Gut Deep: Torn Worlds Book One
Page 24
“No.”
I stopped. If I had to go all the way over to Donovan’s, his man could give me a ride. This was his fault. “Yes. I need to go to Donovan’s.”
He pressed a button hanging from the wire attached to his ear. “Primary needs a car on the west side.”
An engine roared in the distance before a car pulled around the corner a second later. The driver went to get out, but I beat him to my door. “I’ve got it. Go get back in your seat.”
He nodded and did as I said.
I sat in the back, wondering what I was doing. I honestly had no idea, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. Couldn’t bring myself to tell the driver to turn around.
The driver pulled up to the front door before I was ready, but I got out before he tried to open the car door.
“Pen!” Bigs yelled as he swung open the door, as if I’d been away on an extended vacation. As if I didn’t text with him all the time. As if I hadn’t had him over for tea last week.
“Bigs, nothing has changed. I’m not staying. I just need to talk to him for a minute. Is he here?”
He smiled. “They told us you were coming. He’s waiting for you.”
I walked toward the room in the back Donovan favored.
I swung the door open without bothering to knock.
He leaned back in his chair, smiling when he saw me. My heart did a little flip before I mentally grabbed that sucker and nailed it to my ribcage. There could be no flips or slips. No warm, mushy feelings. I was here to end things for good. I didn’t want constant boxes of supplies and bribes. To what? Go back to what we were? To no future? To dig myself in deeper?
I marched over to his desk, leaned forward, and pointed at him. “You need to stop.”
He stood, looking way too pleased with himself. “Stop what?”
“Everything,” I said, straightening and taking a step back as he walked around the desk. “The guards, the food, the gifts, the damned roof. Everything!”
“You know, you took a little longer than I thought you would, but I guess I’m not surprised. You’ve always been stubborn.”
“To demand you stop?” I asked, feeling like we were having two different conversations.
He kept walking toward me. With every step he took, I backed up another.
“Stop smiling at me.” I was falling. I hadn’t realized the sofa was behind me until I was on it. And it wasn’t even a high-backed, dignified one but a low, overly soft one that was more like a bed. I’d always avoided this thing, and now I was laid out on it.
Even as I used my elbows to prop myself up, I barely made any progress. What was this thing stuffed with? Clouds? And then his knee was beside mine and his hands were landing by my shoulders as he leaned over me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, panicked because I could not sleep with him today. That was not why I was here, and he needed to stop staring at my lips. I planted my hands on his chest.
“Welcoming you home?” he asked.
I wished he’d stop smiling. We were fighting, and he needed to behave accordingly. “I thought you didn’t like unwilling participants?”
He tugged at the shoulder of my shirt before dipping his head lower, nibbling at my flesh as he worked his way closer to my neck.
“Are you saying you’re unwilling? Because I don’t think you are. I think you came here because you wanted to see me and couldn’t take it anymore. Otherwise, why come in person when you could have called?” His lips worked their way up toward my ear, the extra stubble on his face tickling my skin.
“You wouldn’t have listened. You never listen, not to anyone. You’re always right.” I tried to sound harsh, but I wasn’t sure it was having the right effect as I lay on my back, breathing a little harder than necessary.
“You sat in a car for half an hour to get here to make me listen in person instead of trying the phone first?” he whispered in my ear.
I pushed at his chest again, and he leaned up, staring at me, no less happy. “I came because I need you to really hear me loud and clear: it doesn’t matter what you send, what you do, who you kill—this can’t work between us. I won’t be your plaything until you tire of me. I won’t be treated as if I were less than. There’s too much bad blood between us. You can’t have me, not anymore. I gave myself to you, and you threw me out.”
By the time I was done laying down the law, all the hurt seemed to bubble back up with it. I could feel my eyes watering, and he finally lost his smile.
A tear slipped past my guard. I didn’t even know where the stupid thing came from, because I shouldn’t care anymore.
“And maybe you never really let me in?” he asked, wiping away the drop with his fingers before kissing the spot on my cheek.
“What do you want from me? Just tell me so we can get this over with and agree it’s not going to work.”
“Everything. All of you. The wonderful parts, and the crappy, jealous parts, the doubts you have that keep you up at night, and the small things that make you smile. Every insecurity, bump, and bruise. I want every single piece of you.”
He was undoing me, every wall I’d built up.
I slammed my hands into his chest. “You threw me out.”
“And you lied to me, as if I’d let your sister be hurt. We both made mistakes.”
I wanted nothing more than to believe him, that this could work, but I’d seen his life. How could I ever really be a part of it? “It can’t work for us.”
“Yes, it can. We’re our own thing and we make our own rules. We live the way we want to live, and if they don’t like it, they can go fuck themselves. We do what we want. I’ve got plenty of money. You could go to med school here, or we go to a different country. We can go to Canada or Europe, wherever you want. My people believe that the wolf inside senses his mate the moment he meets her. Mine did. I just let the stupid man get in its way. I won’t let that happen again. I don’t want to lose you. I want you to be my mate, my wife, I want you every way I can have you.”
This wasn’t a joke. He was dead serious.
His mouth grazed mine before there was whisper of space, and then he was covering mine again. I tried to swallow the moan bubbling out of me, but I wasn’t a hundred percent successful. At least I’d managed to keep my hands at my side and not in his hair, where they wanted to be. I’d always loved his hair.
“What about my sister?”
“We’ll take her with us. I’ll bring your entire neighborhood if that’s what it takes. They can fill the seats at the wedding.”
He covered my mouth again as he ran his hand up the curve of my hip. I gave up, locking my fingers in his hair.
He broke our kiss, his lips hovering an inch from mine, the widest smile I’d seen yet on his face.
“We might need to stay here for just for a little while longer, though. We might need my doctors.”
“Why? What’s wrong? Are you sick? Why are you smiling about that?” Panic at the thought of him made my fingers grip on to him tighter.
“You’re pregnant.”
I licked my lips as I lay there, stunned, my hands falling back to my side. I was late, but I’d taken a test.
“No, I’m not.” Although the fact he knew my period was off was unsettling.
“I’m telling you, you are,” he said, running his hand over my stomach almost reverently.
“Donovan, I took a test. I’m sure.” I grabbed his hand, not wanting him to get his hopes up, since he seemed so pleased by the idea.
He nipped at my lower lip. “A shifter baby doesn’t trigger your tests. I’m telling you, you’re pregnant.”
“You said that was impossible.”
“As impossible as born enemies falling in love?” he asked.
I lay there looking up at him, my man, my wolf, my mate. I’d started out hating him, resenting everything he was and stood for. Slowly that had all faded away as I really saw the man he was. Still I hadn’t trusted him even as he saved me repeatedly. But he’d never given
up on me, on us. I thought he’d be the one who’d break me in the end. Instead, he was the one who put me back together.
I finally smiled, running my hands through his hair. “Maybe not so hard for us, then.”
Watch for Sassy’s story, coming in Spring of 2020.
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For Max. Stay tough!
Acknowledgments
Without these people, this book might be something of a hot mess. Lori H., Camilla J., Lisa A., Christine J., Ashleigh M. and Donna Z.
Also by Donna Augustine
Ollie Wit
A Step into the Dark
Walking in the Dark
Kissed by the Dark
The Keepers
The Keepers
Keepers and Killers
Shattered
Redemption
Karma
Karma
Jinxed
Fated
Dead Ink
The Wilds
The Wilds
The Hunt
The Dead
The Magic
Born Wild (Wilds Spinoff)
Wild One
Savage One
Wyrd Blood
Wyrd Blood
Full Blood
Blood Binds