She wished it wouldn't take so long.
Maybe she was spoiled by the Lupine ability to heal wounds by shifting between forms or by the fact that even without shifting they healed fast enough to be regarded as something a half step down from a miracle by most humans. Either way, she found herself impatient with her inability to heal the cracks in her heart. Apparently, that was one area where being Other didn't convey much of a benefit.
Her eyes grew dry with staring, and she blinked reflexively. She hadn't cried. She wasn't sure what that meant, the fact that she had reacted with this terrible numb silence instead of the raging, flowing tears she had half-expected. It couldn't be because she didn't feel it deeply enough; it had gone right through her, but maybe it had to circle around again before the tears could come.
She winced at the thought. Goddess, she hoped not.
With Tess gone and the room silent and empty, it got harder to keep her mind from replaying the scene in the library. She kept seeing Noah's face, kept hearing him say those words and tell her that the connection they had forged had been all window dressing on his side. Just a pretty costume to make those around him believe he had no purpose other than the lie he had fed them. It would loop over and over in her mind until her stomach twisted with nausea, and only then could she force herself to think about something else.
Unfortunately, that something usually ended up being about Noah, too. About the way he smelled and tasted and the way he felt when he was buried so far inside her she could feel him nudge her heart. A few minutes of that and the pain and longing became so overwhelming that the only way to quell them was to think about his betrayal. And then the cycle started all over again.
Damn it, she felt like she was on some kind of fiendish hamster wheel, condemned to the eternal torment of loving and hating Noah all at once. Forever.
Slowly, she rolled over away from the bedroom door. Her body felt stiff and sore and old, as if she'd been beaten or been in a car wreck or had some kind of major surgery, only she couldn't find a position or a way of moving that eased her particular pain. Not when there was that little voice inside of her whispering that she didn't really hate Noah.
She tried to shut it up, but it persisted, soft and wheedling and unbearably honest. She only wished she hated him.
It would be easier, she thought, if she could work up some kind of righteous anger, or get offended, or convince herself that he was really a scumbag with no redeeming virtues. The problem was that she knew that wasn't true.
Noah Baker was a good man.
She'd seen that in him from the first moment she'd met him. On that day, he'd dropped everything and traveled more than five hundred miles from his base in North Carolina to the center of Manhattan on the basis of a one-word distress call from his sister. Even before he'd known what the situation was, he'd been prepared to mow people down if they threatened Abby. He was fiercely protective and fiercely loyal. Those had been two of the first things Sam had learned about him, followed by his possession of a wicked sense of humor and the fact that he had a hell of a head in a crisis and courage to spare.
For a long time, she'd also thought of him as being as honest as bedrock.
Maybe she would have to revise that last one.
"Samantha."
She heard him whispering to her and squeezed her eyes shut against the leap of her heart. Even now, after everything that had happened, just the memory of her name on his lips could bring every nerve in her body to high alert and send her broken heart speeding in excitement. Goddess, she was one sick puppy.
"Samantha."
The voice came again, no longer a whisper, and she jerked around, clutching the blankets to her chest. Noah stood at the foot of the bed, frowning, a tall figure in the darkness of the room.
"We need to talk," he said.
"How did you get in here?" she demanded. "I didn't hear you. I thought I locked the door."
"You did. I picked it."
She stared at him. "You picked the lock? You broke into my bedroom?"
He didn't even twitch. "I told you, we need to talk."
Sam felt the first flare of white-hot anger and nearly wept with relief. "I have absolutely nothing to say to you. Get out."
"No." He stepped forward and she felt the bed shake a little as his knees bumped into the mattress. "If you don't want to talk, then you can just listen, and I'll do the talking."
"What makes you think I have any interest in anything you have to say?" she snapped, shoving aside the blankets and scrambling to her knees. She no longer felt the least bit cold. Her anger was blazing hot, driving away that horrible icy emptiness inside her and filling the space with a seething mix of hurt and anger. She concentrated on the anger. "From what I can tell, most of the things I've ever heard from you have been lies, so why should I want to hear more of them?"
