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“Hold up, dammit,” he hissed, pulling back just in time to keep his mouth from being bloodied. “You were dreaming, Angel. It was just a dream.”
He pulled her to his chest, careful to keep her wrists restrained, holding her close to him as she shook whatever nightmare tormented her away.
“I’m good.” Settled against his chest, no longer struggling now as she let herself calm after the dream. “How long did I sleep?”
She didn’t move when he released her wrists but lay against him, allowing him to comfort her as he wrapped his arms around her and stroked her back gently.
“A few hours.” She hadn’t slept much, but then, Angel rarely slept for long periods because of her nightmares.
She’d conditioned herself to wake after four hours, Tracker had told him. The only time she slept so deeply she couldn’t wake herself was when recovering after a serious wound. And he knew the nightmares always came then. Hell, he was usually the one with her.
“Come on.” Rising, he picked her up in his arms and strode the short distance to the bed. “I can’t sleep in this damned bed while you’re on the couch, and I’ll be damned if I’m sleeping on a hard couch when a soft bed is just a few feet away.”
She didn’t argue when he laid her in the middle of the blankets he’d turned down earlier. It would be hell sleeping next to her, but better to suffer the arousal than sitting in that damned recliner staring at her all night.
“And you think this is a good idea?” The amusement in her voice had him grinning.
“I locked the door,” he assured her. “The bastard comes through it and I’m shooting him.”
Her soft laugh only made his erection harder, if that were possible. Hell, he didn’t think he’d ever been so damned hard in his life.
“Chaya needs to get him on serious meds before Bliss gets much older. Or a leash.” She turned to him as she settled against the pillow, watching as he slid into the bed and turned to her enough to flip the sheet over his hips, careful to keep his erection from making a tent.
“It wouldn’t help,” he assured her ruefully. “There’s not enough Valium in the world to make Natches forget his sexual past. He lives in mortal fear of some pervert corrupting his baby girl now.”
Soft laughter drifted through the room.
He rarely got to hear her laughter, and he realized that moments like this, in the dark, while they talked alone, were probably the only times he’d heard it.
While on missions, surrounded by danger, standing watch together, or when she got cold and he’d tease her into sharing his blanket for a few minutes to warm herself so she could sleep.
For five years he’d fought beside her, tried to protect her, and squelched his fears each time she was wounded. And he realized, he’d lived for moments like this.
“She thinks she’s in love,” Angel sighed in the dark. “Fifteen going on thirty.”
The edge of sadness in her voice had him staring at her intently through the darkness that filled the room.
“My cousins say the same things about their girls,” he agreed, remembering well Janey bemoaning the fact that Erin was growing up too fast.
“Why did he hit you?” she asked, throwing him off for a moment.
“Why do you think he hit me?” He laughed. “He caught me with the young woman he claims as a daughter now, all but fucking her against the wall. He was pissed and now he’s scared I’ll break your heart.”
She didn’t say anything, but he could see enough of her expression to see the confusion in it, just as he could see the conflict she had in accepting his explanation.
“Two days ago, he threatened to kill me,” she pointed out. “Yesterday he’s hitting you for touching me. Does that make sense to you?”
Unfortunately, it did.
“It’s a Mackay thing.” He chuckled, bunching his pillow beneath his head as he fought the need to touch her again. “Two days ago, he was in the middle of a nightmare, just as you were, honey.” Reaching out he brushed the hair back from the side of her face, his fingers lingering for a moment to caress the soft skin. “He only knew what Chaya knew. The DNA testing they’d done came back as a positive match as Craig’s child. No one knew Jennifer existed. Everyone thought you were dead, but there you were, claiming Bliss, but not Chaya.”
She was silent, and he ached for her.
“Did you stay with the team to prove who I was for Natches?” she asked him then, a hint of vulnerability in her tone. “Why didn’t you tell him?”
He was quiet for a moment, watching her closely, trying to remind himself that he couldn’t blame her for believing that. Yet he couldn’t hold back a flare of anger.
“If that was the only reason I was there, Angel, then you would have had Natches and every Mackay he could pull in surrounding your ass no matter where you went,” he growled. “I didn’t know who you were when I first showed up. It was when you were recovering from being buried beneath that hospital that I began to suspect. But I could have found the truth far quicker by leaving and backtracking your life. So no, that wasn’t why I stayed.”
