Page 91 of Shark’s Pride

“Thanks.” He softly kissed the tip of my nose. “I know you do.”

“Wish I could say I didn’t or that it was hard to get. But when those primordial behavioral remnants get stirred in people…”

“When what?” Bas charged.

“It’s common to most of us,” I replied. “An innate instinct, almost. Humans really aren’t that different from animals. We instinctually prey on those who are weaker than ourselves—survival of the fittest.”

One corner of his mouth hitched up. Though it was likely reflex for him, I was more than aware of—and heated by—the reaction. “I’ve been familiar with the concept for quite a long time, Ms. Gibson.”

His drawl heightened my awareness of one more thing. The utter irony of my assertion, given our current positioning. “I…I suppose you are, Mr. Shark.”

In the space of a heartbeat, threads of wildness reentered his sultriness. “And you like it.”

My eyelids—and my sex—were heavy again. “And I’m smart enough to agree with you.”

From above me, Bas broke his grin wider—with blatant mischief. “Smart girls are sexy.”

“And horny boys are hopeless.” I seized the chance to lighten up the moment, laughing while trying to buck him off me, but my effort was useless. The man was all muscle and pure determination. If he didn’t want to be moved, he wasn’t going to be moved.

The admission came just before he surprised me by releasing his grip and then rolling his body upward. His explanation wasn’t long to follow. “As much as I hate to admit it, we should probably think about getting some sleep, though.”

I hurled a playful side-eye. “Who are you, and what have you done with my give-it-to-me-all-night-baby boyfriend?”

He tossed his head back on a raucous laugh while balancing on his chiseled haunches. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.” He rolled up to his feet and then stretched out a hand. “Shower?”

“I think I’d rather just climb into bed and deal with it in the morning. That way I can have a fighting chance with my hair.” I rolled my eyes up toward the wild mess around my face and shoulders.

“Sounds like a plan. Come on.” He wrapped an arm around my waist to tow me to my side of the bed. With swift efficiency, he pulled the covers down for me. “I’ll tuck you in, baby, but I need to check email one more time before bed.”

“Nooooo,” I protested and dug my grip into one of his beautiful forearms. “Just come to bed. If you get on the computer, you’ll be up for two more hours.” I slid my hand down until I could tug on his hand. “There’s nothing you can fix at this hour anyway.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised what I can do at this hour, Abbigail. The business world never sleeps.”

His tone already made it clear who would win the debate, so I chose not to push the subject. Fact: certain subjects—all right, most subjects—just couldn’t be argued about with the man. Also fact: business and the priority it held in his life were on the top of that list. But most important fact: now that I knew all the reasons why, there was no way I could or would change him. Not even in moments like this. The man who kissed me sweetly and then quietly walked out in his thousand-dollar track pants was still, in so many ways, the hungry kid from the east side in secondhand clothes. I loved him for the drive that had gotten him from one to the other—and yes, at times I also loved him in spite of it.

“Good night, beautiful,” Bas tenderly murmured from the doorway. “Sleep well. I won’t be long.” As always, he’d left a soft light on in the bathroom until he came to bed, making it possible for me to watch him walk out into the hall. And what a sight it was. Despite how sleep strongly pulled at me, it wasn’t hard to keep my eyes open for the captivating sight of him. The sleek muscles of his bare back. The determined set of his broad shoulders. The way his freshly trimmed hair caressed the back of his neck.

Wow. Even now, at complete rest, he was so breathtaking. So proud. So strong. So mesmerizing. So mine. Was this seriously my life now? It was still hard to believe at times. And then, like right now, it hit in a crazy rush of stunned awareness. I was really living here.

With Sebastian Shark.

My sexy-as-sin boyfriend.

In his palace-sized home in the hills of Calabasas.

Ohhh, yes. This was all really happening. And not just “for the time being.” Not anymore. My lease had expired in Torrance two weeks earlier. After a lot of wine and a long conversation, Sebastian convinced me it was best, logistically and financially, to let it go. I’d miss dear old Mr. Blatt and the rest of the gang in the building, but Bas’s logic resonated. I was paying for something I wasn’t using—but, more significantly, for space that had always been a residence, not my home. On top of that, Bas was still convinced he could protect me better here than there. While the evidence to date didn’t support that, I was ready to trust him on it.

Within hours of our talk, Bas had movers hired to pack and bring up all my things from the condo to Calabasas. They were now stored in the pool house, which had been steam-cleaned after the police finished picking it over. All I had to do was oversee the activities, which had taken just a few effortless, perhaps even anticlimactic, hours. It was all quite surreal.

But I knew not to get too comfortable yet. The real fireworks were just ahead when I explained my new living arrangements to Rio and Sean.

The strangeness of the thought got exacerbated when I broke things down a little more. Sean had been weirdly and pleasantly open-minded when it came to my relationship with Sebastian. Oddly, my sister-in-law was the one wielding more reservations. No matter how many different ways I looked at the situation, I couldn’t understand where Rio’s hostility was rooted. Clearly I didn’t have some key information here, but intuition kept leading back to her issues with Bas’s domineering side. Maybe that quality about him—which I did count as a quality, for more reasons than the benefits it brought me between the sheets—dredged up some unpleasant memories from Rio’s past. But how did I get into that kind of conversation with her? And how did I look past the fact that my brother had a pretty wide bossy streak too? If Rio didn’t respond well to that type of man, it made no sense why she’d married Sean. Of course, that just brought me back to square one. No matter how many ways I tried to rationalize Rio’s disdain for Sebastian, the conflict didn’t add up.

With all of those mental switches flipped, sleep was less of a sure thing than I thought. After tossing and turning for at least thirty minutes, I finally toggled all the thoughts back off and drifted to sleep.

The alarm went off much too soon, right before six a.m. It was way too early for a Saturday, but it was a big day for Abstract Catering as well as Shark Enterprises.

I quickly silenced the beeps so Bas could sleep a little longer. True to form, he’d come to bed far past midnight. I got a shower, dressed into my kitchen clothes, and sneaked downstairs to have my coffee in the quiet of the kitchen. Soon my day would transition to another kitchen. Rio and I were meeting at the Abstract prep space to check off the final tasks for the Edge’s groundbreaking reception. The plan was to load and deliver the food to the party site by ten.