Here Kitty, Kitty! (32 page)

Angie returned to her chicken.  For once confident her friends were going to be okay.  Still, she only managed to get one bite before Ban and Alek sat down.  One on each side of her.

“So…you gonna stay with Nik?”

Angie choked on that one bite of food she’d managed to get.  Much more of this and she might lose a few pounds.

“That is none of your business, gentlemen.”

“What if he married you?”

What in the bloody hell is going on? 
“What?”

“Well, you human girls like that, right?”

Angie sighed, “I’m not having this discussion with you two.”

“That sound like a yes to you, Alek?”

“It sure does.”

“It does not!”  Angie took a deep breath.  “Go.  Away.”

“Okay,” Ban sighed as the two men stood.  “But remember, it takes forever for them Gucci people in Italy to get us in for our fittin’ and then to make our tuxes.”

“And they complain somethin’ awful when we go in there last minute, so make sure you give us ample warnin’.”

Angie thought about throwing her food at their retreating backs, but she’d become completely distracted by the fact the Vorislavs actually had people inside Gucci making them clothes.  Suddenly trips to Florence seemed in order.

Now smiling, Angie took another bite of her chicken leg.  She’d just swallowed when Nik suddenly stood in front of her.  He took the plate out of her hand and dropped it on the bench.  He yanked her up.

“Come with me.”

Without waiting for her to answer, he dragged Angie away, taking her to a wing of the house blocked off from party goers.  He found a study that without a TV she knew the Pack probably never used.  Like her, the wolves enjoyed their TV.  Dark and completely empty of anything but furniture, he pulled her inside, closing and locking the door behind him.

He kept his grip on her until he pushed her onto the couch, then he started pacing in front of her.

“Is something wrong?”

“Look, Sugar.  You know how I feel about you.”  She did?  “But I can’t live here with these people.  I mean… they’re dogs.  Literally.”

“Nik, I don’t…”

“Or…maybe, if you’re real set on it, we can build our own wing or house on the property.”

“Nik…”

“But Miki’s nightly yellin’—I mean, did you hear that last night?”  No.  She didn’t hear it.  But every time Conall and Miki woke up Nik, he woke her up and fucked her again.  No wonder Sara kept muttering about moving the pair to their own wing.  “I mean, what exactly does he do to her?  And then you got Zach and Sara using everything in this house as their personal bed, and I refuse to learn how to howl for anybody…

“Nik!”

He stopped rambling.  Even stopped pacing.

Angie took a deep breath.  She had no idea where this was leading, but she felt the need to be very clear.  “There is no way in hell I’d live here.”

“Really?”

“Really.”  She loved her friends, but come on…the days of slumber parties and debating who would lose their virginity first were long gone.  They would always be her best friends, her sisters, but that didn’t mean she needed to live with the crazy heifers.  “Why did you think I did?”

“Them dogs!  They said you’d wanna move in here to be close to Miki and Sara.  That y’all always planned on living together.”

Angie snorted out a laugh, then kept laughing.

“What?  What’s so damn funny?”

“I hate to tell ya this, Hillbilly, but you are now officially part of the Pack.”

“Everybody needs to stop sayin’ that to me!”

She shrugged, “Might as well face it.”

“I don’t wanna be one of them!  You ever see them hunt?  When they’re done, they roll around in the muck.  They act just like…”

“Dogs?”

“Exactly.”

“Look, Nik.  Do you wanna know why I’m sure you’re part of the Pack now?”

“Yeah.  Enlighten me.”

“Cause they’re fuckin’ with ya.  And you’re lettin’ ‘em.”

“What?”

“Dude, I have no desire to move here.  I love my friends.  They’re my sisters.  And they’ll always be my sisters.  No matter where I live…which won’t be here.  Visiting, yes.  Living here, no.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Thank the Lord!”  Nik threw himself onto the couch beside her.  “Them boys had me scared out of my ever-lovin’ mind.”  He put his head on her shoulder and suddenly Angie didn’t know quite what to do with the man.  “I kept having this vision of waking up in the middle of the night hearing ‘Oh, Conall.  Oh, Conall.’  Over and over again.”

