Damn it all to hell. She was definitely losing her edge.
“See, I never understood why people say that. Why would anyone smile because of gas?”
Seven thought about it for a moment, then frowned. “That logic does seem flawed, doesn’t it? Why do people say that?”
“No idea. People are mostly a mystery to me.”
Seven gently shifted Haven’s grip back to the teddy bear and slid her hand out of the crib. She turned to face Lucas, expecting him to step back. He didn’t.
Well, she thought, if he expected her to retreat, he’d be sorely disappointed. She’d never backed down from a challenge in her life. It was one of the few things Sentry had taught her that might actually be useful in this new life of hers.
Standing so close that if she took a deep breath, her breasts would touch his chest, she tipped her head back to meet his gaze. “Am I a mystery to you, too, Lucas?”
His eyes dropped to her mouth, and she felt her heart rate kick up a few notches. “You are most definitely a mystery to me, beautiful.”
She let her own gaze drop to his mouth. His lips looked soft. What would they feel like under her own? “Then why are you letting me stay with you?”
He sighed. “Heard all that, did you?”
“I have excellent hearing.”
“I’ll remember that,” he murmured.
“Why did you stand up for me in there?” she pressed. “Why would you let me into your house, into your life? You could’ve just dropped me off at Riddick’s doorstep and walked away. Why didn’t you?”
His eyes roamed over her features for a moment before returning to hers. “I…don’t know.”
His heart rate and breathing were accelerated. “Liar,” she hissed.
He grabbed her wrist when she tried to step around him. Without thought, she twisted her hand around and grabbed his wrist. One pull and quick pivot later and he was on one knee at her feet, arm twisted behind his back.
And wasn’t that just a perfect way to say thank you to someone who had rescued her from hell and agreed to take her into his home?
Way to blend in, Seven, she chastised herself. Way to blend.
“Shit,” she muttered, releasing his arm. “I’m sorry. I…wasn’t thinking.”
He slowly climbed to his feet, rubbing his wrist, which, she was horrified to discover, was a bright, violent red from where she’d twisted it.
“First of all,” he said, sounding incredibly calm for someone who’d almost had his wrist broken, “don’t ever apologize for that. That was fucking awesome.”
Her eyes shot to his face, and his grin was as beautiful as it was vexing. “How can you say that? I could’ve hurt you,” she said, a hitch in her voice.
“Yep. And you didn’t. You showed control and restraint. Hell, if half the women in this city could do what you just did, there’d be a shit-ton fewer instances of domestic violence, I can promise you that. Don’t apologize for being a badass.”
She certainly didn’t feel very badass at the moment. She hadn’t had much cause to feel embarrassed over the years and she couldn’t say she particularly enjoyed the feeling now.
“I’m not used to having people touch me,” she whispered. “When Harper hugged me? It just felt all wrong. I didn’t even know where to put my hands.”
Half expecting him to laugh at her pathetic admission, she avoided eye contact. But after a moment of loaded silence, he surprised her by opening his arms to her.
“I can help with that,” he said.
The low, growly tone of his voice sent a shiver down her spine. “You’re not afraid of what I might do?”
His smile was warm. The look in his eyes? Infinitely warmer. “No,” he said without hesitation.
Truth.
Well, it wasn’t like the thought of being in his arms was abhorrent in any way. And if she was to fit into this family, she couldn’t very well go around breaking wrists every time someone laid a hand on her. Time to move on from the Sentry way of life.
Drawing in and releasing a deep breath in an effort to stanch her restless energy, she took a step toward him. He just waited patiently, arms open.
One more step had her close enough that she could once again feel his body heat. That, in combination with his scent—laundry detergent, soap, and warm male skin—was the last bit of reassurance she needed. Leaning forward, she rested her forehead on his chest, but left her arms hanging at her sides.
No need to rush it, right?
She closed her eyes as his hands brushed over her shoulders, then slowly slid down her arms before finally pulling her in closer. When she was pressed tightly against him, his arms banded around her lower back.
Seven breathed deeper and for the first time in, well, maybe ever, she felt all the tension drain from her body. With one gesture, Lucas was able to do something none of the people in the other room were able to do, even though they’d obviously tried their best.
He made her feel like she belonged somewhere.
Here, in Lucas’s arms, she wasn’t a mistake, a weapon, a freak. She was just…Seven.
And right now? Being Seven didn’t feel like such a terrible thing to be.
Holy hell but she felt good in his arms.
Despite her fragile mental state—shit, despite his fragile mental state—and despite all sense of reason, which told him not to get involved with Riddick’s sister, Lucas’s thoughts wandered to what it would feel like to be in a long-term relationship with someone other than Harper.
He’d never had anything but shit luck with his past relationships. But something about Seven made him willing to try it all again.
You just met her, he reminded himself. That kind of thinking makes you sound like a fucking stalker. Slow the hell down.
True. It was all true. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate how perfectly her body fit against his. Or how amazing the clean, simple scent of soap smelled on her skin.
He rested his cheek on top of her head, marveling at how soft her hair was. She still hadn’t moved a muscle. He knew he should let her go, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it just yet.
