Christian
While they lay pulsing in the sheets, sweaty with afterglow, the pizza delivery arrived. Christian made sure his woman was covered by the sheet, and then he slipped on his jeans and padded over to the door.
Dodger followed, like he could smell the food on the other side.
The delivery guy was a young kid, and he tried to glance into the room, no doubt looking for the indecent girl who had made the room smell like sex—fuck, her smell was so damn hot.
Christian filled the door with his shoulders, shelling out some cash and using his body to block the ogling kid’s view of Ellie.
Of his woman.
No one was getting eyes on his woman.
He closed the door and brought the pizza over to the bed, looking down at the waiting dog as he passed.
“Stay, boy,” said Ellie, rising from the tangle of sheets.
Both Dodger and Christian froze.
He wasn’t sure why he’d done that. Maybe it had been his wolf—he still hadn’t gotten used to thinking of having an animal inside him somewhere—but with his heightened senses, and the protectiveness of Ellie that had sprung up in the last few days, it was definitely new.
She smiled, obviously amused, and gave Christian a crook of her finger.
He put the pizza on the bed and climbed toward her, but she ducked for the pie, snagging a slice before his lips could even reach hers. He slid into bed beside her and laughed.
“I see where your priorities are, woman.” He sat back and enjoyed watching her eat. She was ravenous, and she closed her eyes while she bit into the gooey, cheesy slice of pizza.
One of her eyes popped open, and she cocked her head. “You’re not eating.”
“I like watching you,” he said, letting his voice take that deep slide toward sexy times. He liked watching her come. He liked watching her eat. He could watch her all day.
That was new, too. Might also have been the wolf. But whatever it was, he was going with it. It felt fucking fantastic.
It felt like home.
She climbed up his body. The sheet fell completely away. Her breasts hung enticingly, nipple erect. Settling onto his lap, naked, she made the most cock-hardening noises he’d heard to date. Ellie cupped the slice of pizza in one hand, and the back of his head in the other.
“You need to eat.” Her sultry words made his jaw drop open, and she put the pizza inside before he could speak.
The tang of the tomato sauce and the unctuous cheese bathed his taste buds in pleasure. It had been over twelve hours since he’d eaten anything, and his stomach reminded him of that as he chewed the food.
Ellie’s eyes flat-out sparkled, like she enjoyed watching him, too.
He met her gaze, pinning her with his own, and took a big bite, drawing her toward him even closer. She settled against him, straddled over his bulging erection. He didn’t realize how hard he could get, or how fast, until Ellie Culver.
She was riding him like a cowgirl, feeding him pizza, and giving orders to both him and her dog at the same time. It was pretty much heaven.
If Molly had been safe, too, it would have been exactly heaven.
He tried to calm the rush of his pulse. They had a plan. They were going to work on the plan. He couldn’t break into the Quade compound on his own. And there was a spell to deal with.
But telling that to his protective brotherly instincts was about a ten-minute-at-a-time job.
“What just happened?” Ellie asked, relaxing the pizza feeder just enough to give him breathing room.
“What?” He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You just changed.” She sat back, and he couldn’t help noticing that she was still naked. Which was so damn hot. But focus, Christian. The woman is talking to you.
“I—I don’t know.” He shrugged. “The pizza is too good. Or you’re too hot and naked on top of me.”
Ellie set the mostly eaten pizza slice into the open box and crossed her arms over her breasts. “That’s not it.”
“Come on, El.” He gestured at the pizza. “You still need to eat. One piece wasn’t enough.”
“You’ve got to talk to me,” she said, a touch on the petulant side, and dammit if it wasn’t cute-hot as well as annoying.
“I would rather eat right now.” He reached past her for the box, but she moved quickly and shoved it to the other side of the bed, where he’d have to move her in order to get to it.
“I would rather you talk to me.” She slid closer to him, and her core was hovering right over his bulge. It would be so easy to distract her with sex.
She seemed to like it, which was—again—so fucking hot.
But Ellie’s brows were drawn together, and that frustrated look meant she wasn’t going to give up. She had her bulldog face on—stubborn.
“Were you thinking about Molly?” she asked, drawing her hand up his naked chest, over his abs, back and forth, like she was petting him.
It should have aroused the hell out of him, but it was… comforting.
“I guess,” he said, trying to look away from her. “El, I have to be honest. This is hard for me.”
Her hand just kept stroking, calming, soothing. It was settling his animal. Damn her, she was good.
“What’s hard for you?”
“Talking.” He shrugged. “I’m not used to it.”
“That’s why I’m not letting you off the hook, buddy.” She pointed at him, but it had a teasing edge. He missed the touch of those fingers, though. They seemed to make the world all right again.
He gathered her against his chest and laid back, holding her tight to him. “What do you want to know?”
“What were you thinking, just then, when you changed?” Her ear was against his chest, like she was listening to his heartbeat, and it tugged at something inside him.
