The Truth Within (Pelican Bay 3)

One kiss.

It was just one kiss.

Who would it hurt?

No one even needed to know.

The thought was mine, but it wasn’t my voice I heard in my head. It was Carter’s. He’d said those exact words to me the first time he’d kissed me. As our relationship had progressed, that phrase had changed from “No one needs to know, Cam” to “No one can know.” And I’d been too far gone to understand what that really meant.

I wouldn’t do that again.

I couldn’t.

Even if I did want Ford a thousand times more than I’d ever wanted Carter. It was just more reason to stop this now.

I made myself release Ford and stepped back. He actually let out a little whimper and tried to follow me. I put my hands on his upper arms to stop him and ended up digging my fingers into his skin so I could test how firm his muscles really felt. His skin was soft and warm.

“Guest room’s upstairs. First door on the right. There’s bedding in one of the boxes in there. I’ll wake you at six so I can take you home before I go to work.” I refused to look at Ford as I spoke and the second I was done, I dropped my hands from his arms and turned on my heel to head upstairs.

I didn’t look back to see if he followed right away or not, but I hoped he wouldn’t. Because if I heard even a hint of him behind me, there was no way I’d be able to hang on to my resolve not to touch him again.

Thankfully, I didn’t hear anything, which left me equally relieved and disappointed.

“Fine,” I muttered to my inner voice before it could call me out on the lie. I was only a little relieved and a lot disappointed.

Chapter Ten

Ford

“Hey, Ford,” Isaac said with a smile the moment I opened the door to the office at the sanctuary.

“Ford!” his little brother, Newt, yelled. He jumped up from where he was playing with a small kitten that was tucked up between Loki’s forelegs.

“Hi,” I said to Isaac. “Hi, Newt. How was the water park?”

“Awesome!” the child practically yelled. “There were all these tubes you could slide down and a big pool with a waterfall and another one with a wave.”

I was happy to see that Newt was still wearing his helmet that I’d designed for him.

“Did everyone else have fun?” I asked as I knelt so I was at his level.

Newt’s face twisted into a mix between a frown and a grin. There was an eye roll thrown in as he said, “Isaac and Mad kept hiding behind the waterfall. Mad said they were spitting on it but Uncle Dallas said they were swapping spit. Mad won’t show me how to do that.”

I laughed as Isaac muttered, “I’m going to kill that man.” He glanced at Newt as soon as he said the words and added, “With kindness. I’m going to kill your uncle Dallas with kindness.”

“Then will you tell me how to swap spit?”

“Yes,” Isaac said. “When you’re thirty.”

Before he could say anything else, Newt horked something up and spit it into his palm, then stomped up to his big brother and held out his hand. “Spit on it,” he demanded. I saw a big gob of spit hanging off the little boy’s hand.

Isaac reluctantly took Newt’s hand. “I’m going to kill that man too.”

“Who?” Newt asked as he shook his brother’s hand with a couple of hard pumps of his arm.

“Mad.”

“Oh. With kindness?” Newt asked curiously.

“No,” Isaac responded, then he grabbed his brother up in a hug and pressed a big, wet, loud raspberry against his neck. Isaac squealed and fought him.

“Will you go find Maddox and tell him Ford is here?”

Newt nodded, then threw his arms around his brother briefly before heading toward the door.

“Take Loki,” Isaac called.

“’Kay! Watch Snot!”

As Newt called for Loki, Isaac got up and went to get the kitten that tried to chase after Loki as the wolf-hybrid dashed out the door to follow Newt. I closed the door behind the little boy.

I had no clue why Maddox had sent me a text asking to meet him at the sanctuary, but admittedly, I was nervous about it. The men had arrived back from their vacation the day before so they didn’t need me to help out in the afternoons anymore, to my disappointment. I definitely could have used the distraction because my regular job, my visits to Walter, and my work at my studio weren’t cutting it.

“It” being the incessant need I had to cut out the part of me that couldn’t stop thinking about Cam. I’d been so worried about the switch he’d flipped inside that had made my little box of secrets light up, I’d never seen the real threat coming.