SKIN (Demon Chaser 4) (5 page)

Her face flushed and her eyes narrowed.
“Who the hell do you think you are? You can’t tell me what to do.” She tried to
bend, gave up and went down at her knees instead, intent on picking up the
dropped files.

“Don’t do that you’ll hurt yourself.” He
pulled her upright, going down himself to retrieve the documents.

****

The demon wolf was just as attractive as
she remembered. Phoenix was wearing a suit that looked like it had been made
for him. It showcased his chiselled body to absolute perfection. No tie, the
top button on his shirt was undone. Clean shaven with the same styled haircut.
His eyes were just as dark, they flared with anger right now instead of the
desire she remembered. What else had she expected since she was back to being
plain old Gaby and on top of that was about the size of an overgrown whale.
What did it matter? Phoenix had found out about her pregnancy and was here to
stake a claim on what he felt was his. It had nothing to do with her.

When she’d first found out about the
pregnancy, it had left her depressed for days. She’d never once considered having
an abortion, but the pregnancy was definitely unwanted. After her own dubious
childhood growing up in foster care and at the various orphanages, Gaby would
never consider adoption as an option either.

Devlin had called it and had called it correctly;
she was pregnant with twins, one baby in each uterus. She wondered if Phoenix
already knew.

The big wolf stood in one easy motion
and held out the stack of files to her. “You need to start taking it easy or
you could hurt yourself or the baby.” He’d at least calmed down a bit. “Look,
Gaby, please come with me. We really need to talk. It can’t wait.”

He was right. There was still a big part
of her that would rather avoid dealing with this but since he was here she had
to face up to it. “Okay,” she nodded her head. “Give me a few minutes to take
care of these.” She held up the files. “I also need to let my boss know.”

“Thank you. I’ll wait in the main office.”

****

They entered his apartment. It was on
the upmarket side of town, just up the road from where Macy’s place had been.
Spacious, with great views of the park, designer furniture, it must have cost a
small fortune. Gaby was not surprised. Phoenix looked the part, with his
stylish exterior and fancy car. She still had no idea what he did for a living.
The man in question removed his suit jacket, slinging it over the back of one
of the leather chairs.

“Sit.” Phoenix gestured to a sofa that
looked far too perfect to actually sit on. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No thanks, let’s just get this over and
done with.”

“I would prefer it if you sat
down...drank something. Please at least sit, your back looks like it might be
giving you a bit of trouble.”

Shit, she realized that she had one of
her hands pushed into her lower back which was aching.  Gaby nodded and sat
down on the surprisingly comfortable sofa. Phoenix disappeared for a minute and
returned with two big glasses of orange juice. He sat down across from her and
set the drinks down on the nearby coffee table.

“Before you say anything,” she held up
her hand. “We need to be very clear on one thing, I went to medical the next
morning. The doctor confirmed that I was not ovulating, but I insisted that he
give me the shot anyway. I was sick for three days and yet still managed to
fall pregnant,” she paused. Chances were good he wasn’t going to believe a word
she said. “You’re welcome to go and discuss this with Doctor Devlin at DCA.”

He ignored her last statement. “I
thought that demon skins only go into heat after they are mated and even then
it’s rare. You told me this yourself. Although the scent is weak, I can smell
that your demon is back.”

The way he said it made her feel like he
hadn’t trusted her before and that he trusted her even less now.

“My demon is mostly dormant and will
remain that way until I give birth,” she paused. “I don’t know much about my
people.” It felt weird even calling skins her people. “I was left on the steps
of a church when I was just three days old. I only found out that something was
different about me when I reached puberty. It was only at the age of twenty one
that I found out about demons and exactly what I was.”

“How?” He leaned forward resting his
arms on his thighs.

“I was involved in a serious car
accident and was admitted to the intensive care unit. I should have died in the
crash and at the time of my admission the doctors gave little hope of me surviving
the night. You can imagine their response when I woke up the next morning. I
pulled out all the tubes and wanted to get out of bed. The doctors went
ballistic. A DCA clean up team arrived shortly after. Point being, I don’t know
much about demon skins. DCA doesn’t know much about them either. Skins are a
tight lipped bunch.”

“Do you know why you went into heat? How
you fell pregnant even after taking the shot?” His forehead was creased and those
intense dark eyes bore into her.

“I didn’t have a clue and if Devlin
hadn’t done extensive research, then I would still be in the dark. Demon skins
are not meant to be alone. Maybe you can understand with the whole pack thing.
They live in a family unit and when they come of age they mate. Skins always
run in pairs. It is how we are born, how we live and how we die. Only I had no
idea about this so I’ve been alone for a very long time.” She reached forward
and took a sip of her drink before continuing. “I guess it was my body’s way of
rectifying the situation. I went into heat. A phase meant to attract males.”
She cleared her throat feeling a little embarrassed. “During this time my body
collected as much sperm as possible.”

His eyes narrowed. “But you only had sex
with me?” Phoenix growled. His neck muscles bulged and his hands clasped until
his knuckles turned white.

“Yes.”

He visibly relaxed. It would be easy to
misconstrue the question, to see it as jealousy. She knew all it was, plain and
simple, was fear that there might be a paternity suit in the future.

“The medication to prevent the pregnancy
remained in my system for three days. During this time my body stored the sperm
ready for ovulation.”

“When are you due?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “The million
dollar question. I have no idea. Wolves are pregnant for three months and skins
for seven. I’ve been pregnant for four months already.” Gaby absently rubbed
her belly. “I go for a scan every three days just to be on the safe side. My
doctor seems to think that the babies are close to full term.”

