by Thorne, Elle
“The original is in my office safe. Here are copies for each of you. If you don’t have any pressing questions, I suggest you have the conversation that Frank wanted you to have.”
“I have a damned question.” Dane was over controlling his anger. “Who the hell killed my uncle?”
“I was going to have that conversation with you at another time.” Mr. Shelby placed papers in a flip-top maroon leather briefcase.
“I’d rather learn now. I don’t have a problem with Glory hearing.”
Mr. Shelby reached for a different pocket in the briefcase. “I was coming for my weekly coffee with Frank. It was a habit we had developed, two older men, having coffee, reminiscing. Only the place was quiet and there were no lights on. He didn’t answer the door, so I used the spare key he’d given me.”
Mr. Shelby wrung his hands, blue-veined, knotty-knuckled fingers seeking solace with each other. “I found this next to Frank’s body.” He pulled on a handkerchief sticking out of his front suit jacket and swiped at his nose.
He took out a piece of paper in a clear plastic storage baggie.
Glory didn’t have to be next to him to notice the dark brown stains on it. She also didn’t need anyone to tell her what it was.
Blood.
Mr. Shelby handed the baggie to Dane. “Then I did as I’ve been instructed to do: I called Mae Forester and she sent someone—a cleaner crew of some sort, I can only presume. In twenty-four hours when I returned, all signs of Frank and a skirmish had vanished.”
“Why didn’t you call me right away?” Dane wished he could have been there for Uncle Frank.
Too little, too late. All I can do now is make it up.
His uncle’s last written words on the matter echoed in his mind. “Promise you will not seek revenge.”
That’s not really a promise I can make. It’s certainly not one I can keep.
“Frank wanted to be sure you didn’t try to get revenge.” Mr. Shelby tucked the handkerchief back in his pocket then clicked the briefcase shut. “Now, I’ll take my leave and allow you both the time to do the talking Frank clearly wanted you to do.
Chapter Eight
Glory watched Mr. Shelby leave through the front door. Her mind was still reeling from the information they’d received. All the manipulation, all the deception.
Then to learn that the same shifters that killed Dane’s father and Uncle Brad were the ones that slaughtered her family.
She walked back to Dane still seated at the table, looking at the note Mr. Shelby had given him.
She wanted to know what it said, but not at the risk of invading his privacy. “Do you mind?” She pointed to the plastic-encased paper.
He held it out to her, his hand gripping it tightly, his knuckles white. When he released it, his fingers shook.
She studied the writing.
It was written in pen and that was definitely blood on it.
Same bastards that killed Brad, Greg and Aleman family.
Call Mae.
There was no signature, but who else but Frank would have written it?
Dane forked fingers through his hair, then held his head. “Too much to process.” His face was pale, his mouth drawn.
Did he even realize she was still there? His gray eyes looked into the distance, through the window that overlooked the woods where they’d hung out when children. The same woods that led to the walled garden.
An overload of emotions flowed through Glory at his presence and her memories.
“I should go.”
“Please don’t.” His tone was haunted. “I thought you were dead.”
“When?”
“After your family was killed. No one told me you’d survived.”
“I don’t think anyone knew one way or another. I didn’t know your uncle knew, but clearly he did, because he wanted me to be at the reading of his will.”
“I left because I couldn’t believe that you’d deceived me. That you were some other man’s.”
“Dane, I wasn’t. I never gave that a thought. I’d learned about it when I was a little girl, probably when I was five or so. But I never took it seriously, nor did it influence anything I did.”
“So you are mated now? I’m not picking up a scent that you belong to another. No couple bond scent at all.”
“Ivy shifters don’t have the same couple bond as the bears, wolves, and leopards do.”
“So you are mated.” His hands vanished beneath the table, but it was clear from the way his tendons popped out, he was clenching his fists.
“Not yet. I’m to be mated next week.”
His jaw muscles worked “I see.”
You don’t see at all. This is the last thing I want. But you’re so busy being happy as a Hollywood movie star, with all those girls around…
“I’m glad to see you’re well, Dane.”
She tried to revive the hate she’d felt for him all these years—a hate countered by the love she’d never been able to kick from her heart.
“Thanks.” His tone was cold and dismissive. He glanced down at the note, rubbing the plastic between his thumb and index finger.
His expression changed while he studied the writing. She wanted to leave, to run away from his coldness, but she couldn’t, not with what she saw on his face.
“What are you planning?” As if she didn’t know.
Gray eyes, the color of thunderclouds, and equally angry rose to meet hers. “Who said I’m planning anything?”
“As if I don’t know you.”
“Do you, Glory? I don’t think you know me anymore. I’m not sure you ever did.”
That cut deep. She didn’t deserve that. Tears prickled in the back of her eyes. She closed them tightly for a second, took a deep breath. “I thought I did.”
“Seems I’m the one that didn’t know jack shit, doesn’t it? You never thought to mention to me you belonged to another man?”
