by Tami Lund
“Mine,” he whispered. “You’re mine now.”
“I’ve always been yours, Josh,” she said. “Since the day we met.”
“It’s official now,” he said as he pulled out and pistoned into her again.
She made a sexy noise as she met his thrust, and then she laughed huskily. “Is this some kind of mating ritual for you, Josh Tigre?”
He grunted as he thrust into her again. And again. “Yes,” he ground out as he began mindlessly pumping, harder and harder, faster and faster. His body took over and his mind stopped functioning. All he could do was push them both closer and closer to the brink. His hand slipped down until his fingers threaded into soft, tight curls, and then he rubbed against her clit.
Rachel arched as her body stiffened and she cried out, an animalistic noise of pure, unadulterated pleasure. The sound sent him spiraling over the edge, and he clung to her as he poured his seed into her, as he completed the act of mating with her.
They were mates. It was official.
Josh held her to him as he sank to his knees on the floor next to the bed, pulling her into his lap, where he continued to hold her as his head dropped back against the side of the bed and reality intruded.
Holy hell, what had he just done?
Rachel reached up and tentatively touched his face. He hadn’t shaved in at least four days and the growth was thick enough to be a full-fledged beard.
“Hey,” she murmured. “That was awfully damn intense.”
“It was,” he agreed. Did he tell her? How? This mating ritual was far beyond her comprehension. And he couldn’t very well tell her what he was, so she could understand the significance of what they’d done.
Could he?
“What’s going on here, Josh?”
He shook off those errant thoughts and focused on the woman sitting in his lap. “Why do you ask?”
She waved her hand limply. “This. You. That intensity. That was incredible. But why? Why now? Why here? What happened?”
He squeezed her tightly as he buried his face in her hair again. He loved her hair. He loved everything about her.
“Seeing that picture, I guess. Seeing you here, helping out, when no one asked you to. You don’t even have any connection to Helen and her mate, yet you rounded up twenty people who all came over here willingly and without question, to help someone they don’t know. It’s... humbling.”
“All those people have been helped by the organization I work for,” Rachel said. “This is their way of giving back.”
“I love you, Rachel.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.
She stiffened, and then turned around in his lap, so she faced him. “What did you say?”
He let his head drop back against the bed again. “Shit. I know this isn’t the time or the place, but... I do, Rachel. I really do. I want you to live with me permanently. I don’t ever want you to leave. I want you to—to—” To be with him. To be his mate.
Oh wait—she already was. He had a ridiculous urge to laugh.
But she shook her head. Why was she shaking her head?
“We can’t, Josh.” She scrambled out of his lap, quickly dressed, and fixed her mused ponytail. “I need to get back downstairs. Finish cleaning up. Finish helping. I’ll—I’ll talk to you later.” She bolted out the door.
What the hell?
Chapter 12
I love you, Rachel.
I love you, Rachel.
The words sang in her head, a taunting melody, teasing and tempting her—and making her utterly miserable. She was a whore who had deliberately seduced him for her own means. Yes, the purpose had been to preserve her own life, and yes, it had been against her will—initially.
But if she were honest with herself, she would admit she might have done things differently, had she not fallen for Josh, too. Yes, Kent Pantera seemed like a badass, and yes, in the beginning she’d worried she’d gotten mixed up with some sort of mafia family. But the reality was, she could have run. Nothing bound her to this area—nothing but Josh. She could have packed a bag and taken the train to Chicago, lost herself in the big city. She had waitressing and housekeeping experience; it wasn’t much of a living, but both skills were necessary in every town, and she knew she would have no problem finding a new job. She could have survived on her own.
Now she was under Josh’s protection, yet still beholden to Pantera. And Josh had just declared his love for her, both in the way he’d made love to her and with words. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he believed they now had some sort of connection, like they were tied together somehow. He had been that intense.
But she couldn’t accept what he offered. Yet, for her own safety, she had to stay with him. Or she had to run, to disappear, leave him and Pantera behind.
Except there was a glitch in that plan, too. Helen had told her all about what the fire inspector said, and what she suspected. Rachel had spoken to the woman briefly, when she first arrived to help with the cleanup of what was left of the Bears’ home. The inspector was sharp. If there was a connection between the blaze and Kent Pantera, she would find it.
This gave Rachel hope. If Pantera were arrested for arson, her problems would be fixed. She could confess her feelings to Josh and they could live happily ever after. She could pretend their meeting had been purely coincidental, and he never had to know about the Pantera connection.
She also felt obligated to stay because it wasn’t just Josh’s position Pantera was after. She had no idea why he would deliberately set fire to an elderly couple’s home, but she also didn’t want to leave while so many people were potentially in danger. Not that she could do much on her own. All she could do was be there for Josh, as he struggled with this latest threat to his association.
It was finding the fine line between Pantera believing she was doing his bidding and keeping Josh from finding out she had any tie to the slick older man that was the real trick here.
