Quickdraw Slow Burn (Battle of the Bulls #3) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,35

asked softly, rubbing her back.

“I want to call a man mine.”

“You can call me yours.”

She eased back to search his dark eyes, just to make sure he wasn’t teasing her.

“My wolf will want to claim a mate someday. She’s loyal. She has wants. She’s always, always searched for someone. She doesn’t like being a lone wolf. She wants to be a mother. She wants to build a family.”

“I can be her family.”

She hadn’t missed it, though. He hadn’t made the empty promise of telling her she would be a mother someday. Not with him.

“Can you be patient with me?” he asked. “Can you give me time to catch up?”

“I can do patient.” She offered him a grin. “But if you think I’m wasting the rest of my good booby years on you, you’re wrong.”

He chuckled and leaned forward, pecked her on the lips, then eased back with the devil’s smile on his lips. “If you think I’m sharing your good booby years with anyone else, you’re dead wrong too. You haven’t figured out what you’ve done to me yet, but someday you will.”

“What have I done?” she asked.

The smile faded from his lips, and his eyes grew so serious. “You’ve bewitched me.”

“I’m not a witch. I’m a wolf,” she joked. “I’ve bewolfed you.”

“Ha. And she tells lame jokes,” Quickdraw quipped. “I’ve hit the jackpot.”

Chapter Eleven

“We should hunt them down, and kill them all.” The wolf inside of Annabelle was roiling with a growing anger she couldn’t control. She wasn’t frozen inside of her anymore. The wolf was restless now.

Annabelle felt more normal than she had in the last month, but one thing remained—her too-bright eyes.

She frowned at her reflection in the mirror. Cheeks pink from the slow simmering rage that hummed just beneath her skin. Blue eyes that were damn-near glowing. A snarl on her lips that she couldn’t relax away. Her face twisted into a feral expression.

The first round of bucking was scheduled for tomorrow night. One more tiny day. Arrow would take his first shot tomorrow—Arrow and whoever else was in on the plans to derail the circuit. Hunter thought they would do something on TV while the cameras were rolling. He thought they would seek maximum attention.

Annabelle wanted to kill them all.

If something happened to Quickdraw… No, don’t think like that.

Or Raven, Two Shots, Dead, Cheyenne…

If something happened to them…

Annabelle swallowed hard and dragged her glare off her reflection in the tiny RV bathroom mirror. She washed her hands and picked up the box Cheyenne had given her. She’d taken the two pregnancy tests inside of it that now sat on the counter. One more minute. She read the directions on the packaging again and chewed the corner of her thumbnail.

No matter what, everything would be all right.

If she was pregnant, the focus of her life would change, but maybe she was ready for that. Maybe she was ready to be a mom. To have a little sidekick no matter what life threw at her. She could do that. She had her resume out to a dozen places, and she could set up a crib in her little studio apartment and research bottles and diapers and baby food and stuff. Just… take the next nine months to redirect her life into something more meaningful.

Something more meaningful.

She glanced at the tests, but they hadn’t given a result yet.

Or…the test could be negative, and it would mean her wolf was just yearning for a baby again. She’d pouted every time Annabelle had taken birth control during her relationship with Matthew, wishing for a little pup to nurture. But Annabelle wasn’t ever trying for a baby with him. He would’ve been a terrible dad. A terrible partner. He would’ve resented her and made her feel bad and, someday, he would’ve made the child feel bad for existing, too. That’s what Matthew had been good at.

Until he’d matured and wanted to commit to her, she hadn’t wanted to bring a baby into their lives, and Matthew had never matured. He’d only wasted her time. And then one spontaneous night had occurred with Quickdraw, and now she was here.

If the test was negative, it was okay. Her life would meander on just like it always had. Find a job, work the job, sleep, eat, see Raven as much as she could, and maybe build something big with Quickdraw. She couldn’t do that is she was pregnant. He didn’t want children. He wouldn’t want to build with her.

She’d chewed her thumbnail to the