He kissed her temple. “Oh, I think I might understand you better than you do yourself.”
“Maybe I didn’t explain it well enough.” There had to be words she could use so that he’d see what her mother saw—what others saw. It was suddenly imperative that he see her for who she was. She’d come this far. He knew more than anyone…and it felt like a relief. Her mind dragged her memory for something she could confess that would make him see the real her.
“LeAnn, I’m not judging you. It’s enough.” He hugged her tightly. “Let it go. You deserve some peace in your life.”
It was too good to be true. So either the bottom was about to drop out, or she was asleep. She couldn’t trust something that seemed this good and real. She didn’t entirely trust Travis in fact, though she wanted to. That was a start, right? She wanted this. Maybe enough to stick around and see what was wrong with it.
He cleared his throat. “So, as I said, going forward, we’ll deal with it together.”
“And you won’t arrest me?” This was madness…from the sanest, most logical man she knew.
“No, but I might bring out my handcuffs for other reasons.” He sighed. “In fact, I’m tempted to handcuff you to me for the next month so I don’t have to chase you down anytime soon.” He tapped the map. “What were you looking for?”
“Well, I’d decided to stay one more day and look for my brother one last time.”
“Yeah, I’m definitely handcuffing you to me. And we’ll be taking a lot of showers.”
Her cheeks heated up at that. The idea had its appeal. In fact, she could almost visualize it. Him. Naked. Rivulets of water coursing down his muscled chest, along his abs, and…
“Speaking of which, I should really drag you home with me and do that now.”
“Handcuff me to you?” Her voice had sounded squeaky. Control yourself, LeAnn.
“No…well, yes…but also, shower.” He stepped back. “I’m covered in layers of dirt.”
He smelled good. His scent was stronger from exertion, and the dirt didn’t detract from it very much. He smelled amazing. She turned around to tell him she didn’t mind and got a good look at him. “Travis! Why didn’t you tell me you were so scraped up?”
He had claw marks across his chest, deep gouges in his side and on his arm, and various scrapes here and there—along with streaks of mud and blood. He looked exhausted, too…even if he was smiling.
She tentatively touched his side. That looked really painful. She bit her lip and winced. “You should have gotten stitches.”
“Nuh-uh. I heard your opinion on that. You growled loud enough that anyone in a mile radius heard it.”
She blushed again and rolled her eyes. “Well, not from her…she’s a skanky whore, but you should have gone into an ER.”
He cupped her head in his hands and leaned down and kissed her lips softly. It was so tender it made her want to cry all over again—for a whole different reason.
“I told you I’d hunt you down and drag you back to my place yesterday. It just took me longer to find you than I’d expected.”
She looped her arms around his neck and tugged his mouth back down. She should be soft and sweet, considering his lips might be the only uninjured part of him, but she stood on her toes and opened her mouth to his. Mm. As his tongue brushed hers, she was sure this really was a dream. He grabbed her butt and set her on the table before slipping in between her legs to grind their bodies together.
Heaven. This is heaven.
“LeAnn,” he whispered against her mouth.
“Mm.”
“We stop now or we don’t stop at all. And you can’t take off on me once you’ve said yes.”
She pulled back reluctantly.
His sigh brushed across her wet lips, leaving tingles.
“Eventually, you’re going to come to your senses,” she said.
“No, you’re going to come to yours. I’ve already decided.” He tipped forward and pressed their foreheads together as he took deep breaths. “You’re still coming back with me, though.”
She tried to stop the giddy thrill she got that he wanted her. This wasn’t real. Maybe it was that scent-match, and she’d won the lottery for weird magical love voodoo. “Fine.”
“Hm. Yeah, I’m handcuffing us together. I feel like I could sleep for a week after last night.” He stepped backward, pulling her along with him. “You can even bring your map,” he said as she hopped off the table.
She turned to roll up the map. “You know, another thing I’d worried about with your research after reading that Rainier was a volcano…I thought maybe there was some Lycan virgin sacrifice ritual that Ross didn’t tell me about.”
He laughed.
“You laugh, but you’d be in trouble if that were the case. Your whole pack smelled like they were all getting some fairly regularly.”
“Not me,” he said. No. He smelled turned on the whole time they were together, but they were both heading fairly deep into sexual frustration—especially now.
“Well, no, but I might be the closest thing to a virgin, and then there’s Merilee on the other end of that.”
He went still. “I could tell you’d stopped by Merilee’s. You know I don’t like her, right?”
She turned toward him with the rolled-up map to see him eyeing her with a frown. “Like you hate her?”
“Maybe,” he said slowly, elongating the syllables while still watching her.
“That’s weird. Sure, she’s slutty, but she seems nice. Twitchy and freaked out, but nice.”
He exhaled in a huff. “Well, why were you at her place, then?”
She squinted. His response was weird, but…whatever. “I had her bra. Well, my brother had her bra. I was hoping they’d hooked up.”
He blinked and shook his head. “You were hoping that?”
“It was the less freaky reason he’d have her bra…which sounds weird now that I’ve said it out loud. Instead, I guess he was using it to cover his scent.”
