Bear sighed. "I'm neither."
Exactly. She smiled. "I don't want to go to the Realm headquarters."
Bear lifted her chin, his gaze turning serious. "That's your choice, but I want you to take some time to make it."
She frowned. "Why?"
"Because once you do, it's absolute." He pressed a kiss to her lips, sending very nice tingles through her body. "If you decide to stay, you're staying. Nothing in me does anything halfway, and I can't be in limbo. Won't be. We mated for convenience, or for sex, or maybe for something deeper. Regardless, if you decide to stay, I'm not letting you go."
The possessiveness was both sexy and a mite alarming. He meant every word, and she knew it. But she also knew she wanted to stay. With him. To see if this was as big as it felt. "I have a job." One she needed to resign from. But then she'd find another.
"I have no problem with you working, but your home base is here. With me."
Yeah, she couldn't imagine Bear moving to Dublin. But she liked it here. Uncle Boondock would probably like it here, and it wasn't as if she couldn't bring in witches to work with her, whatever she decided to do. Maybe some sort of consulting business. "How much land do you have?"
He patted her ass.
Slight bruises jolted. "Hey."
"You are not building homes on my land."
They'd see about that.
He caressed up her back. "At the moment, we have more important issues, don't you think?"
"Yeah. We have got to find the manufacturer of Apollo." She started to work through the problems.
"That, too."
She blinked. Oh yeah. "And somebody wants to kill me." She bit her lip. "It'd be nice if it was one and the same person."
"Unlikely," Bear said, rubbing her nape.
She closed her eyes and moaned in pleasure. "I know. I'll come up with a list of possible enemies, and we'll start from there." He hardened beneath her thighs. "In a few moments."
He kissed her temple. "In a few moments . . . we'll move out of here. There's another place we could stay that's close to the office."
"Wonderful." Hopefully, the new place had a working bathroom and a bed that wasn't on the ground. She lifted her face.
His mouth met hers in the sweetest kiss imaginable. Then Bear relaxed, taking care of her, giving her more than she ever would've thought he could give. His kisses were soft, his caresses gentle, and his attention absolute as he removed her clothing and then his own.
Not once did his mouth leave hers as they moved to the bed.
When he entered her, she actually felt all of him. The beginning and the end, the hopes and the fears, the anger and the love. She closed her eyes as he thrust inside her, his mouth on hers, his body shielding her from the world. Heat uncoiled inside her, building higher, pushing her off the peak.
She sighed his name as he ground against her and came, his mouth still working hers.
Bear. He'd asked her to make a decision and take the biggest risk of her already risky life.
She loved a good risk.
Chapter 26
Bear watched as Lucas, Garrett, and Logan manned the computers in the war room. Jasper had gone to patrol with his men. Nessa and her uncle sat at the conference table, creating a list of possible enemies that might want her dead.
The list kept growing.
Irritation swept over Bear. "If your job was secret, how in the hell could you have so many enemies?" he growled.
She looked up, her pretty blue eyes clearing. "We're creating a complete list, just in case somebody found out about me. It's a starting place." Turning back to the papers, she muttered something.
"What was that?" he asked, a little too loudly.
"Nothing." She went back to work. The woman had been a little out of sorts since he'd taken her to the river house. It was like she thought he'd been hiding it from her. He hadn't been. It just wasn't where he lived. His cabin was his cabin, and he liked it.
His frown started to ache. They were both off-center after the way too emotional lovemaking earlier that day. It wasn't fucking. Not even close. It was the whole emotional "becoming one" bullshit he hadn't believed existed until right that second, and neither one of them knew how to handle it. So they sniped and glared at each other.
He focused on Lucas. "Do we have a full recall?"
Lucas nodded. "Almost all motorcycle club members are back in our territory. The grizzly nation, as well as other organized shifter nations, are on alert and ready to engage if we call them up."