“Okay then. You need any backup on the road when you head back?”
Unable to resist having her all to himself for just a little longer, he said, “Thanks for the offer, but I think we’ve got a few days before we need to worry.”
“Then keep me updated.”
“I will. And stay sharp. There’s no reason for you to see any trouble when she’s not there, but it’s better to be safe.”
“On it,” the Runner murmured, then disconnected the call. Shoving the phone in his pocket, Cian walked back inside just as the bathroom door clicked open, releasing a wave of warm, Sayre-scented air into the cabin. He couldn’t see into the hallway from where he stood, but what was probably her bedroom door snapped shut a moment later. He debated going back outside for a smoke, but decided to simply wait her out, loving the way that intoxicating scent was filling his lungs, working its way through his system.
He spent the next moments looking over the titles on her bookshelves, surprised she was into gritty suspense novels, many of the books ones he’d already read. He lost track of time as he walked around the room, soaking up all the telling details like a sponge with water, hoarding them in his mind. They were like tiny clues that he needed to unlock the mystery of her life, his brain cataloguing everything from the scent of her candles to the type of pen she’d left sitting on top of a notebook. The sofa was off-white and deep, his mind easily picturing her cuddled up among the matching throw pillows with a book, while the evening sunlight touched on the feminine curves of her body. The sensual slope of a shoulder. The lithe shape of her thighs. He stood in the middle of the room, each breath drawing more of her provocative scent into his lungs, while his hands flexed and released at his sides. His tension just kept winding tighter...and tighter, until he nearly stumbled from the jolt of hunger that slammed into him when she came back into the room a few minutes later.
Christ, he thought as he got a good look at her. Is she trying to kill me?
The cutoffs had been exchanged for a pair of jeans that hugged her curves like a second skin, her tight black T-shirt molding to a pair of breasts so perfect they made his mouth water. Her skin was still dewy and pink from the shower and the sun, and he had to physically hold himself back from her. Had to fight the animalistic urge to yank her against him and run his tongue up the slender column of her throat, taking all that salty warmth into his mouth. Summer heat had never looked so good on a woman, and he knew he needed to get out of there before he did something stupid.
“Shower’s all yours,” she told him, her gaze focused on the base of his throat instead of his eyes.
“Thanks.” His voice was gruff, but he couldn’t help it. She’d taken a step toward him, bringing her into the last wash of sunlight that spilled through one of the front windows, the shimmering beams highlighting the strips of gold buried in all those waves of strawberry-blond. He wanted to search out every strand...wind the long skeins around his fist...and hold her tight. Pull her to him. Into his arms. Until she was trapped there.
And that’s my cue to get the hell out of here.
Grabbing the leather bag he’d left by the front door, Cian headed toward the bathroom without so much as another glance in her direction. But it was hardly any better once he was alone in the tiny white-tiled room. Her scent lingered in the steamy air, and he pressed his shoulders against the door as he dropped the bag on the floor, his head pressed back against the wood as he squeezed his eyes shut and clawed on to every ounce of self-control he could find. He needed it like an alcoholic standing before an open bar, the shiny bottles tempting him with drink me...drink me...drink me. Though in his case, the words were coming from Sayre’s soft lips, her husky voice curling around him like sensual tendrils of heat.
It actually hurt a part of him deep inside to be near her like this. And, yeah, it’d been pure hell to be so far away from her for so long. But this...Jesus. This was torture on a level he’d never experienced before, and he still hadn’t managed to get a handle on the right way to deal with it.
He ended up taking the coldest shower of his life, knowing if he lingered he was liable to take matters into his own hands. And he instinctively knew it wouldn’t be enough.
Fifteen minutes later, when Cian headed back out into the living room, it felt like he was walking into some kind of surreal new reality that didn’t fit in his world. The delicious scent of sizzling vegetables and Asian spices drifted to his nose, and he looked toward the kitchen, surprised to see Sayre standing with her back to him as she stirred something in a pan on the stove.
