Page 54 of An Unexpected Claim

My hands seemed to have a mind of their own. By the time I let her go, her jeans were on the floor and she was spread out on the counter, panting and unable to move. I licked my lips, savoring the last of her taste and already craving more. Moving over to the sink, I rinsed off my beard, then grabbed her jeans and helped her put them back on. I tugged the elastic band from her top knot and winked at her as I used it to twist my hair up. I kissed her again, keeping it brief this time. “Stay home,” I ordered. “No wandering off.”

I left her in stunned silence and headed into the KBO offices.

Tanner was in his office, bent over his desk frowning at a stack of papers.

“Come up with anything?” I asked.

He shook his head without looking up. “The ME’s reports are useless. The only thing we know is that he’s a wolf, and we already fucking knew that. How the hell has this guy not left even a single fingerprint anywhere?”

I sat on his couch and spread my arms out along the back. “I talked to Scott yesterday.”

Tanner looked at me, his brow raised. “What made you finally call him?”

My fingers flexed as I considered whether I was ready to share my newfound knowledge in regard to Peyton. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t have done as much for anyone else as I would for Peyton, but I’d always been methodical, patient, willing to take the slow route if it meant guaranteed success. I felt the pressure of a timetable with Peyton’s case. Iwanted this done and over so we could put all of our attention on working out the personal shit. I also had a feeling that I’d only be able to distract her from asking about the investigation for so long.

I decided Tanner would be able to help the most if I didn’t hold back information. “You figured out the baby is mine,” I surmised. He nodded. “There’s more to it.”

He grinned and I gave him a curious look, but he just smiled wider. “Go ahead.”

“She’s my true mate.”

Tanner laughed and leaned back in his chair. “It’s about time you figured that out.”

“You knew?”

“Yeah. I would have put some money on it—and made a fortune—but I didn’t think you’d want me spreading it around.”

“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand. “Go back to ‘you knew’.”

Tanner shrugged. “It was pretty obvious when you told me about her the first time. But you know how it is about seeing what’s right in front of you.”

I leaned forward and put my elbows on my knees, my hands hanging in between. “You want to explain why the hell you kept it to yourself, Beta?” My tone warned that he should be very careful with his answer.

“That’s something people have to figure out for themselves. If you’d gone back to her with that option on your mind, you would have started analyzing every little thing for proof that she was or wasn’t. You might have convinced yourself that I was wrong.”

I stroked my beard and chewed that over for a minute. “I see your point. I rarely get involved with mate situations for the same reason.” I thought about Asher and Samantha and stared at the ceiling for a moment. “Even if they are both being stubborn as fuck and refusing to admit it.”

As my Beta, Tanner was privy to almost everything pack related, unless it was something the pack member had specifically asked to be kept between them and their Alpha. I’d debated telling Tanner when I realized that my head enforcer, Asher, and our newcomer, Samantha, were true mates.

“He’ll get his head out of his ass eventually. She’s not ready yet, anyway.”

I met Tanner’s perceptive eyes and inclined my head in acknowledgement of his assumption. “I should have known you’d already have it figured out.” Tanner had an uncanny ability to sense things, like true mates, but we kept it between us, or everyone would be beating down his door to find their mates and anything else he could sense about their lives.

“Anyway”—I redirected the conversation from the tangent and back to the original subject—“Scott said they’ve hit a wall with the case. They’re staking out Peyton’s apartment though, so we’ll have to figure out how to move all of her things here without tipping them to the fact that we know her whereabouts.”

“Move her stuff?” Tanner repeated, his tone questioning.

“Of course,” I said absently as I thought through our options for her apartment.

“She’s agreed to move here?”

I glanced at Tanner with a frown, wondering why he was stuck on this point. “She’s my mate.”

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but after a minute, he shook his head. “Have they reached her place?”

I nodded, allowing the subject change since we had more important things to talk about. “But they didn’t find enough evidence to assume he’d killed her. They think she’s either hiding or he’s taken her.”

“Were our guys able to get in there before?”

---