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  Garrett stopped and touched her face. Took it in his hands and turned her so he could kiss her. She had sugar and frosting on her lips and coffee on her tongue. His cock stirred and she shivered.

  “You should not even be—”

  “I’d have to be dead not to want you,” he said, cutting her off. He kissed her. Kissed her long and soft and then harder. He needed her to know how much of her was in him now. How much of his heart she owned. All of it. “I love you, so yeah, I’d have to be dead and buried not to want you, Liv.”

  Liv shocked him by running her fingertips down the length of his hard-on so that this time he shivered. “Well, I’d have to be dead, embalmed and buried to now want you. But right now I want you in the tub so we can get this wound clean. If you behave, maybe, just maybe I’ll give you a little nibble.”

  She helped him forward and he palmed her ass, squeezing just a bit too hard so she jumped. “Nibble? Bite. I want a bite.”

  Liv shook her head, blushing. He could smell the rush of blood to her skin, it smelled of late-blooming roses. “Yeah, yeah, in the tub with you, wolf boy.”

  He did as he was told.

  “Now stay right there. I have a big pot on the stove and that should warm it right up.” She ran out, hair flying. Those jeans were atrocious but somehow she made them work. The ragged sweatshirt and leaves in her hair all worked.

  “Wild Liv. Brave Liv. Strong, unafraid, raging Liv,” he mumbled to himself like a prayer. Garrett put his head back against the cool porcelain. A tree smacked the bathroom window over and over again. How long since someone had lived here to trim it? A few years? The house was steeped in bad feelings and worse energy. But it was old emotion, not the former owners’. It had to be Liv’s family who had left the desperate scent of anger on the house.

  “Here we go. I’ll pour it down here so I don’t burn you.” The pot steamed, turning her already rosy cheeks redder. She caught him looking and put her head down like she was shy. Because deep down she really was still. Only with him, she seemed a bit more comfortable in her skin. Garrett had never felt more grateful before, than to realize that.

  The hot water slipped around his feet, mingled with the tepid water. “Now, when my mother wasn’t drunk she’d think to do this when we heated up the tub water from the hot faucet.” She dipped her hand in and swirled it like some pink magical starfish. She fanned her hand so that the hot water migrated all around his aching muscles, slipping and darting into the nooks of the backs of his knees, around his ankles, over his hips. She brushed the hot water around him, her fingers skimming his skin here and there. When her pinky touched his cock, his body responded with an almost violent need.

  He grabbed her wrist, hard, and she jumped. He’d scared her but not in a bad way. Her shoulders went back, brow smoothed, eyes went darker. She licked her lips and tried to pull away but he held her fast. Would she trust him?

  “Garrett, you’re wounded. Don’t you think we should skip this particular mating?” But her hand betrayed her words and she twisted her hand in his so that she grasped the underside of his wrist with her smooth palm. His pulse was palpable now. Trapped in the cage of her palm, it seemed to beat triple in speed. He was so ready for her. The ache of his cock, the thumping beat of his ache for her completely outweighed and overshadowed his injury or his pain.

  “Climb in here with me, Olivia. You’re dirty too. You have leaves in your hair, after all.” He grinned at her, stroking his fingers over her wrist so that he felt her pulse flutter like a small butterfly under her skin.

  “You are the big bad wolf,” she said, dropping her head and blushing. But not before Garrett saw her eyes dilate and her tongue dart out to wet her lips. She slid on her knees on the old black and white tile, her arousal sudden and rich in his nose.

  “For you, I am. Come on, little red, come in here with me.”

  She stood and he watched her. The way she moved, the slip of her hair around her shoulders. All of it made him itchy in his skin until she was with him. Until he was inside her. It was the best possible place to be, he thought. With Liv in his arms and him in her body, he could just be.

  “Garrett—”

  “Off with the mom-jeans. Off with the sweats. Come on, baby. Do it for the injured guy. Do it for me. Do it…” He reached up, tracing the curve of her thigh where it met her knee and she gave in.

