Cipher (11 page)

“Gas station munchies?” A ghost of a smile curved her lips. “I could use some chocolate. Three or four pounds of it.”

He could pay for the gas at the pump, but the only way to grab food was if she went in with him. “Got your land legs yet?”

“I’m fine.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and stretched. “I didn’t need that much sleep to get past it. The drain was more…emotional.”

He stuck close, even hovering outside the women’s restroom while she was inside, but the station was deserted, save for the bored clerk behind the counter. They piled its surface high with drinks and snacks, enough to keep them going until they’d reached New Orleans.

Outside, Andrew hustled Kat back to the SUV. “I’m not going to be able to rest until we get home.”

She must have had some sympathy, because she tolerated him opening her door and holding it as she climbed back in. When they were headed toward the interstate again, she dug through the bag and surfaced with a bag of Twizzlers. “Home, New Orleans? Or home, like your place?”

She sounded tense. “Got a preference?” he asked quietly.

“Do you?” Not just tension now, but a challenge.

“Makes sense to stick together until you get the information you need.”

Her fingers tightened around the Twizzlers until the plastic crinkled loudly. “So we’re just being practical?”

He made a concerted effort to breathe, to relax his hands on the steering wheel. “It would make me feel better—more secure, I mean—if we went to my place.”

“Okay.” The tips of her fingers barely brushed his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed. You’ve had a shitty couple days, thanks to me, and hardly any sleep.”

Admitting as much felt like weakness, and something in him railed against it. “Just need to get you safe, that’s all.”

“Then go home, Andrew. To your home, if I’m invited.”

Having her there would soothe him. He knew it because he’d wanted it a hundred times over the last year. A thousand. “You’re always welcome.”
Wanted.

“Good.” Plastic crinkled again as she stored the candy and retrieved her phone. “I need to call Sera, then. If I were with anyone other than you, she’d have tattled on me already.”

He believed it. The young coyote tended to think every human belonged to the strongest shapeshifter with a claim. “Who would she tattle to? Julio?”

Kat actually laughed. “Hell, no. She wouldn’t go within ten feet of Julio if you paid her. She’d tell her dad, who would tell Alec, who would fly down here just to call us idiots to our faces.”

Maybe he would have, once upon a time. But now he had the Conclave to deal with, a million problems more pressing than Andrew and Kat getting themselves offed on a fool’s errand. “She could always call Derek, I guess.”

“I think I’ll keep her updated and happy.” Kat started to dial, then froze with her thumb hovering over the screen. “Unless you think she’s not safe in my apartment. They have to know where I live.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to get her out,” he admitted.

“Okay. Shit.” Guilt laced the words. “Damn it, after everything she’s been through… I was supposed to give her somewhere safe to crash. This went so wrong, so fast.”

Andrew could think of only one good option. “Send her to Anna.”

Kat stiffened, enough to be telling. “Yeah, you’re right. Anna’s tough. She can take care of anyone who needs help.”

Shit.
“You said she wouldn’t go near Julio. What about Miguel?”

“Anna,” Kat said, her voice careful and precise. “Sera needs a break from male shifters bossing her around. Anna makes sense, and my tender little feelings don’t get a vote.”

“I’ll call her.” He reached for his phone without taking his eyes off the road. “Want to give Sera the heads-up, maybe get her out to the bar?”

She made the call and laid out the situation for Sera in a calm, clear voice. Judging by the coyote’s reaction, Kat’s previous updates had glossed over all of the details involving danger and violence.

The conversation lasted through Montgomery and another ten miles past, both sides clearly audible in the silence of the car.

Kat hung up looking ragged around the edges. “Wow. Shapeshifters don’t like it when people shoot at their friends.”

“That can’t be news, sweetheart.”

“Maybe you’re throwing off the curve. You kept it together okay.”

She never seemed to understand how hard he worked not to freak out at the slightest hint of danger to her. “Still a work in progress, but I figure you should have one alpha bastard in your life who doesn’t flip his shit every time you get a paper cut.”

Kat swallowed and looked away from him. “You haven’t been in my life much lately. I kind of figured you weren’t comfortable there.”

