“I’m sure I could come up withsomethingto keep you from being too noisy,” Bruno said, dragging a finger suggestively over her lips.
“I might be bad at it,” Clarice warned him. “Being quiet, I mean.”
“I’m sure we can devise an appropriate punishment if you fail,” Bruno said.
Clarice grinned against his mouth. “Oo, aspanking?” She had to giggle. “I hope I’m not just proving that you should have given me a business card instead of taking me on a date because I’m a sexual deviant...”
Bruno drew away and cupped her face in both hands. “We are two consenting adults who might have a lot of fun trying new things, and I will do exactly what you let me. You can tell me no at any point you want.”
Clarice had no need forno, not when he led her back to his bedroom, not later when they showered together and started things all over, and not much later in the night when they woke up to go again.
“We should talk about things,” she said, sleep slurring her words as they lay together in the early hours of the morning. “Can I leave a toothbrush here? My place doesn’t have an extra room for Gil, so I can’t really return the favor. Does your lease allow cats?”
“My lease doesn’t include pets,” Bruno said, stroking her. “But I’ve had my eye on this great house. I bet if I had someone to cosign on the loan, I’d be able to get a better rate.”
“Cosigning on a loan is a big step,” Clarice said. It didn’t scare her though. It felt like a natural next step. “It would tie up our finances.”
“You’re right,” Bruno said, tracing a lazy pattern on her belly. “We should just get married and make it less complicated.”
Clarice turned to blink at him. She could just make out his profile in the light that was on in the attached bathroom. “You can’t be serious. We barely know each other.”
Bruno moved his hand to cup her jaw and kiss her again. “I told you about instinct,” he reminded her. “And every human and shifter instinct I have says you’re the one for me. You’re smart and funny and sexy and brave. You’re great with Gil and he likes you. I could never do better. I was meant to find you and I’ll wait if you want, but I don’t see any real reason to.”
Clarice felt like all the breath had gone out of her lungs…and at the same time, she felt like everything fell perfectly into place. “I come with a cat,” she warned him. “A very unfriendly cat with trust issues.”
“I’m a trust issue professional,” Bruno reminded her. “We’ll get along great.”
“Are you going to headshrink mycat?” Clarice had to giggle in delight.
“I’ll send you a bill for it, if it makes you feel better,” Bruno chuckled.
“Yes,” Clarice said.
“Youwantme to bill you?”
“Yes, I’llmarryyou, if you mean it.” Clarice had no reason not to. Bruno was everything she’d ever wanted in a man, and even if she didn’t have magical instinct to tell her, she knew that he was exactly what he was on the tin: noble, kind, and sexy as sin. They’d already been throughmore adventure than most couples endured, and come out the other end of them more in love than ever.
“I mean it,” Bruno said, gathering her up into his arms. “I mean every word.”
EPILOGUE
Christmas week
The problem with finally getting Darius talking was that Darius wouldn’tstoptalking.
“Dad doesn’t want me to follow in Mom’s footsteps, of course. He’s all,danger danger blah blah blah. But come on, you never know when you’re going to end up knee deep in trouble and wouldn’t it be better to know how to do stuff than not? I’ve been working out anyway, and no, it’s not just so that my friends won’t know I’m not a shifter. I’m not doing dumb protein powders or drugs or anything, so he ought to be happy for me, and I know he’s just trying to protect me because he loves me, butguh, it gets so old.”
Bruno finally found a gap in the flow to step into. “I gotta wrap this up, Darius. I have another client I need to see in just a few minutes and can I be honest?”
“Yeah, sure.” Darius shrugged easily. Everything about him was easy now. He was more comfortable in his skin, and less shuttered.
Bruno was confident about his assessment. “I don’t think you need to see me any more, at least not in thiscapacity. Once you were willing to do the work, it got done. You gave your feelings the space they deserved and learned how to handle them.”
Darius looked at him in surprise, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. I guess I did.”
“My kind of help isn’t meant to be a permanent crutch. It’s a cast, and casts come off when you’ve healed enough. I’m really proud of your progress and I’ll be happy to see you again any time you feel like you need an ear or a kick in the ass, but it sounds like you’ve got a busy social schedule and if you’ve got stuff to take up with your dad, that’s who you should be taking it up with.”
Darius chuckled. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Doc Martin. I…this was alright.” They both stood and Darius thrust out his hand to shake before Bruno could offer a hug. “See you around.”
“See you around,” Bruno echoed, shaking his hand firmly.
Darius grabbed his backpack from the couch and slung it over a shoulder. “Later.” Then he was bounding out the door.
Bruno checked his text messages and confirmed that he’d be picking Tara and Franzi up when he got Gil from kindergarten. It worked comfortably in his flexible schedule and he knew that Vivian and Logan were both very grateful they didn’t have to take off from work to do it anymore. He considered them both friends now and was sometimes astonished by how much his circle of trust had widened since the events of a scant few weeks prior.
Shared trauma, he thought wryly. But it was more than that. His self-inflicted isolation had been based in doubt and mistrust. Clarice was the anchor he’d needed to believe in himself again.
He took a moment to review his notes on the nextclient thoughtfully, schooling his attention to this new puzzle of a person. Her file was sparse; their previous sessions had been full of small talk and evasion and her answers were too pat. She was a master of self-delusion and was clearly in a survival mode of some sort. Bruno went into any case gently, and he was beginning to wonder if something more forward would be necessary to get results. After he’d refreshed himself on the details she’d shared last time, he went to open his door and walk to the lobby.
“Miss Chase,” he greeted her. “Come on back.”
