“There’s a difference.” The tension already radiating through him only increased. “You just don’t want to see it.”
“My training’s more advanced than theirs,” she argued. “I’ve trained for ten years with Special Forces and Navy SEALs. I’m a part of the Breed Underground and worked in a covert capacity with them, and all you want me to do is your damned filing.”
He could smell her arousal deepening, the scent of her need filling his nostrils and intoxicating his senses.
The adrenaline, he told himself desperately. It was all part of the Mating Heat; Graeme had even warned him about it. An adrenaline surge of any kind amped the need for confrontation and for sex. The female mate needed to assert her own independence and test the strength of her mate. She’d push until his animal pushed back. And he was damned if he couldn’t feel the animal demanding that Cullen push back.
“This is the wrong fucking argument to have right now,” he told her firmly, shooting her a silencing look.
A hard breath expelled from her lips as she turned and glared straight ahead again, her lips pressed firmly together, and he ached for the hurt he could sense spilling from her. She wanted something he simply didn’t know how to give her. It had nothing to do with respect or trust or a certainty of her abilities. It was the certainty that he’d never be the same if anything happened to her.
“Breeds only mate once, Chelsea,” he finally sighed as he made the turn onto his
street and headed for the end of it where his home was located. “If anything were to happen you I’d never get a second chance—”
He broke off, the sight of the vehicles in his drive pulling the growl he’d been holding back free. It rumbled from his chest, deeper, the sound more predatory than any he’d issued to this point.
“God, I so didn’t need this,” Chelsea muttered from beside him. “What is it, a frickin’ family reunion? Intervention time?”
A family reunion just about described it, along with a healthy dose of the past that he just wasn’t in the mood for.
“For God’s sake, that’s your in-laws,” she hissed in disbelief as he pulled the Dragoon to the curb rather than blocking the four vehicles in his driveway and being forced to move to allow them to leave later.
His former in-laws. Arthur and Marsha Holden, Lauren’s parents.
“They’re your cousins,” he pointed out, shooting her a brooding glare.
She shrugged with a roll of her eyes. “Can’t choose your family, but you can damned sure choose your in-laws. Your taste sucks, by the way.”
Chelsea pushed the passenger door open and forced herself to step from the vehicle. The jolt of her feet against the pavement as she was forced to all but jump from the opening brought a muttered groan from her lips.
“Dammit, can’t you wait two seconds?” Cullen cursed as she found herself swung up into his arms and cushioned against his broad chest.
Her arms went around his shoulders instinctively despite the angry look she shot him.
“If I felt like waiting, then that’s what I would have done,” she informed him, suddenly feeling every ache and bruise in her body.
She didn’t feel like dealing with her family, not right now while she was bruised and bloody and her father was staring at her with something akin to agonized horror.
He didn’t have a chance to reply. Her sister rushed from her husband’s side, concern in her expression as she took Cullen’s keys and ran to unlock and open the front door.
He carried Chelsea into the house and laid her on the couch in his plain living room. Couch, two easy chairs, a few tables and a lamp. It had that unlived-in feel even though he’d lived there since the year after his wife died.
The whole house had an unlived-in feel. She’d noticed that the few times she’d been there. It was a place to sleep when he needed it, a place to hang his clothes and shower and little else.
“I’ll get the first-aid kit.” Malachi headed through the house, looking around as he went, obviously acquainted with it. “Damn, son, when are you going to hang a picture or two?”
“When you buy them and hang them, I guess,” Cullen grunted.
Behind him, Chelsea’s father, Terran, her grandfather, Orrin, and Cullen’s former in-laws stepped into the house. They looked around the living room and into the kitchen as though confused by the feeling of it. Only her grandfather’s expression reflected something other than distaste. He appeared thoughtful, his head tilted, no doubt listening to whatever he could hear in the very air itself.
Chelsea didn’t doubt the air in the house was speaking to him, spilling Cullen’s secrets, whispering to him of whatever it was that spoke of such loneliness in the place Cullen called home.
“Interesting,” Arthur murmured, his heavily lined face still drawn with the same grief she’d seen in it at Lauren’s funeral ten years ago.
Tall, reed thin, his facial features rather long and too somber, Arthur Holden wasn’t a man to joke and laugh with. His wife had once been much more animated, smiling, her hazel eyes always bright with whatever emotion she felt. They weren’t like that any longer. The loss of her only child, her daughter, had stilled that sparkle and taken the animation from her expression.
Marsha stood, appearing uncomfortable, uncertain what to do as Malachi placed the first-aid kit on the coffee table and Isabelle sat on the couch next to Chelsea and stared down at her in sympathy and concern.