"You’ve been through enough."
She pulled out of his arms with a frown. "What’s that supposed to mean? Did you change your mind? Are you leaving?"
"No, damn it," he growled, reaching for her. When she twitched away, he got annoyed and hauled her onto his lap, holding her firmly with her head on his shoulder. "Quit asking me that. I told you I can’t leave. I need to be where you are."
"For how long?" she whispered, stunning him.
He thought about it, which led him to what she’d said in the cave, the words that baffled him and gnawed at him and unnerved him for so many different reasons. "Did you mean what you said in the cave?"
"Um…I don’t remember much. When I told you not to kill Clavis, you mean?"
"No, the other things."
She was quiet for a moment while his heart beat a slow, dreadful rhythm in his chest. "What else did I say?" she asked in a near whisper.
"That you deserved me. That you wouldn’t stand for me leaving again. That you…loved me." He said the words deliberately as if they were an explosive he needed to handle with caution.
"Oh," she said in a tiny voice. She tucked herself smaller against him and cleared her throat. "Well, yes. I meant it. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I’d force you to stay, though. If you felt you had to—"
He shook her gently and growled, "Keza! Shut up about that. I’m staying. But you deserve better than me and love—love is…"
She tipped up her chin, head resting against his shoulder while she watched him struggle. "Chase, there is no one better," she murmured, fingers lifting to trace his features. "You are beautiful inside and out. Strong, fearless, fierce and wild. You make me feel safe. You make me want to be everything I’m not. You touch me and I melt. You laugh and it’s like the stars winked on for the first time. I do love you, and I see that it disturbs you, but I can’t help it. I don’t want to take your freedom, but I so desperately want you to stay with me," she ended in a husky whisper, eyes filling again with tears. Blinking rapidly, she cleared her throat and gave him a shaky smile. "It’s also kind of nice that the Goddess and the selkies approve of you, too. Not to mention my family—"
"Your family’s crazy," he rasped, feeling that internal fall again, the long drop with solid ground so very far away. "So are you. After all the things I’ve seen and done—" He shook his head sharply, fingers digging into her flesh, trying to get through to her. "You don’t want that around. You can’t want it, you can’t love me. Love’s not even—not even real."
She sat up on his lap, hands braced on his shoulders, scooting back a little to study his face with solemn amber eyes. "You’ve never seen it, have you? That’s why you don’t think it’s real. It breaks my heart that you weren’t loved as a boy, hurts to know your life’s been so hard you can’t even believe in love, that you think it’s a myth. But like our Goddess, it’s no myth, Chase. It exists and it’s here," she whispered, putting a hand to her chest. "It’s here waiting, if you want it."
His hands tightened on her, trying like hell to stop falling. His chest was tight—it was hard to breathe. He sucked air, but there was no oxygen in the room. "If it’s real, than that’s what you deserve. Not me."
Her forehead puckered in a frown and her eyes drifted away from his to watch her fingers play with the collar of his shirt. "So you want me to go find someone else who will love me?"
The idea scalded him from head to toe, possessive fury lighting him on fire. He dumped her on the bed and stretched out on top of her, catching both wrists and pressing her into the cushion as if to keep her from getting away. To keep her from finding anyone else. "No," he said in a guttural snarl, feeling the dangerous menace etched on his face but unable to soften it.
His little farm girl, his Keza, showed not a hint of fear despite his aggression. But she also didn’t look happy. "I don’t understand. You keep saying you can’t leave, but I don’t want to trap you. How could I be holding you here? I’m not anything special."
"Yeah, you are. You’re the only woman I ever met who tastes like sunshine." He bent his head and sucked gently on her bottom lip, her unique flavor blooming across his tongue and sinking deep inside him. "You’ve got it all over your skin, everywhere inside. I want it," he growled, licking ravenously at the seam of her lips. "I need it. I’m hooked. Even when I can’t touch you, I need to be close, see you, hear you. I’ll be damned if I understand it but I can’t walk away. I don’t want to. Ever. You want me gone, you’ll have to kick me out."
She smiled.
He lifted his head, dragged in a ragged breath. It was that smile, the one that was a step beyond sunshine, the smile that fogged his mind and twisted his insides with indescribable longing. "This," he muttered, touching a desperate finger to the curve of her lips. "I need this. What is it?"
"Love," she whispered, smile deepening impossibly further and frying his mind. "This is love."
He lowered his head and ended his fall in her kiss.
Chapter 20
Keza stared at the med scan, blinked. The results didn’t change. She curved a wondering hand over the small bump in her belly and tried to wrap her mind around yet another miracle. After watching her favorite show all unsuspecting for three months, she’d seen something that made her think her little passenger had been fooling them this whole time. They’d all assumed the fetus was female. This full med scan just confirmed her suspicions—she was carrying a boy.
