by Alisa Woods
“They’re my bodyguards, Rach,” she hissed back. The last thing she needed was Rachel lusting after dragon-shifters. That was not a conversation she wanted to have. “I told you about them on the phone.”
“Yeah, but day-um, girl.” She couldn’t be any more obvious.
Cinaed threw a smirk to Lucian, but his expression was unchanged. He glanced back at the front door and ran a hand along the broken-and-repaired door frame around it. The hinges were shiny compared to the dull gleam of the metal trim—they’d had an irate ex-boyfriend kick it in six months ago. Yeah, it looked like shit, but it was twice as secure now.
Lucian’s judgmental look was getting under her skin. “It may not look like much, but it keeps out the riff-raff.” She folded her arms and challenged him with a lift of her chin.
But he just tipped his head to her and spoke to Cinaed. “I’m a little concerned.”
The man looked affronted. “The only one to worry is the one who dares enter without my blessing.”
Lucian smiled a little. “Don’t leave us a mess, Cinaed.”
Cinaed rolled his eyes, but then his gaze landed on Rachel, who seemed to stop breathing because of it. He pulled in a breath of his own and let it out slow. “I’ll do my best to stay out of trouble’s way.”
Oh no. Was Lucian’s right-hand-man putting the moves on her friend? Arabella unlocked her arms and was about to stride over to break up whatever spell Cinaed was casting on Rachel, but Lucian stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
He dipped his head to whisper in her ear, and that fixed her in her spot faster than almost anything on the planet could. “I’ll make arrangements to forward some funds to your account right away.”
What? She pulled back to look at him. “But we haven’t finished…” She didn’t really want to talk about their little agreement in front of Rachel, not that her friend was paying any attention—she’d already fallen down the rabbit hole of staring into Cinaed’s green eyes.
“Call it an advance,” he said quietly, just for the two of them. “You need better security for the work you do here.”
She couldn’t argue with that. In fact, she’d already mentally earmarked Lucian’s money-promise for a close-circuit camera and a security alarm system. Assuming she could get any kind of private security company to come to this part of town.
The soft look Lucian was giving her, combined with the promise of support… her skin was heating again, but it wasn’t anger or irritation. “Thanks.” She swallowed down the awkwardness. “You better get going.”
There was a pinch of disappointment in his eyes, which made her cringe. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful. He leaned back and spoke louder, for Cinaed’s benefit. “I’ll return soon.”
That seemed to break the spell of whatever staring contest he and Rachel were engaged in. Thank God.
Cinaed nodded. “We’ll be here.”
Lucian gave her one last look before slipping out the door. It closed solidly behind him. Arabella went to set the locks, then turned back to Rachel and Cinaed.
“So you’re a bodyguard, huh?” Rachel was asking, practically drooling on their cheap linoleum.
Oh, dear God. Here it comes. Rachel’s patented love-em-hard-and-leave-em routine.
Cinaed had a half smile on his face, eyes alight for her. “At the moment, yes.”
“You can guard my body any—”
“Okay, that’s enough.” Arabella cut her off before Rachel could arrange a hookup of her own while Lucian was off having his hookup. Everyone was having sex but her. Which was fine—she’d long ago given up on that being a thing for her—but she really didn’t need the reminder.
“What?” Rachel asked as Arabella strode over and grasped onto her arm.
She tugged her best friend, practically a sister to her, toward the office, but directed her words to Cinaed. “Please excuse us a moment.”
Cinaed’s flirtatious look dissolved into a slightly alarmed one. “I’m not to leave you unattended.”
She pointed to the office he had just checked out. “There’s no back door, okay? I’m not sneaking off. I just need to have a chat with my friend. Privately.”
He frowned. “I don’t think—”
But she was already hauling an indignant Rachel across the threshold. “Watch the front door!”
“Alright, but—”
She shut the door, cutting off his protest.
“Hey!” Rachel complained. “You can’t bring an extreme hottie like that into the office and not expect—”
“He’s not the guy for you, Rach.”
She gave a longing look at the door. “He is definitely the guy for me. At least once. Maybe twice, if he’s really good.”
Arabella sighed. The last thing Rachel needed was another man in her life. She made a practice of leaving them before they could leave her, and somehow that translated into a string of unstable guys, orbiting her life like meteors just waiting to crash down and destroy everything. Although a tumble in the sheets with Cinaed would be a hundred-fold improvement over Rachel’s typical loser boyfriends. The last guy stole half the contents of Rachel’s meager apartment when he cleared out. Even that was better than the ones who took more than just her things. The ones who hurt her.
“Hey,” Arabella said, soft enough that Rachel whipped her attention back to her. “Do you trust me? Because I’m looking out for you with this.”
“What exactly is this?” she asked gesturing to the door. “I’m mean, holy hotness on a stick, Ari—where did you get these guys? And why are you suddenly having beefcake for security? Where’s the money coming from for that?”