* * * *
She was lounging in the bathtub when he finally made his appearance in his suite much later that evening. She’d unearthed a jar of lavender bath oils and had sunk into the steaming water, grateful for the way it almost instantly pulled away the aches and pains in her muscles, after working all day at the Bears’ decimated home.
“It smells like my mother in here.” He stepped into the room, holding a lowball glass half-full of amber liquid. His eyes were bleary. It wasn’t his first drink of the evening.
He paused in front of the counter and traced his fingers over the writing on the bottle of bath oil. “So many reminders of my parents today,” he murmured, his voice so low she almost couldn’t hear him. After a moment, he headed over to the tub, dropped onto the ledge and leaned against the wall, lifting one foot to rest on the patterned tiles wrapping around the ceramic basin. She sat in the water, watching him, holding her breath. She still hadn’t worked out exactly what to say to him, after she’d run out on him when he’d declared his love earlier in the day.
Josh dipped a hand into the water and swirled it round, while lifting the glass to his lips for a generous drink. “My parents were in love. It was obvious, to everyone around them, all the time, even when they argued. I was both disgusted and jealous of what they had.”
He paused, and Rachel continued to watch him, her breath baited.
“My position in this... association requires that I take a—er, get married, produce a couple offspring. Carry on the family name and all that. I’ve been in charge for a year and a half, and I’ve resisted that particular requirement. Do you want to know why?”
She cleared her throat. “You don’t have to tell me.”
He ignored her comment. “My grandfather fell in love once. But she ended up mating to someone else. He settled for someone he did not love, someone convenient. They obviously had sex on occasion, because she whelped, er, birthed my dad and three siblings. But never once in my entire life did I see them express affection for each other. Not once. They w
ere more like roommates, I suppose.
“My parents, on the other hand, were madly, deeply, and completely in love until the day they died. It was night and day. Where my grandparents never so much as hugged in my presence, my parents could hardly keep their hands off each other.” He paused, swirling his hand in the water, while sipping from his drink. “Tell me, Rachel, which relationship would you prefer?” He looked at her as if he truly wanted an answer.
“Your parents’ relationship, of course,” she finally ground out.
He nodded. “Me, too. I tried, in the beginning. Shortly after their death, when I became the leader of our, um, association. Every woman I dated, every woman I took to bed, I analyzed them, tried to determine whether I could fall in love with them. And every time I came up short. Every single time.”
She watched his hand drift closer and closer, until he ran his fingers along her leg. She sucked in a breath, wanting him to touch her more, and yet wanting to climb out of the tub and run away. Guilt warred with lust. Well, probably love, although she worked to deny it on the grounds she didn’t really know the emotion in the first place.
“And then I met you.” Such a simple comment, and yet so full of meaning. She remained silent while watching his hand trail up and down her leg.
“I did a little research today,” he said.
During their initial meeting, Kent Pantera had informed her that he knew she was all alone in the world. She had no one, not a single individual who would care one way or the other if she disappeared. That had been the pivotal moment, the point at which she’d agreed to sleep with Josh in order to preserve her own life. The memory of that meeting popped into her head now.
“Oh?”
He lifted his hand out of the water and indicated her face, which she’d washed of makeup. Undoubtedly, the skin was puffy, the bruises standing out in stark relief, after soaking in a hot bath.
“Sent someone over to your apartment complex, had him ask some questions. There’s one thing you need to understand about me, Rachel. About my kind. We do not take lightly to others abusing someone we hold dear. And we tend to lean toward meting our own punishment, rather than let the human authorities handle our problems.” He paused, almost as if he wanted to let her comment, should she choose.
She didn’t.
“He came back with some interesting information. He says your neighbors informed him there hadn’t been a drug deal outside their building in months, maybe even a year.”
“Josh...”
“But one neighbor did inform him that she saw a man leaving your apartment, in the evening, the day you took off work to watch Maddy and Teddy.”
“It’s not—”
“She swore she heard the sounds of a scuffle. Things banging around. Like a woman getting beaten up.” He wrapped his hand her ankle and squeezed for several moments before relaxing his hold, but still touching her.
“She said she almost called the cops, but then the guy left, and when she rushed across the hall to check on you, you begged her not to call them.”
Old Mrs. Benson. A sweet old lady who’d married and divorced an abusive man and managed to raise three children by herself. She spent her days babysitting her grandkids and her evenings watching out for her other neighbors. Rachel closed her eyes and wished she had a pair of sparkling red shoes she could click three times to transport her away. Anywhere but here.
“You can imagine I have quite a few questions,” Josh said, breaking the silence that had fallen. “First and foremost, of course, is whether you are seeing someone else.”
Her eyes shot open and she surged into an upright position, splashing water every which way. She grabbed his arm, mindless of his rumpled dress shirt and her wet hand.
“No,” she insisted. “There hasn’t been anyone since I met you. I swear.”
“I believe you.”
