“Come around? All I agreed to was no Taser!” I rolled my eyes and laughed.
He grinned and kissed my shoulder before whispering against my ear. “It’s a start.”
I shoved him over, rolling on top of him with a grin. “It’s a good thing you’re kind of cute.”
He raised a brow with a sexy smile. “Kind of?”
Okay, he was far beyond “kind of cute,” but it was obvious he already knew it. I kissed him, laughing against his lips as he pressed his groin up against me. “More? Already?”
He held my hips and growled into another hungry kiss. My body rocked into his, riding him until we were both sweaty and exhausted. And very satisfied. Making love to him did crazy things to me. Sexy was a given, but it went deeper than that when our bodies came together. He made me feel like we were really one, like I wasn’t alone anymore. He’d experienced firsthand that I was far from perfect, and in spite of that, he thought I was just right, flaws and all.
Settled in his arms, his breathing slowed, and his hold on me loosened as he drifted off to sleep. I wished I could sleep, but my brain had other plans. I carefully slid free of his arms and sat up. He seemed so calm while he slept. It was tough not to be jealous. Would I ever know that kind of peace again?
It had vanished from my life the night I lost my parents and became my sister’s guardian.
I stared out the window into the darkness. Darrien Fonthill was out there somewhere. Now that my stalker had a face and a name, my desire to take him down festered, mutating into something bordering on obsession. As long as he lived, my sister and I were in danger.
My gaze shifted to my guns. They were still on the nightstand, within an arm’s reach. Until tonight, I never let anyone else disarm me. Even with Sebastian, I never trusted him enough to let him get into a position to kill me. Aren could have pulled either trigger and gotten the ultimate revenge. I looked back over at him. There wasn’t any revenge in his heart.
His Pack would never be able to forgive me like he seemed to. Besides, from everything I’d been trained to believe, werewolves were all about family and the Pack. Would Aren’s feelings for me change when he found out I couldn’t give him one? We hadn’t used any birth control, and Aren hadn’t asked me if I was on the pill. He had no idea I was infertile. I mentally kicked myself. I shouldn’t care about having a family. I’d mothered my sister—that was enough for me.
But hearing the value of my life had been reduced to nothing because I couldn’t produce offspring left my self-confidence bruised. I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing the look on Aren’s face when he learned he’d never have little wolves to raise if he stayed with me.
Before I realized what was happening, my head had me completely agitated, trying to predict possible outcomes for everything, from why I cared what Aren thought to if the government really have a Special Forces squad of werewolves.
I got out of bed and wandered into the bathroom. After a hot shower, I wrapped myself in a robe and quietly laid a towel on the floor. I focused my mind on simply breathing. After half-tortoise, I moved into camel pose and finally got to my feet. When I turned around, I gasped.
Aren was watching me.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
He started to smile. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I scooped up the towel to put it back into the bathroom. “How can you stay so calm when the world around us could go to complete shit at any moment?”
“I can’t control the whole world, only myself.” He shrugged. “I trust the Pack. Nadya’s protected. My only concern now is nailing Fonthill. We’ll figure out the rest later.”
I slid back into bed, accepting a warm spot in his arms, and closed my eyes against his chest. “One step at a time, right?”
I felt him nod and kiss my hair. And although I could have brought up our lack of birth control, I kept silent.
I was getting way too fond of the sound of “we.”
…
A shaft of pure sunlight burned through my eyelids and right into my retinas. I covered my head with a pillow, groaning.
“Morning, sunshine.”
I peered out from under my protective covering to see Aren already dressed and standing at the foot of the king-sized hotel bed.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” I sat up, squinting and imagining how amazing my bed head hair must look.
“Because I figured you needed some rest. As long as he doesn’t know where we are, you should take advantage of it.”
I got up and dressed before attempting to tame my hair. “So am I correct in assuming I’m not welcome at Adam’s ranch today either?”
I could almost see the tension attack the back of his shoulders. “I thought you didn’t want to go there anyway. Didn’t you want to keep your distance from Nadya for now?”
“Yeah, but knowing Darrien Fonthill is out there…” Just saying his name made me wince. “I’d like to see her for myself.” I gave up on my hairbrush and pulled my hair in a ponytail.
“I saw her last night. She looks a lot like you.”
“She was at the Pack meeting?” I peered out of the bathroom. “Did she seem miserable or scared?”
“No.” He shook his head. “She came down as we were finishing up. She had the twins, one on each hip. She and Lana seemed to be getting along pretty well too.”
Relief washed through me as I stared into his eyes. “Thank you for helping her.”
“I’m glad we could.”
After brushing my teeth, I came out of the bathroom, slipped on my shoulder holster and gazed at the clear morning outside our hotel window. “Something’s bugging me. It used to happen during complicated cases. A piece of the puzzle is right in front of me, but I can’t quite see it. Makes me crazy”
“Can I help?”
I didn’t even flinch when I felt him come up behind me, his arms sliding around my waist. Having him close was becoming a comfort in spite of my efforts to keep him out of my heart.
I glanced back at him over my shoulder. “I don’t think so. It’s just a hunch, but I think there’s some other connection with Fonthill I’m missing.”
Aren’s hold on me tightened a little. “Maybe with your roommate he attacked?”
I shrugged giving that angle a thought. “Maybe.”
“Does she know what happened to you?”
“Nancy? No.” I rested back against his chest. “Not too long after Fonthill lost his badge, my parents were murdered. I had to take care of Nadya, so I moved us to a tiny place on the other side of town. New school, new everything. I didn’t know what else to do since we never caught their killer.”
“Did Nadya see it happen?”
My chest constricted with pent-up emotion. This was the first time I’d ever talked to anyone about my parents’ deaths. The department kept me out of the investigation, standard practice since I was related to the victims, but when the case went cold, I’d called in some favors to get copies of the file. All the details and evidence were engrained in my memory.
But saying them out loud was a whole different ball game.
I cleared my throat, finding my voice again. “Nadya was at school when it happened. Thankfully my mom had called me and asked me to come by. I got off work early and found them.”
He pressed a kiss to my hair. “You think Fonthill might be connected to their deaths somehow? He could’ve been taking revenge for your testimony or something.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have known where my parents lived, and if he was out for revenge, he would’ve come after Nancy or even me, not my folks. But when we were in Los Angeles, when the laser came through our hotel room window…” I lost myself for a minute. “That moment made me think of it again. My parents were killed by a long-range rifle. That’s part of why they could never find the killer. The only evidence we had were the bullets. I didn’t ever realize Fonthill shot long-range rifles. And I definitely had no clue he was a Green Beret.”