Page 34 of Rugged

I laughed. “I intend to. Speaking of which…I found a box of unopened sex toys under your bed.”

“Oh those? They were sent to me, so I could rep the company but met Ralph, the tennis instructor in Scottsdale. No, maybe it was Andy the ski instructor. I can’t keep them straight. Anyway, have at them!”

She mixed two different men up in her mind. Typical Lyssa.

“Okay, good. Because I brought the box with me.”

“Mmm, enjoy. Ooh–I have to go, the sultan’s calling.”

“Wait, wait, wait! One more thing. When is Chapman coming back? Because my hot cowboy needs to meet with him, and he’s having a hard time getting in touch.”

“I don’t know…I’ll be right there!” she called to her latest lover.

“Wait, but can you find out? It’s important. Call him and let me know, okay?”

“Yep, will do. Have fun with the sex toys! Love you, byeeeee!”

I ended the call and smiled. For once, I was having as much fun–and as much sex–as Lyssa and it felt pretty damn good.

15

JOHNNY

After we pulledour clothes on, I walked down to find the horses to give Lyssa some privacy while she called her sister. Or the illusion of it, anyway.

Hopefully, my shifter hearing would pick up anything about her boss, if she was lying and really calling him instead. She’d acted a little off when I started quizzing her again. I hated the idea that I didn’t trust her. My wolf did, but that was on a more primal level. Something was off. I felt it in my gut.

Why would she lie?

Why wouldn’t she? I was lying to her.

I hoped I hadn’t been too obvious about pumping her for information about Chapman. I felt like a Class-AAsshole doing it. But it wasn’t like I could come out and say,hey, I’m gonna take your boss in for a Council trial, and he’ll most likely be killed by me or another shifter enforcer, so can you give me his 4-1-1?

I wasn’t telling her the truth about why I’d gone to her boss’s ranch in the first place. I couldn’t risk an entire pack by telling her the truth about us until she was in love with me. Until she was mine. Until I could mark her.

But that wasn’t all.

Fuck, I couldn’t believe I almost told her I killed Frank Archer, the guy who attacked Simi.

How would she have taken that news?

Oh, by the way, your new boyfriend–or boy toy or whatever she wants to think of me as–is a killer. Oh and I did it with my bare hands… and fangs.

Not just a hot-blooded killer, which used to be true. But now I was a cold-blooded one.

Hell, she would start running and wouldn’t stop until she got back to Chapman’s ranch. I couldn’t show her what I really was. What lurked inside me.

My wolf growled. He didn’t like the deception. Didn’t like me holding anything back from our mate.

I didn’t like it either, but there was no way around it.

She was quiet at first, pacing away with her back to me.

Yeah, she definitely didn’t want me to hear something. A ripple of misgiving ran through me.

What did she know about Chapman?

I felt certain she couldn’t be part of the female wolf trafficking, but I smelled her anxiety when I asked about him. Was she scared of him?

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