My bear rumbles in agreement, but he still doesn’t trust a single person in this house, and he won’t relax until we get back to our mate, back to keeping her safe.
I curse as I stand, wiping my brow and pretending they’re hard to move, when in reality, it’s easy for me. Where the fuck am I supposed to take them?
Then a lightbulb goes off. There’s only one person I can take them to, but they’re not going to be happy.
In fact, they’re going to be fucking furious.
18
EMMA
Iwake slowly, futilely trying to cling to the edges of sleep. For a long moment, I don’t even open my eyes, just lie there, suspended in that hazy space between dreaming and waking, as my body hums with a contentment I’ve never felt before.
Then the memories hit me.
Bodhi’s hands on my skin. His mouth between my thighs. The way he growled my name like it was being ripped from somewhere deep inside him. The strength in his arms as he carried me to this bed, and the tenderness in his touch as he tucked me in.
My eyes fly open.
“Bodhi?”
But I already know he’s not there. The image of him standing in the doorway, giving me one last lingering look before he shut himself out, is burned into my memory forever.
The room is still dark, and the blinds are still drawn, but thin slivers of pale grey light seep in around the edges, telling me it’s early morning. Dawn, maybe. I’ve slept for hours.
I sit up slowly, the silk sheets sliding against my bare skin, and I realize I’m still half-dressed. My blouse is gone, buttons scattered somewhere on the floor. My bra, too. But my skirt is still bunched around my waist, and my legs are bare, my underwear...
I flush, remembering. In Bodhi’s pocket. He kept them.
Did last night really happen?
My body answers before my mind can catch up. I’m sore in the best possible way; my inner thighs tender, my core still pulsing with aftershocks that shouldn’t be possible this many hours later. When I shift on the mattress, pressing my legs together, a jolt of pleasure shoots through me, sharp enough to make me gasp.
I’m still aching for him. Still wet. Still wanting.
It was real. All of it. Every single heavenly second.
I fall back against the pillows and stare at the ceiling, my heart racing.
It was more than real. It was... something else.
The way he moved. How he lifted me as if I weighed nothing, how easily he pinned my hands above my head with one of his. The sound that rumbled through his chest, more animal than human, vibrating against my skin.
And his eyes.
I saw them change. Right before he kissed me, right before he gave in to whatever was building between us, his eyes flared gold. Not a trick of the light. Not my imagination. Bright, burning amber in the almost pitch-black of my room, like something ancient looking out at me from behind his human face.
It should scare me.
It doesn’t.
Instead, lying here in the dark, I feel something I haven’t felt since I was taken from my apartment.
Safe. Protected. Like nothing in this house can touch me as long as he’s nearby.
And even now, even though I can’t see him, can’t hear him, I swear, I can feel him. There’s a warmth in my chest, a presence at the edge of my awareness, like a thread connecting us across distance.
It makes no sense. We barely know each other. We’ve barely spoken beyond threats, warnings, and stolen moments of heat. But when I close my eyes and reach for that feeling, it’s there. Steady. Constant. Real.
