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“JUST LEAVE ME the hell alone.” Hannah ripped the strap of her messenger bag over her head and tossed the thing onto the table.
Mac watched her, his expression wary. She’d been fine two hours ago when he last spoke to her at her office. Something had happened between then and now. Granted, it could just be pregnancy mood swings but he got the feeling it was something deeper. “Babe?”
“Why are you here? Don’t you have someplace to be? Have someplace to go? Besides here?”
“Ah...” He continued watching her, keeping his hands shoved in his pockets despite the deep-seated need to go to her and pull her into his arms.
She stomped into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, stared at the contents. Her shoulders were so stiff she looked starched and pressed. Mac leaned his hip against the breakfast bar, arms folded across his chest, and remained silent. He was beginning to know her, to understand her moods. Someone had put a bug up her ass.
Hannah closed the fridge, turned to the pantry and opened it. Again she stared at the jars and boxes stacked inside. Mac wanted to feed her. Which was a weird reaction but the need was almost visceral. Her lips were pinched and her eyes bruised. She didn’t sleep, not the way she should. She’d sleep for an hour or two—or pretend—and as soon as she thought he’d dropped off she’d get up and wander through the apartment. Her apartment. He’d thought being surrounded by the familiar would help the situation. It didn’t. He had enough time in he could separate from the service with a minimum amount of fuss. Problem was, what the hell would he do?
Money wasn’t a problem. He banked everything, made investments. He’d never mentioned his net worth to her. All the Wolves were pretty much set for life. He liked army life. He was alpha enough to want the command of his team, to enjoy the structure of their life. Fuck, he was the unit’s Alpha. No one disputed that. Captain Harjo might run the admin side, but Harjo was human. Among the Wolves, even those on the other teams, Mac held the ultimate power.
“Stop. Just...fucking stop.” Hannah’s words whipped out, caught him by surprise.
“Stop what, babe?”
She threw her arms up and growled out sounds of frustration. “Stop being. Being you. Standing there staring at me. All smug and shit.”
Okay, there had to be some hormones mixed in there somewhere and that was a whole ’nother mine field. “Not feeling particularly smug at the moment. What’s up, Hannah?”
“Stuff. Just stuff, okay?”
“No. Not okay. What kind of stuff?”
She slammed the pantry door and marched toward the hall leading to their bedroom. If she got inside and locked the door on him, he’d be pissed and would take the door apart to get to her. Mac caught up in three strides and gently circled one of her biceps with his fingers. “Hannah?”
Jerking against his grip, she finally gave up and leaned against the wall, head back so her face was angled toward the ceiling. Hannah closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Go away, Mac. I can’t deal with you right now.”
“Not happenin’, babe.”
“Gawdammit. Will you just leave me the fuck alone? Get out. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you touching me. I don’t want you breathing my air.” Her muscles tensed as she brought her fisted hands up like a prize fighter. She took a swipe at him, one he easily ducked.
“Don’t you get it?” She was all but screaming at him. “I don’t love you. I don’t want you in my life. And I don’t want this damned baby!”
Anger surged through him, as cold as liquid nitrogen and just as deadly. Buried deep inside, his intellect battered at the fury. Breathe, he reminded himself. He’d marked her skin once before in a rage, forgetting how delicate her skin was, how fragile she was beneath the tough exterior. His fingers locked around her arm but didn’t squeeze.
“You want to tell me who the hell put this bug up your ass?” He gritted the words out and something in his expression finally registered with her. For a heart-shattering moment, fear flashed in her eyes and nausea roiled in his gut. He dropped his hand, backed away, shoved his fists into his pockets. “Gawddammit, Hannah. Do you really believe I’d fucking hurt you? You’re carrying my pup. I’d cut off my hand before I hurt you.”
“And that’s the gawddamnmutherfuckin’ bottom line for you, isn’t it? The baby. You don’t give a flying Philadelphia fuck about me. I’m just a baby machine for you.”