“I never gave it much thought. Those were the machinations of grownups while I was a nothing more than a baby.”
“You were mine, Glory. Mine. That should have meant something.”
It still does. “You don’t seem to want to hear what I have to say on this. You’ve got your mind made up.”
“I’ll drive you home.” His words cut her to the core.
“I can walk. Thanks.”
She turned swiftly, giving him her back so he couldn’t see the tears that beat her and welled, pooling in her eyes, clouding her vision.
She headed toward the door, her back stiff, her gait stilted, and her heart broken.
* * *
Dane clenched his fists, watching her as she walked away, her spine straight, shoulders thrown back. She wasn’t fooling him. He could scent her emotions. She was troubled, confused, angry, and still had feelings for him.
Last time, I walked out on her. Never gave her a chance to explain. Never gave us a chance.
Had she stayed in Bitter Falls all this time? Had she thought of him? Why was she still going through with this mating? It’s not like she didn’t know he was still alive. It’s not like his face wasn’t plastered all over the foolish human magazines.
The image of those magazines flashed across his mind. And in almost every one, he was linked to one female or another—whether that was true or not. Most often not.
No wonder she doesn’t want anything to do with me.
He hadn’t been an angel, true, but he wasn’t quite the manwhore the tabloids made him out to be.
His shifter skills were preternaturally fast. He was behind her before she’d opened the front door. He took hold of her arm, turned her, and froze.
That wasn’t anger on her face. Those were tears.
Fuck.
His leopard snarled at the dismay etched in her face. Dane pulled her close, put his arms around her and held her to his body.
He’d done this to her. He’d wounded her. The only woman who’d ever mattered, the only woman he’d consider a soul mate, and he’d
hurt her.
Her face was pressed against his chest, her tears seeping through the fabric. He looked at the top of her auburn head, and a part of his heart shredded into fragments.
Finger on her chin, he tipped her face upward. Tears cascaded down cheeks blotched with pink. The white of her eyes were red, making the green so much more vivid. Her bottom lip trembled and she bit into it, putting a stop to it.
Index finger still on her chin, he placed his thumb on her lip and released it from pearly white captors. Her gaze remained focused on his face, not straying, not looking away. Accusations in the emerald depths took the shredded fragments of his heart and ran them through a blender.
“Glory.” Her name came out with his breath, hushed, low, and ripped from his very soul.
His shifter senses picked up her heart rate speeding up.
The heat between their bodies, the electric charge where she leaned against him traveled through his torso, ending up in the one place showing how she affected him.
His cock pressed against his zipper painfully.
Full breasts pressed against his chest, her nipples hardened peaks.
Let her go before you fuck her. Right now.
He pushed his conscience away. Or maybe that was his leopard pushing his conscience away.
Who cares? As long he pushed that thought away. The temptation to be with her was too great.
He hissed his desire, a whistling sound that escaped between his teeth and bore witness to the depths of his emotions.
He wrapped one hand around the long braid that trailed down her back and pulled her head back, baring succulent lips and tear-streaked cheeks.
A small gasp escaped her. Glory’s breath was warm on his approaching lips.
“Don’t hurt me,” she whispered. Her voice low and tortured.
“Never.”
He lowered his head until his lips rested on the rosebud of hers. He pulled her closer, his thighs melding to hers, his cock pressed against her mound.
Dane closed his eyes, sinking into the memories of their first time together. The way her body had opened and taken him in, though she’d been so tight, it had been painful for both of them—but only at first.
By the time he’d climaxed inside her, she’d been able to take his thickness and had reached her own orgasm.
That didn’t help.
No, that trip down memory lane did nothing other than make his cock harder and his heart more entrenched in a woman soon to be someone else’s.
Just. Fucking. Great.
He didn’t care if she was supposed to be someone else’s. That was another group’s codes. That wasn’t his code. His personal code was clear: Glory was his. His body grinder against hers.
She tasted so sweet. His tongue swept in and gave in to the overdue need to take her, to make her his.
She can belong to no other.
Chapter Nine
Glory was unable to push away the yearning that Dane created in her. At the juncture of her legs, her body throbbed and her muscles spasmed in response to his thigh ground into her clit. The friction made her pulse race and her core thump a beat that drowned out all other sound.
Dane’s tongue took her prisoner. His mouth claiming her, reminding her she belonged to him all those years ago.
Her inner thighs tightened. In her mind, her ivy pushed for his snow leopard. Glory knew she’d missed the leopard, but she couldn’t allow this. She pushed her ivy away, deep into the recesses of her mind.
Glory tipped her head further back as his tongue explored and conquered. A shudder ran through her. Her ivy, responding to him, even though Glory had tried to push her back. His kiss became more demanding while moisture built between her legs in response to his attentions.
His hand ran up her side, from her hip, under her shirt, to just below her breast. She held her breath, her lungs swelling to bursting from the built up pressure.
