I wish I could tell him I’m overreacting, but I just stand there, feeling the pressure of his hands, and I try to remember how to breathe. “Take your pick, love. Either of them could blow depending on what is said.”
Rafe chuckles and shrugs. “Sari will have problems keeping the focus on her, that’s for sure. She’s still acting like Belle’s a good community member when she’s never even lived here. Sari doesn’t see any of us as lost, so her opinion is that all she has to do is figure out how to get us back. For her, that’s by any means necessary, including breaking my primary’s heart by ordering this bullshit.”
Yep, I’m going to have to admit my fears to him or he won’t understand.
I sigh and lean into him again. “Sari’s lost you and the minx. Wilde has lost the goddess for good. She even lost me—despite never having me—so that’s enough to set her off. It doesn’t matter that the bulldog closed the curtain.” Pulling my smokes out of my pants pocket, I light one and take a deep drag. “I’m afraid I’m going to lose both of you to her again. She’ll drag youboth back. Goddess is afraid of that, too. I just don’t have it in me to be happy about that.”
Tilting his head, he moves in front of me, dropping to his knees. “I’m not going anywhere. I said I’m yours and I meant it. The cat’s no different. We love you; we love our family. They can’t take us away.”
Looking down at him, I growl low. “I can’t lose my family, Sampson. I’d die. I love all of you too much.” I turn my head, swallowing hard. “I can beat my chest and stomp around like I’d kill the bint if she even sniffs at you, but in the end, the only thing I can do is come down on her like hell if she tries Talia again.”
Sampson slides his hands up my thighs and gives me a push, tumbling me back onto the lounger. Crawling up the chair, he rests his forearms on my legs and looks at me. “We’re not going anywhere, love. They would have to drag me kicking and screaming away from you or her. We will never leave you.”
I wrap my arms around him and squeeze. “Lord knows she and I are physically incapable of leaving you. It’s never going to happen.” I tangle my fingers in his hair, holding on with my heart as well.
“It’s been good, but the rule states that it never lasts. We had a bad day, but since then it’s been large with the happy. That means double the gut-wrenching misery on the flip side. The worst thing that could happen to us is losing you and the wife. It’d be the coup of all time for Sari because it’d kill me.”
“Not going to happen.” He shakes his head. “Nothing she could say would ever make us leave. Even if it gets bad, you are worthevery second. I can’t be without you, mate. You’re both in my blood, my heart, and my soul.”
Closing my eyes, I release some anxiety with a sigh. I trust him. I stroke his hair away from his face and pull him up my body to kiss him. He drapes over me, tongue twining and dancing with mine as he purrs. When the kiss breaks, I rest my forehead against his and smile. “You sod. You’re going to get me worked up and dig me out of an introspective slump.”
“Aw. One entire day of brooding is now down the drain in favor of naked time. That’s a tragedy. You’d better watch the strain on your ticker.” His eyes dance and he tugs on my lower lip with his teeth before letting go.
I roll my eyes and huff. “What is it with you lot and my bloody ticker?”
He shrugs and grins unrepentantly. “If you didn’t make an issue of it, no one would know.”
“Come on! Do you know the last time I made an issue of it? It’s you and the wife, I bloody well swear. You just have to keep poking with those tiny sticks.” I pause and groan. “Oh, for another turn of phrase.”
“Here, I thought you enjoyed getting poked. It’s sad,” he chuckles and makes a sad face. “I guess we’ll have to find someone else to poke at.”
I go pale and look panicked. “Don’t joke—not about that. Don’t joke.”
Rafe must realize that he scared me, and he winces. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Not even a bit. Truly, love, neither of us would ever do that.”
The lump in my throat is hard to swallow past, and my heart is pounding despite my assertion. “Guess we have to worry about my ticker after all.”
Snuggling closer, he wraps his arms around me and buries his face in my neck. He whispers low, “Never. I will never leave you.” His hand covers my heart, and he twists his fingers with mine. “I will never let what happened to you happen to me.”
I nod and sniff, my eyes glistening a bit. I hold him tightly, unable to let go.
Moving slowly, he resettles in my lap and curls around me, his purr vibrating over my skin. He echoes his claim and his promise over and over, using his voice to soothe my soul.
“Christ, luv. I never knew—never thought I’d love like I love you and her. It’s so much that it scares me sometimes. It makes me so fucking vulnerable that it terrifies me.”
Hands stroke over my hair and neck as he nuzzles. “It’s okay, love. We love you just as much. We love you with every fiber of who we are.”
Needing comfort, I just lie there with him and soak it in. After a short while, I pull back and look at him. “Are you just going to sit there all day or are you going to pull me inside and take advantage of me, lover?”
His eyes narrow, and he wrinkles his nose, looking peeved. “Oh, right then. How dare I sit here and love on you so that your beleaguered ticker doesn’t explode when I should try to get in your pants? What was I thinking?”
I smile and cup his face, kissing him. “I love you, you lazy stoat. The love you give me humbles me.”
“You deserve it.”
In a blink, I apparate us into the bed and I smile. “Let me show you what you deserve.”
The Cat Hosts A Meeting
