rip the phone out of the wall.”
“If something happens, Jackson or Alec will call my cell. It’s got to be work.”
It turned out to be Phillip, the closest thing she had to a bar manager, with the minor crisis of a missed delivery. Nick mouthed an apology to Derek, who pouted ridiculously for two seconds before tossing her bra at her.
She caught it and headed into her small home office to handle the call. She knew she shouldn’t resent the intrusion—the bar was her business, her livelihood, and Phillip needed her guidance. But, for the first time in forever, she had the chance to spend time alone with Derek. It was the sort of thing she’d sacrifice for her sister or Aaron, but she was loath to do it for anything else.
Life had settled into the most surreal mimicry of normal Derek had ever experienced, and it was driving him more than a little crazy.
Alec and Jackson maintained their insistence that they avoid any unnecessary travel between New Orleans and the safe house. Jackson was the only one who could be completely sure he’d shaken any followers—magically, Derek assumed, though no one had come right out and said as much. Nick had been reduced to endless phone calls with her sister and long, hushed conversations with Mahalia, whose continued presence in New York was starting to make sense.
Derek couldn’t concentrate on work. He had no damn idea how Nick kept dealing with the bar. Every time the phone rang they both tensed, but after three days of waiting, he was starting to realize they hadn’t been kidding when they talked about how slowly the Conclave moved. Aaron and Michelle could have fled to New Orleans on a tricycle and still gotten there before anyone made a move.