A hiss escaped him. His hand traveled up, over her lace bra, found her nipple, hard and peaking for him. She shook as his forefinger and thumb rolled the rosy tip, making her ache for his mouth to be where his fingers were.
His bulging length pressed against her mound, his hand on her breast, his mouth on hers, it was too much. Glory moaned—a sound she couldn’t have controlled if she’d wanted to.
Another thing she couldn’t have controlled—her hands. She found the hem of his shirt and slipped her fingers beneath, running hands over a set of abs that rippled as her fingers trekked over his flesh and headed north. His chest was sprinkled with hair and covered with solid muscle.
Dane had been amazing as a youth. But for a full grown mature male he was sheer perfection. All man. All shifter.
All hers.
Used to be.
“Glory. Do you know what your touch does to me?” Lust-filled gray eyes studied her.
She knew. She knew because she felt the same way.
He pushed her toward the wall, stepped away and with supernatural speed had her stripped in front of him.
She cringed inwardly. She wasn’t the firm young teen she used to be. She’d been through so much. She covered her stomach with her hands and wished she had two more hands to cover her hips and every other part of her body she was self-conscious about.
Time had not been good to her. That wasn’t all, she reminded herself. There was something else too. Something that changed her body immeasurably, though she knew it changed her heart more than her body. She’d been so young at the time after all.
Birth.
God, she didn’t want to tell him or even think of that. Not now. Not during this.
She pushed the secret back, feeling as much guilt as if she were living a lie.
You are.
There went her conscience again.
“I want you.” His words cut through her memories, pulled her back to the present, back to his arms, his yearning. He pushed her hands down.
Boldly, and totally out of character, she stepped forward, unbuttoned his jeans and pushed her hand down the front of his pants.
Her fingers slipped around his hardness, skimming over the velvety mushroom head while she wrapped around his girth. His breath caught with a low whoosh. Dane put his hand over hers, the fabric of his pants between them and he pressed on her hand, driving his length against her fingers, pushing her hand even more, grinding against her.
“You left me.” She squeezed him, moving her hand up and down, her movements constricted by his grip on her hand. “When I needed you most.”
The anger she’d never given vent to, the anguish she’d never yielded to, both sought purchase from him.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was a melding of torment and rapture. His jaw muscles clenched, his lips barely moving. “I was young. Stupid. And then I thought you’d been killed.”
“I may as well have been. You have no idea what I’ve gone through all these years, have you?”
She wasn’t telling him she knew exactly how much time had lapsed, almost to the moment. The memory of the last time she saw him, the shadows his large frame had cast, the way the wind had blown, the sound of the birds, all of this burned into her memory, and had been for an eternity.
And as much as she wanted to rage and punish him for the hurt, a part of her knew what happened hadn’t been all his fault. Then there was the other part of her. The part that couldn’t stop loving him.
“I’d never walk away from you if you gave us a chance.”
She closed her eyes, letting the full measure of his words sink in.
Now he offers this?
She was torn. It had been her parents’ will that she bond with Perry. She couldn’t bring her parents back, but she could honor their wishes.
And I will honor their wishes. He and I had our chance. He walked away without seeking another solution.
Did they really have a chance, in the recesses of her mind her ivy sought the same answers she did.
She would be Perry’s in a less than a week, but in her heart s
he’d always be Dane’s. And right now, Dane was here. And she wanted him more than she ever wanted anything. Every fiber of her being craved his touch, his very essence.
“Take me.”
“Glory?” His sex-husky tone conveyed his confusion. “Are you sure?”
She bit her lip and nodded.
He dropped his pants quicker than she’d thought a man could undress. She stared at his thickness, the same girth that had given her pleasure and pain, all those years ago. Desire flooded her core.
He carried her to the living room, setting her on the sofa, he placed a hand on each of her knees and pushed her legs apart. Glory was spread wide, the cool air touching the wetness he’d created. He leaned down, and stared at her mound. The sheer erotic sexiness of his eyes studying her made her muscles contract with need.
Dane spread the folds of her pussy and dipped down, his breath warming the area that had just been cooled. She arched her back, her body wanting to be closer to him. His tongue flicked at her nether lips, a blend of pressure and speed to create the perfect mix that made her grab the cushions of the sofa and squeeze the upholstery between her fingertips.
Spreading her even wider, his tongue slid into her tightness, invading and claiming her heat, plunging in and out slowly, then curling upward and flickering over her tiny bud.
“Dane.” His name came from her mouth, but sounded like another woman altogether. Deeper, lower, throaty. She sounded like a being in the midst of irreplaceable passion.
Glory laced her fingers into his hair, her nails digging into his scalp while she held his face close.
She was so close…
…too close.
With a lunge forward that catapulted her body into an arch, she thrust his face into her mound while she released years of need.
She lay back, her body seizing as the muscles refused to relinquish their control over her orgasm. Another spasm, and she panted, her breathing the only sound in the room.
Dane buried his face into her pussy again, relentlessly licking and tonguing her until she came twice.