Page 85 of The Piece You Stole

“Good. We will run together.” His hand grips my hips as he turns and backs us across the bedroom, away from the wall of glass and toward the bed. “And in time, we’ll have a family.”

“But what if—”

A hard kiss cuts me off.

“It will happen.” He says it like it’s a foregone conclusion. As if he’s decided it and because he has, nothing can stop it.

Children were never an equation that entered my mind, not when I spent almost all my life in survival mode. But the thought of having a pretty girl and a boy with Rylan’s eyes makes something squeeze low down in my belly. It makes me ache for a thing I hadn’t thought I’d needed or wanted until Rylan had said it.

I want to believe him, but hope is a thing I haven’t gotten used to reaching for yet.

Until now. Until Rylan.

It will happen one day, I tell myself.Just like one day soon, you’ll stop flinching at the sight of Rylan’s wolf in his eyes.

“But what if it doesn’t?” I press him as he backs me toward the bed. “What if you bite me again and I don’t change into a shifter? What if—?”

“It. Will. Happen.” His tone hardens, and his eyes turn flat. “Or did you change your mind, after all that I’ve done for you, and you don’t—”

“No,” I interrupt, desperate for him to believe it. “I haven’t changed my mind.”Even if it hurts so much, I don’t know how I can go through it again.“I still want you to bite me.”

His smile returns, and he softens his tone. “That’s good. I just want the best for you, Saige. The rest of the pack looks for strength in the Alpha and the Luna. I just want them to accept you.”

Which they will never do if I’m human. He’s hinted at it before, and I’ve been around them long enough to know it’s true. When Rylan isn’t watching, they look at me as if I’m beneath them, as if I’m dirt they need to scrape off their shoe. Just because I’m human.

The back of my thighs hits the bed, and Rylan eases me down with a strength that’s not even close to being human. Before he can follow me all the way, a soft cough makes me jerk my head to the doorway.

Nathan, Rylan’s hunter, has his head facing Rylan, but he’s observing me out of the corner of his eye. I hate that it always feels like he’s doing things to me in his mind that make me want to scrub myself clean.

I hide my shudder and hope Rylan never leaves me in a room alone with Nathan. Ever.

“What?” Rylan snaps.

“I’ve done what you asked,” Nathan says.

Done what?

As if Rylan can feel the question buzzing in my mind, he lowers his gaze to mine as he strokes his hands from the hem of my skirt up to my thighs, taking the material up with it. “Good. You can go.”

When my skirt is just about to hit my hips and reveal more than I’d want anyone but Rylan to see, I dart a glance at the doorway and discover it’s empty. Like always, Nathan seems to have this ability to just melt away. “What did you send Nathan to do?” I ask.

Rylan's lips find mine in a lingering kiss that feels like a distraction. Or a diversion. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

Before Rylan had told me what he was, I’d wondered if he was a crime boss and if Nathan was someone he sent out to deal with his enemies. From our first meeting, there was something dark and predatory about Nathan that made me desperate to keep my distance from him. It hadn’t taken long to learn the truth—or have Rylan reveal it to me—a predator lived inside him. A wolf. A wolf lived inside all of them.

Rylan kisses my throat, but this time, it doesn’t feel pleasurable. Nerves eat at my belly because he kissed me like that before he got up and shifted into a wolf so he could bite me.

I don’t want to think about what will happen if it doesn’t work again, but I can’t stop myself.

After everything he’s done for me—giving me a home people could only dream about, a closet filled with designer clothes, and a life I don’t have to work or do anything but be with him, surely, I can do this one thing when he doesn’t ask for anything else.

Rylan lifts his eyes. “Are you ready?”

Panic makes my throat dry, and I swallow hard. “I thought we were going to…you know?” I dart a glance at the hem of my dress sitting on my hips. My cheeks heat, which always seems to delight Rylan, who likes to make me blush all over with the things he says and does to me.

After flashing me a boyish grin, he gets up. “We’ll get to that later.”

As he unbuttons his white shirt, I keep my focus on his hands and not his face as my fear grows. It buzzes around me, filling the large, bright-white bedroom and making it feel small.

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