“It seemed like you stopped by again last night…in your car.”
“Yeah, she’s the easiest to track. She smells really strong. And I didn’t know where the fight was.”
“Ah, that makes sense.” And he looked relieved and a bit surprised—though she didn’t know why; she always made sense.
She stared at his chest and shook her head. “I should have shot Troy.”
He picked up the gun from the table and tucked it in the back of his waistband. “I’ll get cleaned up, and you can play doctor, and we can sleep.”
“In handcuffs?”
“In handcuffs. You might as well get used to it.”
“How do you know I’m not?”
…
She nuzzled his neck in her sleep, pressing her body tightly to his. He was about as aroused as he’d ever been in his life, and she was rubbing up against a few of the cuts he had on his chest…but this felt healing.
Holding his hand out for a second, Travis watched it shake before sniffing in disgust and dropping it back around her. He’d faced armed morons high on meth without so much as blinking, but he couldn’t seem to recover from those ten hours of looking for her and finding empty road after empty road. When he’d caught sight of her car at her brother’s, he’d thought he’d been hallucinating.
She’s still here.
Mate.
Mine.
Her face screwed up in a frown, and she twitched in his arms.
“Shh, LeAnn.”
Her taut muscles loosened, and she sighed in her sleep.
It didn’t surprise him that she had nightmares. Anyone with her past would have demons. When she’d spaced out for a couple minutes, it’d scared the hell out of him initially, but she’d come back to him. They could get through this.
She’d shared her past with him, so he had a part in them, too. Hopefully, he’d be able to help her deal with them. She’d thought hearing about what she’d done would turn him off—instead, she astounded him. She wa
s a survivor. And it was about time she had someone to help her find control in her life. Though he wasn’t doing so great a job at finding it in his own these days.
The worst was behind them, though.
Last night’s challenge would establish his role in the pack and give them some room for her to get comfortable and finally accept the scent-match. She’d see what a pack was like, and maybe she’d start to recognize the Lycan side to her. If she weren’t so at odds with herself and in conflict, maybe she’d shift.
She has to be shifting. She is a Lycan.
“Mm, Travis,” she murmured.
“What is it, honey?” Dipping his head, he kissed her temple. Honey…he’d slipped and called her that a few times. She smelled like honey. Sweet, sweet honey. Her skin tasted sweet, too.
“What?” she asked drowsily. She must have been asleep before when she said his name. It made him smile.
“What what?” he asked.
Tipping her head back, she wrinkled up her nose as she squinted at him. “I thought we were sleeping.”
He’d called in sick to work. He should be sleeping. Or he should be making sure that Troy got the hell out of town. “We are.”
“I thought so.” She closed her eyes and huddled up against him again.
He hadn’t been kidding when he said he’d found religion early this morning. He had to remember to be kinder to widows and orphans and find a few charities to donate to. If she’d disappeared on a plane and reinvented herself… It made him want to puke. He’d watched the road leading out of town after the rain had started. Then he’d decided to make one last stop by her brother’s before going back to his place to switch to a two-legged search for her.
He inhaled her scent. Hell, she smelled good. She smelled like she’d been drenched in honey.
“Do you know I’m crazy for you?” he whispered.
She startled and rubbed her mouth back and forth against his collarbone before settling down again. She was also an insanely light sleeper. With her being a flight risk, he wished he was. It was keeping his eyes pried open—if he went to sleep, he might wake up alone. He couldn’t be without her. It’d happened so fast—too fast. This felt like more than want and need…this felt real and deep and a whole lot like love. He’d never felt anything like this for anyone.
Jordan had once said he was weak for Christa, and damn if he wasn’t right about feeling that way for your mate. All his control, yet Travis had nearly lost his mind last night when he thought she’d taken off.
“Mm, Travis?”
“Yeah?”
She leaned back and stared at him. “I like your tattoo.”
He grinned. “You want one?”
“Me?”
“Everyone in the pack has one.”
“And I’m pack?”
“You’re pack.” She seemed more open to that after the challenge. It even seemed to appeal to her. He might never entirely understand the way her mind worked, but belonging to a pack called to her—as it did most pack animals.
She smiled. “I’ve never been in someone’s pack before.”
He brushed his finger down her nose softly before using it to tip her mouth up for a kiss. “We can get you inked as soon as you want.”
“If I stay.”
“You have to stay. Remember…handcuffs…lots of showers.” She thought he was only kidding. The challenge had been nothing compared to what had followed.
“Would I have to get it on my arm?”
His grin widened. “Where were you thinking of getting it?” This had to be one of the sexiest conversations he’d ever had—especially since she sounded all drowsy, and he was surrounded by her honeyed scent.
She rolled her eyes. “Why do they glow?”
“Phosphorous in the ink. I wanted them visible in both forms.”
And her smile dropped off, and she looked down at his chest. “Oh. Right.”
“What?”
She sighed. “Are they only accepting me as pack because you keep telling them that?”
He could lie to her, but it sounded like Alanna had already planted the seed of doubt about it. “Yes. Until you accept the scent-match and take your place as Alpha, you don’t feel like pack to most of them.”