She wandered out of the clinic, dazed. She’d been given so many blessings by the Goddess that she hadn’t looked for this one. Hadn’t thought to do an early sexing DNA scan, hadn’t even considered the possibility that she could be carrying a boy. Sure, the Marish family had more than its share of male children, but the first born was always female.
She meandered the path leading to the courtyard, considering what this would mean for her family. She was First Materi, which meant she would someday be the Marish Mater. Then her first born would be First Materi…and if that child was a boy, he would someday be the first Pater to rule a Kaskan House in nearly a millennium. Her mind boggled at it, unable to braid the idea into her current reality, the sweet and contented life she’d lived these past few months.
She paused at the edge of the courtyard, leaning against a column in the shadows to watch the sunlit scene beyond, a moment that she had seen many times lately but that never failed to move her. Chase Stryker, relaxed and laughing, bathed in sunlight, sitting at the heart of her family. Today, he sat in a chair at the end of one table, tipped and rocking lightly on the back two legs. Sprawled across his chest was his newest appendage, Shaneese, who called him Unca-Chay and tried to follow him everywhere. She had pursued him relentlessly with fearless determination, claiming him with the same kind of proprietary assurance as the selkies displayed toward him. At first he’d treated the child with endearing awkward wariness, but now he sat in apparent ease, an absent hand bracing her bottom while she played with the collar of his cream shirt and gazed up at him in contented adoration.
Keza could understand her niece’s fascination—she had a bad habit of following him around and mooning after him, too. He laughed, a deep, careless sound, while Harle mock-scowled at him from his sprawled position on a table bench and Rogue grinned at their security chief with lazy malice and threw a punch at the big man’s shoulder from his perch atop the table. Keza felt a foolish grin stretch her face, Chase’s laughter causing its usual reaction deep in her chest, a bloom of gooey warmth that never seemed to abate. She wondered if she’d ever get used to seeing him happy, or if the sight and sound of his contentment would forever warm and delight her. She hoped never to take this kind of moment for granted, even though it turned her into a mushy fool.
Her hand curved over her lower belly again and she had a sudden, brilliant vision of a boy, a small version of Chase, running through the center of her life with joyful abandon. Never lonely, full of light and laughter, and loved so well that shadows could not touch him. This beautiful child w
ould be a chance for her to right a terrible wrong, to take the piece of Chase that had been out of her reach, the child he had been, and give him all the love he’d never seen.
Keza wiped absently at the tears sliding down her face. Thank you, Goddess, she thought with a humble gratitude that had yet to dim, though she’d given this same thanks daily for months. Under her hand she felt a flutter that was not gas but her little growing passenger, her son, and laughed softly. "I know, sweetie. Mama’s a basketcase," she whispered.
Then she went still, staring at the sun-drenched courtyard with blind eyes. "Oh," she murmured as her life seemed to fall into place with a soundless, soul-deep click. All this time, she’d thought of herself as the flawed member of the family, the oddball who hadn’t the strength to stay. She’d known her return to Kaska was right, but she’d still felt that oddness, that peculiar sense of shame in not being what the family expected her to be. Suddenly she realized why. She’d been following the wrong path.
"Well, hell," she muttered with a half-hysterical giggle. But her self-discovery was interrupted by the appearance of Fyle Serru, their new marine biologist, heading for Chase with nervous determination. With a wince, Keza straightened and hurried into the courtyard.
Chase saw the biologist coming and though he didn’t visibly tense, his face lost its easy humor and sharpened with predatory menace. Keza watched the woman’s stride falter and winced again with a combination of amusement and chagrin. The man had become even more protective of the selkies than Keza herself, keeping the scientific team headed by Dr. Serru on a tight leash enforced by a healthy dose of fear.
Keza approached just as the biologist squared her shoulders and said, "The observatory is closed again, Mr. Stryker."
"Uh-huh," he responded in an uninterested tone, still rocking indolently on the rear legs of his chair. Neesie had gone to sleep on his chest, but Harle and Rogue were watching the confrontation with bright interest and not a little humor.
"We were assured of reasonable access to—"
"Got construction today. Don’t need strangers making the critters nervous."
The woman fairly vibrated with frustration. "But that’s what we want to observe, how they respond and interact—"
"Fyle," Keza interrupted, trying on her best conciliatory smile and laying a restraining hand on Chase’s shoulder. She felt the vibration of what could have been a subterranean growl or a laugh under her fingers. "Remember that we close the observatory during construction to minimize the stress on the selkies."