Phoenix shot to his feet with that same
agile grace that had won him the battle against those bloods. “Babies? Did you
just say babies?”

“I thought you knew. I would have
thought that whoever told you about the pregnancy would have told you about...”
She placed both hands over her belly. “It was news to me but skins have two
wombs. We can only have twin pregnancies. If one baby doesn’t make it, both
don’t make it.”

He ran a hand through his hair before
scrubbing that same hand over his face. “Two.” It came out sounding strangled.

Gaby had to feel sorry for him. It had
taken her most of this pregnancy to come to terms with it. To start to at least
feel something for her unborn children. She had only just started to wonder
about how they would look, their sex and had yet to buy anything...diapers a
rattle...anything for them.

For a second she thought he might up and
leave, but then he sat back down looking a little paler than before. “Nobody
told me about your pregnancy.”

She let out an internal sigh of relief.
Not many people knew about her being pregnant, even less knew about Phoenix. It
would have meant that one of her friends had told him which would have been the
ultimate betrayal.

“I wanted to see you again,” he added. His
eyes softened for just a second before hardening back up again.

As much as she wanted to get excited
about this development, she had to remind herself that the last time he had
seen her she had been wearing a super sexy skin in the very curvy form of Macy Night.
She was also in heat which meant pheromones that could boggle a man’s brain.
The only reason Phoenix was back was because that was how he remembered her.
Right now, she was hugely preggers and stuck in her own form. Her demon was
partly dormant and wouldn’t allow her to shift in this state. Seeing Phoenix
today made part of her wish she could shift back into the sexier body and she
would have been sorely tempted to do it.

“Look, things have changed.” She was
trying to let him off the hook. “It seems as if you want to be a part of the
children’s lives which is fine. I would have told you about this but it’s
been...difficult for me to accept. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner.”

“What is your address?”

The sudden change of topic left her
confused for a few beats. “Why?”

“I need to arrange for a removal company
to pack your things you’re moving in with me.”

Delivered so matter of factly she felt her
mouth fall open in an all out gape. “No, I’m not.”

“You’re carrying my children, I’m going
to mate you and you’re staying here where I can take care of you.”

For just a second her heart raced at the
prospect. She hardly knew this man, yet the thought of becoming his mate didn’t
sound nearly as terrifying as it should. The problem was that Gaby knew he was
doing this out of a sense of duty. It had nothing to do with his own desires.

“I’m quite capable of taking care of
myself...of these children when they are born.”

“I am their father. I am responsible for
their wellbeing and for the wellbeing of their mother. Give me your address.”
He moved to sit next to her and took her hand. “This arrangement would be best
for all of us. You just said that you are nearing full term and therefore could
go into labor anytime. Is someone else living with you?” His eyes narrowed and
he squeezed her hand almost to the point of pain.

“No.”

He eased off the hold. “What if you
suddenly go into labor? It’s not good to be alone at this time.”

“It could be months.”

“It could be days,” he growled.

“I have a phone.” There was truth to
what he was saying. Gaby had felt a sense of relief at him finding out about
the pregnancy and even more so after his admission to wanting to be a part of
the parenting process.

“We don’t know what to expect with this
pregnancy. The whole reason this happened in the first place was because you
had been alone for too long. You are a demon skin and pregnant and should not
be alone.”

“You mentioned that we should mate.” He
pretty much had her sold on moving in with him, but she would never mate with
someone who didn’t love her.

“Children need both their parents in
their lives. We can make this work.”

In theory his words made absolute sense,
in practice it was another matter entirely. The practicality of his statement
had a strange emotion threaten to bring tears to her eyes and she had to
swallow down a lump in her throat. Phoenix hadn’t mentioned that he had any
sort of feelings for her, that what they had shared was a foundation to build
on. His piece was delivered almost as a business proposal. She blinked away the
tears and swallowed harder. She had limited experience with crying but what
little she had, she didn’t like one bit. “I’m a criminal defense attorney. I do
well, so money would not be an issue. Wolves mate for life so there would be no
need for a prenup either.  I’ll take care of the family”—he cleared his throat—“my
family.”

It was weird, ever since she had become
pregnant and her demon was mostly dormant, a feeling of calm had descended over
her. The aggressive demon skin inside of her would have demanded she fist him
straight in the face. It would have longed to see blood gush from his nose,
maybe from a split lip. Even with a dormant demon though, she pulled her hand
away from his and kicked him in the shin, hard. Much to her irritation, he
didn’t react. No yelping or moving away from her, the only move he made was to
fold his arms and to lean back into the chair. Even with this situation
unfolding, Gaby couldn’t help but notice how wide his chest was or how massive
his biceps looked underneath that shirt.

“I take it you don’t agree.”

“I’ll move in, but I’m paying my own
way. I don’t expect charity from you. I’m insulted that you think I would mooch
off of you.”

He frowned but she ignored him and
continued, “We will sleep in separate rooms. There will be no mating, no sex
for that matter.”

His frown deepened. “We can wait for you
to come to terms with it before mating, even though I disagree. As to the no
sex though, unless your doctor specifically states otherwise, we will be having
sex.”

Her pussy clenched. Her libido had sky
rocketed since she became pregnant. The last four months had been long and
lonely. There were only so many times a girl could masturbate. The problem with
sex was that she already had feelings for Phoenix after only one night
together. She’d end up falling in love with him if she not only lived with him,
but was intimate with him as well. Not having those feelings returned would
kill her in the long run, she had to be strong. Phoenix didn’t see it right now,
but he would resent her in the long run if she caved in and allowed him to take
her as a mate.