Why that was so vital to him, he didn’t know, but it was. He wanted her trust as much as he wanted the woman herself. She’d gotten under his skin that first night, and every moment that had passed since he’d seen her again had only sharpened the addiction.
It also sharpened the urgency of keeping her safe. Her and Alex. Despite the constant cold shoulder, he liked the kid, thought he’d handled the upheavals to his life with a maturity people three times his age couldn’t manage.
Merek had a feeling if anything happened to either of them, he’d never forgive himself. A huge, gaping hole would be ripped into his heart, and he doubted he’d ever real y recover. They’d become that important to him, that quickly.
He swal owed, and Chloe gave a sleepy murmur, burrowing deeper into his chest. Her lips brushed his skin when she spoke. “Sleep now, remember?”
“Yeah. Sleep now.” He pul ed in a breath, smel ed the sweetness of her skin, and felt something loosen inside him, a constriction that had been there for so many years, he didn’t recal his life without it.
Letting out the breath on a shaky sigh, he squeezed his eyes closed. He expected to stay awake, working things over, his mind obsessed with the problems presented to it, but it didn’t happen. Drowsiness swept over him, dragging him under. It wasn’t like him to ever unwind, but when had he acted like himself since Hurricane Chloe had swept back into his life? A smile touched his mouth, and he went to sleep with it stil on his face.
7
The sun was just beginning to set when they made it to the lakeside campground. The elf who ran the place was delighted to rent them the last site he had. Chloe had handled most of that transaction because Merek had given the elf the oddest look imaginable. She had a feeling her warlock had seen something ugly in the elf’s future, and Chloe was very sure she did not want to know what it was.
She sighed and shoved her hair out of her face. When Merek said they were headed for the ass end of nowhere, the man wasn’t kidding. They were sleeping in an honest to goodness tepee. She was clearly in an alternate reality. The real her was back in Seattle sipping a latte with Tess, lamenting a recent run-in at work with That Jackass Damien. The real her was not trying to wrestle her familiar into said tepee, while Merek and Alex did very little to smother their guffaws as they did something manly with red meat over open flames.
“Come on, Ophelia.” The cat hissed and took a swipe at her with claws bared. Chloe managed to get out of the way. This time. She had several long scratches down both forearms. “The other option is sleeping alone in an SUV. I can’t let you run around in the wilderness. There are bears and real wolves and things.
This isn’t Seattle, baby. We are not in Kansas anymore.”
With a graceful sideways leap, Ophelia made a dive for the tepee’s exit. A quick spel blasted from Chloe’s fingers in a beam that she hoped looked like a flashlight to any Normal who might be camping along this lake. The familiar shot backward and whipped around to snarl at Chloe, her fur standing on end.
“I know this isn’t any fun, baby,” she crooned, holding out a placating hand and praying she didn’t get it torn to shreds. If anyone understood her familiar’s hatred of the isolated wilderness, it was Chloe. She wanted civilization back as much as her cat did. “Next time, we’l have a real house with a real kitchen, and we’l stay in a real town with a real grocery store to buy you gourmet kitty food. I promise.”
Ophelia growled, her tail thrashing, but her fur settled into a smooth layer again.
“A real litter box, too. I’l even make Merek clean it for you while you watch.” The cat had taken an instant liking to Merek, which Chloe could neither explain nor justify, but she was too grateful to care. She didn’t want to think about how difficult this trip would be if Ophelia had disliked anyone in their party.
“Gee, thanks. Throw me under the bus.” Merek’s deep voice preceded him into the tepee as he crawled through the opening. He held an unopened can of cat food in one hand. Sitting cross-legged on one of the single-sized futon mattresses ringing the inside of the tepee, he cracked the lid on the can and held it enticingly toward Ophelia. “Come here, sugar. Don’t let roughing it upset you. It’s only temporary.”
The familiar sniffed, her tail stil snapping in irritated little jerks. After a few tense moments, she relented, gliding over to Merek and climbing onto his lap where she al owed him to hold the can for her to eat out of.
He rol ed his eyes, but gamely kneaded his big hand down the Siamese’s narrow back until she closed her eyes in ecstasy and purred.
Chloe’s heart squeezed at how good he’d been with her familiar. And her. And her godson. He’d been amazing about everything. She never would have suspected someone who liked to be in control as much as he did could be so . . . tolerant. Kind. Sweet.
She also stared at her familiar in blatant jealousy. Who would have thought that would ever happen? But she’d love to climb in Merek’s lap and have him slide his hands al over her. If this business with being on the run was ever over, she was locking herself up with the man for a week straight until she burned him out of her system. This level of intensity and craving just couldn’t go on this way. She’d go crazy.
Licking her lips, she looked up to find Merek’s heated gaze moving over her face. A wicked knowing reflected in his eyes. “I want you, too.”
Her breath froze in her lungs, her heart slamming against her ribcage. Need fisted deep inside her, tightening some muscles, loosening others, and she was damp and ready for sex in seconds. Sucking in a lungful of air, she forced herself to look away from him. “There’s no wal s in this thing, no doors we can close. Alex—”
“I know.” He sighed, lifted a sleeping Ophelia off his legs, and set her on the mattress beside him. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want you. It doesn’t mean I won’t be lying in my sleeping bag, thinking about you, and wishing I had you under me.”
She closed her eyes and wil ed that mental image not to form. No such luck. She could too easily imagine herself stripped and spread beneath him while his cock fil ed her until she screamed because it felt so fucking good. A shiver ripped through her, and her nipples tightened to the point of pain. She grabbed a jacket from her suitcase and jerked it on to cover her breasts.
Merek chuckled as he watched her, but she refused to look at him or she knew she’d jump him. Then they’d see who was under whom. Luckily for her self-restraint, Alex cal ed from outside the tepee. “Hey, you two. Dinner’s done. Hurry up before the bugs get it.”
She winced. “Fighting off Godzil a-sized insects for my food. Ah, the glamorous life.”
A snort was Merek’s only response before he crawled out of the opening, stood, then turned to help her to her feet as she crab-walked through. She looked out across the gorgeous lake, at the sheer red rock cliffs that dropped straight to the water’s edge on the far side of the lake. She drew in a deep breath of cold, clean air. The last rays of the sun shimmered across the cliffs and made the waves glitter. “Wel , it’s pretty, even if we have to fight for our food.”
He grinned, looped an arm around her neck, and reeled her in to pop a kiss on her forehead. Gods, it felt good to have a man touch her, not just for sex, but with the little affectionate gestures, the private glances and smiles that spoke of secrets only they knew. It was something she’d never let anyone close enough to enjoy before—even the years with Damien had never been more than a good professional relationship with hot sex on the side. This thing with Merek scared her, but it felt too good to stop. The sex was one thing, but this was something entirely different. Something vastly more intimate. Caring.