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“I wouldn’t blame you if you’ve already given up on me, Maya. I wouldn’t. But I need you to give me a chance. I just need a little time. I might not be able to offer you something serious yet, but what we’d have in the meantime … it wouldn’t be shallow or casual. It would be real. It would mean something.”
“And you’d be honest and open with me from now on? You’d share—”
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Anything. Just don’t send me away.”
“I’m not sure I’d be firm about it if I did,” I admitted in a mumble. “You’re not the only one whose control gets shot to shit.”
Something gleamed in his eyes. “Then we’re even.”
“Yeah, we’re even.”
“So you won’t give up on me just yet?”
“No. But if you start backtracking, pulling away, and blowing hot and cold—”
“Won’t happen. I swear that to you.”
“If you start finding this hard, you be upfront with me about it. I’m not saying we’d then part ways. We could talk it through and tackle whatever’s bugging you. Communication is going to be key here.”
He nodded. “Agreed. I have a condition, too. You’ve got to get rid of the omega. I’m done watching him take you out on fucking dates.”
I stifled a smile. “I can’t keep Coop? But he’s cute.” I almost squeaked as Ryder snatched me from the sofa and hauled me against his chest.
He bit my lip hard. “You’re not allowed to find other men cute.”
“I’m not?”
“No. He’s got to go. I’m not sharing you.”
I pretended to consider it, which made him pinch my ass. “Ow!”
“Maya, he has to go.”
“But then who’ll take me out on dates?”
“I will, that’s fucking who.”
“Really? Okay, I can go with that.”
“Good.” He pressed a quick kiss to my mouth. “Now please tell me we’re done talking, because it’s been seriously hard to focus when I know you’re naked beneath this robe.”
“Yes, we’re done.” Then I found myself flat on my back on the sofa with him kneeling over me. I smiled. “Smooth,” I teased. “So what’s next?”
He parted my robe and cupped my breasts. “Next I play with these gorgeous tits. Then I go down on you. That might go on for a while. When I’m done—and only when I’m done, not before—I’ll fuck you into a stupor right here on this couch. I won’t stop until you’re screaming, and you’ll have my teeth buried in your neck when you do.”
Well.
CHAPTER NINE
(Ryder)
As the office door closed behind the vampire whose mind I’d just scanned, I turned to Sam and Jared. “For a few seconds there, I thought we might have found our culprit. He might have looked cool and composed, but his mind wasn’t so calm.”
“It definitely isn’t him, though?” asked Jared.
“Definitely not.”
“Dion is in our bad books after all that shit with Lexi, so it could be just that he was nervous being around me and Sam.”
“Probably.” Sam reached over to the phone and lifted the receiver. She pressed a button on the keypad and then said, “Fletch, send the next vamp on the list in, please.”
“Derek’s not here yet, luv,” Fletcher responded from his desk outside the office.
Her mouth flattened. “Is that so? All right. Send in one of the others.” She looked up at Jared. “Derek had better be here by the time Ryder is done with this next one.”
But Derek didn’t show, and Fletcher hadn’t been able to get hold of him.
Sam licked her front teeth. “Apparently, Derek thinks he’s special and doesn’t have to be here on time.”
“I’ll bring his lazy ass here myself,” said Jared, who then teleported out of the office.
I raised a brow at Sam. “Do you think Derek could have fled? That he might be our boy?”
“It’s possible. He’s never done anything to make me consider him a suspect. But then, he wouldn’t, would he?”
He didn’t seem an obvious suspect to me either. I couldn’t envision him prancing around the rainforest infecting animals with bloodlust. His main focus lately had been the man who’d been dating my woman.
Well Coop wasn’t dating my woman anymore. And she was officially my woman. Maybe she didn’t fully belong to me yet, but I was the only one who had any claim to her now. Something she’d assured me she would inform Coop of later tonight.
I glanced at the clock. She was probably on her lunch break right now and—
Jared returned, his jaw hard. “Derek wasn’t home. I teleported into his apartment. He definitely isn’t there, and he didn’t pack any of his things. It doesn’t look like he up and left, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t. He could be our boy.”
Sam pushed out of her seat. “We’ll have to send people out to find him.”
“Let me be one of them,” I said. “I can track him.”
She nodded. “All right.” Again, she lifted the phone receiver and spoke into it. “Fletch, something has come up. Send the others home, tell them we’ll pick this up later.”