"I didn't lie to you," he growled, and she could see his hands clench into fists at his sides. At least she had that much of an advantage over him. In the dark, she could see him relatively clearly, but he had to be half-blind. "I may not have always told you the truth, but I didn't lie."
She scoffed. "Don't split hairs with me. You know damned good and well that you lied through your ever-loving teeth. You admitted it downstairs to everyone else. Why not admit it to me?"
"Because the things I lied about had to do with the people in that room downstairs; they had nothing to do with you and me."
His voice sounded strained and harsh, as if he spoke through clenched teeth. Like he had any right to be angry. She was the one with all the righteous wrath here.
"It feels like they had to do with me. Or wasn't I supposed to care that you were only making up to me to try to get information about my pack and my friends?"
"That's a lie!" He gave a strangled roar, as if he wanted to shout but knew better than to bring this little visit to the attention of anyone else in the club. "What is between us has nothing to do with my orders. Every single thing that happened between us was true! All of it. And you know it, too. Don't think I'm going to let you deny it just because you're in a snit."
"A snit? A snit?" Man, the man couldn't dig himself down any faster if she'd handed him a shovel. "You think that my reaction when I find out that the man I'm f—I'm having an affair with is only using me is to have a snit? I'm furious! I could kill you for this! You used me, Noah!"
He shook his head and shifted to come around the side of the bed. "No. No, I absolutely did not. I never used you." She backed away from him, but it was hard to move on her knees across a soft bed while she was still wrapped in the twisted folds of an ankle-length nightgown. "Do you think I had orders to sleep with you? Do you think it was actually helpful to my mission that I became so obsessed with you I spent more time thinking about how to get you under me than I did about how to accomplish my objective? Is that what you think, sweetheart?"
"I am not your sweetheart."
"Oh, you sure as hell are," he growled, and reached for her. She twisted away and barely managed to elude his grip, scrambling to the far corner of the bed. "And I'll tell you what else you are," he continued, sidling along the edge of the mattress toward her. "You're my woman. I told you so last night, and nothing that's happened tonight has changed that. The devil himself wouldn't change that, sweetheart, so you'd better find a way to get used to it."
"You arrogant son of a bitch," she hissed. "Do you honestly think there's an icicle's chance in hell that I'll let you lay so much as a hand on me after what you did? You can play at being the big, bad wolf all you want, Noah Baker, but I'm a bigger and badder wolf than you'll ever be. Do you really think I'll let a human get away with what you did to me and then acknowledge him as my mate?" She forced a bitter, taunting laugh. "You need to find another flavor of crack to smoke, my friend, because it is never, never going to happen."
She might as well have dressed in scarlet and yelled, "Olé!" His roar this time wasn't strangled or stifled or even remotely muffled, and it barely gave her
enough warning to throw herself bodily for the other end of the bed.
He reached for her and she scrambled away, but he was fast, so much faster than she expected a human to be. His large, rough hand closed over her ankle and held tight, tugging her inexorably back toward him. Her free foot lashed out and caught him in the shoulder. He grunted but didn't loosen his hold. She hadn't hit him hard enough. Damn it, she didn't want to hurt him! Not really. Not permanently. As angry as she was, she was acutely aware of the difference in their strength. She could kill him with her bare hands, but even if he deserved it, she didn't want that on her conscience. At least one of them should have a clean one.
She squirmed and tried to tear her leg out of his grip, but the man clung like a barnacle. Or an octopus, considering his other hand was sliding down her leg looking for something else to grasp. "Let go!"
He didn't bother answering, just found her other ankle and grasped tight. She kicked both legs, but he held on and began to slowly reel her in toward him.
