“What does he mean?” Grace stared at me, her eyes full of worry.
Glaring at Kon, I forced a smile for Grace. “He’s just being a dick. I’m fine. We don’t get sick. You know that.”
“Just lovesick.” Serge coughed into his hand, which did nothing to actually hide his words.
“Oh my god. Oh my god! You’re in love? You met your mate?!” Grace threw herself at me and hugged me tightly. “Gray! Why didn’t you say anything?”
What was I supposed to say? Laila had wanted to leave after a difficult night and I’d let her? That I didn’t even know if I was ready for a mate? That I was still considering fleeing the coop? That Laila had hurt me by walking away? Not a chance. I just shook my head and focused on my meal. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” Grace sounded astonished with me.
Serge, deciding to meddle and really fuck up dinner, just grinned. “He’s considering an offer that takes him overseas for several months.”
My sister was no blushing flower. She was badass and vicious and trained to take down someone twice her size. And right then, she was about to turn her viciousness on me. She scowled at me, her cheeks darkening. “You. Are. Kidding. Right?”
“I haven’t decided anything.” Sending my own scowl at Serge, I growled. “How about you shut the fuck up?”
He growled back at me. “How about you commit to the office, or not?”
Grace slammed her hands on the table. “Of course, he’s committing to the office! You’re not leaving, Gray. Tell him you’re not leaving!”
I dropped my fork and shoved my chair away from the table. “I don’t know.”
“You can’t do that. You can’t just leave. You know how I feel. You know how much I want you here. Why would you leave? Why would you find your mate and leave? Who is she?”
Hannah leaned forward and grinned at Grace. “Laila.”
“You’re trying to leave Laila?! What’s wrong with you? She’s amazing!”
“I fucking know that! You don’t think I know that?!” I hadn’t meant to shout at my sister and I instantly felt horrible. Shaking my head, I reached over and took her hand. “Sorry, Gracey. I’m not trying to leave her. She left me.”
The table went silent.
I groaned. I couldn’t sit there and pretend like I wasn’t going insane. Standing up, I kissed the top of Grace’s head and waved everyone off. “I just need some time.”
Hannah smacked Serge, just as Grace did the same to Kon. “Go with him! He needs a friend!”
If I wasn’t feeling so miserable, I would’ve felt warmed by the sight of the men rising to come with me. Whether it was because they actually considered me a friend, or because their mates had laid down an order, they were willing to leave with me. I really did need time, though. Alone.
“I’m good, guys. I just need some time to think and process.”
Serge folded his arms over his chest. “Think and process all you want, Gray. This is your home and we’re your brothers. Whatever the reason Laila walked away, she’ll come back. Things will work out. And if they don’t, we’ll be here to help you through it.”
Kon slapped me on the back. “We got your back, brother. Don’t run.”
“Absolutely.” Serge nodded. “And I’m speaking for all of us—Maxim, Alexei, Dmitry. You’re one of us now. We stick together.”
I was stunned. Here I was thinking these guys were business associates and coworkers, and I’d totally failed to notice that in their eyes we were something more—brothers. They actually considered me one of them. A lump formed in my throat and I swallowed it down before I did something stupid like, I don’t know, start throwin’ out hugs or something.
“Okay, much appreciated but, like I said, I just need time to think and process.” I turned and walked back down the beach to my house. Settling on the back porch, I stared out at the ocean. I didn’t know if I could stand seeing Laila around the island and not having her. It would kill me.
Grace was right, though. While it might’ve been easier to leave before I’d met Laila, easy was just a perspective. I hadn’t lived near Grace since I was eighteen. We’d kept in touch, but I’d basically been alone since then. Now, the thought of putting down roots on Sunkissed Key for real, not just have it as a touchstone on my way to somewhere else, felt good. I liked the island. I liked the guys, and after tonight, maybe I’d allow myself to let deeper bonds of friendship develop with them. I liked being able to stop over and see my sister at the drop of a hat. When Grace had children, which would most likely be soon, I wanted to have a relationship with my nieces or nephews. I wanted a chance to maybe fix things with Laila. None of that would happen if I left.
