Page 44 of Lost Touch
“That’s weird. I mean, I guess they all think I’m a criminal? But still, you’d think—” I swallowed down the lump in my throat. What would crying accomplish except confirming Drew’s preexisting impression, which he had to have by now, that I was a big wuss? “You’d think someone would’ve cared enough about me to miss me.”
A big arm wrapped around my shoulders, tugging me against Drew’s side, and I gave up on trying to be all stoic and collapsed against him, burying my face in his chest.
Drew shoved the laptop aside and looped his other arm around my waist, pulling me halfway into his lap.
He smelled so good. Had those fucking assholes simply not gotten around to depriving me of that particular sense, or had it not been useful to them to do it? I’d spent some long nights lying awake lately, and I’d taken some of that time to imagine a variety of ways you could make use of someone who couldn’t feel any pleasure. Or who could take a lot of injury before succumbing, keeping going until he dropped dead. Those uses ranged from the spine-crawlingly creepy to the war-crimes horrifying, but I guessed I couldn’t really imagine what you’d do with someone who couldn’t smell anything. Put him to work on a pig farm, maybe?
Those warlocks hadn’t seemed like agriculture would be high on their list of interests.
At least Drew had found a use for me that didn’t make me want to run screaming.
And I could inhale that spicy, woodsy scent of him, so warming and soothing it hit my bloodstream like a drug.
“They weren’t your friends,” he said at last, almost growling. I stiffened in his arms. He tugged me even closer, nuzzling my hair.
Oh. He hadn’t been growlingatme; he’d been growling on my behalf.
I relaxed into his hold again, putting my own arm around his middle and clutching on like he could keep me from drowning.
“They weren’t your friends,” he repeated. “Whoever they were to you, fuck them. No one with half a brain or any judgment at all could know you and not care. And I was thinking while you were asleep.”
I smiled into his shirt. “Uh-oh.”
“Shut up,” Drew said, without any heat. “I mean, fair. But look. Are you serious about being willing to make an appearance in a few days? Try to get me off the hook?”
“Yeah. I am.”
“Okay. Then we’ll do that. We’ll put on a really fucking good show. We’ll at least convince my uncle that we’re mated and staying that way. If he’s convinced, then he’ll have to stand up for us to save face, because the Petersons are so far up their own asses when it comes to werewolf tradition that he has to be at least as much of a stickler for the sanctity of a mating bond. And then we’ll blow this fucking popsicle stand and head to California.”
I tipped my head back onto his arm to find him looking down at me, those gorgeous dark eyes all soft with…God, I wanted to call it affection.
Calling it affection would be so dangerous to my very tenuous claim to mental stability.
“Your family’ll still be screwed, though, right? I mean, let’s say we pull it off. We go looking for my past, and a reliable shaman. Your uncle’s going to take it out on your parents and Alyssa, right? Because he sounds like that’s his M.O.” That lump had come back, blocking my throat. “And your company, Drew. Your income and all your hard work.”
Drew slid one big, warm hand up my back, stroked my shoulder, and then let it settle on the side of my neck. He had such long fingers and such a broad palm that it wrapped halfway around, a heavy weight on my nape and pressing against my windpipe.
That would’ve felt so good. I knew it.
He gave a light squeeze, comforting. And also possessive, as if he needed me to understand he’d staked his claim on me.
“Fuck it,” he said quietly, never looking away from me. “Easy come, easy go. I think if we run now, before we’ve performed for our audience, my uncle might not let us go that easily. But if we make a public appearance, show everyone we’re together so that he can’t deny it or sweep it under the rug, we’ll be safe. You’ll be safe. And for the rest of it—fuck it. Maybe he won’t bother putting me out of business. If he does, I’ll give all the employees some severance out of what’s left, sell this house, and we’ll start over.”
Drew couldn’t possibly be that blasé about throwing away years of work, the whole life he’d built for himself.
And he couldn’t possibly think I was worth it, could he?
But when he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead, and then tucked me against his chest again and held me close, I could almost believe it.
Chapter 14
Showtime
Tying a bow tie appeared to be one of those things that had been completely wiped from my memory.
Or, since I’d apparently been a college kid with hard-partying friends—and not the black tie kind of party—maybe I’d never known.
Either way, my sweaty, shaking fingers didn’t help at all.
