“Sounds good.” Now all he had to do was learn how to grovel.
Chapter Ten
Carmen had just finished showering and dressing and was considering the Chinese takeout menu in her hand when the doorbell rang.
She peered through the window by the door, and her heart jumped. Alec stood on the porch, a leather folder in one hand. He was simply but neatly dressed in jeans and a black button-down shirt, and she looked down at her own clothes. Cotton lounge pants and a tank top had seemed fine for an evening in, but not with company.
Especially company that had f**ked up and should now eat its heart out.
She opened the door, but held the edge instead of inviting him in. “Alec.”
He didn’t even greet her. “I’m sorry. I’m a jackass, and I’m sorry.”
Franklin must have put him up to apologizing. “I said I understood, and I do.” She raised both eyebrows. “Is there something else?”
Alec closed his fingers around the edge of the door, as if he was afraid she might jerk it shut. “You can’t possibly understand. I don’t even understand.”
Looking at him hurt, so much more when he looked at her that earnestly. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I forgive you? Just…..go away, all right?”
“I can’t.” Uncertainty crept over her—his emotions, tinged with something almost like fear. “It was supposed to be clearer without you, but it’s not. Just hurts more.”
Part of her wanted to slam the door and retreat to a place where he couldn’t wound her again. “I can’t do this, Alec. What happens in another week or two when you decide that yes, you were right, your life is too dangerous for me?”
“You’re not Heidi.” His fingers tightened on the door until the wood creaked. “I could have walked away and kept her safe, but I’m so f**king self-involved I never realized that none of this shit came to your door because of me. I didn’t put you in danger, but I can protect you. Let me protect you.”
Had he really thought he was at fault? “My family’s been interfering with my life and my happiness for years. It’s not you.”
“I know that now.” He held up his other hand, revealing a portfolio. “Jackson rubbed the proof in my face. Sometimes I’m stuck in my ways. I need to have the truth smacked into me.”
She swung the door open and let him in. “I don’t understand.”
Relief flooded the room. Flooded his face. He stepped past her, his shoulder brushing her arm. “Kat figured out who paid for the house where the witch brought you.”
She opened her mouth to ask him to explain, but a flash of memory slammed into her, stealing her breath. She’d talked to her father the day of her kidnapping, had stood in the too-warm spring sunlight and argued with him.
We’re not talking about political alliances, Dad. We’re talking about the rest of my life, and I’m not for sale.
I’m sorry to hear you say that, honey.
The sadness in his voice had held a finality that made her hair stand on end. And something else he’d said had been enough to scare the hell out of her. Enough to make her call Julio.
I have to go now, but I’ll see you soon.
“It wasn’t Cesar,” she whispered hoarsely. “He didn’t know what Julio was talking about because he had no idea.”
“Your father rented the house six months ago.”
My father. Call—call my father. Please.
Where do you think we’re taking you?
Her knees wobbled, and Alec caught her with one arm. He pushed the door shut and twisted the lock, then swung her up into his arms and carried her to the couch. “Carmen? Stay with me.”
The exact words she’d wanted from him before, and the circumstances under which they came now made her laugh. It came out sounding hysterical, so she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “Franklin said it. This has been the week from hell.”
“Yeah, it has.” He settled with her in his lap, one hand rubbing between her shoulder blades. “And I haven’t made it any easier on you by being an a**hole and a coward.”
“Shut up.” She’d had the week from hell, all right, and being in his arms had been one of the few bright spots in it. “I don’t want to hear about how stupid you were. Just tell me you’re not going to do it again.”
“I’m not going to do it again.” It held the ring of truth, but regret still lingered. His fingers spread wide on her back as he sighed. “I don’t want to lay anything else on you…..but there’s something else you need to know. About your uncle, and what he’s been up to.”
“Uh-huh.” It had to be more important than kissing the side of Alec’s neck, but that was what she found herself doing.
“Christ, Carmen.” His knuckles brushed her neck, and his fingers slid into her hair. “How are you feeling? Magical crap mostly gone?”
Her body responded too quickly to his touch, and she didn’t care. She’d been hungry for him before; now, she was starving. “I feel better,” she answered breathlessly. “Good.”
