When confronted by Heath and Marko, the men had claimed to have no idea who had paid them to carry out the crime. But they were adamant he wasn’t from a gang, much less a leader of one.

I don’t know what they did to the guys, and I had no interest in knowing either. I could only stomach so much, and seeing the rage in Heath’s face as he went on this mission to return what they did to him, I was quite aware the truth would be hard to swallow.

“Yeah, I did see Ryker,” I said on a shrug. “He’s… changed.”

“Changed,” he repeated, like he wanted to taste the word on his tongue. “Changed, huh?”

“Yeah, Heath. He’s changed a lot.”

“So you spend over an hour in his motel room and you come out to say he’s changed. I’m struggling to understand that, Allie.”

Was it really an hour I’d been in there? It didn’t feel like that to me. I felt Heath’s eyes burning into me, studying my reaction, trying to pick apart what happened as if the story was written on my face.

“We talked,” I said. “Nothing else happened.”

“You talked? He answered in his towel and you… talked.”

“Yes, Heath, we talked.”

He was quiet.

Slowly, he got up and made his way to me. I glanced down his body, always taken aback by how big he was getting. Surely there was a limit to it? But he just seemed to get wider and fuller and standing in front of my little frame, I felt like a goddamn prey at times.

He stared down at me and then his hand clasped my chin. He moved my face from side to side, checking my neck like he was in search of something. He pulled at the top of my dress and proceeded to study my breasts, and I just stood there, letting him examine every part of me.

Leaning his face down to me, he stared into my eyes and then wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. I startled when I felt his other hand roaming beneath my dress and shoving its way into my undies.

“Jesus, Heath, what’re you doing?” I let out, trying to move away.

I felt his fingers at my sex and I knew exactly what he was doing then, and I bit my tongue in anger at the audacity in him! When he felt how not wet I was, he pulled his hand out, his face stern and unapologetic.

“He didn’t touch you?” he demanded in a harsh voice.

“No,” I immediately answered.

“You didn’t touch him?”

“No!”

“Did either of you want to?”

“No!”

I was breathing erratically at this point, and he was just staring at me, calm and reserved. Heath was possessive, sure, but he had never been like this before.

“How could you just do that?” I shakily asked in outrage.

“Because I check what’s mine,” he answered in an unwavering tone. “When the girl who used to be with my brother decides to see him behind my back, I check that shit out. I look for damage.”

I gritted my teeth, feeling anger like nothing before swarm my chest as I snapped, “Well, next time you check for damage, do it with your fucking hands to yourself. You touch me again like that without my permission, and I’ll have your fucking throat cut a second time.”

He stood frozen in his place, his eyes gazing at my mouth before his own perked up just a little – just a tiny little bit that would have gone completely unnoticed had I not been this close.

“Fuckin’ hell, I love you too much,” he whispered down to me, leaning his face to mine. “You can be such a fiery bitch.”

I shut my eyes when his lips skirted mine. Chills ran down my spine. Would my body ever stop responding to him?! I parted my mouth for him as he lightly licked my bottom lip. I grasped the collar of his shirt to me, already lost to the light touches and strong feelings he evoked in me, and muttered, “I’m only a bitch when you’re being a cold hearted dickhead.”

“That’s true,” he acknowledged. “I admit sometimes I’m a dick just to get a rise out of you.”

He kissed me roughly and steered me back until I was against the wall. His hands were everywhere, grasping every part of me into his thick hands. My body tightened in anticipation. Heath was a different kind of lover than what he used to be. He fucked me like it was going to be the last time he ever would, leaving me sore and bruised just the way he liked.

He grabbed at my thighs and picked me up, grinding my pussy with his hard erection. I moaned against his mouth, already fired up and ready. He gripped my hair hard with his other hand, keeping my face pinned in one spot as he fucked my mouth with his, biting at my lower lip until I moaned again in response.

This was good. Too good. He hadn’t touched me since he learned his brother was out. He’d held off and I knew he was bursting for it, and frankly I was too.

“Daddy!” Kayden suddenly hollered from his bedroom. “Daddy, come!”

Shit!

Heath froze against me and sighed long and slow. My heart was beating like a jackhammer. My forehead rested against his and I let out a sigh of my own. I was aching for him. God, he was such a dickhead at times, but he was mine no matter how much he’d changed. After his attack, I told myself I would have him in whatever way he was willing to give so long as he was alive.

“Kids, huh?” he muttered. “Should have sold him for a brick of chocolate when we had the chance.”

I grinned. “Somehow I think the seller would have realized he’d been duped.”

He hardly cracked a smile, but it was better than the stone faced Heath I’d gotten well used to. He slowly set me back down on the ground as Kayden called out once more, “Come, Daddy! Why you not come?”

Heath walked out, disappearing down the hallway and into Kayden’s room. After my heart calmed down, I went to the bedroom and peeked in. Kayden was sitting up in his toddler bed, his dark hair in a million different directions. Heath sat next to him, and the size difference between them would have been laughable had he not almost fucked me against the wall.

In Kayden’s lap was a sound book Heath had bought him for Christmas last year. There was a different animal on each page, and he’d listen to the sounds they made in awe.

“Awooo,” he went in his little voice, howling like the wolves on the page. “I wolf.”

“Nicely done,” Heath said softly. “And you are a wolf when you howl like that. You’re my little wolf.”