"But there was no construction scheduled for this afternoon. And you said we might try a careful observation of how the selkies respond to your construction efforts. What you have described, how they assist you and your mate, is fascinating, but I need to substantiate your claims with direct observa—"
Chase interrupted with a rather crude and improbable suggestion of what she could do with her observations.
Keza sighed. "Not today, Fyle. We have a crucial section we weren’t able to finish this morning. We’ll take tomorrow off work and open the observatory then."
The woman nodded stiffly without looking at Chase. "Thank you. I appreciate you working with us." Then she moved away with a steel rod in her backbone and temper in her stride.
Keza put hands on hips and looked down at Chase.
He gave her a slow, unrepentant smile that was far too sexy for her peace of mind. "Those brainy types are so sensitive," he drawled.
Keza blew out an exasperated breath and sent Harle and Rogue a disgusted look for their snickers, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to chastise him. He maintained that the reason he menaced the scientists with such zeal was that they were so much fun to pick on, but she knew the real reason. He’d become deeply attached to her selkie friends, playing with them almost as much as she did herself. He and Donle had become almost inseparable in the water, and she knew it bothered him to see the change in their demeanor whenever they were observed by non-family.
"Okay, Mr. Insensitive," she said with arched eyebrows. "Since you decided to close the observatory and work this afternoon, stop playing with the baby and the boys and get your ass moving."
He shared a very masculine, irritating grin with the other two men before lifting the limp little girl off his chest and into her father’s arms.
"Aren’t you guys done with that thing yet?" Rogue needled with the light of mischief in his eyes and a smirk on his lips. "Pretty soon you’re not gonna fit into your wetsuit, sis."
Since they were in fact almost done with the playground, an incredible feat for a construction crew of only two, one of whom was an inexperienced pregnant woman, they both comfortably ignored his dig. But Chase looked down at Keza’s stomach with a frown, measuring the bump there with a cupped hand and gently caressing fingers.
"Well, hell, don’t they make suits with belly pockets?"
Both Rogue and Harle convulsed with laughter and Keza felt her face turn hot with a blush. They were embarrassingly aware of Chase’s lustful obsession with her in a wetsuit. It was amazing how much progress had been made on the playground, considering all the times that Chase chose to forgo work in favor of pinning her down and stripping her out of the thing with slow thoroughness.
Believing retreat to be the better part of valor, Keza rolled her eyes and marched away from the laughing idiots. Chase followed on her heels and she would swear she heard him chuckle. She flashed him a sharp look over her shoulder. "And here I thought it was a good thing you were getting so chummy with my family. You know, it’s not healthy to encourage Rogue. He’s bad enough on his own."
"Don’t worry, Sunshine. A fist in his face shuts him up easy enough."
She slapped a hand to her forehead with a groan and heard him chuckle again. He slipped an arm around her waist, fingers pressing warmly into the flesh of her hip. She leaned against him, molding her body to his with a deep sense of satisfaction.
"Your dysfunctional and scary relationship with my brother aside…" she began in a dry tone, earning a flashing grin from him. "I’ve got a couple of things I need to talk to you about."
The grin faded, his eyebrows lifting with wary curiosity. "Uh-oh. Did the Dragon tell on me again?"
She narrowed her eyes and slowed to a stop in the corridor. "About what?"
"Uh…nothing." He tried a charming smile and bent to nip at the end of her nose.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to decide if it was worth the irritation of discovering what new skirmish had occurred between her lover and her mother. Their contentious relationship was a minor source of distress, even though she knew very well that the two of them relished their tug-of-wars and delighted in butting heads. But irritation couldn’t survive in the face of her discovery at the clinic.
She sighed and smiled wryly up into his beautiful face. "I’m going to pretend it really is nothing, because your relationship with my mother is even scarier and more dysfunctional, and I don’t wanna deal." She ignored his low laugh, shifting closer and laying her hands on his chest. "I went in for a full med scan today—"
His face instantly lost all humor, fingers tightening to the point of pain on her hips. "What’s wrong?" he barked.
"Nothing, everything’s fine," she soothed, giving herself an inner smack upside the head for not thinking about how he’d react. Her pregnancy was still an extremely sensitive subject for him. She suspected that he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, that he was half expecting something horrible to happen. So she hurried to tell him the news. "We just happen to be having a boy instead of a girl."
As usual whenever she spoke of their child, she couldn’t hold back a sappy smile. On the other hand, Chase looked like she’d just taken a lead pipe to the back of his head.
"A…boy?"
"Yes."
"But, uh—isn’t that rare?"
"Our family has a much higher rate of male births than the rest of Kaska, but yes, it’s still unusual. I would have been ecstatic to have
a little girl, but now I get to look at you in miniature." She lost her smile at the alarmingly blank look in his eyes. "Chase? You’re not going to panic again, are you?"
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