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More, Tate needed to touch her. Hold her. Breathe her in.
As she rinsed the conditioner from her hair, Tate found himself tracing the spot on her shoulder where the bullet had passed through. Too close. He’d come too close to losing her. Again. His chest went tight each and every time he thought about it.
There wasn’t even a blemish on her skin, thanks to Sam. But Tate knew it would be a while before he’d be able to look at her shoulder without remembering there’d once been a fucking hole in it.
Havana sighed. “You’ve got to stop with the brooding. I’m trying to make my mind and body relax. It’s kind of hard to do that when I can feel you dwelling and obsessing over what happened.”
He frowned. “Firstly, I don’t brood.” He ignored her snort. “Secondly, it’s pretty hard to just forget that you were shot. I saw it happen, felt the impact of the bullet, felt your pain.”
She placed her hands on his chest. “I don’t expect you to forget. I just don’t want you to keep thinking about it.”
He grunted. “That’s easier said than done. Being so close yet so far while the bastard aimed that gun at you … I almost charged right at him, which would have been the height of stupidity, but rationality left me for a few seconds.”
“And you feel guilty about that?” She shook her head. “Tate, you didn’t let me down. You felt my pain, but you didn’t feel any fear from me, did you?”
No, he hadn’t.
“You know why? Because I trusted that you’d never let him get me off that boat. I knew you were close—I could feel your panic and powerlessness through the bond. I knew I just needed to give you an opening. And when I did, you rushed right over. Gideon probably would have shot at me again, since the other bullet hit Aspen’s bearcat, but then you were there. At no point did you let me down.”
She grabbed his bottle of citrus shower gel from the corner shelf. He liked seeing her toiletries mingled with his own. He liked seeing her toothbrush in the holder next to his. Liked that one of the vanity drawers was filled with her cosmetics, that the bathroom often smelled of her body spray, and that her hair products lined the counter right beside her round makeup mirror. It reminded him that they’d blended their worlds.
As she lathered the creamy soap onto his skin, he decided he liked that more. Her touch was soft and sensual, and he knew … “You’re trying to distract me.”
“You should just let me. Go with it.”
“You find it easy to just put the evening out of your head?”
“No. But I don’t see any sense in obsessing over what did and didn’t happen. I thought about it. I processed it. And then I decided I wasn’t going to give Gideon or his bullshit anymore mental space.”
“But—”
“It’s over,” Havana reminded him, pressing a kiss to his mouth, wishing she could put him at ease somehow. “All of it is over. He’s dead now. Dead and mere ashes.” As were the bidders and crew members. Her pride mates had tossed the bodies from the dock back onto the yacht and then set the damn thing on fire.
She dabbed another kiss on his mouth. “Let yourself feel some relief and happiness in the fact that the threat that once hung over our heads is now gone. We saved a lot of people today. And we’ll soon be able to return home the shifters who were auctioned off in the past.”
Between the things Gideon confessed and the documentation that Vinnie found on the yacht, they’d be able to locate and rescue all of the sold loners. They’d also take it upon themselves to subject their “owners” to whatever suffering they’d put the trafficked shifters through. It seemed only fair.
The people they’d rescued from the yacht tonight were now safe at Dawn’s shelter. Some of them, such as young Robbie, would be reunited with their family members—people who’d lived the lone shifter lifestyle right alongside them. Dawn would also be sure to get them whatever help, support, or counselling they needed, even if they didn’t remain at the shelter.
Tate pressed a kiss to her throat. “There is a lot of relief in knowing the threat to you is gone. And now you and I can simply enjoy being mated without Gideon distracting us. We can even start planning our mating ceremony/welcome to the pride/congrats on your mating party now.”
“We can indeed. We could even start celebrating it now,” she added, fisting his cock. “Just the two of us.”
They kissed, stroked, probed, shaped, and teased until neither could take any more.
Tate backed her against the tiled wall. “Got to be in you now.” He hooked one of her legs over his hip, angled her hips just right, and then slid his cock inside her.
