Calder chuckled. “They’ve slept in worse places, I’m sure.”
We talked for a few minutes longer before hanging up.
“What did you mean by the Kirkpatricks being here for me?” Chloe asked.
I stared at her, unsure how to explain the feeling in my gut every time Brayden Kirkpatrick looked at her, or the way his eyes flashed whenever he heard her name. I had no proof, just a deeply seated sense that something was wrong.
“Lach?”
“I’m trying to figure out how to explain it,” I answered. “It’s nothing concrete, just a feeling I have about Brayden. His body language and the look in his eyes when you’re even mentioned gives me…” I trailed off, searching for the best way to describe it.
“The creeps?” she injected.
I huffed out a laugh. “For lack of a better word, yeah.”
“He doesn’t give me the best feeling either, especially after seeing him yesterday,” she agreed, surveying the papers spread on the kitchen table. Chloe rubbed her hands together. “Well, we should probably get to work,” she stated, changing the subject.
I could sense the agitation in her. She wanted to end this, the sooner the better. She really hadn’t been lying when she said patience wasn’t her strength.
“It’s just a few more days, Chloe,” I said quietly.
She looked up at me, her hazel eyes bright. The green stood out in her amber irises, a clear sign of her frustration. “I want him to pay,” she growled and I realized she wasn’t thinking of Brayden Kirkpatrick anymore. She was focused on Darrell. “With his blood and his bones. Because that’s what he took from me.”
“He will. I promise.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chloe
Since Lachlan cookeddinner, I washed the dishes. The day had been a long one. The simple task allowed my mind to calm and wander. God knew I needed it.
I couldn’t believe I’d told him that I’d found my mate. When he’d mentioned children and never knowing when I’d meet my mate, my tired mind didn’t have the energy to filter my thoughts and the words had slipped out.
Still, he hadn’t mentioned it, so I hoped that perhaps he’d been asleep and hadn’t heard me.
I rinsed the last fork and put it in the drain board. Once I let the water out of the sink and wiped down the counters, I turned off the light in the kitchen and walked into the living room. Lachlan was sprawled on the sofa, his feet flat on the floor and legs spread wide as he watched me pause in the doorway.
“Come here,” he murmured, lifting a hand to beckon me forward.
Recognizing the gleam in his eyes, I moved toward him. When I was between his outstretched legs, I knelt to the floor. His gaze followed the motion, his lids lowering, hooding his eyes.
I put my hands on his knees, curving my palms over the top of each one. Then I slid them up his thighs until they met in the center. His tongue darted out to wet his mouth as he watched me, but he didn’t move. Though we’d been intimate several times now, he always stopped me when I tried to use my mouth on him.
There would be no stopping me this time.
Without taking my eyes off his face, I unbuckled his belt, slipped the button free, and lowered the zipper of his jeans. My knuckles brushed his cock as I loosened his clothes and I felt it growing harder as I spread the denim. He wore nothing beneath them.
He lifted his hips up and let me jerk his pants down his legs and over his bare feet. As I tossed them aside, he reached back over his head and grabbed the fabric of his t-shirt, pulling it over his head.
I knelt before him, fully clothed, as he leaned back on the couch, his nude body burnished by the golden light of the lamp. He looked like an erotic work of art, his hard cock lying against his firmly muscled stomach.
I reached out and circled him with my fingers, lifting his rigid length up so I could stroke him with my hand. He sucked in a sharp breath, his arms flexing at his sides, but he didn’t move.
Still staring into his burning blue eyes, I leaned forward and opened my mouth, flicking the head with my tongue. He twitched in my hand, growing harder. Smiling at him, I licked him again, starting at the base and dragging my tongue up to the tip.
Lachlan’s eyes never left my face as he watched me run my lips and tongue over the smooth, hot skin of his cock. Even as his hands clenched and opened at his sides, he didn’t touch me. Without direction, he knew that I wanted him to lie still and let me touch him.
It wasn’t until I closed my lips around the tip of his cock that his hips jerked against the couch and his hands lifted so he could bury his fingers in my hair, sweeping it back from my face.
