Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven 1)

“Will I ever forget your eyes?” she murmured.

Another question she already knew the answer to.

“I’m nothing special.” His shoulders lifted briefly. “Just a handyman.”

“So much more than that.”

Daniel put his hand out. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs.”

Letting the drape fall back into place, she got to her feet and slipped her hand in his. When they came to the steps to the second floor, he ushered her forward, all ladies-first. As she brushed by his body, she thought that the normal things that couples who lived together did were such a quiet joy. Brushing teeth at the same time over the sink. Changing into PJs together. Settling in and turning off the lights.

She wished she could have a lifetime of that with him.

Upstairs, they went to her room, not the guest room, but then he doubled back to go to the loo by himself. After she changed into PJs, he came back in and took the side of the bed closest to the door, plumping up the pillows and testing the mattress with his big palms. Leaving him to sort things of the bedding variety to his liking, she did her normal nightly routine down the hall at the sink—and when she returned to the room, she noticed that he’d moved his saddlebags in and put them right beside where he’d stretched out in the sheets.

That’s where his gun is, she thought as she pulled the covers back on the far side and slid in with him.

It was the most natural thing in the world to move through the cool sheets and find his warm body. Relaxing in against his chest, he stretched his long arm out and clicked off the lamp.

Lydia stared out the open doorway. She’d left the bathroom light on, so the banister’s supports cast shadows on the bare wood floor of the hallway.

I could do this forever, she thought.

Just regular stuff, like dinner, and laundry, and dental care. She supposed it was pathetic to have such simple life goals. Aspirations should be all about cars and fancy vacations—and this made her think about Peter Wynne.

How much of those renovations on that barn had been paid for by donations to the Wolf Study Project? Had he been buying that information about those horrific experiments? Or selling it?

And what the hell was she going to do with what she knew?

“Try to get some sleep,” Daniel murmured. “Morning is coming.”

Just like a freight train.

And she supposed it was a testament to Daniel that, with the long list of things weighing on her, he was the only part of it all that mattered. How else could their relationship have ended, though. Seriously. What other end could they have?

Besides, if he was gone?

She knew that he was safe.

There was peace to be had in that.

LYDIA WOKE UP to the sounds of spring bird-songs and the warmth of a patch of sunlight on her face. As her eyes blinked open, she found herself looking across at the window seat with its cozy pillows and its throw blanket and its never-had-a-cat-but-really-should-have cushions.

With an ache behind her sternum, she edited her alcove fantasy. Instead of the solo flight with the book and the tea and that cat, she imagined two people propped against opposite ends, their legs intertwined in the middle under the blanket. As they traded newspaper sections, and tossed those that had been jointly read on the floor, a TV table in between them held a pair of mugs of coffee and a shared plate dotted with muffin crumbs.

Rolling over, she looked at the empty place where Daniel had slept. He’d made sure she was tucked in after he’d gotten up, and the head print on the pillows was proof of the hours they had passed, side by side, in her bed.

Down the hall, the shower was running.

Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was a little after seven a.m. Time was running out.

With a sense of urgency, she threw the covers off herself and rushed for the closed bathroom door. But as she came up to it, she paused at the panels. Then she knocked.

“Lydia?” came the muffled answer.

Opening the way in, she was hit with a rolling, warm mist. Across the narrow space, Daniel had opened the glass enclosure and was looking around it, his broad chest glistening from the water, a bar of soap in his hand, suds drifting down his abs and onto his thighs.

As she stared at his sex, she watched it thicken. Harden. Become erect.

Lydia stepped in and closed the door behind herself. Ditching her PJs, she joined him under the warm spray, and with hands that trembled with anticipation, she ran her fingertips down his pecs and onto his six-pack.

Sinking onto her knees, she touched the sweeping wings of his pelvis and zeroed in on his arousal. Just as he groaned and fell back into the corner of the tub stall, she wrapped her hand around his thick shaft and stroked—