A Sinful Trap

by R. G. Alexander

  Bailey couldn’t deny it.

  “He tried to sell this place for more money for years, but because he was never willing to put any in for repairs, it stayed on the market. For years, Bailey. And then who buys it?” Dani took her hand and shook it for emphasis. “Cameron Locke. Your big, sexy shifter mate who happens to already be conveniently in love with your other sexy shifter mate. You’re telling me there aren’t supposed to be two mates for one person, but you got a happily matched set? You want to ignore the wonder of that? And now, because you weren’t there at the start of the love story, you don’t want to be in it at all. That doesn’t sound like the Bailey I know. You’re braver than that.”

  “When you put it like that,” Bailey said again, amazed at the different perspective Dani had on the situation.

  “I’m telling you, I’m right about this.”

  “I almost went to them yesterday,” Bailey confessed. “But then Will brought my guests to the attic and I’d just seen…everything. Felt everything they were feeling.”

  “The connection you mentioned—do you think that’s the tether Kaya was talking about?”

  Bailey nodded. “They chased after me, but I wouldn’t talk to them. I couldn’t.”

  She’d never forget it, though. The shifting. All that gorgeous, bare skin.

  “You aren’t busy right now. I’m here and so is Ava. Maybe you need to do something about that. After you shower and put on sexy underwear.”

  “I do need to take them the trunk,” Bailey said thoughtfully. “Stan the ghost wanted Cam to have it.”

  “Ghosts. I still can’t believe it. But that settles it.” Dani smacked the bed and got to her feet. “Go make your delivery, and while you’re there, maybe you can have an honest conversation about where you stand with them before all the epic, marathon sex you were planning on having.”

  Anxiety replaced her anticipation. “What if there’s no way to make it work?”

  What if she had to let them go?

  “If you want to, you’ll find a way, Bailey. It’s what you do.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Cam stood by his office windows, holding the potted cactus Bailey had left here, clinging to it like a lovesick idiot. Yesterday’s revelations had kept him up most of the night, and now he was watching the morning sun set the red rocks on fire, still at a loss.

  Despite his lifestyle, Cam was a creature of habit and a fan of certainty. Day followed night, seasons changed, he loved Davide and he was a wolf who would never lead a pack of his own.

  He’d carved out a life around those simple truths. It wasn’t perfect, but it had worked out pretty damn well for the last thirty years. He’d thought it was all he needed, until he bought the inn and came to Sedona.

  He wasn’t a desert wolf. So how was it that this place felt more like home than anywhere he’d ever been? Bailey wasn’t the only reason. His grandfather had felt the same pull. But then, his mate had been here when he arrived as well. Two women, over seventy years apart, both mated to Locke wolves, both living at the inn surrounded by sacred land that had no pack.

  Fate? Or Stax picking his right-hand alpha?

  Alpha. He’d been running from the word all his life. Cam had never known what it meant to be pack. His grandfather had left days after he was born and he’d been raised in the aftermath, living with the repercussions of that decision. It was one of the reasons Stax believed he was perfect for the job.

  The coyote had found them after their confrontation with Bailey to finish their conversation, and to spell out what he wanted from Cam.

  “For humans and shifters alike, this is a place of refuge, meant for healing and realization. Meant to be temporary. Shifter packs are static and unbending as a rule. Living here would take a different kind of pack leader, one who could adapt and be open to all. You’ve taken in our lost ones before, Alpha Locke. You’re a shifter who loves a human. A wolf who loves a lynx. You understand this changing world and how to protect other shifters from it and themselves. You don’t have to accept it, but I believe you are one of the few capable of the responsibility.”

  A shifter who loved a human—another certainty he’d had dismantled. He’d believed it was impossible for him to love someone else the way he loved Davide. It wasn’t the same—it couldn’t be—but he couldn’t deny his love for Bailey anymore. Or that he wouldn’t give anything to make her their mate.

  But he’d hurt her. They hadn’t—he had.

  When they’d chased after her, all their emotions had been intensified by the link, and Cam had come closer than he ever had before to giving himself over to his wolf. Feeling her confusion and pain, viewing it as a rejection, he’d nearly thrown her over his shoulder and taken the choice out of her hands.

  Thankfully, he’d had enough sanity left to let her go. She wouldn’t have forgiven him for putting her guests in danger, and he would never have forgiven himself for forcing the issue.

  The last memory she shared before she blocked them had humbled him, giving him more of a window into her past than the story Stax had told them. A human girl who’d survived her mother abandoning her and, instead of allowing life to harden her, had chosen to make her own family. Grow her own garden. As much as he wasn’t Calvin Locke, she also wasn’t Stacy Wagner. They’d both chosen to be something more.

  If she chose them, there was no limit to what they could be together. What he would do to make her happy.

  If.

  The sound of footsteps and her scent yanked him out of his thoughts and had him turning swiftly to set the cactus down on his desk and rub a hand over his jaw. She was here. Stax had promised she would be when he’d told them to wait.

  “Look who I found on my way to drag you from your sanctuary,” Davide said as he opened the office door, revealing an uncertain Bailey beside him.