What the...? Was she making him dinner?
A slight flush warmed her cheeks as she glanced at him over her shoulder, sweeping those big eyes over the clean clothes that covered his body. “It’s getting kinda late, so I figured I should throw something together for us to eat.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s not much,” she murmured, her gaze seeming to linger a bit on his chest before she quickly looked away. “Just some veggie stir-fry and salad.”
“That sounds great, Sayre. Anything I can do to help?” he asked, biting back the words he really wanted to say. Lose your clothes and let me touch and lick and nibble on every mouthwatering inch of you wasn’t the kind of thing he needed to be thinking when it came to this woman, much less saying out loud.
He joined her in the kitchen, the two of them working in silence as she finished the noodles and he pulled down plates and glasses from the glass-fronted cupboards. Though they weren’t speaking, he could see her clever mind working overtime as he watched her from the corner of his eye, the hammering pulse at the base of her throat telling him she was anything but unaffected by his presence.
“Do you want to sit outside?” she asked him, once the stir-fry and salad had been dished onto their plates. “It’s probably cooler out there.”
“It’ll be safer inside,” he replied, carrying his plate and glass of iced tea into the living room.
“Suit yourself,” she said, taking a seat in one of the chairs while he sat on the sofa. “But I don’t have a TV for you to veg out in front of.”
“Not a problem.” He never watched TV much anyway, which seemed to be something they had in common. He preferred to be outdoors, his time indoors usually spent in a bed. Though since he’d left the Alley, he’d gotten damn good at losing himself in a book, during those brief periods of time when he hadn’t been searching for Aedan.
He was nearly halfway through the delicious meal, enjoying simply being in her presence without arguing, when she finally looked over at him and said, “Your accent seems stronger now. Have you been living back in Ireland?”
“I’ve traveled a lot, but I have an apartment in Dublin.”
She swallowed a bite of salad, then sighed. “I bet it’s beautiful.”
“Dublin?”
Sounding more than a little wistful, she said, “Ireland. All of it. I’ve always wanted to go, but...well, traveling isn’t something that really works for me now.”
He took a drink of his tea, then slid his gaze back to hers. “That sucks,” he offered in a low voice, wondering why he was stating the friggin’ obvious. Of course it sucked. She’d basically been living like a recluse up on this goddamn mountain, and on that note, he muttered, “I can’t believe Brody and the others didn’t put anyone on you for protection out here.”
“They tried,” she said flatly, turning her attention back to her plate. “But no matter how sneaky they were about it, I could still pick up on them. When they realized they were only hurting me more, they finally just let me be.”
Since hearing that made him want to destroy something with his bare hands, he forced himself to change the subject and think of something positive to say. It wasn’t easy, considering all he felt like at that moment was kicking his own ass for all the mistakes that he’d made, but he finally came up with a wo
rthy compliment. “You’ve turned this into a beautiful place, Sayre. The, uh, garden is incredible.”
Her mouth twisted with something caught between a wry smile and a grimace. “Thanks. It keeps me busy.”
“Well, you’re obviously amazing at it.”
Shrugging one feminine shoulder, she kept her attention focused on the noodles she was twirling around her fork. “They like my touch, so it’s easy.”
His chin shot up like he’d just been clipped on it. “Your touch?”
“Yep,” she replied, lifting her gaze. “I’ve always had a green thumb when it comes to growing things.”
“Yeah,” he murmured, shaking his head a little. He was not going to get jealous over a bunch of leafy green shit, damn it.
Keep telling yourself that, his wolf laughed. I, for one, would give anything to be a mother-lovin’ daisy if it meant I got to feel her hands on me.
He grunted under his breath, and they finished eating, then carried their plates into the kitchen. He dried while she washed, trying like hell to take shallow breaths, since her scent was seriously screwing with his head. Unable to take it anymore, he set the towel down after drying the last pan and muttered, “It’s getting late, Sayre. You should get some rest.”