“I’m not moving in here.”

“All right then.  I guess that’s settled.”

Angie nodded, “Good.”

“Except that does beg the question of where we
are
going to live.”

Angie sat forward.  “What is this ‘we’ thing?  Why do you keep saying…” she looked over to find Nik staring at her.  Just staring.  A cat that already has the mouse by its tail, so it was just entertaining to watch it trying to get away.  “We’re a ‘we’ now?”

“I thought I made that clear the other night when I tied you face down to the bed and fucked ya proper.”

Angie looked down at her lap to stop herself from hysterically laughing.  Really, how many times in a girl’s life would she hear
those
words?

“Um…,” she cleared her throat.  “What happened to ‘my kind lives alone’?”

Nik gave a deep sigh.  “I’ve had to face the fact, Sugar.  I am my father’s son.”

Well, she already knew that.  “That better not make me Natalia.”

“Naw.  Unlike how she treats my daddy, you’re nice to me.”

Very true.

“You know,” he stretched out on the couch, his head in her lap. 
Acting like he owns the place. 
“We could live in North Carolina.  But you know, my family.  Or we can move to Texas.  But those wolves will have to stay off our territory.  Or maybe we could move to France…no, I don’t wanna deal with the French, although I do love their food.  Maybe Italy?”  He shook his head.  “No.  They can be as bad as the French.  I don’t want those Italian men touching you.  Maybe England…except they got them funny accents.  Those might start irritatin’ the hell outta me.”

“Nik!”

Gold eyes locked with hers, “What, Sugar?”

She thought about making a break for it, but she’d seen Nik move.  He was way too fast for her and her baseball bat was in their bedroom.

Their bedroom.  Not hers.  Not his.  Theirs.

Forcing herself to calm down, Angie ran her hands through his hair.  Then she made the biggest leap of her life.  “Maybe we could split it between Texas and North Carolina.  But I’ll have to be here for Mik.  God knows poor Conall will need somebody to help him deal with how crazy she’ll get during the pregnancy.”

Nik shrugged, “That’ll work.”

“And we’ll have to figure out what to do about holidays and stuff.”

“Okay.”

She cleared her throat, “And I love you, Nik.”  She really did.  With all her heart, soul, and…

“I know, Sugar.  You’ve always loved me.”

Cockymotherfuckinfriedchickeneatin’ cat!

***

He thought for sure she’d start ripping hair out of his head.  Instead she tried to push him off her lap.

“I don’t know why I put up with your goddamn, motherfucking shit, Hillbilly, but…”

Nik grabbed her wrists, leaned up, and kissed her, cutting off her tirade.  His tongue sliding in and dragging around hers.  She sighed in response, her body softening against his.  His dick hardened and grew inside his black jeans.  That damn sigh of hers got him every time.

He pulled back from her, releasing her wrists.  Nik reached up with one hand and easily untied the leather strings holding up her top, pulling the leather down so that he had easy access to her breasts.  He sucked one into his mouth and Angie moaned, leaning back into the couch.  He played with it for awhile and turned his attention to the other.  Once he got both of her nipples good and hard, he looked up at her.  “I love you, Angelina.  I think since the moment I saw you in that airport.  I love that you’re ornery and rude and take absolutely no shit.  I love that you make my baby sister smile and that you think my daddy’s charmin’.  I love how you look that split second before you come and the way you say my name when I’m inside you.  I love everything about you and can’t imagine a second of my life without you.”

Angelina shook her head, “Thump.  Thump.  Thump.”

He still had no idea why the woman kept saying that.  And to be honest, he wasn’t about to ask.  She might tell him and it would probably just freak him out.