Her heart raced, and she had a shameful moment of doubt over whether that was from anger or excitement. She couldn't deny either emotion, as hard as she tried. He'd lied to her, so she had every right to be mad, but even now, all he had to do was be in the same room with her and her body went haywire with the need to join itself to his. In her life, no other man had ever come close to making her feel like this, and it had to be him? Worse than that, it had to be now when the only thing in her mind should be the desire to punish him for the way he'd treated her? What the hell was wrong with her?
He dragged her closer, making the bedspread and her nightgown catch and bunch beneath her. Every inch she moved across the mattress, her nightgown moved a half inch higher on her legs. She noticed it when she felt the first stirring of a breeze on her overheated skin, and of course the minute she noticed it, Noah noticed it as well.
His eyes gleamed in the darkness, and she felt them running over her like a caress, lingering on her increasingly bare skin. She expected him to yank, to drag her fast against him and bring her half-naked into his grip as soon as possible, but his steady, even pulling never altered. He brought her to him inch by inch, forcing her to make a decision about whether or not to fight his touch.
Damn him! Couldn't he leave her with a little dignity?
Her struggles were getting weaker, not because she was tiring but because her body had begun to acknowledge what she herself preferred not to think about. No matter what he may have done, this man was hers. Her mate. Her lover. Her fated partner. Hers for the rest of their lives. The knowledge made it difficult to contemplate shortening either one of those lives.
Cursing, she poured one last burst of energy into her escape attempt, twisting and bucking and ending up facedown in the tangled bedding, and all the while Noah held calmly on. Sam's heart just wasn't in it. And worse than that, he had to know it. He knew as well as she did that if she had truly wanted to escape, nothing he did could have stopped her, short of silver chains or enough sedative to knock her completely unconscious. So if she stayed, he would know it was because she didn't want to leave.
Biting back curses and the tears that finally threatened to spill over, she buried her face in the coverlet and muffled her own frustrated scream.
His hands slid up her legs, hands still grasping, but now he caressed as much as captured. He covered her with his body, pinning her beneath his weight, and she felt him nuzzle through the tangle of her hair to press a kiss to the hollow just below her ear.
Damn him to hell and back.
"Shh," he murmured, his tongue darting out to smooth the sensitive skin. "Hush, baby. It's all right, sweetheart. It's okay. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Samantha. Hush, baby. God, I'm sorry."
She didn't realize until she heard Noah that her scream had turned into a sob. She lay beneath him, her body shaking not with anger or frustration but with the harsh, wracking tremors of weeping.
He covered her like a living blanket, all heat and strength and disconcerting tenderness. She had never felt so safe, so protected. So cherished. And she wanted to kill him for it.
"I hate you," she choked out, tasting the salt of her own tears. "I hate you for what you did to me, Noah Baker. You deserve to be strung up by your balls and left out for the crows to feed on."
"I know I do, honey. I know." He pressed more kisses to her neck and the space just behind her ear, and his hands ran in long, soothing strokes down her sides. "I'm a bastard. Hush, baby. God, please don't cry, sweetheart. I'm not worth it. I'm so not worth it."
A laugh tore from her throat, swollen and heavy with tears. "You think I don't know that, you son of a bitch? I'm too goddamned good for you, and it's about frickin' time you realized it, too."
His sigh tickled her skin and sent her hair fluttering against her cheek. "You don't have to tell me, sweetheart. I've known that since the first time I met you."
She struggled for breath, but the sobs were powerful and had been denied for too long. He held her through all of them, his body warming and sheltering her, his hands calming and soothing. It seemed both impossible and completely natural that the man who had broken her heart would be the only one in the world who might be capable of putting it back together again. It was yet another black mark to put on his record, because in no way, shape, or form was that even remotely fair.
"Shh. I'm sorry, baby. I swear to God, I'm sorry. Aw, baby, hush. You're gonna make yourself sick. Samantha, baby, please."
