Claiming Her (Keeping Her Series) (6 page)

“I wanted you,” he said
just as quietly, his eyes starting to glow golden with the change.  “I always
wanted you.”

“You have a funny way
of showing it.”

Miley watched him get
control of his inner beast, and it was a struggle, that much was obvious.  She
sat quietly while he did it, and wondered at her own perverted leanings.  She
should be scared of the dangerous predator that sat across from, her ready to
pounce; instead she was holding herself back, imagining diving across the small
table and biting him right where his shirt showed that ripped chest.

“Tell me the rest,” he
finally spit out.  “What else?”

His eyes were still cat;
his neck muscles still bulged with the strain of holding back his control so
she licked her lips and leaned back carefully.  “Maybe we should get into the
rest later.”

“The rest, Miley,” he
growled and she took a deep breath and spoke, watching him like the dangerous
jungle cat that he was.

“We dated, and it got
serious.  He was handsome and said all the right things.”  She bit her lip
looking down at her hands that twisted together in her lap.  “I wanted to
belong somewhere.  I almost had that at Lionsgate, but it was an illusion.”

How did she explain to
this powerful man what it was like to grow up with a pack, but not a part of
it?  To finally find a place she felt she belonged and have that taken away?  To
know that all the work she did, all the friends she made and the time she spent
with Lucas had all been a fleeting fantasy?  She had been devastated by that.  “I
was in a bad place, and then . . . well, he played me, and I thought I had found
the real thing.  That I finally belonged to someone.  We talked about mating,
but I wasn’t ready.  We slept together.  He forced a mating against my expressed
wishes.”  She really did not want to look up but felt compelled by the heat
pulsing at her from across the very small space of the table.  “Lucky for me,
it didn’t take.  He was not happy.” She shuddered at the memory, even as Lucas
seemed to be frozen, every muscle in his body tight, and his eyes . . . it was
the lion that watched her now.  She had to look away. 

“When he reacted so
strongly to my ‘human inferiority’,” she air quoted with her fingers, “I knew
he had just been pretending to be nice, but his wolf had claimed me, no matter
that I didn’t feel claimed.  I knew he would not ever let me go because he told
me that.  Eventually, I managed to get a message to an old friend who helped me
disappear.”  She blew out a breath.  “And you know the rest.  I came here and
here I stay.”

“Who?”  His voice was
like a cold wind.

“Lucas . . .” she
started shaking her head.

The next moment he was
out of his chair, the table with their breakfast went flying and he had his
hands on both sides of her chair.  Isabella cringed, her eyes closed tight, but
he didn’t touch her, and when he spoke, his voice had softened minutely.  “Who,
Miley?”

“Jeffrey Rickarts, alpha
wolf of the Rickarts pack.”

He was silent for so
long she had to look.  He was studying her, the rage in his eyes banked.  “That’s
why you faked your own death, fucking Jeffrey Rickarts?”

She swallowed back the
secret that Rickarts had discovered.  The real reason he would never let her
go.  She had learned that lesson well.  Lucas didn’t need to know that, and she
wouldn’t tell him if he did.  “Anyone I could have gone to for help is family
beholden to his pack, and you know the kind of power he wields.  He thinks he
can have anything he wants and he doesn’t care who he hurts to get it.”

“And he wants you.” 
The words were like a lash but she refused to flinch.

“Yes.  And if you
insist on this mating he will find out I’m alive.  You’re too notorious to
think otherwise.  Lucas, your pack might be the baddest of the bad, but he has
hundreds of warm bodies to throw at you.  This is not a fight you can win.”

They looked at each
other, less than an inch apart, Miley in the chair, Lucas bent over her, his
hands on either side of her hips keeping her in place.  His eyes were glowing
with the fury he kept contained.  “You expect me to walk away?”

Miley shook her head
and fought against the tears pressing at her eyes.  “Why wouldn’t you?  I’m not
markable and it’s not worth your pack’s life, or Cleo’s and Ian’s, when you can’t
even truly mate me.”

