Page 53 of Her Shifter Pack

“Okay, well then, let’s go sleep in Markus’s bed. If the big idiot comes back in the middle of the night, at least the sheets will be warm.”

Lightning flashed white, light illuminating the windows, and a second later, a great big crash of thunder hit the sky above our house.

Lexie ran over to me. “It’s been raining heavily like that for hours. Do you think he’s safe?”

I rubbed Lexie’s arms and stared out the large bedroom window. “Yeah, of course, he is. If there’s anyone in this world who can look after himself, it’s Markus.”

But I wasn’t as certain as I was making out. Markus was upset and liable to do something stupid. He was all heart, even though no one knew that about him. He felt things keenly, more than me sometimes.

And we’d all turned on him. Even me. Shame filled me. Of all people, I should have been the one to support him.

“Let’s go to bed.” I took her hand and walked her to Markus’s room, where the air still smelled like sex.

I smiled as I pulled down the covers and climbed in. “We can never get rid of this bed. It will always be the place we first had sex together.”

She laughed at that, crawling into the bed in a white tank top and some underwear.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked her, mock-frowning.

She stopped crawling halfway to the pillow. “Ah... going to bed.”

“Not like that, you’re not,” I said, pointing at her clothes. “Naked. Please. Now.”

She stared at me for a long time. She was probably trying to figure out if I was serious.

And I waited, naked, in bed.

Finally, she crawled back off, pushed her underwear to the floor and pulled her white tank off over her head.

I got a few seconds of perving on her luscious body before she scampered under the covers and cuddled up with me, her ass to my hip.

I rolled over to spoon her, pulling her naked body against mine. “Damn, you’re sexy.”

She was holding her breath and I wasn’t sure why. “You okay?”

“Yeah... um, did you want to have sex again, or...”

I smiled into the dark and pressed a kiss to her ear. “I wish I could, but I’ve had one hell of a day. Work was insane. How ‘bout tomorrow?”

She released her breath in a rush, and I knew I’d said the right thing. “Oh, yeah, definitely. Tomorrow’s good.”

Lexie fell asleep in my arms, and I lay there in Markus’s bed, worried about my big brother and feeling guilty over my role in the pain he was in.

The truth was, part of me had always been jealous of him. Of his easy way with women. His size and strength, confidence and charisma.

But it seemed that beneath it all, Markus hadn’t been coping as well as I’d always assumed. And now I just wanted him to come home so I could tell him how sorry I was for not believing in him the way I should have.

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