Page 39 of Puck My Life

Raynor appears from the laundry, glaring at me, but I ignore him. He’s still not really talking to anyone, and I’m done with his tantrums.

The truth is, I’m furious. I’m angry at Marilyn and her busybody butting into our business. I’m even angrier that Vae is trying to leave because none of it makes any sense.

We belong together.

We always have, and we always will.

I want to back Vae so far into a corner that she realises how stupid she’s being and backs down. I want to see her squirm, but I also really, really want to see what she looks like without clothes on.

And I don’t understand why, and that has annoyed me, too.

Nothing should change. It should stay the same. Why has she upended our lives?

I pretend to send a text to all the people I didn’t send one to and smirk at her. She’s in the hallway, trying to put space between us. Her expression is guarded. Strands of her long dark hair have come loose and hang around her face. Her hazel eyes track my movements as I lean in close to her.

“Shall we have dinner first and invite Mal and Raynor to referee?”

“So you can cheat?”

I bite my lower lip. When her eyes track down and linger, I get, to my surprise, a powerful punch to the dick feels. I let it go slowly, and she takes another step back into the wall.

“Why are you running, Vae?” I purr.

Her eyes dart back up, and she almost curls in on herself. “I’m not.”

“What are you hiding?”

Her mouth drops open, and she shakes her head vigorously. “I have to go home, to the hotel-”

“You stay here tonight and play the game or I go and turn this house into party central and destroy poor baby Mal’s career.”

“You’re being an ass, Deacon.”

“I know. But-” I reach out and touch her cheek. She flinches, and it gives me an unpleasant hollow in my chest. “-You love me.”

I wait, almost expecting her to deny it.

“I do,” she whispers, and, for some reason, that fact leaves her absolutely crushed.

Mal bursts into the house, sees her, and rushes her, scooping her into his arms and dragging her off.

I watch them go, not at all concerned. If Mal has her, she won’t escape. He’s her weakness.

“What are you doing now?” Raynor hisses at me.

“I’m going to find out what she’s hiding, and then everything is going to go back the way it was.”

Raynor snorts. I’m over him constantly challenging me. We’re the same alpha with subtle differences. But, at the core of us, we are both equally strong, our tempers are knife-edge sharp, and we feel things deeply. We just don’t always take the same road.

“Don’t hurt her, Deacon.”

I scowl. “I’m not going to hurt her,” I mutter, frustrated. “I just want to know why she’s leaving us. Doesn’t that bother you?”’

“She told us. She wants a family, a kid, love.”

“And you believe that?” I snort. “All of a sudden, with no word about it beforehand, she’s suddenly claiming that she needs those three things so desperately that she’d rather go and sleep in a hotel than stay in this house? You believe that?”

“You followed her? Never mind, of course, you did.” Raynor presses his lips into a thin line before he sighs and turns away, going to the counter and holding onto the old sink. “I don't know what to think.”