  Her fingers, trembling a bit, popped the brass button on her jeans, drew down the zipper and Garrett felt his focus go soft like a man mesmerized. She shimmied out of the denim like a dream and his eyes found her bare underneath. Her skin the color of milk and porcelain. A small brown birthmark like a bit of punctuation on the flare of her hip. “Now the sweatshirt,” he said, sounding dark and guttural even to himself.

  Liv lifted the horrible covering and her breasts came into view. The honey freckling across her chest so fucking gorgeous it stole his breath. How many times now had he run his tongue over those freckles and at what point would it not mean so much to him?

  Never.

  “Garrett, you’re hurt,” she whispered but she stepped into his seeking hand and he slipped his fingers between her nether lips, touching just the tip of one finger to her clit so that she sighed. “Garrett you really should—”

  “Get in, Liv,” he said, trying to keep his voice soft and failing miserably.

  She stepped forward and in, the water swelling around him like a welcoming tide. “Good girl,” Garrett said and pulled her down to kiss her.

  ———

  The Arrival

  The water licked at her calves and then thighs as she tried to wiggle down in the tub with him. Garrett’s hands came up to claim her like he couldn’t wait another minute. He pulled her forward, lips locking on hers, tongue darting and stroking around inside her mouth until she felt the echoing wash of arousal in her pussy. Liv settled on his hips, his hard cock pressed to her wetness, the warm water swirling around them. She dug her fingernails into his biceps enough for his cock to jerk from the brief pain.

  “Put me in you, Liv,” he said against her bottom lip, biting her hard enough that a white hot spark of pain blazed across her bottom lip and her cunt clenched, ready and wanting. He arched his hips. “Come on, do it.”

  Liv rocked her hips, left to right, right to left, feeling his breathing grow shorter and faster, hotter against her mouth as he tried so hard to maintain control. “You should be resting,” she said, really trying hard to protest. They shouldn’t be fucking. She should be playing Florence Nightingale not naughty nurse.

  “This is resting. It’s healing. You’re my healing spring. A wet well of willing woman,” he growled.

  Liv shook her head no but the pressure of his erection to her opening was enough to override good sense and her caring nature. “Garrett—”

  “Now. Do it now, Liv. You do all the work. I’ll just lie here,” he said. His lips pressed warm and insistent to her ear, right up close so the vibration of his words shimmered on her skin, making her nipples go hard. She rubbed them to the warm, hard expanse of his chest, avoiding his wound but feeling him under her. So real, so human, wanting her with all of himself. It was too much.

  “Fine but don’t you move. Not at all.”

  “Not even when I come?” he teased but then he groaned because she was setting the flushed tip of his cock to her pussy and dragging him through the wetness pooled there. Not putting him in yet, just letting him feel it.

  “No, not even then,” she breathed. “Promise?”

  “Promise,” he said. His voice was rough and broken. He was barely hanging on but she liked the feel of him pressed to her this way, all potential. The precursor to a lot of pleasure. Always pleasure with him.

  Garrett thrust up mindlessly as she pushed the head of his cock to her again but didn’t sink down to take him in. “Ah-ah. You promised.”

  “Sorry, but Liv?”

  “Yeah?” She settled down on him, legs shaking from excitement and chill, to take just the head int
o herself. She squeezed.

  “You’re going to turn me from just wounded to wounded and mad. I don’t want to go crazy, baby. Come on, Olivia,” he whispered.

  When he said her full name she sank down on him, his cock stretching her perfectly as she lowered. The full length of him brushed every hungry nerve ending in her and Liv began to rock. Already it felt too good. Already she was so damn close to coming.

  Garrett pulled at her, cupping the back of her head, pulling her forward so his mouth could find her mouth, her neck, her nipples. He sucked one, then the other, hard enough for her to feel the resounding tug in her cunt, the tickle in her throat. She came around him, gripping his cock tight with her body when his teeth found that sore place on her neck that marked her as his. He licked it then, the thin skin that covered the pound of her pulse from the pleasure and pain.