And that’s when she slid her arms through his to wrap around him. Delicate, tentative fingers fisted around his shirt at his back. A shuddering sigh escaped her as she relaxed against him, and that one little gesture of trust from her was almost enough to bring him to his knees.
What the hell was it about this girl that drew him to her in a way no one had in a really long time? Was it empathy for what she’d been through, or was there more to it than that?
“Is a hug supposed to feel this good?” The whispered words, spoken so quietly even his supernatural hearing had trouble hearing them, pulled him from his thoughts.
He pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head. “Only when you’re doing it right.”
She pulled back and studied him with those old, old eyes. Eyes that had seen way more they should’ve in such a short life. “Thank you.”
Reluctantly, he let her go. “Anytime, beautiful. Hugs and daring rescues,” he joked, trying to rein in his emotions. “That’s what I’m here for.”
She cocked her head to one side, and he knew in an instant that his joking around wasn’t fooling her. “Is it?”
“No,” he murmured. “That’s not really what I’m here for.”
“Then why are you really here, Lucas?”
“I’m here for you. Only you.”
He blinked, shocked by his own admission. Apparently he’d been hanging out with Vi and the completely filter-less Harper for too long, because he’d blurted that out without even thinking about it. It was a truth he’d been struggling to figure out how to explain to her when she accused him of lying earlier. Seemed he’d been overthinking the whole thing.
“Truth,” she whispered.
Then she did something he’d never seen her do before, and the beauty and power of it almost knocked the air right out of his lungs.
She smiled.
Her whole face lit up when she smiled, driving the haunted shadows from her eyes. It was like watching the fucking sun rise over the horizon at dawn. He swallowed hard.
I’m. So. Fucked.
Chapter Ten
Lucas lived in the suburbs about ten minutes away from downtown Whispering Hope.
Seven bounced her leg restlessly, gnawing on her thumbnail as she eyed his house through the passenger-side window of his beat-up, late-model F150. (She’d just known the beige Camry couldn’t have been his!)
It was a ranch-style, brick-and-river-rock house that looked to have been built in the seventies. The oversized windows were trimmed in unpainted cedar, and fat squirrels frolicked among the mature oak and maple trees in the front yard.
It was the type of home that was built for a family. Hell, there was even a white picket fence that extended from the front of the house around to the back yard. Kids played in the neighbor’s yard, their peals of laughter somehow managing to fray the remainder of Seven’s already-jangled nerves.
Lucas laid a hand on her knee, halting its incessant bounce. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t belong here,” she blurted.
His brow furrowed. “Why would you say that?”
A harsh laugh bubbled up out of her throat. “The kids, the fence, the squirrels…” she paused, shaking her head. “It’s a place for families. “I’m...”
Violent. Hard. A killer.
Broken.
He tightened his grip on her knee, which pulled her attention back to him.
“Hey,” he began, “you belong here just as much as anyone else.”
She shot a disbelieving look out the window at the kids playing next door before shifting her incredulous gaze back to his.
“Fine. Don’t believe me? Well, how’s this?” He pointed to his neighbor’s house on the right. “The guy who lives in that house? Arrested three times for drunk driving last year. Can’t hold down a job because of it. About a month ago, I disabled his car to keep him from going out for more liquor after he’d downed an entire bottle of Cuervo and a handful of Oxy.”
He pointed to his neighbor’s house on the left. “The lady that lives there? She’s been banging her husband’s best friend and business partner for about a month now. The business partner has several mob connections, best I can tell.”
“There’s a guy two streets over,” he went on, “who lost his job as a gym teacher at the high school when the principal found out the guy’d been fucking one of his students for over a year. One of his fifteen-year-old students. And I’m not even mentioning the neighbors in this place I suspect of being thieves, con artists, and cheaters.”
He splayed a hand over his chest. “And me? The official story is that I quit the VCU. That’s true, but what no one else knows is that if I’d stayed, I would’ve been transferred to a desk job. My last case? Let’s just say I didn’t use my charm to get the guy to confess to kidnapping and murder.”
Lucas grabbed her hand and gave her fingers a squeeze. “I have my past, you have yours. And everyone out there is generally too concerned with their own pasts to give a shit about yours. You deserve to be here every bit as much as I do, or as much as any of them do. Remember that. No one is perfect.”
Seven glanced down at her hand, which looked so small in his. She was so floored—and touched, if she was being totally honest—by his concern for her feelings and sincerity that she had no idea how she should respond. So, she spewed the first thought that popped into her mind.
“Did you know it was such a dangerous neighborhood when you moved in?”
His wide answering smile revealed a dimple in his cheek she’d never noticed. Completely inexplicably, she wanted to lick that dimple.
Yep. Her edge was gone.
Damn it.
***
Seven’s eyes widened as she stepped into the house. Lucas hoped she wasn’t getting spooked again. He glanced around, trying to see the place from her perspective to determine if it was more or less threatening to her peace of mind than the outside had been.
The bright, wide, tiled foyer led to a huge open-concept space with a cozy living room at one end, and a bar-height dining room table at the other. The living room featured warm oak floors, cathedral ceilings with several skylights, and a floor-to-ceiling river rock fireplace. The walls were painted a warm buttery yellow, and his beat-to-hell brown leather conversational faced the fireplace, which had a 60” plasma television mounted above a driftwood mantel. Six-panel doors flanked the living space, four of which led to bedrooms, one to the guest bathroom.