“Well, and the fact that I’m not a Lycan.”
Oh hell. This would have to be worded carefully. “We accept non-Lycans into the pack. While Jordan was helping me, he had a non-Lycan leading his pack—Dane. Besides, not all offspring born to us are Lycans. Even between a Lycan and a Lycan. Jordan’s parents were both Lycan and he’s the only one in his family.”
Except that she was Lycan. But she somehow had some serious repression going on. It probably started with her mother when she started changing at puberty. It was so far beyond what he could imagine, though. She likely could use a good therapist. But the only Lycan he knew in the medical profession was Alanna…and he felt guilty even thinking about her with LeAnn here.
Maybe she never shifted or had only shifted a few times before she started pretending it wasn’t happening.
It probably wasn’t a good idea to keep hammering at it, especially when other people were around. He found her insanity charming, but it might look…okay, it would look crazy to the others, and Merilee had smelled downright frightened when she’d first seen LeAnn last night at the challenge. And with the other females going into heat…
“You know I’m only attracted to you, right?” he asked. Her hanging around Merilee’s place had made him uneasy.
She looked up at him.
“I don’t want anyone else in the pack or out of the pack—just you.”
“Because of the scent-match?” she asked, tilting her head.
“It started with the scent-match, but also…it’s just you. I only want you.”
She grinned.
The phone rang. And he mentally argued with himself over answering it, but the moment was already broken, so he leaned back and grabbed it.
“Hello.”
“Merilee is gone,” Liam said.
“She went with Troy?” He might have expected that. It was a bad call on her part, but he could only do so much.
“No. Troy sent me to ask her if she would, and she’s not here. But I could smell blood. Her blood. I followed it and found that…uhh, someone had dug out her tracking tag—they left it in her bed.”
Ice shot through him. “What?” This couldn’t be happening again.
LeAnn had gone still and was looking up at him with a concerned frown.
“Can you smell the scent of anyone else?” Travis asked. Ross. This reminded him far too much of Ross. But saying that was admitting that he was still alive, and he wasn’t ready to accept that as an established fact. It was still supposition, wild speculation. It had to be.
“I can.” Don’t say Ross. Don’t say Ross. This couldn’t be happening again. He’d expected drama in this pack, and they had it in spades, but death…like this? No.
Travis waited. Finally, he asked, “And?”
“I can hear your mate’s breathing. Do you really want me to answer that?”
Liam was a hotheaded ass, and Travis had dealt with the problem head-on by making him help Troy leave so that he’d see which way he was headed. His thinking was less predictable, so the statement could mean anything.
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Travis said finally.
“Okay.” And he hung up.
“What did he mean?” LeAnn said, getting up when he did.
“I have no idea. It might mean that he didn’t want to scare you.” Though it was hard to imagine Liam actually being considerate of LeAnn’s feelings if he didn’t see her as pack. There’d even been a bite to his voice when he’d said the word “mate.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” LeAnn said. She was almost too perceptive. Not that he’d be attracted to someone he saw as inferior, but he’d always assumed his intelligence would make it difficult to find an equal partnership. LeAnn felt like an equal.
<
br /> She was dressing quickly like he was…as if she were coming along. Hell.
“I don’t think you should come with me.” He added, “At first,” when she scowled and narrowed her eyes. “I can call you…because I might need your help tracking, but I don’t really trust Liam anyway, and I want to know what he’s getting at.”
“You don’t trust him?”
“He’ll be my next challenge as Alpha if things don’t change.”
Her eyes widened.
“It’s fine. I’ll have a gun, and he knows pack law for challenging an Alpha.”
“Maybe you should have two guns.”
He liked and disliked the way she thought. “Okay, I’ll take two guns.”
“And a knife.”
“I have claws when I shift. A knife is just an extra thing to carry.”
“Oh. Good point. I don’t think of that because I don’t have those.”
He blinked at her. That was never going to be easy to let slip by. “Okay. You have to stay here, though.”
She looked down. “Okay.”
“You were planning on sneaking out after me.”
She folded her arms.
“LeAnn, if someone is killing members of my pack, I need to know that you’re here and safe, or I won’t be able to concentrate.”
He didn’t want to tell her, but there was an instinctual aversion to harming someone in your pack. It made you hesitate. It made you even turn and defend them if you were in Lycan form. It was hard to fight the instinct. Once you were accepted as pack, you had that protection. He and Troy were both fighting it last night during the challenge—though he suspected it was more difficult for him than for Troy. No one had that instinct for LeAnn currently. He could say she was pack for the rest of her life, but until she took her spot in his life and the pack, they wouldn’t feel it, not when they were Lycans, and certainly not the dimmer instinct when they were on two feet.
Hell, he wasn’t even sure he could have killed Ross if it came right down to it. He was glad Black Tusk had taken it on.
“Please stay here,” he said, grabbing her hand with one of his as he reached for his holster with the other. This was eating up his time, and the word “please” sounded and tasted strange on his tongue as an Alpha.
Crazy Over You Page 15