  Liv put her own teeth to his throat, feeling the blood jump and shimmy under her teeth. His heart was pounding, his hands roaming. Over her waist, her ass, the sides of the claw-foot tub. He cupped her bottom, tugging her firmly against him so that he could thrust up with the barest of thrusts, bumping her G-spot so that a warm epilogue to her orgasm worked through her arms and legs. Her fingers were loose and flexible with it, colors swirled behind her eyelids as she flirted with her release. “Be careful. Careful,” she chanted in a whisper. “Don’t hurt yourself. You promised. Careful, careful, Garrett.”

  “Hush, woman.” He moved her ever so slightly, his arms bulging with the effort, and Liv fell forward, kissing him, rocking her hips, shoving her fingers into his hair so that he hissed against her mouth from her tugging.

  “I love you. I love you. Sometimes I don’t think you’re real. I wait to wake up. I wait to blink and you’re gone. Or you’re Kevin and I’ve just gone crazy because all my life I’ve just wanted…” She was crying a bit then and he took her hands, holding them in one of his, urging her hips to roll and slide with the other at the small of her back as she moved over him.

  He was perfect. Liv’s heart broke at the thought of losing him in any way. A tear slipped down the slope of her nose, dropped to his lips, full and red, almost sinful for a man, lips like that. He licked it way, brought her to him with a tug of her hands and kissed her one more time before his body went rigid, his lips tight as he said, “You have it now. You have my love forever. And if anyone in this world tries to hurt you, they’ll have to go through me first. And not just go through me—” He moved, chaotic and shivering in the water as he came. Liv hovered right on the edge of coming until he pressed his fingertips into her skin and thrust one final time. She tumbled back into it, managing to come in tandem, with a fluid sigh as he finished.

  “They’ll have to kill me,” he said. And Liv knew he meant it.

  ———

  She put him to bed and then drained the tub. Liv walked the house, making sure it was secure. She’d never felt more at home and peaceful despite being in a cold, dirty, abandoned home that had once been her hell. Garrett had been fine until he came, then the energy he had dug up to be with her had evaporated like water on a hot day. He’d let her put him in the bed, cover him and when she had turned to make sure he was settled, the gray wolf with Arctic eyes regarded her calmly before putting his head down and going to sleep.

  The house was cooler than the outside, she thought. Liv went to her closet and pulled it open, hoping that it didn’t wake Garrett. Inside it was bare. A few metal hangers and some paper on the floor. Nothing in here of the girl who had lived here. No clothes or jewelry or keepsakes. Not even a movie ticket. Not that she got to go out very often but when she did, she kept a memento.

  When she slid the door to shut it, the dark markings caught her eye. Olivia at four…Olivia at ten…Olivia at eleven, twelve, thirteen. She watched herself grow taller and taller via ink marks on scuffed white paint. She could think back and remember vividly. At four her mother had fallen down the steps, so her stepfather said. At ten her mother had sported a black eye for Thanksgiving. Eleven, a busted shoulder, twelve, a fractured kneecap and a limp. Thirteen was the first time he took a swing at Liv. Her mother had rallied for that, earning a fat lip and a chipped tooth. Her throat closed with emotion and she shut the door.

  “Come lie with me,” he said.

  Liv turned, frowning. “You have to stop shifting! You’re never going to heal.”

  “Sorry. I keep forgetting that if I had simply made a sound you’d have understood. I can feel how sad you are from here. And that’s being exhausted, freezing, tired, bleeding and recently zapped of all my energy with your feminine wiles.”

  “That was totally your fault,” she said.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come lie with me, woman.”

  She crawled in next to him. Let him hold her. She let Garrett soothe away so many years of feeling lost and invisible. She let him hold her and she let herself not worry. Just for a bit.

  ———

  Chester had called and said it wouldn’t be until late morning that they arrived. By then the house was sparkling clean and the rest of the pantry items that could be baked had been.

  Kelly had barely slept and felt that itchy “bugs under the skin” feeling that only came with extreme nerves. Kelly ran to the door when she heard the bell. She ripped it open ready to jump on Chester and kiss him until he cried. Instead her heart stuttered in her chest and the words she’d been about to say crawled back down her throat.

