“I don’t know.” He shook his head as if to clear it and laid the steaks in the glass dish. “There’s no such thing as easy. There’s only the difference between problems that are obvious and the ones that are hidden, right?”
She was an expert in the hidden problems. Not just an expert, but a conspirator in keeping them hidden, a thought grim enough to drive her off the couch in search of a distraction. “Can I help with anything?”
“Salad?” He gestured to the counter beside him, and his voice softened. “I looked at the reports, Eden. The paperwork on the complaints and investigations. It’s all pretty clear, especially if you know why they never found any evidence of injuries on your cousin.”
Eden froze halfway to the kitchen, her first reaction one of overwhelming, irrational panic. Anger followed hard on its heels, an outraged sense of betrayal and exposure. “You looked at my family’s records?”
“I did,” he said evenly.
She bit back her gut response. You had no right. He was putting his life and his reputation on the line to clean up her family’s mess. Of course he had the right. But it didn’t make her feel any less naked. All the lies, all the practice putting on a bright smile and pretending everything was okay—gone. Swept away in the space of a heartbeat.
He knew.
Anxiety prickled over her skin. “You could have asked me,” she managed finally, rasping words that sounded so wounded to her own ears. “I would have told you.” Those words sounded like a lie.
“I think you would have wanted to,” he countered. “But old habits die hard. Trust me, I know.”
Yes, they did. She laughed, short and bitter. “Yeah. I have a history of lying to the authorities about the subject, don’t I?”
“That isn’t what I mean. You were a kid, Eden.”
She had to open her eyes. Face her shame, face the too-strong wolf who felt like an enemy right now. “I was a kid who knew what was happening, and I lied. I lied for years, and Zack’s sorry excuse for a father beat the skin off his back more nights than not.”
Jay abandoned the marinade and held his arms open. “Come here.”
She wanted to. God, she wanted to. His embrace looked like safety and comfort rolled into one, but her feet were rooted in place, her entire body tensed to give in to the wolf and flee. “I don’t know if I can.”
He dropped his arms with a nod. “I could tell you the rest of my secrets, if it helps.”
“You don’t understand.” She wiggled her fingers and rocked forward, testing the wolf’s resolve. Her conflicting emotions only ratcheted the pressure higher. “I want to come there. I just…think I’m about to bolt.”
“I know, but I’m not about to push you.”
She snarled before she could stop herself, hot temper rising as fast as it had in the library. “This would be easier if you weren’t so fucking honorable.”
His lips twitched, and he cleared his throat. “You want me to take charge,” he murmured, a thread of steel creeping into his voice. “And I will. When I know you’re not just rolling over under me because you don’t know anything else to do.”
In a heartbeat, she crowded into his space, pressed close with a challenging growl. “Rolling under you is not my first instinct right now.” Climbing him like a tree and riding him to the floor, on the other hand…
He slid his fingers into her hair again. “Do you know why you like this, honey? It’s the control. You think you want it, but you don’t. Just the fight. You still want me to win.”
The words resonated, but she wasn’t about to admit as much. “That doesn’t sound very progressive of me. Don’t werewolves get to have feminist pride?”
“Who said you aren’t proud?” His gaze warmed as it traveled over her face. “You’re amazing, Eden. After what happened to you, you could have given up. But you came up fighting instead.”
She’d been joking, but the sincerity in his words made her self-conscious. Dropping her gaze, she traced a finger along the neckline of his T-shirt. “Maybe that’s just luck. Whatever made me turn early and made me a powerful wolf. If it wouldn’t hurt more, I think I’d still be whimpering under your bed.”
The pulse throbbing at the base of his throat sped at her touch. “Hiding? Not you, no way.”