Ripper (Hunter #1)(92)

I know that other wolves run in packs, but it has always been just me and my father. We like it this way.

Yes, this is my dream. The one that sustained me when I was young. And then it changes for the first time I can remember.

I stop when I feel eyes on me, and when I turn he is there in the dewy morning light. He isn’t like me, but I know in an instant that he’s mine. His deep blue eyes are kind as they look down on me and he holds out his hand and asks me to change so we can be together.

He is more than a friend or a lover or a husband.

He is Gray. He is my mate.

I love him with everything I have inside me. I change and walk toward him on two human feet, never forgetting the wolf inside me. She is a part of me, sometimes the better part. Gray is two natured as well, though not the same. He will accept my wolf and I will accept his second self. I walk to him and his arms go around me.

His lips meet mine and I am complete.

The world and everything in it is perfect until I hear a low growl. My father stands waiting. He peers at us, and I know that he will not allow this. He will never allow this. The enormous brown wolf that represented everything I wanted in a father shifts and suddenly he is a child. A black haired, brown-eyed child I had seen before.

“No,” Lee Quinn says. “It’s no good.”



I woke up with a start. Fear hadn’t been a part of the dream, but I had to force myself to breathe. It had been so real. I could practically still feel the ground under my feet, the air on my skin.

Why would I dream of Lee Quinn? In the dream he’d spoken with a deeper voice, the voice of an adult. It had rumbled out of his child’s body.

“Hello, baby,” Gray said lazily in my ear as he pushed up the bottom of the shirt I was wearing. “I’m making a new rule. No clothes in our bed. It’s inconvenient.”

With my pulse pounding, I turned toward him. He could banish the dream and the jittery feeling it gave me. I would stay away from wine from now on. It gave me weird dreams.

“Is it?” I lifted up for him to pull the bothersome shirt off my body.

His hands trailed up and tugged gently on my nipples. I sighed and he chuckled against my neck, trailing kisses even as his hands cupped my breast.

“Yes, it is. It is horribly inconvenient.” He didn’t bother to keep his weight off me. He pinned me down and took up all the space. “I might keep you naked all the time, Kelsey mine. If we’re alone, I want you naked. When we eat dinner, I want you naked. When we sit and watch TV, I want you cuddling against me naked.”

His fully clothed body rested against mine. I could feel the hard ridge of his erection against my thigh. He pumped softly in a preview of what he wanted to do to my *. “That’s an awful lot of nudity for poor Syl to endure.”

Gray’s face hardened. His hands smoothed back my hair. “He won’t be in our lives much longer. We’ll have to get along without a butler. I want to be alone with you, Kelsey. I want it to be you and me. They’re going to leave us alone.”

I felt the intensity of his will and found I couldn’t argue with him. “Did everything go all right at the station?”

A quick glance at the clock let me know Gray had been gone for hours.

He leaned down and kissed the bridge of my nose and then feathered kisses all over my face as he talked. “He needed some attention, but everything’s handled.”

Attention? “You had to take him to the hospital.”

I’d put a man in the hospital. I’d held his neck in my hands and squeezed.

“Hey.” Gray stared down at me. “Don’t go there. He tried to kill you. You defended yourself. He’s under guard and he won’t ever hurt you again. How’s your arm?”

“It was a scratch. I’m fine.” I wondered if he would even notice I no longer had any kind of wound.

“I’m glad.” He sighed and let his head sink to my shoulder, nuzzling my neck. “I was so terrified when I realized I wouldn’t get to you in time. He could have killed you. I wanted to strangle the bastard, too.”

“But you didn’t. I did.”

“Hush about that. There’s no reason for you to feel guilty. You did a good job, baby. I’m proud of you. I’m happy that my woman can handle herself. Now look at me and get that guilt out of your eyes. There’s no place for it here.”

Not in our bed. I let it go because I wanted him and I didn’t want to think anymore. Thinking got me in trouble. Being with Gray made me happy. “Yes, Gray.”

The bathroom door was partially open, sending slivers of golden light into the room. I’d learned Gray didn’t make love in the dark. He liked to see what he was doing. “I like the sound of that, sweetheart.” His fingers toyed with my upright nipples. He rolled them back and forth between his thumbs and forefingers. “You’ll go to the courthouse with me tomorrow and sign for our marriage license.”

It wasn’t a question. I was getting used to his bossy ways. I’d learned I could hold my own with him when I needed to, so it was fine to give him his way. “Yes, Gray.”

“We’ll get anything you need from your house and move you in tomorrow night,” he explained. “You can do whatever you want, redecorate, repaint, I don’t care, but you live here. This is your home. Our home. We’re going to be here for a long time.”