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“Hey,” she greeted simply. “Thanks for parking the car.” Her eyes dropped to the key fob he was holding. She held out her hand, palm up.
He placed the fob in her hand while carefully pushing his way inside the apartment, forcing her to shuffle backwards. “I’m still waiting on word about the license plate number. I’ll no doubt receive a call from River any minute now,” he said, knowing she’d be less likely to try to throw him out if she thought that having him close was the best way to get the info fast.
“Good,” she said. “I want to know who these bastards are and, more importantly, where they are.”
Walking into the living area, Tate looked at the two squabbling shifters, not happy that such a scene was playing out right in front of a clearly fatigued Havana. She didn’t need this right now. “What’s going on?” he asked her.
“Well … Camden tried calling Aspen just before the drive-by. She didn’t answer. He’s of the opinion that if she had, he would have heard the shot and could have ‘done something.’ Which, of course, is incorrect—he was too far away to help. Nonetheless, he’s furious with her. I think it just spooked him that one or more of the bullets could have hit her.”
Aspen’s gaze shifted to the ceiling. “God, Camden, will you just let it go?”
The tiger blinked. “Let it go?”
“It’s not like you could have reached through the phone and blocked the bullets or anything,” she snapped. “So what does it really matter that I didn’t take your call?”
“You didn’t take any of my calls.”
“I was kind of busy trying to stop Havana from bleeding out!”
“Yeah, I get that. But you could have called me afterwards. You didn’t.”
“I sent you a text on my way home,” she reminded him.
“Oh yeah, I remember it. ‘Havana got shot. Talk later.’ That made me feel a whole lot better.”
“Then why are you whining?”
“Woman, I was being sarcastic.”
The bearcat raised her hands. “Look, I really think you need to just chill.”
“Chill?” he echoed in a cold whisper. “All that blood on your tee could have been your blood, Aspen. Did you think of that? The bullets could have missed Havana and hit you.”
“I would rather they had. Watching my honorary sister almost die was not fun. Are you planning to at least tell her that you’re glad she’s okay?”
He cast Havana an aloof sideways glance. “Well, obviously, I’m glad. She knows that already.”
Havana snickered, unoffended that the only thing he was truly glad of was that the bullets hadn’t hit Aspen. Havana was just as glad of that. “Your heartfelt concern is so warming, Camden. Now, I realize you got a scare, but you need to stop with the yelling. What happened, well, happened. There’s no changing it. And you don’t truly want to yell at Aspen. What you really want to do is give her a hug and tell her you’re relieved that she’s fine.”
Havana turned to Tate and said, “I’m going to take a shower and pull on fresh clothes, I’m sick of smelling my own blood. If you want to head home and just text me whatever River tells you, that’s fine. But if you want to wait here, there’s plenty of food in the kitchen.”
With that, she padded to her room, still feeling a little off, thanks to the blood loss. Inside, she closed the door. Or tried to. It met some sort of resistance, and then Tate slipped into the room. Her heart jumped. “What are you—”
“Shh, I need to hold you a second.” He palmed her nape, curled his free arm around her, and buried his face in her neck.
Her eyes fell closed. God, he was so warm and solid and there. He wasn’t just holding her. It was more like he was trying to soak up the feel of her. And, because she kind of needed this too, she rested her palms on the twin columns of his back.
She’d push him away in a minute and order him out of the room. She truly would. For now, she’d let herself have this moment.
She could feel that his anger hadn’t yet subsided, but he’d locked it down. For her. So that she wouldn’t have to deal with his fury on top of her own. There was something very warming about that.
Her devil didn’t lean into him but nor did she object to his hold, despite that the animal ordinarily didn’t like to be fussed over or touched when in such a foul mood.
“I’ve needed to do this since the second I arrived at the shelter and saw you out cold on the sofa,” he said against her neck. “Watching the footage of what happened … fuck.”
Fuck indeed. It certainly hadn’t been one of the highlights of her year.