His eyes sparked with an interest echoed in the subtle shift of his emotions. “Good’s good.”
There was nothing between them this time, no reason to turn and walk away. Carmen took his other hand, folding both of hers around it. “This is going to sound—” No, she wouldn’t apologize, and it couldn’t be ridiculous, not with him looking at her like that. “I missed you.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up as he stroked his thumb up and down the side of her throat. “Don’t hear that very much from women who’ve spent more than a couple hours with me.”
“So you keep reminding me.” She tilted her head, baring more of her neck. “I think they haven’t figured you out yet.”
“And you have?” The callused pad of his thumb swept down toward her collarbone, then up the front of her throat. His fingers were warm against her nape. “What have you figured?”
She swallowed hard. “That you’re not crazy. You just hurt.”
His smile faded, and his hand stilled. “I think I’ve hurt so long that I might be a little crazy.”
Maybe they both were. It couldn’t diminish the heat that blazed inside her at the thought of his mouth on hers. “I’m an empath, remember?” Even as she spoke, Carmen reached up to guide his head closer. “I’d be able to tell.”
He froze with his lips almost touching hers, and no amount of urging could budge him. “What else can you tell?”
Dominance pulsed between them, and every beat of her heart answered it with growing arousal. “You want me to submit,” she whispered. “To let go of everything that isn’t you and feel.”
“Mmm.” His fingers tickled the back of her neck as he twisted his wrist, twining the damp strands of her hair around his hand. “Just enough wolf in you to bring it out. This isn’t a human game. It’s not about power. It just is.”
“I know.” He evoked it like no one else ever had, that quiet instinctive need to belong completely to someone. “It’s not control. It’s caring.”
“Always.” Hot breath spilled across her cheek as he shifted his lips to her ear. “It’s always about caring, but it can be about dirty goddamn f**king too.”
Blood roared in her ears, and her hands began to tremble. “You say that like they don’t go together.”
Laughter spilled out of him, low and dark. “Oh, sometimes they do. But not everything is about f**king.”
No, not everything. “Alec?”
He tilted her head back with the fingers curled in her hair, and his short beard lightly chafed her jaw as he pressed a kiss beneath her ear. “Yeah?”
“Sometimes, you talk too much.”
“That so?” His teeth scraped against her skin. “And here we are, doing the one damn thing I’m not half bad at talking about. But if you don’t like it…..”
Before she could respond, he bit the spot where her neck curved into her shoulder, a rumbling growl of pleasure washing over her along with his intense satisfaction.
The forceful caress stole her breath, and she whispered a curse. “Just to clarify, we’re not starting something we’re not going to finish, right?”
“Not unless you decide to stop it.”
It was all she needed to know. She rose on shaky legs, his hand still clutched in hers, and tried to pull him up beside her. When he resisted, she growled and climbed onto his lap. “Maybe I’m going to bite you now.”
Alec just smiled and slid one hand around to the small of her back, edging her shirt up. “Take this off.”
Nothing less than a command. She watched him as she drew the thin cotton up, hesitating just before it bared her br**sts. He narrowed his eyes, his gaze dark and hot, and she shivered and stripped off the shirt.
He leaned forward without a word and tugged his shirt up and over his head, baring tanned skin marked by one or two thin scars and the black ink that curled around his arm and the back of his shoulder.
She ached to taste him, so she traced the hard line of his shoulder with her fingertips, then followed the same path with her mouth.
An approving noise vibrated up from deep in his chest as he caught her hair in one hand and stroked the bare line of her spine with the other. “Gonna bite me or not?”
“Impatient.” She breathed the word against his skin. As soon as it was out of her mouth, she bit him—hard. He sucked in a breath. His hands tightened, one pulling her hair and the other dragging her h*ps to his.
He was hard under her, aroused. Nearly giddy with her own arousal, Carmen licked his shoulder before lifting her mouth to his ear. “You make me hungry.”
“Good.” He tugged lightly at her hair. “Come here.”
He kissed her, at once sating and inflaming that hunger. His tongue drove past her lips to slide against hers, his own ardor so deep and sharp that it shook her. She tilted her head, fusing her mouth to his, and battled the urge to lower her shields so she could feel every reaction that shuddered through him.