Rachel sighed with relief, even though really, truly, he shouldn’t. Everything about their relationship was a lie. Everything except the emotions, the feelings she had developed for him.
“An ex-boyfriend, then? Angry that you wouldn’t go back to him?” He sounded so hopeful, she was tempted to let him believe it. But she was so tired of lying to him.
“No. I can’t tell you, Josh. Please don’t ask. Just know it isn’t sexual or emotional or—or anything like that. I just—there’s some stuff—I—”
“I can help you. Whatever it is. Let me help you fix this, Rachel.”
She burst into tears. God, did she want him to help her. But she was so afraid. He couldn’t protect her all the time, and Pantera had told her he had been spying on them. She believed the man was capable of far more than what he’d demonstrated thus far.
“You can’t, Josh. It’s—I have to do this on my own.”
“You don’t have to do anything on your own, not anymore. You won’t ever be alone again. I promise.”
She wanted to believe him. She’d been alone for most of her life. As a child, the one thing she’d always craved was to have a family, a support network, to have faith that those around her would always be there for her. Everything she had never had. Everything she had long ago given up believing she would ever have.
Everything Josh promised could now be hers, for the first time in her life. Except it was all based on a lie. And she was so sick of lying.
“Just this one last thing,” she promised, looking him full in the eyes and willing him to believe in her, even if she didn’t deserve his trust. “I have to fix this myself. And then I’ll take you up on that offer.”
Chapter 13
She hadn’t been able to distract him. Even with sex. He had continued to press, and she continued to refuse to tell him. He had worn her down so much, she had given serious consideration to confessing her relationship with Kent Pantera. Except her fear Josh would forsake her was greater than her fear of Pantera. She wasn’t sure what that made her. Stupid? Crazy? Pitiful?
In only a few short weeks, Rachel had screwed up her life worse than her junky, loser mother had over the course of fifteen years, when she’d finally killed herself with the drugs that had ruled her life.
It was time to fix her problem. Rachel was sick of being the victim. She’d always been lousy at it anyway. The fire inspector, Violet Buchannan, that was her ticket. Violet already suspected foul play. Rachel intended to give her another nudge, so she focused her inspection on Kent Pantera. If the inspector proved Pantera was behind the destruction to the Bears’ home, he would go to jail. And Rachel would be free of his control.
Free.
She made one last plea to Josh to let her handle this on her own, and whether it was exhaustion or something else, she didn’t care, because he finally gave up pressing her to let him help. She was so relieved, she pulled him into the bathtub with her, mindless of his state of full dress. Chuckling, he stripped out of his wet clothing, and then sobered as he settled into the tub with her in his lap. Quiet contentment soon gave way to frenzied foreplay and then heated sex, her facing away from him, him clutching her hips and pulling her back against him over and over. Water sloshed onto the floor. Rachel tangled one hand in his hair and grasped his leg with the other, holding on as he pushed her over the edge, her own cry of ecstasy drowned by his guttural growl when he came, too. She dropped her head back against his chest and sighed, closing her eyes and silently vowing, I will fix this.
The next morning, she called the fire department’s anonymous tip line and provided the link to the website where she’d read about the residential development that had been wired by Pantera’s company and the resulting house fires. Feeling lighter than she had in weeks, she headed to work, convinced she would soon be able to have a relationship with Josh, unfettered by Kent Pantera’s evilness.
*
Two days later, an arrest was made in the case of suspected arson resulting from the fire at the Bears’ home.
The fire inspector, Violet Buchannan, found a link between the fire and Kent Pantera’s business. That lin
k was narrowed down to an employee named Billy Guido. He was a new employee, had only been there for two weeks. He was accused of deliberately installing faulty wiring in an outlet in the living room, with the expectation that sooner or later, the outlet would catch fire and the house would burn.
He was also human.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Josh mused. He closed the door behind the Bears, who were leaving after having delivered the news of Billy Guido’s arrest. As far as they were concerned, the case was closed and they were ready to move forward with rebuilding their home.
“I agree,” Matt said. Josh led the way to his home office, and Matt closed the door once they were both inside the room. “Pantera would never hire a human. Not unless this entire thing is a setup.”
“Did you see that ridiculous press conference? Pantera acted all outraged that one of his own would do such a heinous act. He fired the kid on camera and vowed to personally oversee the installation on the newly rebuilt home himself. It was fucking nauseating.”
“Pretty clever, if you ask me,” Matt replied, settling into the leather armchair facing Josh’s desk. “Lay the blame at the feet of a human. The human authorities get their man, and the shifter community grows more convinced that we should keep ourselves separate from other communities. Especially humans.”
Great. And Josh had recently mated with a human, in a reactive moment of thinking with his emotions instead of his head. How was he supposed to convince his pack to accept her now?
“You know what’s been interesting? There’s a lot less outrage within the pack about Rachel staying here than I expected.” Matt changed the subject and propped his feet on the desk, crossing them at the ankles.