With Everything I Am (The Three #2)(33)
Author: Kristen Ashley

“What do you want to talk about?” he asked.

Oh no. Now what had she done?

“Um…” she started.

He chuckled into the back of her hair and then said softly, “Baby doll, you’ve had another tough day. Thwarted escape, coming to terms with your destiny, meeting the in-laws, emotional breakdowns. I’m not going to come onto you after a day like that.”

Well, that was a relief. It was even nice.

And, actually, sweet.

Luckily, he spoke, pulling her thoughts away from him being sweet. “Why do you want the Christmas lights on?”

“I like sleeping with them on,” she told him.

“Yes, I guessed that. You had them on in your bedroom at your house too. I’m asking why?”

She shrugged, willing to talk but she’d never be willing to let him in and replied, “I just like Christmas.”

He was silent a moment and then he sighed.

“We’ll let that go for now.”

At last, something to be thankful for. Callum, at least, was going to let her keep her own thoughts to herself.

For now.

“I’ll try something else,” he said.

She expressed her thanks to the cosmos too soon.

Callum went on, “You want to tell me why your entire house is clinical and pristine and not anywhere someone would want to spend time but your bedroom is the opposite?”

“My house is lovely,” she retorted.

“It is,” he agreed. “In a clinical, pristine, not anywhere someone would want to spend time kind of way.”

Her body got stiff again. “Callum.”

“But you’re bedroom,” he broke in. “That’s a place you want to stay awhile.”

She felt her pulse quicken on the thought that Callum thought her bedroom was somewhere he wanted to stay awhile.

However, he probably wanted to do it in someone else’s company.

She decided to let him in just a little bit in order to get this over with.

“Gregor can be…” she tried to find the word, “daunting and he has a lot of opinions that he doesn’t mind sharing.”

“What’s that got to do with your house?”

“He didn’t like me buying that house so, to shut him up, I decorated it in a way he’d like,” she answered. “But my bedroom is mine. It’s my private space, a space where I can be who I’m meant to be.”

His arm curled tighter around her belly and she felt his face in her hair.

“You can be who you’re meant to be everywhere, honey. Just do it. Who gives a f**k about Gregor’s opinion?”

“I do. He raised me. I owe him,” she replied.

Callum’s face came out of her hair and he said firmly, “You don’t owe that man dick.”

“I know you don’t like him,” she whispered, finding it bizarre in the extreme he knew so much about her and that their lives had been intermingled for so long and in different ways, none of which she knew about. “Your Mom told me your Dad didn’t get along with him. But, for all this time, he was all I had. And he wasn’t great at it, but I knew he tried hard and he took care of me. You might not like him, Callum, but he means something to me, he took care of me and he did the best he could.”

There was silence then she felt his face burrow back into her hair and he thankfully let it go.

“Your bedroom reminds me of this cabin when I first bought it,” he told her.

“I’m not surprised.” She was still whispering. “I always thought of this place as home. I guess, with my bedroom, I was trying to recreate a little bit of home.”

He pulled her ever deeper into his body but lifted his head to nuzzle her with his temple.

When he stopped, he muttered in her ear, “You’re home now.” Then he kissed her neck softly which made a happy shiver run from her neck, down her spine.

She was far from home, she knew.

She’d never be home again, she knew that too.

But, as ever, this was as good as it was going to get.

On that thought, she relaxed into him. He read her mood, stopped talking and, shortly after, with the Christmas lights twinkling, she fell asleep in Callum’s arms.

Chapter Eight

Wolf

Sonia heard a strange noise like claws clicking on wood floors and her eyes opened.

She was in the cabin, the green, red and white Christmas lights twinkling from the mantel in front of her casting a cheerful glow to the dark room.

Her puppy was wandering across the room. He stopped and shook his massive body as if shaking off wet or cold. Then he started to lean back on his powerfully muscled haunches as if preparing to sit.

Or leap.

But he didn’t when she whispered, “Puppy.”

His body stopped its movement, he came alert and his massive head swung to face her.

This was a dream, she knew.

Her father told her that wounded or sick animals often disappeared in order to die with dignity.

Her puppy had been filled with dignity.

And she’d known, the moment he looked in her eyes that night, if he didn’t have to, he’d never leave her.

But he’d been bleeding.

So when Gregor gently shook her awake that Christmas morning after her parents died and she found her puppy gone, she knew he’d stolen away in order to die.

Even if he hadn’t, that was over thirty years ago. He’d been a full grown wolf then. He couldn’t have survived thirty years.

Therefore, this was definitely a dream.

Sleepily, her arm fell toward him and she whispered, “Come here, handsome.”

More than half asleep, her eyelids slowly lowered but she felt the thick, soft fur of his muzzle glide almost lovingly along her fingertips. It was cold and damp, as if he’d just come in from a run in the snow.

“My puppy,” she sighed drowsily and moved her fingers over his muzzle to his head in a loving caress.

Eyes still closed, she finished her stroke before she tucked her hand under her cheek.

“I wish you’d bring me my handsome wolf. I miss him,” she murmured as slumber started to invade.

She did wish that. Her dream Callum loved her, her. He didn’t simply feel a duty to his queen and if she couldn’t have him in the real world, she’d take what she could get in her dreams.

She felt the bed depress on either side of her just as she smelled an attractive, musky scent the likes of which she’d never smelled. She fought the permeating sleep and her eyes fluttered open.

Callum was there, not King Callum, her handsome wolf. He was leaned over, hands in the bed on either side of her. She knew this Callum was hers because his beautiful face in the twinkling lights showed a mixture of tenderness and desire, a look he’d given her many times before.