this up later.” Rolling out of bed on that promise, she shot him a smile that was pure sin. “You have no clothes.”
He growled at her before shifting. Shaking his fur into place, he went to her door and used the footpad to open it before slipping out. Her scent followed him out, his fur branded with her touch, his jaw feeling the lingering echo of her bite. A man would get away with nothing with Garnet. And a man who wanted to keep a secret had better as hell keep his distance, as Kenji had done for so long.
The only other choice was to tell her everything. Tell her why he wasn’t man enough, wolf enough, for her. The therapist the healer had forced him to go see had told him to stop thinking that way, and on a conscious level at least, Kenji knew the therapist was right. But deep in his gut, in the most primal part of himself, in the wolf’s heart itself, there was a hole he was afraid nothing would ever fill.
He didn’t want Garnet to have to live with that sense of loss, too.
• • •
Garnet was on her way to grab a quick breakfast when she ran into Ruby. “What are you doing waddling about?” she teased her sister before bending to speak to the belly that had taken over Ruby’s tiny frame. “Hey, little man.”
“Lorenzo says I should waddle. Might hurry my pup up.” Tucking her arm into Garnet’s when Garnet rose to her full height, Ruby leaned into her, the familiar scent of her making Garnet’s wolf brush affectionately against her skin. “Be my breakfast date?”
“Where’s your beloved?” Ruby and her mate were joined at the hip with Ruby so close to her due date.
“Emergency with Grandma Maisey. Her computronics went down and you know she only trusts Tex to fix it.”
“Grandma Maisey” was actually a friend of their maternal grandmother. They’d grown up calling her Grandma, while their maternal grandmother was Grammy and their paternal grandmother was Nanna. “Hmm.” Garnet tapped her lower lip with a finger. “Convenient how Grandma Maisey’s systems always break down or have a glitch right when Tex is driving you up the wall with his hovering.”
Ruby giggled, eyes dancing. “Wolves are the worst hoverers,” she said. “It’s adorable really, how protective he is, but every so often, I want to waddle about without him nearby ready to catch me.”
Well aware her older sister was nuts for the tall drink of water who was her mate, Garnet wrapped an arm around Ruby’s shoulders. Ruby was one of the few members of the Sheridan family with whom Garnet could do that—everyone but one other sister had ended up on their father’s side of the genetic height lottery. Ruby’s twin, Steele, was six foot four. Needless to say, taking family photos required some judicious management—and clever use of hidden boxes.
Kenji’s pups would be tall, she thought suddenly. His entire family was tall. Even if certain short genes mingled with his, she didn’t think they’d hold sway.
Smiling at the thought of wild and beautiful Kenji with a newborn in his arms, she looked down when Ruby squeezed her arm. “I told Kenji I liked both him and Revel equally, and I do, but for you, it’s only ever been Kenji.”
Garnet wasn’t surprised at Ruby’s out-of-the-blue statement—her sister knew her. “Rev and I aren’t an item anymore,” she told her sister. “As for Kenji, he’s holding something back.”
“I figured. Otherwise, that man would have hunted you down long ago.” Ruby’s tone was definitive. “Kenji Tanaka is not one to sit back when he wants something.”
That was exactly why it had hurt so much that he’d let her go. “I’ll get it out of him,” Garnet murmured. “First I have to put this situation with Russ and Shane to bed.” Only after that could she focus on her personal needs and desires—and on one stubborn wolf lieutenant.
• • •
She’d just finished breakfast, while Ruby was nibbling at hers, when Lorenzo alerted her that Shane was awake. Kenji, who’d come into the communal dining area a couple of minutes after her and Ruby, saw her get up, said, “You want me to cover something for you?”
“I was meant to take a training session for the junior soldiers.”
“On it.”
Garnet couldn’t understand how she’d thought, even for a minute, that Kenji would be an unreliable lover. She’d have to watch his habit of hiding things under a laughing, playful facade—because he was going