Instead he tunneled his fingers through her hair, getting a firm hold and eliciting a delicious moan from those gorgeous lips.  No.  He’d never get enough of this woman.  She was entirely too insane.

“You know, Sugar, that party will be goin’ on for hours and I’ve already locked the door.”  He ran his tongue along the underside of her jaw, while making sure he rubbed his arms against her bare breasts.  “There’s all sorts of things I could do to that sweet body of yours on this big ‘ol couch.”

She groaned, “Then do it, Hillbilly.”

“Not good enough.”  He nipped the flesh at her collar bone, and kissed her hard.  “I want you to tell me what you want, Angelina,” he whispered against her lips.  “I wanna hear you say it.”

She brushed his hair out of his face, her hand settling on his jaw.  Her eyes, filled with absolute love and trust, stared down at him.  Then she smiled.

“Touch me, Nik.”

Epilogue

“I blame you for this, little sister.”

“I was trying to be helpful.”

“Oh, you were helpful all right.  I’ve got bare-chested, overall-wearing hillbillies on my goddamn front porch because of you.”  A porch he never even wanted.  “I thought I’d only have to deal with one.  But for some unknown reason his brothers keep coming.”

His sister cleared her throat, “That probably has nothing to do with me.”

“Oh, you are so full of shit.”

She laughed.  “You still sound happy, though.”

“They’ve pulled out banjos.  Exactly how happy can I be?”

“You can’t bullshit me, Zacharias.  I can hear it in your voice.  You’re happy…whether you wanna be or not.”

“Whatever.  So when are you coming back to the den?”

“Um…ya know.  Soon…I guess.”

Zach watched his least favorite Pack member, the one who broke his baby sister’s heart, head out on his Harley.  Zach didn’t like most people, but there were very few he actively hated.

“I could kill him, ya know.  If you want me to.”

“Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

“Well, you’re going to have to come home sometime.  You’re going to be an aunt in a few more months.”

“How are you doing with that anyway?”

“He would be better off breeding with the right hand of Satan.”

His sister laughed, “Damn, Zach.  Tell me how you really feel.”

“You’ll see…when you come home.”

“If you’re ordering me home…”

“I wouldn’t do that.  I know you need time.  Take it.  But at some point, you’re going to have to face him.”  Zach pushed himself off the bike he leaned against, heading toward the house.  “And when you do, I’ll be here for you.”

“Thanks, big brother.  That means a lot to me.”

“Good…and you’ll get rid of the hillbillies, right?”

“You may be on your own with that one.”

“Selfish bitch.”

“Back atcha, mighty bro.”

Zach walked up the stairs of the newly installed porch.  He looked at Aleksei Vorislav.  “You wanna talk to my sister?”

The man’s face lit up as he held his hand out.  “Yeah!”

“Oh!”  Zach flipped his phone closed.  “She just hung up.”

Alek’s eyes narrowed and Zach glared back.  He didn’t like the two of them being friends when his sister was in college, and he definitely didn’t like the fact that the man now wouldn’t leave.

Alek reached into the front of his overalls and pulled out his cell.  He punched one number and waited, staring up at Zach.  “Hey, Nessa darlin’!  How y’all doin’?”

Zach growled low, debating whether Angie could ever forgive him for killing her brother-in-law…probably not.  He looked at Ban, “Seen Sara?”

“Not since they came back from huntin’ a little while ago.”

“Thanks.”  Zach walked into his house, stopping briefly to look into the living room.  Miki, at least six months pregnant now, lay comfortably between Conall’s legs, the big man’s body cushioning her from the hard arm of the couch.  His long arms looped around her, his big hands resting on her stomach.

“We are not naming any child of mine Eunice!”

“I think it’s a lovely name,” Miki smiled.  “There’s something so 1946 about it.”

“Why don’t we tack a big sign on her ass that says ‘my parents hated me so please feel free to mock!’  ”