He put the wedge beside her, lifted her torso onto it, pulled the sheet over her, and reached for the food he’d left on the nightstand — the orange sections, the chocolate, the rest of the electrolytes.
He sat beside her and held a piece of orange to her lips. She took it without opening her eyes, and he watched her throat move as she swallowed and scented the sorrow that wasn’t fading.
Subdrop,he reminded himself.This is subdrop. Completely normal.
He gave her another section of orange. A square of chocolate. He held the electrolyte cup and put the straw to her lips, and she drank without being asked, compliant and quiet, but still crying those slow, continuous tears that had no drama in them, just depth.
He knew what subdrop felt like from the outside. He’d managed it a dozen times, knew the protocol, knew what was needed and in what order and for how long.
He fed her more chocolate, the last of the oranges, a little more chocolate, and then lay down beside her, and pulledher into him, her back to his chest, his arm over her, and she made a strangled sound before she pressed back into him like she was trying to close whatever distance remained between them.
He stared at the ceiling in the dark.
The beam ran the length of it, the cables and pulleys quiet now, the room that had held twelve hours of everything reduced to this — her breathing, their heartbeats, the wind in the trees outside, the owl he could hear from a hundred yards away.
She’d driven the sensible car up his mountain and he hadn’t asked why. Had filed it underthings only a boyfriend could askand let it go — then spent twelve hours with her body in his ropes, his hands reading everything she was, and somewhere between the first knot and this moment, he’d stopped being able to locate the file he’d put that original thought in.
He thought about the way she’d saidI can be here Monday morning at tenover breakfast days earlier without either of them acknowledging what they were actually agreeing to.
He thought about her wolf pressing against his skin the first morning, claiming him, and his wolf surging forward not to dominate but tomeether. He thought abouttheir girland what his wolf had meant by it, and what he’d told his inner animal, and whether that had been true when he said it or just necessary.
He thought about the way he’d caressed her lips during a part of the scene he kept harsh for areason.
She’s bound to an alpha,he reminded himself.She’s part of the pack. Everything she knows is subject to Kenny finding out.
He knew what it meant. It meant he couldn’t have her the way he wanted.
He pulled her closer anyway, and she made that almost-nothing sound again before her hand found his arm and held it.
The owl called from somewhere further up the ridge, and she stirred against him, her breathing finally evening out toward sleep, and he lay in the dark and looked at the beam, and understood with the clarity of a man who has run out of useful lies that he was in serious trouble.
He pressed his mouth to the back of her head, her hair still in the ponytail, and it brought everything back all over again.
And then he held her while she slept, and didn’t move, and listened to the owl until sleep finally took him.
He dreamed of the two of them in their sixties with a wine cellar downstairs and a beer fridge in the kitchen. The two of them working side-by-side, making Beef Wellington together, and it was the most ordinary thing in the world.
Chapter 16
Knife woke with Tuesday snuggled into him at ten minutes after six, and he was pretty sure the cardinals were creating babies within twenty yards of the front of his house.
He hadn’t had nearly enough sleep, but no way was he going to manage more with his mind running a million miles a minute.
And so, he lay still with the woman of his dreams literally in his arms, and tried to figure out how the fuck they could make this work.
He decided to begin with a list of facts.
Fact number one: Tuesday Robinson had agreed to an intense twelve-hour scene without negotiation, and somewhere in those twelve hours, it’d become impossible to ignore the fact he was falling in love with her.No, that last part wasn’t true.
Fact number two: He’d fallen in love with Tuesday, and both the man and wolf wanted to keep her.
Fact number three: She’s part of the Chattanooga Pack.
Fact number four: An active RTMC member can’t be close enough to pack wolves to risk sharing even hints of the club’s many secrets. Even Duke and his twin brother, the old alpha, had to be careful around each other. Knife understood their relationship was part of why the pack and club get along as well as they do, but the two had to be careful about not sharing secrets back when Randall was still alive.
But that can’t work in a relationship where people live with each other, or even spend hours per week with each other.
And Knife isn’t a senior member. Even if the club might be willing to bend the rules, they weren’t likely to do so for him. But more than that, he didn’t want to ask them to. He understood the purpose of the rule and agreed with it.
