Page 38 of Hunted

“I told you in the damn truck! I didn’t know I was going to end up alpha of this circus. And once I was, how was that conversation supposed to go? Hey, babe, I’m alpha to a bunch of criminals, spies and renegades, who are all probably near the top of your Enforcer family's Wanted list. Come live with me and the crazies, in a place no one you know can ever come to or know about. And by the way, do it in such a way that they—with the best investigative sources in the shifter world—won’t come looking for you.”

She said stubbornly, “You should have given me the choice.”

“And what if you’d chosen your family? And the law? What would have happened to my pack then?”

The minute he said it, he could see the hurt on her face. Worse, he could feel it, like hot knives stabbing into his own body.

She said, “That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? You care more about them than me. You always did.”

He knew he needed to answer her—knew he needed to tell her it wasn’t true. But he couldn’t say it. The pull of his alpha bond was too great. The gold star necklace he always wore—the one the old alpha had given him when he died, imbued with the power of all the Outlaw Ridge alphas that had come before him—felt like it was burning his skin.

So did the tattoo Mikey had given him. Whatever he chose, he was fucked.

He waited too long. She turned away from him and started down the hallway towards the bedroom. “Fine. I did what I came to do—I saved your friend. Just let me out your damn tunnel, and this time keep your hound dogs from coming after me. I’m out of here.”

Chapter 17

Damn it. He’d hurt her. Again. He couldn’t stand it.

All reason and sense left him. In two strides, he’d caught up to her, pulling her around to face him. “Don’t.” She couldn’t stay, but he couldn’t let her go. “Don’t leave me.”

“You left me,” she said, her voice trembling. “You wanted your pack more than me. You wanted this—” she waved her free hand at the shabby cabin— “more than me. All I do is fuck up your life, right? Isn’t that what you said?”

His wolf was still growling, a constant rumbling low in his chest. “I was wrong,” he said. “You make my life better. And I do want you. I want you all the time. I only stayed here because I owed Thanatos, and I owed the pack. I—”

Mikey snarled, “If you say ‘I didn’t have a choice,’ I will stab you in the neck right now.” She reached for the knife at her belt.

“You should have done it while you had the chance.” He grabbed the knife out of her hand, reversed it, and slammed the pommel into the security camera near the ceiling, smashing it to bits. Then he shoved her up against the wall and kissed her.

This time he wasn’t stopping unless she stopped him. He wound his fingers into her hair, punishing her lips with his mouth. She made a tiny, sexy sound, letting her gear slide to the floor, and then she was gripping his arms, her fingers digging into the tattoo on his bicep, setting it on fire with pain and ecstasy.

She was here, right here, the way he’d dreamed about a million times. Soft breasts, taut muscles, wild silky hair that clung to his fingers.

The scent of her, filling him up until he wanted to howl.

He plundered her mouth, nipping at her lips and then soothing them with his tongue. He’d had entire dreams about the way she tasted, the way she felt against him.

Gods. If he died tonight it would be worth it, if only he could be with her one more time.

He moved his lips to her neck, expecting any minute to feel her teeth, or a blade. “Fight me,” he said. “Stab me. Go ahead. It doesn’t matter. I just had to touch you one more time.”

Some distant part of his mind said he shouldn’t be doing this. It was crazy; he should be getting her out of here, but he couldn’t watch her go. Couldn’t be without her one more second.

Then she pressed against him, pulling his mouth to hers and kissing him with all the passion in her wild soul.

All the words he’d kept pent up poured out, whispered into the soft skin of her neck.

“I’ve missed you so damn much. After I left you, my chest was torn open like a bloody wound, and it just kept bleeding. Never stopped.”

He captured her lips again, this time soft and slow, sucking on her bottom lip and making her moan.

“I’m not a fucking romantic,” he murmured. “I don’t have anything to offer a woman. But I wanted to take everything I had and lay it at your feet. I wanted to lie with you at night after I made love to you and never sleep. I wanted to soak up your warmth and your courage and your belief in me and carry it out into the world every day, because it’s the only way I’ll get through it.”

One more sweet, painful kiss. “There’s never been anyone else for me, not since I met you. I. Need. You.”

Michelangela felt a wall inside her crumble.

Gunn kissed her, deep and slow and intense, like he’d never get enough. She felt the warmth he was talking about surge through her. The strength of him melting into her muscles and bones, so that she somehow became more than she had been, because he believed she was more.