He shook the chair she
sat in, his hands bending the metal filigree with his strength.  “Miley, what
do
you
want?”

She took a deep breath
and looked away.  “I was happy here, before you came.  I’ll be happy again when
you leave.”

This time his voice was
gentle.  “Always on the outside looking in?”

She met his eyes, her
own firm with resolve.  “How would that be any different with you?”

“Do you know why his
mark didn’t take?” he asked, making her blink at the shifting subjects.  He
went on before she could attempt an answer, his voice turning hard and
unyielding.  “Because you were always mine.  The first time you walked into my
office.  Before either of us said one fucking word, you were mine, and you
know
that.
”

When she opened her
mouth to deny him, he swooped in and branded his lips to hers.  It was quick
and merciless, and when he lifted his head, her lips were tingling and her
chair was balanced on two legs.

“I will take care of
this,” Lucas said, his eyes conveying steel resolve.  “Then we will figure out
what you really want.”

“Lucas,” she
whispered.  Lifting her hand, she laid it on his cheek, her eyes beseeching, “I’m
trying to save you.”

“I lost you once,” he
whispered gruffly back.  “Hell, twice because I was a fucking moron playing it
safe.”  He took her hand from his cheek and kissed the back of it.  “Losing you
again is not saving me baby. That’s a cold fucking place to be and I will not
go back there.”  He kissed her hard on the lips.  “And neither will you.”  Then
he let her chair fall back to four feet and backed up, standing tall.  It
forced her to crane her neck to meet his eyes.  “The rest of the team will be
here tomorrow.  We work this job and then we face whatever comes after, but we
do that together, Miley.”

She blew out a breath,
shaking her head at the same time, but strangely enough, she no longer felt
close to tears, despite the fact that he was determined to throw himself and
his people into trouble.  “I knew you were going to be like this.  Arrogant
freakin’ lion.  Thinks he’s invincible.”  She stood up while she talked, and
she was still ranting on his lack of sound judgment when she wrapped her arms
around his waist and rested her cheek on his chest.  He immediately wrapped his
arms around her shoulders, his hand going into her hair to hold her closer.  “Going
up against these odds is just stupid, but you think you can handle anything
with your mighty lion teeth and giant paws.”  She burrowed her face into the
soft linen of his shirt.  “Never mind that you make an enemy of the most
powerful wolf pack alpha in America.”

“And when he finds out
you belong to Lionsgate, Miley, his own people will be telling him one thing.” 
He kissed the top of her head and she could hear the cold promise in his
voice.  “Do not fuck with the Lionsgate pack, because those cold motherfuckers
are
insane
.”

Right then he sounded a
lot like his son, Ian, and she knew he was trying to make her smile.  Isabella
just shook her head, feeling the warmth of his skin under her cheek and hoped
he was right, but she remembered the look of insanity when, enraged, Rickarts
had slapped her around.  She pushed closer to the strength that was Lucas
Gibbs.  She knew, no matter what he thought, it was not going to be that
simple.  But just then, standing in Lucas’ arms, a place she never thought she
would ever be, it sounded pretty darn good.

***

Instead of ordering
another brunch, she just called for clean-up.  Lucas was back at his desk and
she knew from experience that it would be hours before he remembered he had a
stomach.

“This catering company
is exorbitant.”  He spoke unexpectedly and Miley was tempted to roll her eyes
at the subject.

“I know, but the guests
are aware of the bill and if they choose to pay it just so they can have a
professional caterer that’s their business.  They always have the choice of
that or the kitchen here.”  She looked over at him from where she had set up at
the small table with her laptop and phone.  “Is that in any way security
related?”

He shrugged his massive
shoulders and plowed through the rest. 
Really
, Isabella thought with a
smile. 
The man is incapable of not butting in.

“I don’t like another
company being involved, because they are not going to be using the same security
measures we are,” he grumbled.

