Brain(14)

Still shielding her so he couldn’t see her nakedness, I told him, “I’m gonna need Duke to swap you out with someone who can treat her objectively. I get why you’re pissed, Dawg’s my friend, too, but we’re trying to create a relationship where she’ll trust us and work for us, instead of against us, and I’m not sure this was a step in the right direction.” I took a breath and added, “Do you want to explain to Duke why you aren’t the best choice of guard over her, or should I?”

“Yeah, and I’ll need to tell Duke she’s under your skin. You showered, but,” he inhaled, let it out with appreciation, “pretty obvious you’ve had a session with two women. Wasn’t aware you had pussy you could just drop by and fuck in Pigeon Forge. If you wanted her so bad you had to find pussy somewhere else, you aren’t exactly objective, either.”

I let my gaze meet his, let him see my wolf, made sure he knew he’d just stepped over the line and there’d be a reckoning. I kept my voice light, though, as I told him, “Duke already knows. Feel free to tell him whatever you want. Now, if you can go check on the steaks and not burn them, please?”

Ice wiped while my back was turned to her, and she stood behind me when Bash left. I moved to pick her up again, but she said, “I can walk.”

Her voice was so soft, so meek, and I wanted to pummel Bash for doing this to her. Instead, I took my shirt off and offered it to her. She just glared at me, though, and walked around me and wobbled out of the bathroom on shaky legs she was fighting to bring under control, saying, “You’ve already seen everything. If it’s all the same to you I’d like something clean, please.”

It hadn’t felt right to ogle her body when she had no choice, but now my eyes watched her fine, rounded, beautiful ass walk into the bedroom on perfectly muscled thighs and calves. She’d been able to pull off the skinny-hacker-boy look so well because she’s a skinny-hacker-girl. Her boy-clothes had hidden her rounded waist, but my eyes could clearly see how beautifully it merged into her sculpted ass, with her naked and walking in front of me. My cock stirred, but I managed to keep it from going hard.

The reason I was able to keep it from going hard shot me back to guilt, and I walked across the room to pull a clean shirt from my duffel.

“I was serious about swapping him out with someone else, so you won’t have to face him again.” I sighed and sat in the desk chair, facing her as she pulled my shirt on. This one came to just below her knees, and another pang of guilt hit me as she sat on the bed, once again looking sad and broken, despite the fact she was trying to look as if she didn’t give a shit and could survive anything.

“I’m sorry,” I told her, hoping she could see my sincerity. “I needed some space away from you, but if I’d known what he’d…” I shook my head and repeated, “I’m sorry. I know you have to be hurting. I can work on your shoulders and arms, if you’ll let me.”

“Keep your fucking hands off me. Did you really go fuck two women while I was tied in a damned cage!?”

No way was I answering that. I leaned back in the chair, crossed my arms, and said, “Dawg and Bash are tight. He came with me as backup specifically because he wanted retribution on whoever nearly killed Dawg. He was motivated, which would’ve been good if you’d been a normal bad guy — one we could find and capture in the usual ways. Once I realized you were a girl, and how fucking smart you are, I tried to swap him out for different backup, but was denied.”

“He said I’m under your skin.”

“He did.”

“Am I?”

She stood, paced, and I worried she was about to make a run for it. I wanted to stand, show her it was a bad idea, but I needed to test her, too. I straightened my legs in front of me, crossed them at the ankles so I looked totally relaxed, and gave her my cockiest grin as I asked, “Why do you want to know? Because I’m under yours, maybe?”

She put her hands on her hips, changed her mind, and crossed them over her chest. I could tell the movement hurt, but knew it’d feel good in a few seconds, once her muscles moved to accommodate the stretch after being bound behind her back so long.

Her voice let me know how pissed she still was, the pain reminding her she hated me as she spouted, “Get real, you’re nothing but a fucking animal, not even human, as far as I’m concerned.”

I stilled, my eyes focused on her as I sized her up. Did she know? There’d been nothing in the data she hacked to let her know we were werewolves. Had she hacked someone’s email? She had enough info on all of our guys, it wouldn’t have been hard to social engineer most of them enough to figure out their passwords. Never mind I’d coached them all on good versus bad passwords, I knew they still used obvious dictionary words and names. I knew some of them slipped and talked about being a werewolf online, too, despite the fact they’d been warned not to. Email seemed so private to them… safe.