She heard him, listened intently to every word, but there was nothing she could do to stop the storm of emotion. All she could do was ride it out and feel her throat growing tight and raw from weeping. If it made him miserable to hear her crying, well, that was just gravy. He deserved to suffer, damn it, and she had no intention of doing anything to make this easier on him.
Gradually, though, the tempest wore itself out. Her sobs faded to shuddering breaths, and her red, aching eyes refused to produce any more tears. They felt as if they'd nearly swollen shut, and she knew her skin would be red and blotchy and stained with salt. She knew perfectly well that she must look like shit, but she had no intention of worrying about it. Let Noah take a good look. He was the one who had caused it; he could live with the consequences.
Her entire body went limp, sinking deep into the mattress, pressed there by Noah's warm weight. She shifted a little and turned her head so her cheek wouldn't be lying in the puddle she'd made on the smooth sheets. She still had to fight to breathe after so long with her chest painfully clenched, but even that was easing. With a long sigh, she closed her eyes and knew it wouldn't be long before she slipped into sleep. She still had a lot to say to the man on top of her, but it could wait. She'd never be able to muster the energy now.
His fingertips touched her skin, and she felt him softly brush the damp and tangled strands of her hair away from her face. He tucked them behind her ear, then slid his hand under the loose mass of her hair and lifted it aside, laying it on her other shoulder. The air felt cold on her flushed, wet cheek, but then his breath warmed it, and his lips, as he brushed tender kisses over her skin. His tongue darted out, tasting her tears, warm and tender as a mother with her cub.
She sighed again and felt sleep creep over her. She'd ridden a roller coaster tonight, and exhaustion hung heavy upon her. Vaguely she felt Noah slip his arms beneath her and hug her tight against his chest. Carefully he rolled to his side and brought her along with him, nestling her back to his chest, cradling her bottom against his groin. She felt the hard length of him pressing against her, but he didn't even acknowledge the erection. He cuddled her close, her head on his bicep, his other arm keeping her against him, his hand splayed protectively over her stomach.
"Go to sleep, sweetheart," he whispered, and she felt his stubbled cheek press against hers. "I'll take care of you."
And it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he would.
The last thing she remembered before she drifted off to sleep was the indisputable feeling of be
ing home and the soft soundless whisper of his voice telling her he loved her.
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
She woke him with a kiss, but the moment his eyes slitted open she punched him right in the gut. "Oof!"
She didn't say anything, just turned her back on him and headed for the bathroom. When he heard the shower turn on, he felt himself relax. If she'd been gone when he woke up or if she'd grabbed her clothes and ditched him the second his eyes were open, he'd have worried. The kiss had reassured him, but the sound of her making herself at home in his room at the club was even better.
Turning his head, he glanced at the bedside clock. Nine forty-seven. They had plenty of time before they needed to be back downstairs.
He levered himself off the mattress and walked across the carpet, one hand rubbing his stomach. She'd pulled her punch, no question, but what she'd given him hadn't exactly been a symbolic tap. He felt like he'd been hit. Hard. Thankfully, she'd aimed the impact so it hadn't encountered any vital organs. His spleen was still intact, and not even his ego was bruised. She could use him as human punching bag, if it meant she'd stay around. He'd realized last night that when it came to Sam, he had no pride. He'd do whatever it took to keep her.
Steam wafted over the top of the shower doors as he stepped into the bathroom. Through the patterned glass, he could see the pale peach of her skin. She stood beneath the spray with her face turned up to the water, her hair slicked back and heavy with moisture. His presence didn't cause her to turn, but he knew very well she was aware of him. It counted as damned near impossible to sneak up on a werewolf. The only reason he'd managed it last night was because she'd been so upset, so tuned inward, that she hadn't been paying even cursory attention to the things around her.
She didn't look over when he slid the door open and stepped into the shower behind her, just kept her eyes on the slick tiles covering the enclosure walls. He wouldn't have argued if she'd turned around and wrapped her arms around him in welcome, but she hadn't kicked him out, either. Noah would take what he could get.
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