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“You’re getting the sofa filthy,” she pointed out, though it didn’t really matter. The sofa could burn if it kept him smiling.
“You’re filthy,” he said when he finally wrangled her into his lap. “Looks like you’re going to have to take a shower with me. You watched the same show three times already, anyway.”
“Fine. It just sucks to know Dani’s going to see Lila, and I’m not, you know?” she added more quietly.
“I know, baby. When this is all over and Kane’s out of the picture, have you thought about what you’ll do?”
“Introduce you to my sister,” she said. “Frankston isn’t that far away; we can visit on the weekends.”
She felt the smile he gave her down to her bones.
HER HAIR CLUNGdamply to her neck when Violet woke for the fourth time that night. She’d been restless since Dani’s text to Mikel’s phone just before dinner time, cruel in its cryptic simplicity.
Package delivered to customer. She seems okay with it. Ordered another, needs it 2 weeks from today. Will talk at shop soon.
It was smart to take precautions, Mikel had assured her. They had no idea if their phones were being watched, and Red and Dani coming and going from the house more than usual only implicated them further in whatever would unfold. It still didn’t make it an easier pill to swallow.
She groped the sheets beside her, shock spilling through when they were empty. Cold. She sat up. The light of the waning moon through their window illuminated the mattress, and there was no sign of him.
“Shit,” she hissed at herself and whipped the covers back.
The house was silent when she padded into the living room on high alert. It was empty, so was the kitchen. A quick glance out of the window confirmed his truck was still outside. It struck her then that she had a phone now, a really useful phone that could do things like act as a flashlight and better yet, call him.
Something thudded in the shop. Violet jumped. Her heart squeezed painfully, imagining that whoever had tried to kill her had come back, that they were trying to hurt him. She was quick to the door and out into the shop on bare feet, quiet as she could manage while rushing.
Her breath whooshed out of her at the sight of him, skin silver under the gibbous moon. Mikel was shirtless as he dug again through the rubble.
“You scared me to death!” she hissed at him.
“Why?” he shot back, no trace of apology in his voice.
“Because I woke up, and you were gone; then I started thinking all kinds of crazy shit. What are you doing out here?”
As the adrenaline filtered out of her blood, Violet started to get a sense of his mood, the darkness rolling off him.
“Looking.”
“You already looked. There’s no point—”
“Of course, there’s a point.” He whirled to face her, the shadow from the moonlight making his jaw look even more severe, displaying every ridge of muscle and every smooth plane on his torso. “You almost died, Violet, because I missed things. I’m not missing things again.” He swallowed hard. “Go back to bed.”
She did the opposite, walking carefully toward him and wincing at the uneven ground. “Hey.” She caught his bicep. “What happened wasn’t your fault. You—”
“Course it was my fault.” He locked eyes with her again, and something in his gaze, something rough and raw and intense, called to something in her. “I cannot lose you,” he almost growled.
Primal, she realized. He felt wild to her, untamed, powerful, bottomless, andlike an alpha, her brain supplied, and somehow, she was growing wet at that, quickly hot and hungry.
“You won’t lose me,” she promised.
He took her cheek in his hand, his thumb running soft over her lower lip, as a charge built in the air between them. “I won’t.”
There was a depth to the words, a weight and a heat that made her long to hit her knees and open her mouth for him.
“I’ll die first,” Mikel said. It was a horrible promise and a heady claim. “You’re mine.” He slid his fingers around the back of her neck and tugged her against him. “This”—he bent his knees and ground his jean-covered crotch into the soft fabric of her pajama shorts—“this is mine too.”
Heat exploded inside her, and Violet whimpered. Something unknown in her biology was responding to him like this, and she was molten.
“Get on the ground.”