The bare truth, Callaghan. Too late for anything else.
“I haven’t been comfortable much of anywhere lately.”

“Is it the wolf stuff? I thought—I mean, when you joined the council with Julio and Alec, I thought you had a place.”

“They
made
a place, Kat. There’s a difference.” An uncomfortable one.

“I suppose there is. Prejudices don’t change overnight.” She sighed softly. “I remember, from when Derek was turned.”

“Yeah, Derek’s smart.” He’d done what he had to for Nick and her family, and then he’d walked away.

“Andrew?”

“What?”

“Do you want to be on the council?”

Want
had never much figured in to it. “I’m needed. Before Alec brought me on, I had no idea things were as fucked up as they are. I barely believed it.”

“Does helping out at least make you happy?”

He had to think about that for a moment. “Not happy, not exactly. Content.” Satisfied in a way he still didn’t entirely understand.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her staring at him. Studying him. “Instinct,” she offered after a moment. “Taking care of people. If I thought the shifters could help it, I never would have put up with it all these years. But it was something I could give them, something that made them feel content.”

“I need it,” he confirmed. “I never understood that. Before, I mean.”

She wet her lips, a gesture as nervous as her sudden quickened heartbeat. “You can take care of me, if it helps. I mean—if you want to.”

Of all the things she’d never wanted, that was king. The ultimate cap on her own self-sufficiency. “I know how much it means to you to stand on your own, Kat. I get it.”

“I wanted to stand on my own.” She hesitated, and her breathing sounded too loud, raspy and hoarse. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

He didn’t take his eyes off the road, but he held out his hand. “You’re not alone.”

“I know.” Her fingers trembled as she curled them around his.

Part of him wished they were in New Orleans already, locked away in the confines of his home, safe and untouchable. The rest of him was glad for the drive and grateful for the tentative truce they’d reached.

Chapter Seven

Andrew stopped at her apartment long enough for her to pack some clothes and trade her netbook in for a more powerful laptop. Sera had already cleared out, but she’d left a plate of freshly baked cookies and a note with her work schedule for the next week.

Kat tucked the folded paper into her jeans pocket and let Andrew wrestle her bags down the stairs. The drive to the new headquarters was short, and soon they parked beside the old building in the Warehouse District. It looked like it had once been a factory, and even the service-style elevator remained, though Kat had always taken the stairs.

Andrew slid shut the metal grate behind them and pushed the button for the third floor. “I haven’t done much decorating at my place. I spend most of my time now traveling or fixing up the other units.”

Decorating had never been her priority. Her apartment had been disorganized college-geek-chic at best before Sera, who did domestic, grown-up things like sew curtains and pick color schemes for the bathrooms and kitchen.

Even her efforts at chaotic comfort seemed impressive compared to the stark emptiness of Andrew’s loft. A small kitchen sat to the left, separated from the rest of the room by bar counters. The closest thing to decoration was the fact that he had punching bags hanging from the ceiling. An open door showed an equally Spartan bedroom.

Kat swallowed and glanced toward the television stand. Game consoles were stacked neatly, cords organized instead of tangled like they were at her apartment. “I guess if I can’t sleep, I can catch up on my gaming.” The lamest joke she’d ever made, but it helped cut the miserable sadness of imagining Andrew living every day in an empty, lonely loft.

“Feel free.” He dropped her bags by the couch. “There should be stuff in the fridge.”

He didn’t sound sure, and she didn’t want to look. It wasn’t like she could cook worth a damn anyway. “I’ve still got gas-station junk food. And the cookies Sera made.”

“I can cook later, if you stick around. We could even go downstairs and make a family-style meal, hope Julio shows up. Right now…” He swayed. “I think I should take a nap.”

As far as she knew, he hadn’t slept much in forty-eight hours. Not impossible for a shapeshifter—but not comfortable, either. “Get some rest. I need to catch up on my mail anyway.”

He kicked off his shoes. After a moment, he pulled off his shirt, as well. “Can you stay close? I think it might be the only way I can sleep.”