Propping her hip against the counter, she gave him a look that said she didn’t like being told what to do. “I’ll go to bed when I’m ready. Right now, Cian, we need to talk. Not chat about mundane crap. We need to actually discuss something important.”
Figuring he knew exactly what she wanted to discuss, he tried to find the words to come clean, but couldn’t. He swallowed, struggling for the right way to explain, but nothing was there. It was like the fucking well had just dried up, his tongue thick in his mouth. Shaking his head with frustration, he somehow managed to rasp, “I know we need to talk, but...I’m not ready to tell you everything. Not yet. I need a little more time.”
A quiet, bitter laugh fell from her lips. “That’s such a jackass attitude, seeing as how I seem to have been thrown into the middle of some bizarre family feud you have going on with some brother none of us ever even knew existed. But that’s not what I was getting at.”
Relief swept through his system as he leaned back against the opposite counter. “What then?”
“It’s the Alley. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it’s hell for me there these days.”
“I’ll be there with you, Sayre.”
“You’ll be there with me, huh?” She laughed again, shooting him a baffled look of amazement. “Is that meant to make me feel better?”
He flushed, grinding his molars together so hard he was surprised they hadn’t cracked. “I just meant that I’ll do whatever I can to help make it easier for you there. But we don’t have any other choice at this point, because we need the protection.”
“And when you’re gone?” she asked softly, her slender brows slightly raised in challenge.
“Let’s just get through the present. We can worry about the rest later.”
“Seriously? That’s all you’re going to say? You don’t even think I deserve the courtesy of a full explanation?”
“Jesus, Sayre. I don’t want to talk about this right now,” he growled, his heart hammering so hard he wondered if he were on the verge of a friggin’ panic attack. And the more she stood up to him, the harder it was for him to remember why he had to keep his goddamn hands to himself.
Brow knitted with a fresh wave of anger, she said, “Yeah, I picked up on the fact you don’t want to talk. But guess what? I don’t give a damn!”
“You should,” he argued, his voice rising. “Because there’s a good reason for why I want you to just shut the hell up. Every time you open your mouth, I want—” He broke off, cursing at his crumbling self-control as he shoved both hands back through his hair so hard he nearly ripped it out. “Christ, woman. If you knew what I want to do to you, you’d run screaming all the way back to Maryland. So just let it go for tonight!”
* * *
Given the situation, Sayre knew that “letting it go” was probably a damn good idea, but she couldn’t do it. Not when Cian Hennessey was suddenly looking at her as if she were the embodiment of every primal sexual fantasy that he’d ever had. “Wait. Are you...are you saying that you want me?”
“I always want you.”
The gritty words were so sharp with emotion she almost felt cut by them, and she slowly shook her head in wonder. “But you always said I was too young for you.”
His hands tightened into fists until his knuckles turned white. “You’re no longer a child, Sayre.”
“And I wasn’t a child at eighteen,” she snapped, sick of this archaic attitude he had about her age. “If I was old enough to go to war for my pack, then I was old enough for sex, Cian. But you left me anyway.”
“That was only part of the reason I left,” he said roughly, his chest expanding with each of his hard, ragged breaths.
Narrowing her eyes at him, she kept her tone deliberately calm. “I left, too. But not right away. I lived in the Alley for nearly six months without you there, and it was nice to learn that there were some men on that mountain who didn’t think I was too young for what they wanted.”
An immediate scowl twisted his brow, his silver gaze going dark and diamond-hard. She could feel the powerful force of his anger surrounding her, blasting against her, but unlike with the others, Cian’s emotions didn’t cause her physical pain or discomfort. They simply fed her own, making her feel...charged, like a draining battery that had finally been given a potent boost. The jolt was as stunning as it was delicious, raising the fine hairs on her skin, and the fact that it felt so freaking good only made her angrier. So furious, she didn’t even flinch when he straightened to his full height and snarled, “What exactly are you saying, Sayre?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she threw him a taunting look that she knew would rile him, her voice a soft, sultry drawl. “That really isn’t any of your business, is it?”
