She’d never forget the night Cullen and two young women had come to her father’s house. Bloody and bruised after an attack by Council soldiers. The girls hadn’t been crying; they’d been stoic, their eyes filled with nightmares. And Cullen’s eyes had burned with rage, with determination despite the blood that marred his hair and his clothes.
She’d been so angry, furious as she overheard her father and the warriors standing in the shadows discussing the attack of the Council soldiers against the three. A Breed and two young girls he was trying so desperately to protect. The Council Breeds chasing them were intent on recapturing them, torturing them.
And Cullen had stood silently, the two girls huddled behind him, uncertain of the men who had saved them and clearly willing to go to battle again. She’d wanted nothing more than to be at his side and help him.
Reaching up, she touched a single tear that drifted from her eyes at the memory. She’d shed a lot of tears as a teenager for Cullen. And she’d trained, worked her ass off just to fight beside him to make certain other Breeds were protected. Such fierce determination to survive should have never been threatened in such a way.
He didn’t want her working by his side, though. He wanted her in the office, away from him.
Breathing out heavily, she swiped the nearly dry strands of straight hair back from her face, her gaze critical now. She wasn’t nearly as beautiful as Lauren had been.
Her shoulder-length black hair wasn’t the rich, textured black ribbon that Lauren’s had been. Her brown eyes were flecked with hints of green. Her skin was much lighter than Lauren’s. She didn’t have the dark Navajo bronze skin; rather hers was the color of a good suntan, closer to that of her Caucasian mother.
She was short, her breasts fuller, and she was rounder than her cousin had been. She wasn’t girly, a debutante or fragile and she’d never wanted to be. At best, she could only claim pretty, maybe.
Damn sure she couldn’t claim the man she often wondered if she’d fallen in love with when she was no more than a young girl staring through the darkness and seeing that fierce will burning in his eyes.
It was still there. That determination to survive, to fight, to protect those he took responsibility for. And she still wanted nothing more than to fight by his side.
Shaking her head, Chelsea tucked the towel tighter at her breasts and strode into her bedroom, where she came to a hard, shocked stop.
As though conjured there by thoughts alone, Cullen stood leaning in the door frame between her bedroom and the short hall leading into the living room.
Dressed in a short-sleeved khaki shirt, jeans and boots, arms crossed over his broad chest, his gold-flecked green eyes hooded and brooding, he watched her with silent intensity.
Her fingers tightened at the tuck of the towel as her heart fluttered with sudden nerves.
“Forget how to knock or call?” she asked as she strode across the bedroom to her dresser. Pulling out drawers, she collected a pair of panties and a bra and tucked them between a pair of yoga pants and a loose gray T-shirt.
“And give you warning that I was coming? You might have left,” he told her, his tone querulous.
The sound of his voice had remembered pleasure washing through her senses. Reaching up, she rubbed at the reddened area between her neck and shoulder, her eyes closing with the subtle sensations that shot through her body.
“I would have still been here.” Chelsea shrugged, turning back to him. “Give me a minute and I’ll get dressed.”
She was not getting involved in one of their irate discussions dressed in only a towel.
“Why?” He tilted his head to the side, his expression appearing darker somehow, sexier. “I’ll just have to take the clothes back off you soon. Why go to the trouble?”
She almost dropped her clothes. Eyes widening, she stared back at him, unable to believe the words that had just come out of his mouth.
“Why make it easy for you?” Casting him a narrow-eyed look, she hurried back to the bathroom, dressed and, for a moment, actually considered texting Draeger to see if he and Tobias wanted to play cards for a few hours.
Wouldn’t that put a crimp in Cullen’s little plan?
Asshole.
She didn’t need another Breed to fight her battles, though, she finally decided. She might have waited far too many years for him to show more interest than it took for him to hand her a file.
Returning to the bedroom, fully dressed but no less nervous, Chelsea found him in the same position she’d left him in. He hadn’t shifted an inch, nor had his expression changed.
Smoothing her hands over her hips, she drew in a deep breath and steeled herself for the coming confrontation. She could see the storm brewing in his eyes, feel it brewing in herself.
“I hope you aren’t expecting to tear my clothes off anytime soon,” she told him sweetly as she stalked across the bedroom to the doorway. “I’d at least like a cup of coffee first.”
Brushing past him, she almost let out a silent breath of relief when he caught her arm, drawing her quickly to a stop.
Staring up at him, she was caught by the flecks of amber fire in the jungle green as they seemed brightened by the anger that narrowed his gaze.