Her heart ached so much that not even miles of naked skin could stir lust in her. Just sadness, and protective anger simmering at a low boil. People had known. Alec, Julio—they’d
known
that Andrew was living some empty shadow of a life, and they’d left him to stew in it for God only knew what reason.

He was so tired, and she could help him. She eased off her shoes, then her sweatshirt, stripping down to the sweatpants and tank top she’d purchased in Huntsville. “Can I lie down with you?”

Something flashed in his eyes, something almost like gratitude. “Will you?”

It wasn’t just a random hotel bed this time. It was Andrew’s bed. A place where he slept, where his scent would curl around her. She didn’t always understand shapeshifters and their instincts, but she’d never met one who issued an invitation to their bed lightly.

Most of her half-formed sexual fantasies had started with Andrew’s bed. Innocent ones from years ago, when he’d been human and she’d been virginal and basing her knowledge entirely on fiction and dubious web searches. Then the darker ones, fueled by anger and bitter longing and the desperate need to be the one thing Andrew wanted more than perfect control.

So many fantasies, and none of them eclipsed this moment, with him looking at her like she held the secret to peace in her hands. He was showing his weakness to her, and it melted her heart.

She didn’t need to sleep. She probably couldn’t, not after dozing most of the way back to New Orleans—and it didn’t matter a bit. “Let’s take a nap.”

Once in the bedroom, he didn’t pull back the covers, just crawled on top of them and held out his arms. Kat went to him. She couldn’t have stopped herself, and it wasn’t until she’d settled against his chest that she worried about her empathy and the feedback and the miserable way her body heated at the slightest touch.

It hadn’t faded, which scared her, but it wasn’t as bad this time, which made it easy to rationalize. They’d both been excited before. Years of wanting and not having had pushed them over the edge, no imprinting necessary. Now he was tired, and she felt more protective than sexy. Without the echo of his desire feeding into hers, she could enjoy the comfort of just being held.

They’d be okay. She believed it.

Liar.

He stroked his hand down her arm. “Relax.”

Closing her eyes helped, so did taking a deep breath. Pushing away worry, Kat focused on the present. On the things she could control. On
him
. “We’re kind of cuddling.”

“Kind of.” His voice had already slowed, begun to slur. “It’s nice. I’ve missed stuff like this.”

So had she. Andrew’s breathing evened out, and Kat let herself ease into the pleasure of being in his arms. It felt foreign. New, even though it shouldn’t have been. Once upon a time they’d had casual touches and moments full of maybes.

They’d had her twenty-fourth birthday, when she’d gotten tipsy on tequila and he’d never commented on the fact that she’d landed a drunken kiss or two on his jaw before he managed to pour her into bed.

Five days later the world had ended. He’d almost died, and she’d killed two men, and all of those maybes had turned to dust.

Starting over felt like traversing a minefield. Every time they took a step forward, something blew up in their faces. Misunderstandings. Assumptions made in anger and left to fester over fourteen months. Andrew’s time with Anna, her relationship with Miguel.

She’d brought trouble down on herself. On both of them, maybe, and the irony of it was that trouble might be the only thing that could keep them stepping forward long enough to get to the other side of their respective pasts.

Of course, to do that, they’d have to stay alive. Metaphorical minefields seemed a lot less terrifying when people started trying to kill you for real.

Andrew woke in a dream, with Kat draped over him, her head on his chest and her hips snug against his.

He didn’t think. He didn’t
want
to think. He wanted to roll her underneath him and kiss her, so he did, sliding his fingers into her hair to hold her still. Her lips parted on a sleepy murmur that turned to a moan as borrowed heat zipped up his spine. Her pleasure, vast and needy and wrapping around him until he had to admit it, even though he didn’t want to.

This wasn’t a dream.

Next on the agenda was figuring out if he cared. Andrew nipped at Kat’s chin and groaned. “You want me to stop, tell me now.”

She was breathing fast already, gasping little breaths as her fingers opened and closed on the covers. “I don’t want to stop, but I’m afraid I’ll ruin it again.”

“Make me come again, you mean?” Maybe, if he said it like that, she’d realize how ridiculous it was to worry.

Color flooded her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut. “My experience is limited, but most of it has led me to believe that guys don’t like coming in their pants.”