They gave their statements and then to the insurance company agent who’d visited the site. Until the situation was investigated more thoroughly, Nina knew she wouldn’t be seeing a dime from them. Thankfully she had a comfortable enough savings to deal with her living situation until that came through without having to touch her secret account. But it made her uncomfortable nonetheless. She’d lived hand to mouth and she had no desire to ever do so again.

* * * * *

On the way back to the house she made Lex stop at a local mall so that she could get some clothing and toiletries.

He did the typical man thing with that hangdog—she giggled to herself at the word—face as she shopped. Finally, two hours later, they emerged laden with bags of clothes, shoes and other necessities, which he loaded into the car without complaint. Vocal complaint anyway.

“I can’t believe you took so long,” he grumbled as he loaded the bags into the back of the car. There were few things worse than shopping, in his opinion. Even watching Nina Reyes pick out panties wasn’t enough to make up for the misery of the mall.

“Well excuse me! My f**king house was torched because of some shady shit your people got up to! I had two pairs of pants, two shirts, a pair of sneakers and one extra pair of underwear. I don’t have some big giant mansion with Mercedes in the garage.”

She stood there, nose to nose with an alpha wolf, hands on her hips, eyes flashing.

Lex looked at her, watched her chest rise and fall with her breath, watched the fire in her eyes. God, she was magnificent, and every inch his equal. He pulled her to him and his lips crushed down on hers as he growled in frustration. At first she was stiff in his arms but within moments she softened and her hands slid up the wall of his chest and into his hair.

Her tongue shyly touched his lips and then possessiveness roared through him as her taste filled his senses. His mouth opened and he coaxed her tongue with his own. His hands kneaded her ass, the tips of his fingers moving toward the heat between her thighs.

She moaned at the pleasure of being in his embrace and had angled her head to kiss him more fully when a series of beeps sounded. Lex stiffened and then groaned as he pulled back from her.

“What?” she murmured, eyes slightly glazed.

He pulled a small phone out of his pocket and answered it, all the while moving her toward her side of the car. “I know,” he grunted into the receiver and snapped it closed.

He opened the car door and motioned with his head for her to get inside.

“What? Why did you stop?” she asked, confused.

“We’re standing in the open. It was stupid of me to let myself get carried away,” he said as he gently but firmly pushed her inside the car and closed the door behind her.

He walked around to the driver’s side and got in as she sat there, openmouthed at his comments.

Carried away? He groped her! He kissed her! He started it and he refers to that kiss as being carried away? Nina ground her teeth in frustration. She got the out in the open part—that was logical to be worried about—but carried away? Ugh!

Lex’s nostrils flared. He could scent her anger and her frustration. “What are you mad about now?” he asked, agitation clear in his voice.

She turned on him, her arms crossed tight over her chest. Her eyebrows shot straight up with incredulity, her mouth opened but she closed it again. What on earth could she possibly say to this insufferable jerk? She snorted, turned back around and looked out the window without making a comment.

He tried to get her to speak a few more times but she just acted as if he didn’t even exist—and oh how he hated the silent treatment. He only got it from human women. Well, female humans and his sisters. Other than that, female wolves accepted his dominant nature and didn’t question it. Damn it! All of the beautiful and docile Pack females and his mate is a prickly human? Figured.

“Fine, be that way,” he mumbled and pulled up the drive to the house.

She mimicked him with her head turned, not giving him the satisfaction of getting a rise out of her, and when the car stopped she got out and went to the trunk, waiting for him to unlock it.

He came around and opened it and moved her out of the way with his body. “Don’t be silly. Let me carry the bags.”

She tsked and moved back, motioning toward the car.

He carried the stuff up to her room and put it down. “Look, I’ve offended you somehow and I’m sorry. I thought you wanted me to kiss you. You certainly seemed disappointed when I stopped. After this morning, I thought that we…well that we had some major chemistry and I…”

“I’m not mad about the kiss!” she exploded. “It’s being characterized as a mistake that I have a problem with.”

“What? I never said it was a mistake to kiss you!” He began to stalk toward her and she moved back.

“You said it was stupid!” She squeaked as her back hit the door and she had nowhere left to go to escape him. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, could see the gold ring around the pupil of his eyes, could smell his skin.

“I said it was stupid to let myself get carried away,” he said softly, leaning in and caging her with his body. “I’ve been doing this for a very long time, I made a rookie mistake by forgetting myself in a public place like that. I left us both open to attack. That was stupid. But I lose my head around you. When I touch you, smell you, I forget everything else.”

His voice was so deep and low that the vibration of it slid down her spine and she had to close her eyes against it. “Oh.” Jeez! Could she be any less articulate?