Groaning, I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. I’d changed since I left the agency. Their betrayal had hit deep, and I’d spent weeks holed up, going back and forth between dying and struggling to survive. My body still harbored aches and pains from the attack. I felt old, useless.
Opening up the new security firm answered the question about my career. I could enjoy that work. Still, without Laila, living would be just like being stuck out in the ocean adrift, bleeding out, waiting on my body to heal itself, or for death.
I couldn’t take the job offer. I couldn’t leave. I think I knew that even before I’d hung up the phone after receiving the offer. Grace had never asked for anything until she asked me to stay here on the island and be a family with her. Leaving her would’ve been wrong. Whether she was ready to commit or not, she was my mate. Mine. And I was hers.
She had to accept both parts of herself. That was the make or break of it. As much as I’d be okay with her being human, she wasn’t. She was a shifter. Her wolf needed to come out. A beautiful, terrified thing, it needed to learn the world, accept that she was going to keep on living, and bond with Laila. Laila needed her wolf to show her that we were mates. They both needed to accept me.
I leaned forward on my deck chair and rested my forearms on the porch railing staring out at the ocean. It wasn’t going to be an easy task. Laila was just as scared as her wolf. They were both cornered animals ready to attack. Although the flesh had knitted back together, I still had the ache in my arm from her teeth to prove it. It didn’t matter. She might think she was walking away from me, but I wasn’t going to let that happen.
Laila could walk away all she wanted, but there was nowhere she could go that I wouldn’t be following right behind her.
20
Laila
October leaned over toward my chair and looked at the back of Georgina Bean’s head. Her eyes widened and her mouth, covered in jet-black lipstick, fell open. “Ohhh...”
Thankfully, Georgina was nose deep in a magazine with Angie and Brad on the cover and a lightning bolt between them. She was reading about how their football team of children were dealing with the divorce and was completely unaware of what I’d just done to the back of her head.
I carefully put my scissors down and stepped back, trying to view her head from another angle. “Ohhh.”
Jammie noticed the two of us both standing back, hands over our mouths, contemplating Georgina Bean’s scalp, and came over, a worried expression on her face. When she saw the chunk of hair missing, she choked on her peppermint lozenge and had to have Kitty pound on her back for a solid twenty seconds.
Georgina finally lifted her head and noticed all of us staring at her. “What?”
Tears clouded my vision, but I fought the hell out of them. I’d cried enough lately. I messed up. Nothing to do but take responsibility. “Oh, Georgina, my scissors slipped. I’m so sorry. I cut a section of your hair much shorter than I had meant to.”
Georgina gently closed the magazine and crossed her legs. “How short are we talkin’?”
Jammie stepped in. “It’s pretty short, honey, but it’s nothing we can’t fix.”
Georgina met my eyes in the mirror and I would swear later that I saw puffs of steam shooting out her ears. “I told you I was growing my hair out for
the Mrs. Sunkissed Key pageant.”
Had she? I couldn’t remember if she had or not. My mind wasn’t running at a fully functional level. I hadn’t even remembered to turn my car off before getting out of it and coming inside the salon this morning. October had spotted it still running out in the parking lot.
“You did this on purpose, didn’t you?!” Georgina was small, curvy, and normally as kind as Mother Teresa, but apparently, when it came to the Mrs. Sunkissed Key pageant, the woman was cutthroat. Georgina was out of the chair and flying at me in the blink of an eye. Her arms were reaching for me, aimed at my throat, as Jammie and October tried to hold her back. “You think you’re going to beat me in the pageant, just because I now have a bald spot on the back of my scalp? Is that it? You’re wrong!”
Without thinking, or even fully realizing what I was doing, my fist shot out and I punched Georgina Bean right square in the nose.
