I touched his face. All sharp angles and gorgeous, usually hidden beneath the beard. I wanted to kiss the jawline I’d never seen before, but I didn’t dare while he seemed to be pushing me away.
“You don’t want me?”
“Not like this.” He lifted me and settled me back down on his lap, so I was sitting sideways and not on his dick. “You don’t owe me sex for taking care of you, and I’m not up to paying for it tonight. I want to hold you and take care of you. Everyone falls apart after their first kill.”
I shook my head. “I killed people during the battles. Or rather, Celrau and demons, I guess, and not humans, but still, I killed other human-shaped beings.”
“That was war. Kill or be killed. Still something you have to deal with, but these people came into the sanctity of your home. They had to know a single female lived there. We know there have been home invasions with a rape element in the area, with two men. In some cases, things were stolen, but not all. There’s a good chance they were planning to rape you, once they had your electronics packed up and ready to go.”
“They wore gloves, so their fingerprints won’t be in my house, but their DNA will be. I should go home and clean. If they told someone which apartment they were going to hit, the cops might come looking.”
“Mad Dog, Gears, and I are the only ones in the club who’ll know. Velvet will know because she’s Velvet. She’s good at cleaning so a crime lab won’t find anything.”
“We were told to stay away from the ol’ladies.” One of the biggest rules at orientation. If an ol’lady comes to you, walk away. Don’t talk to her, even if she’s screaming and demanding answers. Talking to them meant we were fired. No exceptions.
“Yes, you were. This is an exception.”
“We were told no exceptions.”
“Of course you were, and now you’re being told I’ve created one.”
He stood me up, grabbed a towel, and started drying me.
“I can dry myself. I’m okay now.”
“Yes you can, and I’m not so sure you are. Stand still.”
My body froze at the order. I started to move once I realized it, but then decided to let him finish drying me.
Surprisingly, Squatch pulled clothes from a cabinet, and they had sweats and a t-shirt that fit me. Also, socks and shoes. No panties or bra, but that was okay. We were both in black from head to toe. I rubbed my hands on the sides of my thighs to keep from reaching for him.
I still couldn’t believe he’d turned me down for sex. Did he not want me since I’d killed? I wiggled my toes in the cheap black canvas shoes and stood. “You can take me back to my apartment. I’m okay, and I don’t like being a charity case.”
He sat in front of me and looked a little pissed. I scented his anger and frustration, and my heart sped when I realized he was more than a little pissed.
“What the fuck? Have I ever treated you like a charity case?”
My heart raced in my chest, but I wasn’t going to back down.
“Look, I get that I’m the MC’s employee and you take care of us in exchange for us being loyal underlings, but I called you instead of Bobcat or Mad Dog because I trust you. It’s more than boss and employee, and if you can’t see that, then...” I folded my arms across my chest, took a step back, and turned to walk out the door. “Just take me home, please.”
“Come. Here.”
I stopped walking but kept my back to him. “No.”
“You have no idea how bad my hand is itching to spank your little bottom until it’s bright red. Get your ass over here while it’s still all snow white.”
My insides ignited and I started to walk out just to make him spank me, except I didn’t want to be spanked like that. I wanted a fun spanking, not a humiliating one.
I turned and walked to him. “Don’t be a bully. You might be bigger and stronger in human form, but I’ll eat you for lunch in our animal forms.”
“There are rules that keep me from taking advantage of you. I pay you when I use you. Period. I’m your boss, and there are responsibilities that come with that. I didn’t turn you down because I don’t want you. I turned you down because fucking you right now doesn’t seem right. I want to be here for you as a friend — as someone you can trust, someone you can always call, no matter what. Can you let me take care of you without it turning into sex?”
“If you weren’t my boss?” I wanted to ask more, but I was a little horrified I’d even asked that much.
“I’d want to lock you in my attic and never let you out.”
I gave him a half smile. “That’s a little creepy.”
“You asked.” His growly voice was like a vibrator on my clit. Not helping.
“The rules say I can’t take advantage of you,” he said. “The suggestion is that it’s a bad idea for us to become involved with the dancers, but there isn’t a rule against it. However, we have to go to Mad Dog and make it official before I’ll fuck you without paying you, and that isn’t happening tonight. Tonight, you’re going to let me hold you while we sleep, and you’re going to refrain from bitching about it.”
“And if I don’t?”
He uncrossed his arms, leaned back, and looked me over from head to feet, and back up.
“You’ve never backtalked me before, Kitty. What’s up?”
I sighed, uncrossed my arms as well, and then wasn’t sure what to do with them. I ended up crossing them back. “I don’t know. I guess I feel out of control, and I don’t like it.”
“Okay. In a way, we’re both along for the ride tonight. We ride the client’s bike across the road, and we’ll have full-face helmets on so no one can prove it’s us if they get us on video. I’d love to take you to my apartment, but I trust Mad Dog to know how to keep us safe, and he wants us in the clubhouse. So, tonight is about keeping both of us safe. Tomorrow night? That’s up to us.”
“I want to talk to Mad Dog.”
“Not tonight. I need you to sleep on it.”
I started to argue, but he put a finger over my lips. “I’m asking, Kitty. Please wait until tomorrow so I’ll know you aren’t doing it out of some misguided need to thank me. We need to talk about it under the light of day first.”
“Okay.”
He’d said please, and there was no way I could argue with that.
Chapter Four
Squatch
I was losing my mind, because I wanted to lock the sexy little tiger into my apartment and never let her leave, but she was a damned stripper who prides herself on being self-sufficient, so that was never going to fly.
We have a daybed in the main room of our temporary clubhouse, and Velvet had put sheets on it and brought us some pillows. Getting both of us on was a tight fit, but that was fine by me because I liked holding her. I rubbed her back until her breathing evened out, and then I let myself drop off into a light sleep. The wolf would wake me if there was danger, but I still didn’t feel comfortable falling into a deep sleep.
I knew when she moved, and I adjusted with her. Sometime around nine, we got up and dressed in the clothes Velvet had brought. Jeans and a black tee for me, and jeans with a charcoal tee for Kitty. She’d also brought boots for Kitty, a hairbrush, a one-time-use toothbrush, and a small backpack — the kind women sometimes use as a purse.