“You always were,” he told her.
Her eyes warmed at that, and he kissed her, tasting her fierce heat. He wanted to bring her inside and make love to her for hours.
Her phone rang.
She sat back. “Hold that thought.” She got up to go answer it, while Grey contemplated the evils of cell phones.
“Paul?” Alethia said, and he sat up, alert.
“So what?” she said into the phone. “You want to know where I am? Well, it’s none of your business because I’m a grown woman, but I’ll tell you: I’m at Grey Landin’s cabin. Yes! And you can try and come drag me home if you want, but I don’t think it’s going to work. Sure, bring whoever you want. It still won’t work.”
She hung up with a violent gesture.
“Company coming?” Grey asked mildly.
“I think so,” she said.
He couldn’t wait.
***
He had to, though. It was almost forty minutes before he heard the telltale sounds of a car outside. Someone was pulling off the road into his driveway.
He took Alethia’s hand, and they went out to face them together.
When he opened the door, there was a rusty pickup truck coming to a stop just outside. Grey and Alethia went down the steps to confront Paul Parker and Matt Finch.
“Found out where you live,” Matt sneered at him.
Grey looked at the pickup truck, looked back at his cabin. “Was that what you came to tell me? Because I figured it out when you pulled up, you didn’t need to actually say it.”
“Don’t be smart,” Paul said. “We’re here to teach you a lesson about what you did to my sister.”
Grey stepped forward. The leopard inside him was flexing its claws, eager to get out. “What I did?” he asked, low and dangerous. “How about what you did?”
“What we did? We haven’t done anything to her!” Paul’s voice was genuinely confused.
“Really?” Grey asked. “You haven’t belittled her? Treated her like she’s worthless? Insulted her?”
He turned to Matt. “And you didn’t lie to her, betray her, and break her heart?”
Paul looked bewildered, as though he’d forgotten about it.
But Matt smiled. “Oh, yeah. We dated a little while when we were kids. She got the wrong idea. You still hurt about that, baby?” he asked Alethia. “You sure got around after we broke up. I thought you were fine.”
Grey saw red.
His fingers were lengthening into claws when he heard Alethia’s voice behind him. “You know exactly what you did.” Her voice was steel. “You just don’t care.”
“But the kitty cat cares.” Matt’s voice was mocking.
Paul was watching Grey nervously. “Ali, get over here,” he said. “Otherwise, you’re going to get hurt.”
“I will go wherever the hell I want to, Paul, and I don’t want or need your protection. And if you don’t get out of here right now, there’ll be consequences.”
Pride swelled in Grey’s chest. Alethia sounded fierce and confident—like she truly didn’t care what Paul and Matt were saying about her.
“Oh, there’ll be consequences,” Matt said, and now his voice had a low growl running underneath it. “But they won’t be for us.”