She called Tracy, intending to follow through on her plan to quietly bring her in for training. For now, Kelli was willing to humor Nox, but she couldn’t stay indefinitely. Then Tracy called and said her father wasn’t looking healthy and she wouldn’t be back any time soon. Kelli sighed, though she couldn’t hold any ill will against the woman. It looked like Nox was getting his way, at least a bit longer.
The rest of the day ran just as planned, with Nox often coming in during playtime, attempting to be the uncle he had never tried to be before. He was clumsy, often cursing around the toddler who found him amusing, but it was clear that he cared for the little girl. The sight of him carrying her to bed again made Kelli’s clit pulse.
“Get it together, woman,” she said to herself.
That night, Nox asked more about her lack of love life and desire to have children. She didn’t think she needed a partner to do that, but the presence of one would certainly help. He was surprisingly quiet, letting her talk for the majority of the evening, his handsome face regarding her with admiration.
Kelli raced to bed that night to avoid the possibility of anything else occurring. She’d had one glass of wine with him, and that was enough. Her body was beginning to betray her, along with her mind’s thoughts growing more and more salacious.
She lay in bed and thought about Nox lying next to her, his strong fingers moving between her legs and pleasing her in ways she could only dream of.
Kelli buried her face into the pillow and let out her own guttural, animalistic growl.
FIVE
NOX
Nox felt drunk every time he was around Kelli. He had never been so mesmerized by a woman in his entire existence, and he had been with quite a few females. Kelli, though, was as intoxicating as they came. Her scent of fresh fruit mixed with a floral aroma lingered every time she left a room. She had eyes as bright as the moon, a laugh as melodious as an orchestra, and a body that called for his tongue to trace the outline of.
A part of him was thankful when Roland called and asked him to come out to where they located the car that had taken Nevel and Elise. He and Kelli were getting along great, which was part of the problem. It confused his wolf’s mind and made him act like an absolute fool around her.
When he told her that he would head out to meet his pack, he asked that she be there when he returned.
“You mean instead of Tracy?”
She stood in the kitchen, leaning against the granite countertop with one of her hips popped out to the side. She had that bemused look on her face that he had come to crave, her plump lips arched in a gleeful tease.
The sight sent his cock into a frenzy, but he tried to ignore it.
“That is precisely what I mean,” he purred back.
She pursed those luscious lips and turned back to making breakfast. Her scent engulfed him. Her exposed, supple neck was just begging for his teeth to sink into it.
“I promise I won’t leave you with some stranger,” she said, still sounding amused. “I would have to train a new nanny for some time before I left anyway.”
Though Nox didn’t like the sound of that, he accepted her word, then headed off to meet Roland and the rest of Gray Tip Pack.
He met Roland at an airfield about an hour from his mansion, where they had tracked the SUV that had taken his brother and sister-in-law. He ran there in his wolf form, needing to release some pent-up energy from his attraction to Kelli and his growing concern for his brother.
He shifted and dressed to meet Roland and the pack surrounding the car like a CSI investigation.
“Nox,” the pack members greeted.
He nodded back, standing tall and focused like the alpha he was.
Despite being his right-hand man, Roland presented as physically the opposite of his alpha. He was tall but lanky and lean, with a face that was elongated like that of a horse. He was calmer than Nox and was easily able to make rational decisions without having emotions contort the perspective.
That was why Nox relied on him. He was also the one who understood his need for control the most out of all the pack, who were always edging for an alpha role themselves.
He clapped into a hug with Roland, smacking each other’s backs like the wolf brothers they were.
“Tell me what you’ve got,” Nox said.
Roland nodded and guided Nox to where the SUV sat just outside the airfield near a fence that seemed to have been pried open with claws. Roland opened the doors of the SUV. Immediately, Nox caught wind of Nevel’s and Elise’s scents, pronounced and reeking of pine needles.
“They took them as wolves?” Nox inquired.
Roland nodded.