Isabella shrugged.  “So
we will put it in writing, ‘no new employees without time to validate their
credentials’.  With as much as they are making, it should be no problem, and if
it is, we will find someone else who will follow our rules.”

He grunted without
looking up from his screen.  “I’ll also want them checked physically when they
arrive at the island, in case of last minute issues they do not want to deal
with.”

“Fine.  I’ll add it to
the standard agreement.”

“Not sure what we can
do about poison,” he mumbled, and Isabella rolled her eyes and smiled.

“Wolves,” she reminded
him.  “We can smell it, remember.”

She felt the air still
around her and looked up to see him leaning back in his chair and studying
her.  “What?”

“
We
can smell it,”
he repeated back to her, a question in his voice.  “I didn’t realize your nose
was that good.”

She cleared her
throat.  “I meant ‘we’ in the general sense.  The wolves will smell it.”  He
tilted his head a bit as if he was listening to something she couldn’t hear.

“You’re lying.  I would
be interested to know why you would feel the need.”

She looked back at her
screen, wondering if he could hear her heart rate speeding from where he sat. 
Probably. 
“What possible reason could I have to lie?” 

Isabella was
concentrating so hard on the screen in front of her that she didn’t hear him
move until he was whirling her chair around and crouching between her legs. 
She gasped, her hands going to the arms to grab on tight.  She was suddenly
looking into cold blue eyes that had a wind chill factor of 30 below.

“That’s what I want to
know,” he growled.  “Why are you lying to me, and don’t bother to deny it, that’ll
just piss me off.”  He narrowed his eyes on her face.  “What are you hiding?”

“If I am hiding
something, what makes you think I will tell you about it?”

He just stared at her for
too long until, with mind swirling, she had to throw something out there, and
since this was Lucas, she had to make it some form of the truth.  “Alright!” she
snapped.  “Good Lord, stop looking at me.  I’ll talk.”

When he didn’t move back,
she blew out an exasperated breath.  “I can smell almost as good as a wolf
can.  Okay, happy now?”

He narrowed those cold
blue eyes at her.  “Why lie about it?”

“In my experience,
having wolf like abilities draws unwanted attention.  I just learned to keep it
to myself.”  She shrugged nonchalantly.  “Habit I guess.”

Now his voice got
really cold.  “Unwanted attention?”

“There aren’t many
female wolf-shifters.  Having some characteristics closer to wolf than human
seems to be a shining neon light saying ‘mate here’.”  She waved her arms above
her head and pointed to herself to demonstrate.  “Trust me, it’s just easier to
keep it to myself.”

“Someone hurt you?” 
His voice dropped to a growl.  “More than one someone?”

“Not since I came here
if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Because you don’t let
anyone in.”

She slumped back in her
seat.  “Maybe.  But it works, and there is no one here you need to disembowel
so you can just let it go.”

“What about that fancy
puppy who was all over you before?”

She had to think for a
minute on that one.  “Jax?”  She snorted.  “Please, he’s an equal opportunity
man-whore and I’ve sworn off men.”

He quirked his head,
and smiled, “Really?”

She rolled her eyes.  “You
don’t count.  I’ve been fantasizing about getting busy with you since I met
you.  You’re my kryptonite, you always have been.”  She pointed her little
finger right at his face. “
You do not
count.”

“Getting busy with me,
really?”  His smile was full on now, and his eyes teased.

“Yeah.  Getting busy,
doing the deed, bumping uglies, boinking, getting it on, the horizontal mambo,
making whoopee, hot monkey love, tappin’ that ass . . .”  She had more, but he
shut her up with his mouth on hers and it was nice, especially because she
could taste his laughter on her lips.  Then he was licking the inside of her
mouth, wrapping his tongue around hers.  When he stood up, he took her with
him, his arms wrapped around her waist, making her dangle a foot off the ground. 
She didn’t remember wrapping her arms around his neck but it was cozy there so
she didn’t quibble.