She was so trusting, so vulnerable. And she drew something out of him he couldn’t even understand. Every minute he was with her, it was like he was morphing into something else. Something fit for human consumption.
“I was thinking… about how Molly is all by herself at that ranch. And I’m—”
“And you’re waiting for reinforcements instead of bulldozing the place to get her back?” She stroked her fingers on his pec, like she was soothing him again.
He relaxed. “Yeah.”
“You’d rather die and try to free her,” she said, not a question. A statement. She knew.
“That’s what I’m supposed to do, right? As a big brother. I’m supposed to sacrifice my happiness for her.”
She tensed like he’d hurt her, and he wrapped her in his arms again.
“I’m sorry, El. It’s just that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life.” He ran his hands along her back. “It’s what I do.”
“Tell me,” she said, her voice small. She was playing the brave face, like what he’d said hadn’t hurt her. But he could tell it had. Because sacrificing his happiness meant sacrificing Ellie. And after the last few days, he didn’t want that, either.
“Tell you what?”
“About growing up with her. You don’t talk about her.” Her voice got smaller with each syllable, and Christian almost smacked himself.
“It’s a habit,” he said, squeezing her against his chest. “The girls I’ve been with before. They’ve never even known she existed.”
“Wow.” She exhaled, sharp. “I can’t even imagine holding something like that back.”
“At first, it was about safety.” He felt far away from the words as the past reclaimed him. He tried to stay out of the past as much as he could, but it was coming back like a vengeful, masked villain.
He told Ellie everything. About having druggie parents who couldn’t find two pennies to rub together that they didn’t spend on meth. About Molly being born and them, having a brief period of being clean.
“We were like an actual family for a couple of months,” he said, hearing the wistful note in his own voice. Those had been idyllic days. They’d had an apartment. They had a dog. His father got a regular job. Molly had a crib.
Everything they hadn’t done for him, they did for her.
“And then what?” she asked, pulling the sheet up around her shoulders and snuggling against him.
“And then…” He took a quick breath. “They never came back one day.”
She said nothing. Just slipped her arms around his back and held on to him, like they were both adrift in a black and swirling sea, and she was his life raft.
“I was almost fourteen,” he said. “I got a job at a local restaurant, taking cash under the table, and I made sure Molly had formula and diapers, and I paid the rent. I had to drop out of school, eventually, when the landlord realized my parents weren’t coming back.” Emotion crept up his throat. “I took Molly and ran before he called social services.”
She stayed still, keeping her hands on him, like she knew he wasn’t done yet, and he loved her for it. All this past was coming up like poisoned food, and he needed to purge.
Needed.
“We mostly lived in abandoned houses for the first year. The restaurant owner let me sleep in his garage over the winter, and I made Molly another crib.” He smiled at the memory.
It had been a tiny, poorly made box. But he’d filled it with packing peanuts and blankets, and he’d slept on a camping mattress beside her. For many months, he wore her to work, washing dishes in the back of the restaurant and taking breaks to give her a bottle. It had killed him on the days he’d had to leave her alone.
The kid—such a trooper—would just hang on him and sleep. She was a great kid. The best kid.
“But by the time she was old enough to walk, I could afford daycare.” He rubbed at his face, settling back around Ellie. “I was fifteen. I looked almost twenty. I pretended to be my dad a lot, because he’d left his driver’s license behind, and I looked so much like him.”
Ellie stroked his back, and Dodger whined from the floor. Christian moved the pizza box and patted the bed so the dog would come up.
“Eventually,” he said, trying to get all the way through this, “one of the ranches needed someone with a strong back who could ride a horse, and I stayed on there. Molly was three by then, and I knew I needed somewhere to land. So, we lived in Socorro for a while, and that’s where I got into rodeo, on that ranch.”
The pain had lessened a bit, and the tightness inside his chest had released. But he hadn’t told this story to anyone. Ever.
No one knew him like this.
He wanted Ellie to know everything.
And he told her. For hours, he told her everything. Realizing he was a good bulldogger. Practicing. Becoming as good as he could, because for him, the purse meant survival for his sister. Buying his first horse. Buying his first RV.
And then hitting the road. Never staying anywhere for long. Homeschooling Molly. Staying mobile.
Because for the first several years, he was afraid his parents would come back.
And then, he was afraid they would never come back.
Dodger kept licking his hand, and Ellie kept laying on him and soothing him, and he felt, when he was done, like she was healing him from the inside out.
He let her soothe him, and her kisses turned desperate, and before he knew it, the dog was gone and Christian had shucked his jeans, and pinned Ellie down on the bed, and sunk himself inside her.
She felt like home.
When he finished, she kept holding him, her arms around his neck, until he rolled over onto his back, and she rested on top of him.
“We are going to rescue Molly,” she whispered, “and then we’re going to take care of her together.” She kissed the scruff on the side of his face. “You’re not alone anymore.”
His throat constricted. “God, El. I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” she said, like that was a given.
And it was.
And on some level, he knew he could do anything in the world because of it.