“Mmm, hmm.”
Laughing, she reached out and pushed his shoulder. “I’m serious! I’m glad you’re safe and sane and reasonably content. I’m pleased that I can cross you off my list as an obligation that needed to be fulfilled before I felt right about handing over the presidency.” And if that meant any further dealings with him were her business, not National’s business, yay for her.
She let that thought run through her body, warming her up from the inside. He wasn’t oblivious, was at least partially in tune with her, whether he realized it or not.
He pulled in a breath and turned to look at her, bringing the truck to a stop on the side of the highway. As he watched her, heat came into his eyes. It satisfied her, thrilled her, enticed her.
But he wasn’t ready yet. She looked out the window beyond him. “Where are we going?”
He watched her for a minute. “That’s the question. Where do you want to go?”
“I’ve been in contact with Linda and Michael, they’ll call me if anything new happens.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Adam had begun to ache. Now that he was full of food, rested, feeling restored, he wanted to touch Myra. Feel her underneath him as he had that morning. Explore. She’d convinced him that she hadn’t been upset by his loss of control that morning. Didn’t meanhewasn’t upset by it, but if he got her underneath him again, he could, and would, maintain control. And do some of that exploring.
He had to admit, there were some advantages to this shifter thing, because he knew she wanted him, too. Was open to playing. And maybe it made him an asshole, but once he’d heard she’d had a mate, wasn’t likely to find another, some of his reservations had fallen away. Did it suck more to have had that, and lost it, than to never have had it at all? Jesus, now he was a damn philosopher.
He grunted and pulled the truck back onto the road, heading toward his cabin, not the alphas’ house.
Trust was a slow thing for him, but he had to admit, she’d done everything right so far. Even knowing that she’d handled shit in Arizona, made the tough decisions that had to be made, lessened his concerns about her. About the National Council. Enough that he wanted to let the building heat free, let it burn them up between the sheets. He had a strong suspicion that the two of them together were going to set the cabin on fire, and now that he was actually entertaining the idea, he wanted to get started.
He glanced over, wanting to see her reaction over heading away from the alphas’. She knew. And she wanted. She took off her seat belt and he narrowed his eyes at her, but she scooted herself to the middle seat and buckled back in. Put her hand on his arm.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She didn’t seem put off by his near grunt. Left her hand where it was. “I’m sorry about your husband. Mate.”
Her fingers curled in a bit harder and he felt a distant wave of sadness, knew it to be hers.
“I’ll never be sorry that we had each other. And I always rejoice when a wolf finds their mate, knowing how special that connection is.” She leaned back against the seat more fully, so that most of her side was pressed up against him. “I wonder what he would have been like as a thirty-year-old man, forty. What we would have fought about and if we’d have taken up gardening or genealogy or what.”
He took one hand off the wheel, gave her knee a comforting squeeze. It was damned weird to be talking about a woman’s dead husband while he was driving her to his house to ravish her. But he wanted to hear about it, wanted to comfort her, take care of her even though he knew nothing would make her loss disappear. He soothed his hand lightly around her knee, his arm resting along her warm thigh.
“I want that for you,” she said, her voice low. “I want you to find that happiness, that connection.”
“I don’t know if I’d survive the loss of that,” he admitted.
She swallowed loudly enough that he heard it. “It’s hard. If we’d been together years longer, I might not have. But we’re hard to kill, this was serious bad luck, so chances are pretty good you’d get to old age together. Mated wolves usually pass within weeks of each other, if not hours, when they die of old age.”
“Hm.”
She smiled, and he caught it in the rearview mirror. They bumped off the road and onto a dirt lane. He slowed, but maybe not as much as he should have, so she snuggled in and rubbed up against him. He was acting like a sixteen-year-old taking his date to the make-out point. But he knew once he got her to a bed, they’d be doing a hell of a lot more than making out. They should have stopped at the store and gotten more food.
Her fingers resting on his arm began to move, rubbing up and down, just a bit. His foot on the peddle got heavier. Her legs spread open a bit wider in invitation. Forcing himself to keep his eyes on the road, he let his hand curl to the inside of her knee, then ease back a bit, up her thigh until his hand was nestled between them. So close to the heat at the center of her jeans, but not quite there. He drew a circle with his thumb and her breathing deepened.
The driveway to his cabin was coming up and he had to slow down in order to take the turn safely with just his left hand, but he did it, refusing to relinquish the hold he had with his right.
She leaned in, put her mouth up against his ear. “I want to know what you taste like,” she whispered.
The soft wetness of her tongue drew his earlobe into her mouth and he had to clench his jaw to maintain control, his gaze glued to the cabin and the spot where he needed to stop the truck. As soon as he hit that spot, he threw the truck into park and turned to her. His hands cupped her face, brought her lips to his and his tongue invaded her mouth before the truck had finished rocking.
Her sweet moan of acceptance, of need that matched his own, somehow managed to both soothe him and fire him up. He slid the fingers of one hand up into her hair, tightened his grip though she wasn’t trying to move. Her arms came around his shoulders, tried to pull him closer. The damn seat belt cut between them and gave him enough annoyance to remember that they didn’t have to be uncomfortable in the truck when there was a cabin with a bed five feet away.
Keeping the hold in her hair, he drew back on the kiss, giving her soft nips on her lips when she tried to pull him back in. He kissed her cheekbone, the corner of her eye. Moved back far enough to meet her gaze.
“Inside.”
