Head Hunter (City Shifters the Pack #3) - Layla Nash Page 0,27
“Let me go. Now.”
“You stay here,” he said, calm. Implacable. As unmoving as a fucking boulder. “It’s not safe.”
“Nowhere is safe,” I said. I meant it to sound furious and aggravated. It was true – the entire world felt too dangerous to survive. How the hell was I going to get up and keep going the next day? I’d always be looking over my shoulder, looking for... badly-dressed guys chopping up bodies? Wolf-men? Dark-haired women who could wave their hands and make the air turn into a wall?
But my fury disappeared in the way my voice cracked on ‘safe,’ and my throat burned with tears. Damn it. I did not want to cry in front of him. Again.
I slammed my fist into his chest in frustration with my own emotions. I didn’t know what else to do. There wasn’t anything to rage against or run from or fight. I just had to... endure it.
Dodge’s hands remained on my waist, though they slid lower and dangerously close to my hips. He took a deep breath, his chest expanding, and I felt the movement of his body all the way through me. His hazel eyes studied me but it seemed like a mask had fallen over his expression. He wasn’t the same guy who’d laughed and joked about me doing squats to thank him for saving my life, and he wasn’t the same man who’d squeezed my knee when I sat in the car and tried to keep my shit together when I thought I was going to die any second.
His right hand rested on my thigh, his fingers curling around to the back while his thumb moved restlessly over the top of my thigh. Thunderclouds moved in his eyes, hiding the real Dodge as I gazed down at him. The air got very thick and close around me. I felt like I was floating in some other reality.
Dodge’s grip tightened on my thigh. “This world sucks, babe, I’m not going to lie. You thought you knew how the world worked; you thought you knew the rules. And today you found out that there are some things that are very, very different from what you knew. It happens. It happens to all of us. There’s nothing to be ashamed about being thrown off your game.”
“It happens to you?” I asked. I desperately needed to know that the incredibly dangerous, incredibly capable man in front of me had his world shaken once or twice.
He hesitated, studying me for a long time, then nodded. His eyes almost reflected the soft glow of the nightlight in the bathroom, sparking gold. His other hand settled low on my leg, just behind my knee where it dug into the mattress at his hips. My breath caught. I couldn’t believe I was still sitting on him, still straddling him like – like –
My cheeks ached and I started to slide off him, to move back to the safety of the mattress without a mountain of muscle between my legs, but he caught my waist and kept me where I was. His tone went husky and rough. “Stay.”
Smoke must have curled off my face as everything heated up. I swallowed hard but stayed where I was, trying not to tense my thighs against his, to test whether he’d react. His fingers slid under the back of my t-shirt, ghosting over my bare skin, and goosebumps peppered all over me.
Dodge watched me, head tilted, as he did it again. “There’s been a couple of times I got knocked for a loop.”
“Wh-what was the worst?” I almost arched my back as his caress repeated and his fingers curled down to the waistband of my pants.
At least it took my mind off the events of the day. It was hard to remember the wolf-man and Deirdre’s weird powers with Dodge teasing and touching my bare skin.
He made a rusty noise, as if weighing how much to tell me, then relaxed his arms so his hands once more returned to my knees. I missed the caresses with a sudden ache. Dodge cleared his throat. “My father’s family was rich. Really fucking rich. So rich I didn’t – I still don’t understand how rich they were. They were the kind of folks who had vacation homes – multiple ones. A few in the mountains, a few on the beach, some overseas in Italy and Greece, a whole island in the Caribbean... Rich people.”
I nodded, mesmerized by the rhythm of his speech. The words came