He didn’t have pictures on the walls or cozy throw blankets tossed over the furniture, and his refrigerator was never stocked with anything but the previous days’ leftovers and a few outdated condiments. In other words, there really wasn’t anything in his house that screamed “family.” Hopefully she’d be able to relax here a little bit.
Lucas pointed to the room to the left of the foyer. “That’s the master. You can stay in there.”
She frowned. “Why would I take your bedroom?”
“Because the bathroom that the two guest rooms share hasn’t been remodeled yet, and the shower is only pumping out cold water at the moment.”
He didn’t add that with her in the house, cold showers were probably just what he needed, so having him take the guest room was most likely in everyone’s best interest.
Seven wandered into the living room, looking around distractedly. “Oh, I don’t shower, so I can take the guest bath. There’s no need to give up your room.”
Wait…what? “What do you mean you don’t shower?”
“I wash up in the sink, so I won’t need a shower.”
How in the name of all that’s holy did she get all that hair washed in a sink? And why even try?
Before he could ask her any questions, Seven’s attention was drawn to the lumbering beast that was suddenly hobbling toward them.
Lucas sighed. The dog had come out of the guest room. Again.
He’d paid a small fortune for the special, orthopedic dog cot the vet recommended, and this motherfucker refused to get anywhere near it. He did, however, have great affinity for the new memory foam mattress in the guest room.
He glared down at the animal. “You bastard, you were on the bed again, weren’t you?”
The dog just looked up at him, completely unrepentant, and wagged his tail. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth as he offered Lucas a doggy grin.
Seven’s head tipped to one side as she studied him. “What…”
Yeah, what is that was a question Lucas had heard a time or two about the damn dog. “He’s a pit bull. A few months ago, we busted a vampire who was running a dog-fighting ring. The other dogs were all adopted out at the pound, but they couldn’t find a home for Lucky here, so I took him.”
She glanced up at him, a smirk on her perfect lips. “Lucky?”
Yeah, he’d heard that question a time or two as well. Lucky was missing an eye and most of one front leg, was covered in various silvery scars, and had been so mangy and underfed that the vet wasn’t sure he’d make it. But with proper medical attention, plenty of high-protein, expensive-as-shit dog food, and apparently, access to a memory foam mattress, Lucky had rallied like a boss.
Now, his blue-gray coat gleamed and his pale blue eyes—well, eye, he supposed—were no longer dulled with pain and hunger. And now that he’d filled out, Lucky was a lean, muscular, hundred-pound, shedding-all-over-the-bed, six-cups-of-dog-food-a-day-eating fool.
He shrugged in response to Seven’s question. “He’s alive, isn’t he? I’d say that’s lucky, given what he’s been through.”
She graced him with another quick smile—yeah, he was definitely going to need a cold shower if she kept doing that—before dropping down to her knees and extending her hand, palm down, to the dog, who was sitting a few feet away from her, staring her down in full-on watchdog mode.
“Hello, Lucky,” she said. “I’m Seven
.”
“He probably won’t come to you,” Lucas warned. “He’s pretty leery of new people.”
In fact, Lucky was so leery of new people that barely anyone even knew Lucas had a dog. And honestly, after everything the poor animal had seen of human and vampire nature, who could blame him?
But that wasn’t to say Lucky was scared of people. No, far from it, really. Lucas was pretty sure the mailman would never come back after Lucky barked and snarled at him through the glass on the front door. Poor guy had been so startled he’d fallen down the front steps, jumped up, and hightailed it back to his vehicle at a pretty impressive clip.
So, if he was being totally honest with himself, Lucas wasn’t sure if Lucky was more likely to attack Seven, or simply keep his distance. He was unpredictable like that.
Lucas had avoided shifting into wolf form and establishing canine dominance over Lucky so far. He’d been through so much that he felt like the poor guy should be allowed to be the alpha dog for a while if it made him feel better.
But if he went after Seven, all bets were off.
Lucky moved toward her slowly, muscles tensed, looking ready to engage his fight-or-flight options at any moment. She kept her hand outstretched, giving the dog an opportunity to smell her and see if she was someone worth approaching.
Lucas released the breath he’d been holding when Lucky gingerly sniffed Seven’s hand. He then must’ve decided she was worthy of further inspection, because he ducked under her hand so that her palm rested on top of his head.
Seven smiled and obliged his not-so-subtle request by rubbing the top his head, then behind his ears. Lucky groaned in ecstasy.
“I’ll be damned,” Lucas muttered as Lucky invaded Seven’s space, laying his chin on her shoulder in the equivalent of a dog hug.
She laughed and wrapped her arms around Lucky’s thick neck. “I guess it’s a good thing we practiced hugging earlier, huh?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, doing his damnedest to pretend her laugh wasn’t the sexiest thing he’d ever heard in his life. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “Who could’ve known you’d need to use your newly acquired skills so fast?”
Harper Hall Investigations Complete Series Page 66
