The front door creaked open, and Tate’s scent drifted towards me. I gave him a passing glance when he walked into the room before scribbling something on the paper. Fuck if I knew if it was right.
“Wow,” Tate murmured, standing in the doorway of my office. “Isn’t this depressing?”
He pushed off the doorway and walked toward me, his hands tucked into the pockets of his gym shorts. His gaze lifted to behind me.
“Kyren, babe, your shadows are blotting out the world.”
I glanced behind me, saw the swirling vortex of black behind me, and closed my eyes, thinking calming thoughts toward them. Eventually, the light in the room brightened, and my shadows calmed.
“Better?” I asked, leaning my face on my hand while I stared at the numbers on the page.
“Much.” Tate sat on the edge of my desk, peering over my shoulder. “Why are you doing the household accounts? What happened to Manny?”
“Figured I’d take a crack at them,” I murmured, not meeting his prodding gaze.
Tate hummed. “This mood you’re in doesn’t have to do with a certain female, does it?”
I tugged on a sheet of paper under his butt and grunted. Tate lifted his hips slightly for me, his hand moving to settle further onto my desk.
“You know, I heard a rumor.”
I grunted again.
He leaned toward me, his breath on the side of my face. “That you were at the bar last night.” My nose twitched as a familiar scent hit my senses. “And not just that, but a certain two supernaturals are now missing. Strangely enough, the same two guys who were hassling Jack. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
My eyes zeroed in on the hand on my desk, sniffing once more. The spicy scent of arousal filled my nose. But not just anyone’s... Jack’s. My eyes slowly lifted to Tate’s smirking face, and the knowing look on his face told me all I needed to know.
“And what if I did?” I croaked, leaning back in my chair, fingers curling into the arm rests. “No one would blame me.”
“Of course not. You were just protecting what was ours.” Tate licked his lips suggestively.
“Ours, right,” I murmured. The arousal on his hand was also on his face, but there was something else. Blood. And not just any blood...
I shoved out of my chair and backed up from him, eyes wide and fangs aching.
“What’s the matter, Kyren?” Tate lifted the offending hand to his face, stroking his lips with his fingers. “You seem to be having a hard time there.” His eyes dropped to the front of my slacks, his own arousal mixing with Jack’s.
“You’re a right bastard,” I snarled, backing further away from him. “If you’re going to fuck her behind my back, then have the decency to shower first.”
“Oh, this?” Tate held his hand toward me. “This was just a taste. And didn’t you tell me I could do what I wanted?” He cocked his head to the side, taking a step toward me. “What I wanted was to bury my cock into the hilt, listening to her scream while she came all over that desk I had her on.”
My body shook at the visual, the scent of her arousal coming closer to me. “Then why didn’t you?”
“Maybe I didn’t want to...”
“I find that hard to believe.” I swallowed, then regretted tasting the scent on my tongue. “Did she not want to?”
“Oh, she wanted to.” Tate closed in on me, my back hitting the wall behind me. He propped his arms over my head, engulfing me in their scents. “But I had to have a taste...” He leaned down until our mouths were inches apart. “Don’t you remember? How good she tastes? Especially after you’ve fed on her?”
I blinked rapidly up at him before shoving under his arm. Shaking my head, I tried to get the smell out of my nose.
“No, I don’t.”
Tate didn’t chase after me, leaning against the wall I’d been pinned against and chuckling.
“She’s on her period. Every vampire and werewolf in that place is going to be sniffing in her direction. And since, technically, she’s not ours anymore...”
I kept my back to him, staring into the fireplace, trying not to think about what he and Jack had done. How he’d ended up with not only her arousal but her blood on his hand, his face.
