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When he pulls out, he passes me off carefully to Ian. “I’ll go get some towels,” Mason says sheepishly. He forces out a cough. “I’ll tell Willem we’ll pay the cleaning fee when he moves out. That couch… It definitely is going to have to be cleaned.”
“I think I want to take this couch with me when we go,” Ian muses as he wraps his arms tightly around me, cradling me on his lap even though we’re half-naked and messy.
“I’m really tired,” I mutter, my eyelids already trying to flutter closed.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, and I’ll put you to bed.” Ian skims his fingers along my back comfortingly. “I’ll let Willem take the bed with you tonight since he missed out on this.”
“And Sailor?” I ask, my voice fading out as I fall asleep. I’m not even sure where the words came from.
Ian hesitates before agreeing, “And Sailor.”
TWENTY-ONE
QUINN
I wake up once in the middle of the night to find myself tangled with Willem and Sailor on either side of me in the bed, my fading pink hair flowing across Willem’s bare chest. With silly thoughts of dyeing my hair filling my head, I drift easily back to sleep. But when I wake up hours later, it’s with a bad feeling weighing heavily in my chest.
It doesn’t help that I wake up alone in the bed.
I take my time stretching, trying to ignore the pinch of annoyance over Willem and Sailor abandoning me without a word this morning. I feel like I’m having déjà-vu as I climb out of bed to get dressed. It’s exactly how I woke up after sex with Willem at the cabin on Cross Mountain Pack land.
But this time, my stomach drops when I see my ransacked duffel bag. I drop to my knees and shove both hands in between my clothes looking for the hard edges of the heart stones. Nausea rises in my throat at the realization that mine isn’t there. Neither is Arielle’s.
I might puke.
My heart feels like it’s pounding in my throat as I stumble out of the bedroom. The first person I find is Willem cooking breakfast in the dated kitchen.
“Where are my heart stones?” I ask, my tone high and panicked. Willem looks confused so I quickly change questions. “Where’s Sailor?”
“I think he went outside. What—” Willem follows me as I head for the door. “Did something happen?” I can hear in his voice that he’s immediately on the defensive wondering what’s going on.
I don’t answer. I yank the front door open and find Sailor sitting on the two steps leading out of the cabin. He has a heart stone in each hand, both of them lit up for him as he stares down at them.
“What the hell are you doing?” I stumble over Sailor in my rush to try to take my heart stones back. He manages to catch me before I fall off the top step, pulling me into his lap.
“Be careful,” he mutters, frowning down at me.
“You stole from me.” My voice shakes as I struggle to get out of his lap. I don’t want him to touch me, I only want my heart stones back. Waking up to find them not in my bag… I’ve taken too much of a risk carrying them with me. I never should have brought them or let anyone else see them.
“These?” Sailor’s frown deepens as he hands me Arielle’s heart stone and then my own. “I wasn’t stealing, Cupid.”
“Don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me a cutesy nickname; I don’t know you at all.” I can feel myself flushing, partially from anger and partially from the embarrassment of what I know is a bit of an overreaction.
You’re being crazy, my wolf agrees.
But the heart stones were a gift Arielle and I got from our dad. They’re irreplaceable. They’re not for him to take out of my bag like knick knacks.
“Quinn.” Sailor wraps his arm around my legs to hold me in place. “I’m sorry for scaring you.” His voice is tight, as if he’s not used to apologizing. “I woke up with this weird feeling that your stones were trying to talk to me or something. I don’t know. I was just trying to make sense of it while I let you get some sleep. I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“Well, they’re not for you.” I’m too stubborn to calm down. I wiggle again in Sailor’s tight grip, but he doesn’t loosen up. Panic and guilt well up within me, only adding to the nausea already roiling in my gut. I’m in serious danger of puking all over his handsome face.
“Let her go,” Willem says sharply from the doorway, and I glance up to see a menacing look crossing his face. My stomach turns again, tightening at the realization that Willem might actually go toe-to-toe with Sailor for me.
Sailor growls but reluctantly releases me, helping me to stand on solid ground even though I brush his hands away as quickly as possible. I clutch my heart stones to my chest and back away from him, desperately needing space.
Willem and Sailor both watch me warily as if I’m a startled animal. I sort of feel like one.
“I need to take a walk.” I take a few more steps back, watching to see if they’ll let me get away with it or not.