The vehemence of her words and the wounded look on her face mauled his heart. He was missing something, something important. Dammit, he didn’t do feelings. He was an alpha Wolf and his old man had been a complete and total sonavabitch with a big ol’ helping of asshole heaped on top. Until Hannah, women had been for screwing. Yeah, he made sure they left with a smile on their face but Hannah...she was his fucking life. And she didn’t know that. Which was the problem. His intellect kicked that flickering light bulb into life.
Mac had to inhale more than a few deep breaths to settle his wolf. The damned animal was riled up—panicked over Hannah’s threat, the need to protect and soothe its mate, and the man’s inability to fix things. He let his anger simmer for another few minutes then forced it to cool. Once it was gone, he was swamped by Hannah’s feelings—fear, exhaustion, and something he didn’t recognize, some emotion he couldn’t put a name to.
Hannah pushed her hair off her forehead and closed her eyes. “Please, Mac. Just...go away for awhile. You’re...you...sometimes I can’t breathe. You’re so...big. You fill up all the space. Take all the air.”
It took every ounce of strength in him to walk away from her, to do as she asked when everything down to his very core wanted to wrap her up and hold her. “Okay.”
She didn’t open her eyes at his growl. If she looked at him, she’d fall apart, start blubbering, and let him walk all over her. She’d lost control of her life the moment she insisted she accompany the Wolves on that damned mission.
Things were happening. Rumors at the Pentagon. Bad shit was coming and she needed to—hell she had to stop it before it rolled right over Mac and the others. She was tired all the time, couldn’t eat unless it was freaking rare meat. She was teetering on the edge and there were sharpened stakes on both sides if she fell.
Hannah felt Mac’s withdrawal, actually physically felt when he left. Just one more bar on her cage. But she could breathe. Almost. Why couldn’t he understand? No one had ever loved her and what he claimed to be love was more like obsession—a smothering blanket of crazy desire, jealousy, and dammit, she was not the heroine in some twisted movie of the week. Was she?
Werewolves were real. Okay, technically not werewolves. Wolf shifters. With DNA that wasn’t strictly human. And Navy SEALs with gills. This wasn’t a movie of the week, this was a B movie version of “Aliens.”
Mating for life? How could she trust that? And not hurting her? She rubbed absently at the spot on her arm that still throbbed from his grip. Violence lived in that alien DNA of Mac’s and now it lived in her baby’s. She’d never had a lover, never believed there’d ever be a man willing to hitch his life to hers. That happened to other women. Not her. She was all about the brains. Hell, she didn’t even have friends. Acquaintances, but not friends. There was no one she could call up, suggest beer and pizza and let’s dis men. Her stomach revolted at the thought of both beer and pizza.
Giving up, she padded into her bedroom, stripped, and climbed into the shower. Water as hot as she could stand it poured down on her head and shoulders, sluicing down her body. She looked down. She’d never been model thin but she’d always had a flat stomach and now there was a pooch. A pregnancy pooch. Her hand curved over it protectively.
“Fuck. I’m having a baby.”
She turned off the water and shivered in the sudden loss of heat. She wrapped up in a bath sheet while avoiding the mirror. Since the damn thing took up most of one wall, that was a feat but she knew she looked like shit. She didn’t need her reflection to remind her. What the hell did a man like Ian McIntire see in her anyway? He was freaking gorgeous, all chest-thumping alpha male, muscles, and a face carved from granite. She knew when he was near. Felt it in her bones, and her first glimpse of him weakened her knees while her breath caught in her chest.
She wanted him. Wanted him with every atom of her being. But she didn’t trust him. Didn’t trust the insta-lust-love-bullshit feelings between them. At the same time, how could a man like Mac want a baby? And the baby mama that came with the package? Therein lay her problem.
A dull ache formed high on the left side of her chest, right behind her heart. How could she feel his absence so viscerally? “Screw this.”