  “Come in.”

  “She asked if something had changed.” Davide stared pointedly at him over her shoulder. “Because her thoughts are her own and we aren’t tearing each other’s clothes off in a bacchanalian frenzy.”

  “Not exactly what I said,” Bailey muttered, still not looking at him. “And I think I was at least partially responsible for the shutdown.”

  “You were,” Cam assured her somberly. “The rest is a gift from Stax. A temporary buffer so you can make an informed decision, and so we can be with you while you do without succumbing to our own instincts.”

  “Stax can do that?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  “I was as surprised as you are.”

  “It was Cam’s idea,” Davide said, squeezing her shoulder gently before giving her space again. “The desire and instincts are still there, the link too, if you look for it, but it’s on the back burner.”

  It took her a moment to digest the information. “You said it’s temporary?”

  Cam nodded. “We have until sunrise tomorrow.”

  He’d argued to give her more time, but Stax said there were some things that weren’t in his power. Whether that was true or not, Cam was grateful for the concession.

  “No hurry then,” she said dryly.

  Did his smile look as pained as it felt? “I’m glad you’re here, Bailey. Will you sit?”

  When she sat on one end of the couch, he took the chair beside it. She was close enough to touch, but the distance between them felt wider than any canyon and he was impatient to erase it. She was more at ease with Davide now, and he knew exactly why.

  You made her cry.

  He’d felt like a bastard when he’d seen her swollen eyes and tear-streaked cheeks yesterday. As a wolf, he sensed emotions and random thoughts from Davide and the others all the time, but this connection with Bailey was something new to him. He hadn’t realized how deep the link was or how much he’d revealed until it was too late to protect her.

  She’d experienced all of it at once, his memories and doubts, and she was trying to do exactly what he’d told Davide she would—prepare herself to let them go. He’d believed it was their only c
hoice then, but he knew better now. He may not deserve the chance to prove it to her, but he wouldn’t give stop trying without a fight.

  Bailey didn’t know any of this yet, though she could if she opened the link. He wanted her to understand how conflicted he’d been when he believed he had to let her go.

  With all that she’d sensed from him, how could she have missed his feelings for her? Had he lied to himself too well? Been so focused on keeping Davide safely by his side that he’d been unwilling to acknowledge his wolf’s joy at finding a mate? His own joy every time he thought of her?

  Bailey made him laugh. She was like sunlight, drawing out desires he’d kept hidden away most of his life. Everything about her fit them both so perfectly, he couldn’t help but believe that Davide and Stax were right, that it was more than biology. More than a chemical trigger meant for reproduction.

  A sudden flash of her holding a child with Davide’s curls, or a little girl with his gray eyes, nearly laid him low.

  Rein it in, Locke. She hasn’t accepted you yet.

  “How are the guests?” he asked abruptly. “I wanted to call myself but…”

  “I asked for space and you respected that,” she finished with a no-nonsense look. “The guests are fine. In fact, they had a great time and think I should make the experience part of the guest package.” Her hand came up to touch her forehead. “I’m the only one who hit my head again, but it wasn’t bad, and Davide was right about the noise. There are definitely ghosts up there. I met them.” She gestured to her shoes. “Do you mind?”

  When Cam shook his head, she slipped them off and curled her feet beneath her. Getting comfortable, he hoped. She must have come straight here from the shower because her hair was still wet, the bangs that usually fell over one eye slicked away from her freshly scrubbed face. It made her look young and innocent, vulnerable with that new wound from the attic. Her clinging, faded t-shirt, shorts and pink knee-high socks with white stripes on top didn’t do anything to take away from that arousing image.

  The wolf in him reacted to it, and he crossed his legs as casually as he could to conceal his erection. The buffer couldn’t solve every problem. Which was why it took longer than it should have for her words to register. “You met the ghosts?”

  Davide moved to sit beside her on the couch, his gaze lingering on her lips. “Does that explain the trunk you had me carry in?”

  “It does.” She focused on Cam. “You asked about the sisters the other day. Did you know it would be them?”

  “I wondered. There was an old picture of them in the purchase file.”

  “I’ve never seen it.” He was about to offer to make her a copy when she asked, “Did you know that one of them was your grandfather’s mate? She’s the one who wanted you to have the trunk.”

  Cam stared at her, momentarily at a loss for words. He’d been thinking about the connections and parallels before she’d arrived, but she’d actually spoken to his grandfather’s mate?

  “The Enchanted Inn was the right name for it,” he murmured, shaking his head at the confusion in her expression.

  “I thought they were children,” Davide said, perplexed. “They sounded like children.”

  “I think they’re at the age they were when they were happiest? I’m not sure how it works,” she offered helplessly. “But if either of you wanted them to leave, that’s not happening anytime soon. They’d like to stay for a while, and they want me to memorialize them at the inn. I can’t believe I’m saying any of this out loud, but I’m now living with ghosts and this is how my week is going.”

  Davide chuckled and leaned closer, not-so-subtly taking in her scent.

  Bailey noticed. “I’m telling you about conversations with dead people and you’re… Are you smelling me again?”