He advanced on her so quickly he was there before she’d even noticed he was moving, getting right up in her space until he was looming over her and she had to crane her head back just to see his face, his expression one of pure, seething fury. “Everything about you is my business, little girl. And if any male has put his hands on you, I will fucking kill him. Am I clear?”
Sayre blinked up at him in a mild state of shock, unable to believe he was actually reacting this way—as if he truly gave a crap about what she did or who she did it with. Sure, he’d acted like a jealous ass before he’d abandoned the Alley, but the guy had dropped off the grid for five years. That was half a damn decade! For all he knew, she could have run off, married some amazing man and started a family by now. He’d had no way of knowing what she was doing or who she was doing it with. His actions couldn’t have made his feelings toward their connection any clearer than if he’d looked her right in the eye and told her she meant nothing to him. Not a single goddamn thing.
Though the women he’d taken back to his cabin in front of her had certainly gotten the message across before he’d left. Nothing like watching your life mate hook up with an endless stream of females to make it clear he didn’t want you.
Pulling in a deep breath, Sayre took a few steps back to put some much-needed space between them. “What I’m clear on is that you’ll never know what I’ve done or who I’ve done it with. So this is a pointless argument, Gramps.”
His eyes widened at the name she’d used for him, and she had to bite back a satisfied smirk. Now that she’d found a chink in that titanium-plated armor of his, she was sure as hell going to exploit it. Heck, she might even look up old-man jokes online just so she could have them in reserve, ready to use when needed.
He opened his mouth, then closed it, his nostrils flaring as he pulled in a sharp breath of air. The seconds stre
tched out, each one heavy and weighted with possibility and tension, until he finally cursed something thick and guttural under his breath and stalked around her, making his way toward the front door with long, angry strides. Then, without so much as a backward glance, he slammed out of the cabin. She waited, wondering if she’d hear the roar of the Audi’s engine, but his shadow moved across the curtained window a few moments later, and she realized he was outside pacing. A brief spot of flame sparked as he paused to light a cigarette—the first one she’d seen him smoke all day—and then the pacing resumed.
It wasn’t anything to necessarily be proud of, but she’d have been totally fibbing if she’d said it didn’t feel good to know that she’d gotten to him. Hah! Score one for the witch! In your face, wolf boy!
But as she turned and headed back to her bedroom, she had to face the harsh reality that he’d gotten to her, as well. Her body ached a little deeper with each step that took her away from him, her heart thudding to a jarring, painful beat that sounded suspiciously like go back...go back...
And the sex-hungry wild woman living inside her was practically screeching her head off, furious that Sayre wasn’t giving her what she wanted. Unfortunately, Sayre pretty much felt the same way.
She might be a twenty-three-year-old virgin, but damn it, that wasn’t by choice. And while she might still be innocent, she embraced her sexuality. Had learned to touch herself and make it feel good. Liked reading about sex and imagining what it would feel like when she could finally give her body the freedom to enjoy it one day. After Cian had left, if there’d been a man she’d wanted, she would have gone to bed with him. But there hadn’t. So she’d taken care of herself, and hoped that one day that would change.
The last few weeks, however, had been...different, her need becoming sharper, more focused, until she’d wondered if it weren’t time she invest in some “things” to help her out. She wasn’t thrilled about walking into a sex shop, because while she might be a modern woman, it was still probably going to make her blush. Even the idea of ordering something online and having it delivered to her PO box in town made her cheeks warm. But now...now she wondered if maybe her body had started quickening in preparation for this. For his return. For the man she’d always wanted showing up out of the blue and acting all protective, as if he actually gave a crap about her.
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