Pulling on ratty sweatpants and a long-sleeved tee shirt that had seen more than its fair share of washings, Hannah stared at the bed she’d shared with Mac for the past month. Something twisted inside and she couldn’t force herself to climb into it to sleep. She wasn’t missing him—much. And it was her damned bed. But he’d taken it over, like he’d taken over her life. The fuckin’ sheets smelled of him, of them. She wasn’t a Wolf but his musk was so strong, it filled her nose.
Tired. She was so fucking tired of everything. She just wanted to sleep. Five hours. Five hours wasn’t asking too much, was it? Hell, she’d settle for three, so long as those three were uninterrupted, straight-through real sleep. With robotic motions, she turned away from the bed that was no longer hers and stumbled into the guest room.
MAC WATCHED HER sleep, fingers curling against his palm to keep from touching Hannah’s hair. That tousled cap of wispy blond would feel like silk sliding through his hands. Shadows haunted the tender skin beneath her eyes, deeper than the dark sweep of her lashes. The pregnancy was taking its toll on her. Her legs kicked in restless motion as she tossed from her side to her back. She wasn’t truly showing yet, too early in the pregnancy, but he could sense the slightly rounded fullness of her stomach despite the obscurity provided by the layers of blankets and down comforter.
He wanted to wake her, to gather her into his arms, kissing and showering her with words of love. That wasn’t his way. He was a soldier. A hard man living an even harder life. But she made him want to be soft, to be tender. For her. For their baby. His son. And wasn’t that a swift kick in the ass. He didn’t have much time—his orders for a new mission that superseded his leave had just come in—and due to their earlier argument, she’d sought solitude in the guest room. She was so angry she wouldn’t even sleep in their bed—with or without him.
Well fuck that. She was his mate. He had need of her, and whether she believed it or not, she needed him. He stripped down to his boxers—the only concession he’d give her—and then slipped into bed next to her, spooning to her side, his hand resting possessively on her tummy.
Her thick lashes fluttered, deepening the bruised coloring beneath them. She rolled away from him and muttered, “Fuck off, Mac.”
“No.”
“Why are you here?”
“I sleep much better this way.” And so would she, if she’d only admit it. “I love you, Hannah. Go back to sleep.”
And she did, with him pressed against her back, holding close the two most precious things in his life. This woman had become his everything. She was the first thing he thought of in the morning and the last memory in his head as he slid into the light combat sleep that passed for his rest period.
He had no idea mating could be this powerful, this all-consuming. What he shared with Hannah? It was so opposite from what his mother and father had. Nakai knew, had tried to tell him. Nakai and Tala had been together for what seemed like a couple of lifetimes. The old Navajo was in his nineties, though he looked fifty and remained on active duty with the 69th. Wolves could live to ripe old ages, though they seldom did. They were a reckless breed, born to fuck and fight, according to the old bastard who sired him.
Yeah, Mac had been totally unprepared for the slap in the face Hannah Jackson gave him. He’d almost lost her and the hot blood in his veins still turned to ice water at the memory of her being held prisoner by those Bosnian terrorists. He’d fought the attraction, kicking and screaming each step of the way. Until he realized she was fertile, that she was his, that he’d never leave her.
She stirred in his arms, still restless, and he wondered if his thoughts were spilling over. They did sometimes, just as he picked up hers when their emotions ran high. Between that melding of minds and the overwhelming need for her—to fuck her, keep her safe from the gawdamned world, to love her—he was well and truly screwed. Mated. True mates. Moonstruck. It didn’t happen often but when it did? Oh yeah. It was like getting hit by a Mack truck.
Mac wanted Hannah to trust him, to trust what was between them. The angry words they’d hurled at each other echoed in his memory. She still believed he was only here because of biology. Hormones. True, that had led him to her, but it didn’t keep him craving her touch, or explain the all-consuming need to be with her. That was all her fault. She was the most messed up, stubborn, idiotic, frustrating... She whimpered in her sleep and he slammed those thoughts down.
Nosing the spot right behind her ear, he followed up with a light feathering of his lips there. “Don’t you see, baby? Don’t you understand that you are my everything?”