Then, we all stood there, floored.
Georgina was probably the most shocked of all. She blinked several times and then took a deep breath. “Oh, dear, I think I needed that.”
As she sank back in the salon chair, I moved around to face her and frowned. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for messing up your hair and…and…I’m sorry for punching you in the nose.”
“Man trouble?” When I nodded, she sighed deeply. “Me too. My husband left me six months ago for Madeline Butts, who works down at the post office, the hussy. That’s why I’m doing this pageant. I thought I’d show him what he lost. I kept imagining his face when he found out that he gave up Mrs. Sunkissed Key. Stupid, right?”
I couldn’t call a woman I’d just punched in the face stupid. “No, no. Not at all.”
“I haven’t been eating. I’m starving myself to fit into a dress that I could’ve just bought in the right size to begin with, and I’m so hungry. I was sitting here leafing through this magazine wondering what the caloric intake would be if I just gave in and ate it.”
Jammie hurried to the back while I gently removed the magazine from Georgina’s grasp. When Jammie returned, she slipped chocolate chip cookie into Georgina’s hand. “Here, honey. Eat!”
While she ate her cookie, and then another four, I assessed the damage to her hair. “I can fix this. I can give you an undercut, shaved in the back and a sweeping wave on top. It’s trendy and edgy and contemporary, and it’ll look great with your face shape, Georgina.”
She contemplated. “Another cookie and a ten percent discount and you’re on.”
I could’ve hugged her. “It’s free, G. Your next five cuts are free. I’m just so sorry.”
She waved her hand in the air. “Women throughout history have done some of the damn stupidest things because of men.” She ate another cookie and sighed. “I’m not doing a pageant. I don’t even like wearing dresses. Also, my husband is a fucking idiot.”
Jammie and Kitty both agreed wholeheartedly. October cleared her throat and elbowed me. “Incoming.”
I looked over my shoulder and froze, scissors once again poised above Georgina’s head. Jammie took them from my hand.
My nose knew before my eyes did. The mixture of leather, coriander, woodsmoke, and lime could only be one person. Only this time, roses overpowered the mixture of fragrances. Gray poked his head around the large bouquet of flowers and winked at me. “Don’t look so surprised. Did you really think I was going to give up that easily?”
Georgina had swung herself around to see what was happening, and my ears picked up the sound of a cookie hitting the floor.
I tried to think of words…any words…any words at all, but not a single one came to mind. I just stared at Gray, hearing my wolf howl and beg to claim him. My heart beat a wicked staccato against my ribcage, my nipples hardened, and my panties grew damp. It was a traitorous reaction for my body to have for a man I’d sworn to stay away from.
“So. Lessons at my house tonight. I’m not taking no for an answer. I know where you live, where your friends live, and I have the words ‘covert operative’ on my resume.” He handed me the flowers and brushed a knuckle over my cheek and then across my lower lip. “Make me hunt you down if you want, sweetheart. I will find you.”
He left without another word and I watched, open mouthed, until he was out of sight, my stomach tightening with every step he took. Everything in my body told me to run after him. My wolf begged me to chase him.
“Holy shit.” October sank into her chair and fanned herself. “My panties just ignited into flames. Matter of fact, they’re ashes now. Ashes.”
Jammie accidentally poked herself with my scissors and grimaced. “He’s a dangerous man to have around. Enough to make a woman a little stupid.”
“Oh lord, I’ll be stupid. I’ll be stupid all day,” October said dreamily.
Kitty chuckled and continued working on her client. “Why are you still standing there, Laila? Girl, you need to get things sorted out with your man.”
“She needs sex.” Margie came out of the back and laughed. “Don’t underestimate the healing power of a good orgasm. Why do you think I’m so good at what I do?”
Jammie snorted. “Don’t act like anyone’s been near that dried-up, old prune cave in the last three decades. You’ve probably got dust bunnies old enough to be October’s mom.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I saw old Joe Hill coming out of her house the other morning.” Kitty dropped that bomb and then disappeared into the back.