  “It’s not my fault.” He shrugged unapologetically. “You smell amazing.”

  “You always say that.”

  “It’s always true,” Cam said gruffly.

  When her smile wavered, his heart clenched.

  She doesn’t believe you.

  “It’s a shifter thing, right?” She nodded as if answering her own question. “Do you want to know what the ghosts said about what happened to them?”

  “No.” He refused to let her change the subject before he’d set her straight on a few things.

  Davide looked at him, obviously disappointed by his response, and Cam sighed in frustration.

  Sliding to his knees beside the couch, he said, “Tomorrow, or maybe the day after, I’ll ask you to tell me all about it. But we have more important things to discuss, and I realized last night that I’ve been wasting time looking for an answer that I didn’t need instead of focusing on the things that matter.” He stared into her eyes, willing her to understand. “My grandfather left. End of story. And sometimes, selfish people don’t think about the things they leave behind.”

  She exhaled slowly, obviously recognizing her own words. “The mental TMI was a two-way street then. Good to know.”

  When she crossed her arms, he shook his head.

  “You always do that when you’re feeling defensive.”

  “And you always—” She set her hands on her thighs, laughing under her breath. “A dozen things you always do just popped into my head. You’ll have to give me a minute, Boot Boy. Nothing magical has ever happened to me before, and I can’t even enjoy it, because I know you didn’t open the door willingly.”

  “Why would you say that?” Davide asked, looking troubled.

  “You can be honest with me, D. You always were in your emails. I know it’s the push to mate, I understood that much after the psychic download. If this were purely about emotion and desire, Cam would be sharing his pon farr mind meld with you.”

  Cam frowned. “What the hell is a pon farr? Another vampire reference?”

  “Star Trek.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Before Ava, if I wanted to eat a homecooked meal, I went over to Dani and Liam’s place, and they are on a Trek binge. Some of it stuck. But it doesn’t matter. I’m trying to apologize for the way I acted when you stopped me yesterday. Everything came at me too fast and I needed to process.”

  “This isn’t processing. This is you trying to diminish what we feel for you,” Davide corrected carefully. “What I don’t know is why. Did I—did we—do something wrong? Say something that hurt you?”

  “This is my fault, Davide.” Cam set his hand on the couch near her thigh, needing to be closer even if he couldn’t touch her yet. “You misunderstood what you saw, Bailey. What you felt? It wasn’t everything I feel.”

  A sad sort of tenderness stole across her expression. “You say I didn’t get everything, but neither did you. You don’t know the day-to-day boring story of me. The one-horse-town human who’s only left the state once to go to Vegas for a bachelorette party. Even then I stayed in the hotel the entire time, and after the first day I couldn’t wait to get home. I didn’t know any of this existed. I didn’t know anything like you existed until Stax. I tried to ignore it or joke about it because, even though my best friend reads minds for a living, the truth was too hard to wrap my head around. And then you two showed up and blew my mind again.”

  Cam sighed. “I didn’t think about how the link would affect you.”

  “Why would you?” she asked without a trace of judgment. “You didn’t believe mating was real a few days ago, the same way I didn’t believe in wishes a few months ago. I’m right, aren’t I? You thought if Davide wasn’t your mate, it couldn’t be real. That’s how much you love him, and it’s beautiful. What you have is what everyone deserves to have. So don’t tell me it isn’t everything.”

  Cam met Davide’s gaze. There was love, yes, a lifetime’s worth and never in doubt. But now there was more. A longing for this woman who was trying so hard to put her own desires aside to do the right thing. Because even though it would cause her pain, that was who she was. And it was just one of the things they loved about her.

  “You’re not w
rong,” he finally managed. “But you’re not right either.”

  “Oh?” Her eyes glimmered with unshed tears. “How did I pull that off?”

  “You’re under the mistaken impression that love has limits,” Davide said.

  Knowing there were no words they could say to make her believe them, Cam took her hand.

  “Let us show you.” He could feel everything riding on this moment. “We have until the sun rises tomorrow to be together without expectations. Give us today. All of it. Let us show you how we feel. How it could be between the three of us.”

  She licked her lips, her eyes filled with doubt—and an unmistakable glint of interest. “I’m trying to let you off the hook and you’re propositioning me?”

  Davide kissed her shoulder, instantly on board with Cam’s impulsive plan. “Absolutely. Interested?”

  Bailey hesitated. “Is it possible for us to…? Without making it official, I mean?”

  Without marking her.

  His wolf grumbled in denial but Cam squeezed her hand. “We can do anything, Bailey.”

  She was weakening. He could feel it. “It’s not even noon yet.”

  His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Is that a human rule I didn’t know about?”

  “An observation.”

  “Let’s make a deal that, until tomorrow, time doesn’t matter. Rules don’t matter. Life-altering decisions don’t matter. Only pleasure. Only us.”

  He sensed the moment she decided to say yes. There was a change to her scent, her heartbeat. It seemed contradictory, but he knew this was the only way to show her that what they had was more than she thought it was. That she meant more to them than she knew.

  She’d been watching them for days, but now she would feel them. Know them in every way possible. Then she might finally be able to listen and believe.