Tears filled her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks.
“Happy tears,” she assured him quickly. He pulled her into a hug, and she cried on his chest without really knowing why she was crying. His warmth flowed through her, and she rested her head on his shoulder and felt a kind of peace she’d never known before.
Finally, she stepped back and looked up at him. “I betrayed Dawnie,” she said. “Ten years ago. That’s why I ran.”
He cocked his head to the side. “She doesn’t know, I assume.”
“Oh, my God no. I’d be chum for the fish in her fishing pond.” She shuddered at the very idea. “And I didn’t want to do it. She did take me in and feed and clothe me. But… there had been a bad week with the ‘shine. Bunch of men got in a fight, three of them died. And she couldn’t have cared less. And one night, she took me aside and told me that she wanted me to take over for her some day, not Eva-Jo. I learned her special mixes way faster, I was sharper, people liked me better where they balked at dealing with any of Dawnie’s kids.”
“What about Percy? He’s not simple like Gummi, right?”
She shuddered. “Oh, god, Percy’s a creepy sadist who liked to pull the legs off frogs. Living under the same roof as him for two years… I always slept with one eye open. Dawnie would never pick him. And he knows it, and that makes him even meaner because he resents it. But anyway, I panicked at the thought of being forced into taking over the Reed family business. It was bad enough that I helped her make the moonshine, and for all I know I helped make the batch that killed those men.” She shuddered at the memory. “I knew all the crooked cops in the area, but I also knew one who wasn’t. I told him when Dawnie was cooking up her next batch of ‘shine with the illegal ingredients, and then a few days later this whole pack of cops came and busted up her operation. She stayed behind, told me and the kids to run for it and she’d take the heat, so we all shifted and hightailed it out of there.”
“And yet, here she still is.”
“Yep.” She smiled sadly. “It’s impossible to do anything in this town without her knowing about it. They sent in an outside task force, but she still has eyes and ears everywhere, and she was warned that all these outsiders were headed her way. By the time the cops got to her place, she’d destroyed all the illegal ingredients and most of the equipment, and she just got slapped with a little fine. And Eva-Jo and Percy and a few other kids who were staying with her went back home the next morning. But when I ran, I kept running and never went back. I called and left her a message saying I was grateful for everything she’d done for me, but I wasn’t cut out for the life. Lived on my own in New York City and waited tables under a false name til I was 18 so nobody could find me and drag me back, went to college as soon as I was old enough.”
She looked up at him. “And that’s what I wasn’t telling you. That’s it. I swear I wasn’t holding back information that would help you find Ethan. Poor kid.”
Blake smiled at her, and it felt like the sun beaming down on her .“Thank you for trusting me. It means everything to me.” He grabbed her by the hips and pulled her up against him, and she groaned at the feeling of his thick erection pressing into her stomach.
“I should probably start baking.”
“You probably should.” He heaved a sigh but didn’t let go of her hips.
“Or… we could plight our troth.” A grin spread across her face as she said that.
“I have no idea what that means, but I like the sound of it.”
“I don’t know what it means either, but it’s something the receptionist at work always says, and it sounds dirty.” She stepped back and flashed him a challenging look as she grabbed the hem of her shirt.
“Race you. Whoever gets naked fastest—damn it!”
He’d shifted. That was cheating! Cheating bastard. And because he was a big ol’ wolf, his clothing exploded off him—it just shredded and fell to the floor. Then he shifted right back and folded his arms across his broad chest, grinning at her.
“Your move.”
Meeting his gaze defiantly, she deliberately took her time, stripping her shirt off very slowly, then taking off her jeans at a glacial pace.
He extended his claws and sliced open her bra.
“Hey! That was my favorite bra!” she yelped.
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
His voice was hoarse with desire, and he yanked her close to him.
SLASH! Her jeans now joined the tattered remnants of her bra and his clothes on the floor.
“I’ll buy you a whole new damn wardrobe!”
And then his mouth was on hers, his tongue urgently sweeping its way past her parted lips as his hand fisted her red curls. It felt so right, every part of her wanted to join with his. He gently pulled her head back, and she moaned as he moved his head down the delicate curve of her neck, lightly raking his teeth over the sensitive cord.
Her hands were spread over his back, her fingers greedily feeling the ripples of the muscles moving underneath. He was hard, all of him, including the heated column pressed up against her. He released her hair and trailed his fingers to her breasts, tantalizingly close to her pebbled nipples. She arched her back shamelessly, dropping her arms, and her silent prayer was answered as his mouth found one eager peak, and his fingers rolled the other.
He lapped at the nipple, doing magical things with his tongue and teeth and fingers before turning his attention to its twin. She was so ready for him, but he wasn’t yet done.
He moved his fingers down the curve of her breast and onto her tummy.
