Page 23 of Furever Loyal
“Now you know our secret,” Kincaid said quietly, his words filtering out into the warehouse. “Do you understand now?”
She gaped at him. “What? Of course, I don’t understand! How stupid are you that you think this answers my questions? It just brings up a million more!” She tossed her hands into the air, resting them on her skull as she shuffled around, eventually turning in a circle. “And why are you still naked? Put that thing away!”
Kincaid bit his lip, nodding a few times as he walked over and got dressed. Haley definitely did not stare as he did that. A peek here, that was it. Okay, and there. He had a nice rear as well…
“Well, that went differently than I expected,” he said, pulling his shirt over his head, the material stretching over muscles every bit as impressive as they’d looked when covered up.
“Just how did youexpectthat to go?” she asked, starting to pace. “Is this something you do to a lot of girls? Do they all get so distracted by your massive dick that they just ignore the part where you changed into a bear?”
Kincaid grinned. “So, you did notice.”
“Lord save me from his arrogance,” she groaned. “Your sexual reproductive organ is not what we’re going to spend our time talking about.”
The big man just shrugged. “You’re the one who keeps bringing it up.”
Sputtering at his complete twisting of her words she turned and stormed off. This time, shedidhead right for one of the doors.
Kincaid, of course, beat her there, blocking the way. “We need to talk about all this.”
She paused. His voice was different now. More serious. Concerned. Like he was done joking around at last.
“Okay, fine. Let’s talk.”
“You first. You’re the one with the questions.”
She didn’t need any time to think of her first one. “Was that real?”
“Yes. Completely. I can do it again if you want to come touch it—the bear, I mean—and get tangible proof.” He didn’t look overly enthused about that prospect.
“You don’t seem happy about that option.”
Kincaid worked his jaw. “It’s…not the most pain-free process in the world. I would be just as happy not to have to do it again in such a short timeframe. Plus, then I’d have to strip, and we’d have to listen to you bitch and moan about seeing me naked again.”
“Got that right. Nobody wants to see that.” She smothered the smile threatening to break free. “Why show me that though? I’m sure you could have come up with any of a dozen other explanations for what I saw.”
“Possibly,” he agreed, relaxing a little now that it was clear she wasn’t going to freak out and run away. “But then I’d be lying to you. I’m out here trying to clear my name, to show you I’m not lying. If I started now and you found out later, well, that wouldn’t go so well for getting you on my side of this.”
“I’m still not on your side.” She crossed her arms as if that made it clear.
“Yeah.” He looked away. “But you know the truth about me. You know I didn’t attempt to hide anything. Now when I tell you that this is a frame job, you’re going to start wondering if maybe Iamtelling the truth. And that’s all I want. What I need.”
“Maybe.”
Kincaid shrugged and walked through the door, back into the offices and pulled open the front door. “Iaminnocent. I don’t want to be imprisoned. Or worse. I need you to believe me. This is a big step toward that.”
She followed him outside, pausing as he pulled the broken door back into place.
“You probably won’t go to jail over this. It’s not enough proof for that. Not yet at least. Once the police get involved though, who knows what their digging will find.”
He snorted and they started walking back to the SUV together. “The police aren’t going to be involved at all, Haley.”
“But you said imprisoned.”
“Yes. My House will see to the punishment. They’ll toss me in jail if they don’t just kill me.”
“What?!” she exclaimed loudly, before closing her mouth and looking around to see if anyone had heard.
“They don’t take this sort of thing lightly, Haley. There’s a lot of bad blood between the wolves and bears, and if they think I’m in league with them, that I helped them by hurting my House…”