  “Kelly, glad to see you too. Do we have any idea where they are? What’s been done with the body?”

  A.J. brushed past her as if he owned the joint. When Chester came clumping up the brick steps like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, the greeting she had planned turned into a hissed, “What is Satan doing here?”

  “He’s not Satan, Kel, and I’m sure he can hear you. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. And I really can’t order him around. He’s pretty much second in command and he’s way more stubborn than me. The boys are holding down the fort at the farm. They can keep an eye on things long enough for us to sort this out.”

  “For the head honcho you sure rolled over and showed your belly,” she growled. Kelly slammed the already damaged door behind them so hard that this time it cracked the frame. A picture fell off the wall and A.J. turned and bared his teeth in a vague smile as he faced her.

  “I know you’re overjoyed to have me but I need to know about that body.”

  “The body was found and removed this morning. Some hikers found it,” Kelly said. “I saw it on TV while I was waiting for Chester to come.” She nodded to the TV that had been put on mute. The news for the day flickered on the screen, brightly colored news of death and poverty.

  “And they think?” A.J. leaned on the counter in the cocky way of an alpha who wasn’t quite. It always made Kelly want to smack him in the head.

  “They think an animal attacked him.”

  “Hmph. Let’s see how far that gets us,” he said, looking around. A.J. sniffed the air and grinned. “He has it bad for her.”

  “He’s mated to her now, you jacka—”

  “Let’s be productive now, folks,” Chester said softly. He put his hands on Kelly’s shoulder and she felt her blood pressure drop, her anger receded just a bit.

  “Fine. We need to find them. Garrett’s wounded, she’s new. He keeps shifting and that’s slowing down the healing progress. Plus, I mean, it’s a bullet wound for fuck’s sake. He’s a shifter but not a god. So we need to have it cared for. By now he’s flirting with infection, if it hasn’t already set in.”

  Chester walked to the front door where the attack had happened. He sniffed and Kelly knew he could smell well below the disinfectant and bleach she had used. “He came here to kill him. Maybe her too. He deserved to die.” He said it bluntly like he was reporting the weather.

  “We’ll see,” A.J. said, rubbing his hands together. It was an utterly malicious gesture and Kelly had to clench her fists to keep from grabbing him and punching him. Hard. That wou
ld do nothing. For now they had to find Garrett and get him safe and treated.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Stand-Off

  It wasn’t really hard at all. They simply waited for dark to fall and when the purple light of twilight settled around six o’clock, they shifted. The moon was full and peeking through the black and gray mottled sky. It stared down from over the steeple of the local church. Kelly glanced at it, made a wish that Garrett was fine and Liv too. That this would all work out. Having A.J. here set her on edge. Her heart raced and her nerves were shot. Even Chester’s calming presence couldn’t negate A.J.’s aggravating provocation.

  They ran past the place of the kill. The smell of blood was still thick and metallic in the air. It hung, an invisible orange and brown stain of scent in the crisp fall air. A.J. stopped, sniffed, threw his head back and howled.

  Asshole letting Garrett know he’s gunning for him…

  She put her head down and hurried past him. If she had her way, she’d beat A.J. and even Ches to the new mates. She had a maternal streak a mile wide for Garrett Gustafson.

  She’d also have to make a point of reprimanding A.J. openly for announcing their presence with his alpha, balls-out howl. Jerk.

  Chester gave her a short growl, knowing she was woolgathering and knowing she was seething. She snorted at him, putting on speed and dodging a fallen tree. She was smaller than he, so she could go faster and get into tighter spots. She grinned, her thin black lips pulling back. When all was said and done she’d pay for that move. Chester would take it out on her hide. She hoped.

  ———

  Garrett heard A.J. and woke. He was curled around Liv. He’d shifted back again and the wound in his chest beat raggedly with his heart. His pulse jumped so hard he felt dizzy. She’d shifted back to her human form in her sleep, a common occurrence with changelings. He’d done so to accommodate her, he could only assume. He was a living echo of her now. What she did, he embraced and the opposite would stand true. They complemented each other now, as it should be.