The Strength of the Pack (Suncoast Society #30)(45)

She hadn’t missed it was one of the shirts he wore to the club. One of his “Dom” shirts. And he’d worn the black leather boots she loved. They added nearly an inch to his already tall and lanky frame.

He didn’t need them to be imposing, though. He normally exuded an easy, soothing aura.

Today she felt a furnace burning within him, a protective fire she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to unleash on anyone who f*cked with her today.

It comforted her.

“I want to be there for my sister,” she said. “I can do this.”

“It isn’t a contest. You don’t get a prize for putting up with your father.”

“I know.”

He laced fingers with her, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it. Another gesture she loved, one that always melted her from the inside out.

“I make the call,” he repeated. “If I feel we need to leave, we leave. No argument. Understand? If that happens, I’ll take care of telling them we’re leaving. You owe them no explanations.”

“Yes, Sir.”

He smiled. “Good girl.”





Yesterday, Nate had talked a little with Leo on the phone about this. He wanted to know what kind of a minefield he was walking into, even if he wouldn’t have a map of all the mines.

Leo wouldn’t, obviously, give away her secrets, but he did give Nate some advice.

“Don’t blink first,” Leo said. “Don’t back down, don’t apologize, don’t look indecisive in the slightest. Screw being polite. The man will walk all over you—and her—if you show any hint of weakness. Be confrontational, if necessary, even before he is.”

“You don’t like him, do you?”

“Not in the slightest. And the feeling was mutual. When he realized I’m not someone who can be pushed around or manipulated, he wanted nothing to do with me.”

As Nate sat there and stared at Eva, he felt her tension, her anxious energy spiking through her like a crazed pinball on meth. Nothing about her body language said she wanted to be here. Nothing about her energy said she wanted to be here.

The key to fully understanding all of this, all the closely scattered clues and tightly held secrets, lay within Eva and her ability to fully trust him.

She fingered the tag on her necklace, the one they all now wore. Their pack.

One day, he hoped he could replace the tag on her necklace with one he’d already bought for her. Identical, except on the back he’d had his initials engraved above Leo and Jesse’s. He never wanted to separate her from her pack.

And with eagle-eyed Laurel running around, she would notice any kind of day collar he gave her that was different. Even Laurel would likely not notice the difference in the tag he’d had made.

Nate also didn’t want to cut Leo and Jesse out of Eva’s life because he sensed how much she needed them, in a way he didn’t yet understand. His suspicion was that it was connected to the minefield, too.

“Remember, I’m in charge today,” he said. “I’m responsible and in control of how long we stay, unless you want to leave sooner. If you need to hold my hand all night, that’s okay. I owe those people nothing, no explanations, and neither do you.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Nate felt a heavy pull deep in his gut, one that past experience told him was about to lead to a very bad end. Part of him still wanted to overrule her, turn around, and head back to Sarasota right then.

Yet, if he did that, he knew Eva wouldn’t be happy. Hell, she likely wouldn’t be happy anyway by the time they left her parents’ house, but he had to give her the chance to figure that out for herself.

He pulled her in for a kiss. “I love you, and I’m there, and nothing they can say or do will change how I feel about you or run me off. Understand?”

“Yes, Sir. Thank you. I love you, too.”

He took a deep breath and they got back underway.

Her parents lived in an older neighborhood near Town ’N Country, which was threaded through with canals that led to the north end of Tampa Bay. It looked like in the ‘70s or ‘80s the place might have been new and built by people back then considered to be in the upper echelon of income.

Now it was a middle-class neighborhood with some homes that tenaciously struggled to hold on to their rich roots, while other homes looked like they were barely staying ahead of code enforcement.

Hell, Leo and Eva’s house in Sarasota, while older, looked pristine and immaculate. So did his own.

Her parents fell somewhere in the middle, nothing to be ashamed of, but any real estate agent would have had a laundry list of curb appeal projects for them to undertake before a successful listing could happen. The driveway was already filled with four cars, and several more were parked along the street, two wheels in the grass.

He pulled down to the end of the line of cars and parked there, leaving enough room between him and the car behind them that if someone parked him in at the front, he could still back up and get out.

“Did you grow up here?”

She nodded as she stared at the house, but she didn’t answer.

He really didn’t want to go in there, and wanted her to go in there even less.

This was not a joyful homecoming for her.

“How long’s it been since you’ve been here?”