Chapter 69
AARON
Leah’s room looks like it’s been ransacked. Clothes are strewn across the floor and bed. The closet is open and hangers are at twisted angles. Books are everywhere. And boxes. There are cardboard boxes piled in row after row, almost from the floor to the ceiling.
I rock back on my heels.
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say or think about this.
I glance at Leah.
Her lower lip trembles.
Oh for f**k’s sake.
She survived an attack by a ruthless Alpha hellbent on killing her to claim her lineage. She’s put up with me for years. And now, because her ol’ man and her di pshit brother let her room go to h ell, now…she’s going to start crying?!
“Hey now.” I drag her to me.
She fights. But I close my eyes and hug her harder. Not so hard as to hurt her, most of her body is bruised or sporting some kind of injury.
Just to use my strength to calm her.
For about the thousandth time…I wish she had her wolf.
Because then she’d respond to these touches and sensory cues. Our wolves are simpler. Touch, scent, s*x. My closeness would calm her. Reassure her. Solidify our connections as a pack.
But she has no wolf.
So mine can’t commune with her.
She can’t understand what she means to me.
“You can let me go,” she grumbles. “You’re suffocating me.
I do. Then I tuck her on the chin so I can see her eyes.
وو
She wipes beneath them and then shows me her hands. “It’s good. I’m fine. So they turned my old bedroom into a storage closet. No biggie.”
It also looks like they ransacked the place, but if she wants to overlook that I can too.
At least temporarily.
“The main hall was messier than this,” I tell her. “Don’t take it personally. Your pack…they slobs, Leah.”
She rolls her eyes, and I’ll take it. Better annoyed or amused
than crying. I stand back as she picks through some clothes on the closet floor, finding a pale blue t-shirt and a pair of drawstring linen pants.
She changes in front of me.
She isn’t trying to turn me on or do any sort of striptease, but the way she shimmies out of those jeans, bending over so her round as s is in front of me…
I like that. A lot.
Her shirt gets pulled off and it lifts all her hair, letting me see the muscles of her back, the taper of waist, the curve of her hips. Then all that thick hair tumbles down, like a go ddamn photo sh oot just for me.
She doesn’t turn, so I can’t see her breasts, although from the side, I catch the jiggle of one.
If she’s trying to turn me on, she’s doing a good job of it.
“Why did you really bring me up here, honey?”
