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“Midnight,” he admitted. “Tracker was picking up J.T. and Mara after meeting with a contact and they were flying straight out to Hickley’s Farm. Chaya knows they’re coming. She and Mara spent several hours on video chat while you were unconscious.”
She cocked her hip and propped a hand on it, her expression going from knowing to irate.
“You know, I’m getting tired of everyone believing they can manipulate me without my knowledge of it. Or hide details I might think are important,” she warned him.
Now that sounded ominous enough.
Sitting down he pulled a boot on and laced it quickly.
“I’ll make note of that,” he promised, pushing his foot into the second boot.
Damn her, she could make his heart melt in his chest at the most fucking inopportune times.
Like right now.
“You know I love you, right, Angel?” He wondered how the hell he’d managed to wait so long before he claimed her.
“Yeah, well.” She cleared her throat and brushed back that little fringe of bangs that just fell right back in place. “I love you, too. But I’m still going to end up hurting you if you don’t stop conniving against me, Duke. It’s very disconcerting.”
There was no time to kiss her. If he started, he’d never stop.
“No more conniving,” he agreed. Lowering his lashes, he shot her a look of sensual promise. “Unless it involves that very pretty little body. How’s that?”
She blushed, brushed back that fringe of hair again before turning and heading quickly out of the bedroom. Seconds later he heard the door between the suite and the kitchen open then close, and he knew she was back in the main part of the house.
Running his hands over his face and blowing out a silent breath, he stared around the room. Like Angel, he could feel that tension at the back of his neck, like a breath of dread bearing down on him.
Hunter’s instinct, Tracker called it.
His uncle Ray called it a prey’s instinct.
In this case, he was more apt to call it as he saw it. Prey. That was what he was beginning to feel Angel had become, along with Bliss. They were the prey, and he’d be damned if he was going to allow it to continue, and he knew his Angel. Being prey just wasn’t in her nature. Soon, she’d become the hunter, and the thought of that . . .
He snorted in amusement, shaking his head.
Hell, this hard-on was going to kill him.
• • •
Stepping back into the kitchen, Angel saw Natches putting two plates and silverware in the dishwasher. His and Chaya’s, she assumed, because Bliss was picking at the food on the plate sitting in front of her.
“Breakfast was wonderful, Angel,” Natches told her, hi
s expression, his voice solemn as he glanced at Bliss.
“Yes it was,” Chaya agreed from where she stood at the door. “And Natches was happy not to have to worry about it.”
The weariness and heartache in her mother’s face was painful to see.
“Chaya does good. Don’t let her fool you,” Natches drawled then, the look he shot his wife one of love and concern while the comment had Bliss’s head jerking around to stare at him momentarily, as though he were crazy.
“Really?” Angel questioned innocently. “Because I seem to remember her deciding to fix me breakfast one morning.” She watched the little wince that passed over Chaya’s face. “My favorite. Pancakes.”
At that, Chaya turned to her quickly with a warning look.
Angel smirked. “Before I got breakfast that morning I had to listen to one of the fire crew beg her for a date no less than three times before he’d take no for an answer.”
Natches gave his wife a long, thoughtful look. “Why was the fire department there, sweetheart?”