Rachel was her partner in the business… so to speak. They’d grown up in foster care together, only Arabella aged out first. She managed to work her way through college and lucked into a scholarship for law school. Rachel, on the other hand, had always been a magnet for bad men and bad luck. When they finally reconnected, Rachel was one step away from being one of the junkies that stumbled around the alleyways outside the office. Arabella had convinced her to go back to school by hiring her as a receptionist. The truth was they both needed each other. And Rachel had literally saved her life when she had no one else to count on. She was the only family Arabella had.
In spite of Arabella’s promise to Lucian, there was no way she could keep all this secret from Rachel. She would figure it out when the money came in anyway.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Arabella said. “These guys aren’t human.”
Rachel scrunched up her face. Then she leaned forward and pressed the back of her hand to Arabella’s cheek. “Are you still sick, hon? Cuz those men are the finest specimens of man meat I’ve seen in…” She drifted off with the dead serious look on Arabella’s face. “Oh wait. You mean, like, literally…” She gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. “No way!” she said, but it came out muffled. Then she dropped her hands, but her mouth was still gaping. “Are you saying those guys are the sexy wolf-shifters I’ve been seeing on the news?”
Not exactly. But that would work as a lie. And Arabella needed a cover story that would work for now—at least until she was done with this business with Lucian. She would explain everything later when Cinaed wouldn’t overhear from the other room.
“Can you keep a secret?” she asked.
But her best friend was already leaping to conclusions. “Yes!” She fist-pumped the air. “I’ve heard those shifters are hot as sin, I just never thought I’d see one in real life!” She flicked looks back and forth between Arabella and the door. “Wait… they’re totally into human females, right?”
Well, she got that right. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Where did you find them?” She inched toward the door like she was going to sneak out and jump Cinaed right there in the office.
Arabella caught her arm and yanked her back. “Rachel! You can’t just… look, they’re helping me out, okay? Lucian fought off a guy who attacked me—turns out he was a shifter, too
. Rival gangs.”
That brought Rachel up short. If there was one thing she’d had too much personal experience with, it was men on the wrong side of the law taking out their frustrations with their fists. Sometimes on her. “They’re in the gangs?”
“Yeah.” She was spinning the lies fast and furious now. “There’s some kind of dispute between them, and I somehow landed in the middle. I have to lie low for a while. I’m staying at a safehouse Lucian has.” A flush of heat went through her when she thought about going back to Lucian’s lair with him after he banged this other girl. After Sandra was hopefully falling hard in love with him. It twisted Arabella’s head around so much—she needed this girl to fall in love with Lucian, but she also simultaneously, inexplicably, dreaded the talk afterward. About what to do next. About how to get Sandra to take this crazy leap into being his mate.
“So they’re your bodyguards because they’re protecting you from a rival gang?” Rachel’s eyes were wide with this. “Oh, man. They don’t even know you. I’d heard they were all manly and protective, but…” Then her awe crashed down fast into that glinty-eyed savvy look Arabella knew so well. The one that wouldn’t be fooled for long by whatever story she told her. “Wait a minute. Are they making you… Ari, are they forcing you to…” Her eyes widened in alarm.
“No!” Arabella rushed out, that weird heat rising to her face again. Conflicted. Her body’s over-the-top attraction to Lucian fighting with the part of her head that knew she had no business even thinking about that. Especially with a man like him. A dragon, for fuck’s sake. “No, I promise, Rach. They’re not that way. They wouldn’t force me into anything.”
Rachel’s hunched up shoulders dropped. “Good. Because I’d have to kick their asses. Both of them.”
Arabella grinned. “Well, at least Lucian would probably enjoy watching you try.”
Rachel cocked an eyebrow at her. “Is that right?”
Arabella flushed again. What was she doing? She tried to brush it off. “He just said something about the guy who attacked me. I was, you know, defending myself before Lucian showed up to help.” To save her life. She might have been able to fight off that asshole, but she wouldn’t stake her life on it. That’s why she carried that gun in the first place.
“And he thought that was hot?” Rachel lifted both eyebrows.
“Yeah. Pretty much.” Arabella was squirming inside her own skin.
Rachel nodded, getting that savvy look again. “He’s into you, Ari.”
“It’s not like that.” But of course, it was. At least her body was seriously into his body.
“Yeah, sure it’s not.” She crossed her arms and tapped her lips with one finger. “Maybe this is the one for you. Maybe a hot shifter man is just what you need.”
“I get all I need from Mr. Wiggles.” Yeah, so, she named her vibrator. It happens.
Rachel rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. It’s been long enough, Ari. You need to get back in the game again. The man game, not just a vacation with some vibrating plastic. And what better way to do that than with a one-night-stand with a wolf? I’ve totally followed this stuff on the news. They’re way into the no commitment, just hot sex thing with humans.”
Arabella cringed. She loved Rachel like a sister, and Rachel knew all that had happened to Arabella that dark night… but that didn’t mean she confided everything to her best friend. Especially not all the times afterward that she had tried to put it behind her. She’d taken all the counseling advice and tried to turn it into practice for herself… but it simply hadn’t worked. And she knew, deep down, the truth of it was that she simply wasn’t ready. So she’d stop trying to fix herself and just focused on fixing the messed-up lives of the women who walked through her door. Getting them divorce decrees and orders of restraint and a fresh start on their lives.
Because that she was damn good at.