“That bitch!” Margie raced after her and the ruckus that ensued had Jammie running into the back to break it up, still waving my scissors around.
October sighed, still thinking of Gray. “Was he really a covert operative? ‘Cause that’s, like, next-level hot.”
I growled before I knew it and slapped a hand over my mouth. My wolf had been showing herself more and more, and sometimes at somewhat embarrassingly inappropriate moments. Growling at my coworker like a dog wasn’t appropriate. “Sorry. I’m just going to get my scissors and fix you up, Georgina.”
“Don’t hurry on my account. I’m busy carving an image of that whole scene into my memory. That’ll stay at the top of my spank bank for all of eternity.”
October and I both shouted at the same time, “Georgina!”
21
Gray
Just when I thought I was going to have to go hunt for Laila, she pulled in behind my truck. Instead of one of her minidresses and sky-high, strappy heels, she was in a T-shirt, flip-flops and leggings. If she thought she was dressing down in an attempt to look less sexy, she was mistaken. I was drooling over the way the leggings hugged the curve of her thighs before she’d even taken three steps. That plus the way the worn cotton shirt showed just a hint of the outline of her nipples had me stunned stupid for a few seconds.
Laila clearly had things on her mind, though. “I’m only here because this wolf won’t leave me alone.”
I tilted my head to the side and waited for her to finish.
“Don’t do that. Don’t do that cute head tilt thingy.” She groaned and turned away from me continuing on toward the marsh. She didn’t wait for me. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
The leggings from the back were even better, but I didn’t want to press my luck by pointing that out. “So, you’re not trying to shut her out anymore?”
“I want to. I want to bury all of this and forget it.” Her eyes flicked to me and I knew she didn’t mean me. My ego was saved. “She’s not going away, though. She’s showing up more than ever.”
I watched her hesitate and waited.
“I shifted again. Twice more, actually. I didn’t want to, and definitely didn’t mean to, but I did. She wasn’t so panicked, so I could think clearly enough to shift back.” With a grunt, Laila crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me. “These wolf lessons… I didn’t know it would be like this.”
“Like what, little wolf?”
“Like…” She scrunched up her nose. “It’s maddening. Hearing her thoughts and getting ever
ything through her senses… It’s intense. Everything is louder, smells stronger, even tastes are different. The perm solution at work almost killed me today. I almost killed someone today.”
I straightened at that and moved closer. “What?”
“Not literally.” With a pout, she cocked her hip out. “I butchered a haircut. First time since I was a student that I had a slip up like that. The woman had a strong reaction, understandably so, and I punched her. I’m also growling at people.”
I laughed. “Why are you growling at people?”
“Because October said—” She stopped herself. “No reason. I just… This is all a lot. I thought it would all be easier, I guess.”
“It’s easy for some people. They just shift one day and their family is there, talking them through it. Things make sense and they fit in. For others, like us, it’s not all Leave It to Beaver-esque.” I shrugged. “My mom was a wolf shifter, but my dad wasn’t. In fact, my dad wasn’t much of a human either. When I was born, my mom knew I was a shifter, but when she left my dad, she didn’t take me with her. She ran off and left me with a dad who had absolutely no clue about shifters until he had a kid who was one. He called me an abomination. Every accidental shift I had as a kid earned me a harsh beating and a night in a dog crate. I was riddled with shame, and I used to pray that I never shifted again.”
Laila bit her lip and swayed toward me. “Oh, Gray. That’s so horrible.”
“It was. We moved nonstop. He was always saying that it was because of me. We couldn’t stay in one place, or someone might find out about me and report me to the government. They’d take me and run tests on me until I died from all the poking and prodding. Turns out, that was all bullshit. The government knows all about shifters. We moved so much because Dad was a conspiracy theorist and a petty criminal.”
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