“Is something wrong?”
Tell her.The wolf’s voice was ragged, exhausted from howling all night.Now.Tell her now.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
The words came out smooth, practiced.The lie I’d been telling my whole life, to everyone who’d ever tried to get close.Don’t worry.I have it under control.Everything is fine.
She studied me for a long moment, and I watched the thoughts move behind her eyes.The instinct to push warring with the desire to trust.She’d spent her whole life being kept in the dark by men who claimed to know better.Her father.Her ex-boyfriend.Every authority figure who’d ever decided she couldn’t handle the truth.
And now me.
Something in her expression shifted.A decision made.She settled back against my chest, her cheek pressed to my heart, her arm draping across my waist with easy possession.
“Whatever it is,” she said quietly, “you don’t have to carry it alone.”
The words sliced through me like a blade, sharp and clean and devastating.
She was offering me something.Partnership.Trust.The kind of vulnerability I’d always avoided, the kind that got people killed in my world.And I was accepting her offering with hands still stained by the lies I was choosing to tell her.
I held her tighter.Breathed in her scent, that innocent sweetness now mixed with something darker and richer, the evidence of our coupling still clinging to her skin.My wolf settled, appeased by her closeness even as the man understood how little I deserved it.
“Sleep,” I murmured against her hair.“We can talk later.”
Another lie.We wouldn’t talk.I would continue hiding the truth, and she would continue trusting me, and the wall between us would grow higher with every secret I added to it.
She fell asleep within minutes, her breath deepening, her body going soft and heavy in my arms.I envied her that.The ability to let go.To trust.To close her eyes and believe that the person holding her had her best interests at heart.
I didn’t sleep.
I watched the gray light brighten at the windows, marking the start of a day that would bring the scandal to Paradise Peaks.The news would spread.The reporters would come.And slowly, inevitably, the truth would begin to surface.
She would find out eventually.Whether I told her or not, she would learn what her father had been.What I had done.What I was still choosing to hide from her.
I had everything I’d wanted.The revenge begun.The woman in my arms.The Senator’s legacy crumbling like the house of cards it had always been.
And I had never felt more alone.
24
LENA
I woke to warmth.
His warmth.His body curved around mine like a shield, one arm heavy across my waist, his breath slow and steady against the back of my neck.The sheets smelled like sex and sweat and him, that dark scent that had become as familiar to me as my own heartbeat.
My body ached in ways that made me blush even alone in the early morning light.Between my thighs.In muscles I hadn’t known I had.And deeper than that, in places that had nothing to do with physical exertion.
Last night.
The shower.His mouth on me.His hands everywhere.The way he’d made me come until I couldn’t remember my own name, and then held me while I fell apart.
I needed to pee.
Very romantic, I know.But nature didn’t care about afterglow, and my bladder was making its demands known with increasing urgency.
I tried to slip out from under his arm without waking him.He shifted, murmured something unintelligible, but didn’t open his eyes.I held my breath until his breathing deepened again, then eased myself toward the edge of the mattress.
The bathroom was cold.I used the toilet quickly, washed my hands, and caught my reflection in the mirror.My hair was a disaster, tangled and wild from his hands.There were marks on my neck, my collarbone, the tops of my breasts.Evidence.I touched one of them, remembering the pressure of his mouth, the scrape of his stubble, and felt heat bloom low in my belly despite everything.
