Page 38 of Classified (The Elite 3)

“You okay?” Panther’s voice was a whisper in my ear.

“Yeah, I’m good. Was just thinking.”

Panther’s arm tightened around me, and I felt his lips in my hair. “About?”

“About how quickly things can change.” When Panther tensed, I pressed a kiss to his chest. “In a good way. How quickly they can change in the best possible way.”

He let out a sigh of relief and shut his eyes. I pushed up so I could look down at the face that had captured me from the second I’d seen it.

A strong jaw lined with dark stubble, arresting blue eyes that saw everything and promised the world, and a mouth that made me want to get close enough to taste forever. It was a face I wanted to wake up to and go to sleep seeing each night, and no matter what happened after graduation, I knew I would be with him and he with me.

“Stop staring.”

I grinned and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Never.”

He shifted to roll me up on top of him, then spread his legs so I could nestle between his thighs. “That sounds promising.”

I placed my hands on either side of his head. “That’s a threat, not a promise. You, Grant Hughes, are stuck with me forever now. There’s no getting out of it.”

“No?” Panther said, and began to wind his long, muscled legs around me. “Damn. And here I thought if I told you I loved you, you’d run.”

I rocked my hips over the top of his. “Bullshit.”

“Hmm,” Panther said, and smoothed his hands down my sides to my ass. “Tell me again…”

He didn’t need to say what it was he wanted to hear. I already knew. “I love you.”

Panther grinned. My stomach flipped and my heart began to pound, and I felt as though I was experiencing the best high of my life.

As I pressed kisses down that strong jaw, along his neck to the center of his collarbone, I said, “I love you… I love you… I. Love. You.”

“Forever?”

My answer couldn’t come quick enough. “Forever…”

Panther ran his hand over my hair. As I closed my eyes and relaxed into his arms, never had I felt more loved and more secure than I did right there, in the arms of my forever.

30 Panther

“YOU REALLY THINK this is the best move right now?” Solo said when he took off his helmet. His long legs still straddled his bike, and he didn’t make a move to get off it, which told me he was more than fine not going through with today. But if we were going to really do this thing together—and after our day in bed yesterday discussing our future, that was no longer negotiable—some confrontations needed to happen ASAP to get things out in the open. After what Solo told me about running into my father? That shit was not going to fly, and I definitely had something to say about it.

“The sooner we do this, the sooner it’s over,” I said.

Solo nodded, but when he still didn’t make a move to follow me toward the house, I turned back and placed my hands on his handlebars. “You chose us, which means you’re my family now. And it’ll make both our lives easier if we can all choose to accept each other sooner rather than later. Unless…you’re having second thoughts.”

“Hell no,” he said, finally sliding off his bike. “Not one. Lead the way.”

“That’s more like it.” I held my hand out, and when Solo took it, my stomach flipped. This was what it was like to finally find your person, to know that they chose you, you chose them, and nothing would get in the way of what you shared.

Now we just had to make my parents see that.

The house I’d grown up in was a mid-size Spanish colonial, nothing over the top, but the landscaping my mother paid meticulous attention to made the house seem like it was more than it was, surrounded by such a lush oasis. Palm trees and tropical plants of every shape and color lined the walkway, and judging from the way Solo was taking it all in, he was impressed.

Wait until he saw the backyard.

I knocked on the door as a courtesy but didn’t wait for anyone to answer before walking inside. The smell of freshly baked bread filled the air, a scent I identified with home. My mother had never worked outside the home a day in her life, but that didn’t mean she didn’t spend every spare minute learning how to garden, cook, sew, play the piano, learn new languages, or whatever else she woke up thinking she’d conquer that day. She’d never been the type to sit still, always making sure everyone and everything was taken care of.

Her short black bob was tucked behind her ears as she headed toward the dining room carrying a basket of the bread that smelled so good, but when she saw us in the hallway, she stopped.

---