Lucian Smoke just complicated her life, but he wasn’t the answer to her problems. Except maybe paying the rent. That would help her keep doing the things she was actually good at. The rest was just a miserable reminder of the part of her that had withered and died.
But Rachel didn’t know about any of that. And there was no way she’d let go of this, not if she thought Lucian was the answer. She’d be hounding Arabella to give it a try at least, all the way up until Lucian Smoke was mated off to some other woman and safely out of her life again.
“I’ll think about it, Rach,” she lied. “In the meantime, I’ve only got a couple of hours here—then Lucian’s taking me back to the safehouse until this gang thing is all cleared up. So let’s get some work done while I’m here, okay? People are depending on us.”
“All right.” Rachel grinned. “But I want to hear all about how shifters do it better when you get back.” She slid a look to the door. “And bring the Irish one back next time you come in.”
Arabella shook her head. She dreaded finding out the details of how shifters, Lucian in particular, did it better… with someone else. Doing her best to banish that thought—and any others regarding the hot prince of the House of Smoke—she dove into her work.
Focusing on others was what she did best, anyway.
“What do you mean, you’re not interested?” The woman was angry with him, and truly, he couldn’t blame her. His behavior was insulting, not to mention strange.
Lucian tried to soften the blow. “If I were a normal man of any kind, I would be more than interested. I would already be bedding you.”
Her eyes lit up. “That’s more like it.”
He sighed. “But I’m not a normal man. Of any kind.”
This deterred her not in the slightest. She eased up to him, the flimsy silk of her dress barely covering the swell of her substantial breasts and clinging to every other curve. “Of course not. You’re a shifter. The hottest kind of man.” She slid a hand up over his chest to the back of his neck, pressing her body against his.
He gently took hold of her shoulders and stepped back. Obviously, he had not thought this through. With his singular focus on Arabella, he’d miscalculated the difficulty of pretending to have this hookup. She’d been urging him for days, and he only relented because he needed something to arouse some feelings in her—if only the base kind, jealousy—that he hadn’t yet managed to evoke in his bumbling attempts at seduction. At times, he wondered who was seducing whom. When Arabella was near, he could feel the heat of her body reacting to his, he could scent her desire, and what’s more, he could sense a tremendous need inside her, burning brighter with each passing day. But she stubbornly refused to take that extra step, the one that would end with them tumbling into bed, and with Arabella’s heart falling for him.
Not that he deserved a woman like her.
He was barely worthy to bed the blonde-haired beauty before him, and then, only because he would leave her with exactly what she wanted—a well-satisfied body. That was all she wanted, and it was all he had to offer any woman.
And now he was denying this poor woman even that, all in service of seducing another woman that he, by all rights, should leave alone. He should return Arabella to her noble pursuits and relatively safe life. This game he was playing with her was a dangerous one… and not just to her. He could feel himself slipping, his own need burning bright, and if not for the treaty, he would fly to a place of solitude and simply wait until he reverted to wyvern, like any decent dragon would, given his position.
But that wasn’t an option for him.
And each moment he spent in Arabella’s presence, he was seduced even more by her nature and her needs, the passion and the buried darkness. He ached to take her to his bed. That would be a necessity in the course of events, but it also ran the very real danger of cracking open wounds that were not yet healed, no matter what fiction he told his brother. There was a mere crusting of blood and torment which barely covered the surface of it. The wound itself was deep and irreparable. And one that shouldn’t be repaired. It was his penance, and he carried it because th
at was the only justice he could serve.
His low growl of frustration would have been audible in the high-end hotel room, with its shiny mirrors and steel surfaces, except for the groan coming off Sandra eclipsing his own.
Her long-fingered hands were balled up at her sides. “This isn’t what I signed up for.”
He couldn’t afford to send her off in a rage of unsatisfied sexual needs—that would no doubt get back to Arabella through messages on his WildLove app, if nothing else, and he would be forced to explain. And who knew what Sandra would say. She was too much of a wildcard in this tightrope act he was walking.
He debated simply going through with it, but that worked for neither him nor advancing the situation with Arabella. Although it appeared that it would definitely work for Sandra.
Oh, how Leonidas would be taunting him if he knew…
Of course. The solution was instantly clear. He held his hands out in conciliation to Sandra. “I understand that this must feel less than forthright. Please, have a seat, and let me be honest with you.” He gestured to the bed.
The frown that had burrowed into her forehead lifted with that invitation. He settled next to her and gazed into her green eyes. She was a beautiful woman. Leonidas would be merciless in his insults, but they would be directly solely at Lucian. With her, he would very much enjoy himself. As would she.
“I’m afraid there’s someone else,” Lucian began.
She edged closer to him. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
He worked to keep his disgust inside. “I mean to say that I’m in love with someone else.” The words were false, but still terrifying. Under no circumstance could that be allowed to actually happen.
Sandra drew back. “In the last hour? Because you sounded very ready on the message board earlier.”
“Yes, in the last hour.” The lie sat like a stone on his chest. “But I realize that’s unfair to you. So I have an offer—my brother will take my place.”
Her eyebrows flew up, then a smoldering look settled on her face. “Perhaps your brother can join us.”