Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Chapter Fifteen
Navin
Brea isn’t happy about it when I force her to take a nap after lunch. She’s still recovering from a near-fatal injury, I tell her. She needs to rest.
She argues that she’s a grown woman who doesn’t take naps, and I ignore her as I not only strip off her sweatshirt, socks, and pants, but also remove her panties and put a diaper on her.
Brea squirms, her brows furrowed in frustration. “I’m not going to wet the bed,” she informs me.
“Nope. You aren’t. Because if you happen to pee yourself, it will get absorbed by the diaper.”
She growls at me, but I pop a pacifier in her mouth, turn her on her side in the middle of the bed, nestle her between some pillows, and cover her with a thick blanket. She won’t be as warm as she is when she’s nesting between my legs, but she’ll be fine.
I sit next to her and stroke her hair for the three minutes it takes until she falls into a deep sleep. Not tired, my ass.
I’m smiling as I leave her asleep and step outside. This time, I’m wearing a shirt and shoes, which makes Orion chuckle. “What? You’re not going to show me your chest again this afternoon?”
I flip him off without a word. It’s fall here, and the weather is going to start turning. It will be a bit colder every day, but when we’re working outside, we rarely bundle up more than our usual clothes and maybe a jacket or sweatshirt. Some gloves to protect our hands.
Can we step outside in jeans with no shirt or shoes? Yes. Did I do it to impress my mate? Maybe. Mostly I just didn’t want to wear a shirt in the house because I enjoy the feel of my mate pressed directly against my skin. We’d only been outside long enough for me to do a demonstration shift. Clothing wasn’t needed.
I’ve put on a Henley and work boots this afternoon. The chill in the air doesn’t bother me, but I do need to remember to bundle my mate up anytime I take her outside. She’d be cold wearing as little as I’m wearing.
Ronan’s truck pulls up while Orion is still chuckling at me. This is why I wanted my mate to take a nap—besides the fact that she needs more sleep. Lord knows when she last slept well. I suspect it’s been a long time.
I wanted to unload the things Ronan and Quinn picked up for me in town and talk to them about what they found out about Mitchel without my mate present.
Quinn looks grim when he hops down from the truck. His brows are furrowed, and his jaw is set.
Ronan has the same expression as he rounds to our side.
“I take it you found Mitchel,” I say, planting my hands on my hips. They’re far too serious for a grocery and supply delivery.
Ronan growls. “Oh, we did. What a fucking piece of work.”
I cringe. “Talk to me.”
Quinn picks up, “Guy owns a storage facility, though I suspect half his units are not rented to legitimate people for the safekeeping of legal items. We snooped around a bit before we went into the office. He’s a sleazeball. There was a woman in the office, too. She had a black eye and looked scared out of her mind.”
Ronan grunts. “It was tough to walk away without strangling him on the spot. We considered it.”
My blood is boiling, but I knew it would be. “Did you find out where he lives?”
Quinn takes over again. “Yes. That was easy. Rundown house on the outskirts of town. It has a basement, like you said. I easily broke into one of the basement windows and jumped down inside. Your mate’s scent lingered. The conditions he was holding her in were deplorable. I considered going back to the storage facility to shoot the fucker between the eyes.”
“I’m glad you showed restraint,” I grumble, mostly because I’d like to personally kill the guy.
Ronan nods. “It’s been a long time since any of us faced this kind of problem. We should have a pride meeting to discuss what we’re going to do. We need to rid the world of his type of scum, but we need to do so in a way that we are not implicated or even suspected.”
I inhale so deeply my nostrils flare. “I agree. As far as we know, no one has a single clue yet that we found a woman in the woods, especially not Mitchel, right?”
Quinn nods. “That seems to be the case. No one in town mentioned a missing girl. And we made sure no one saw us breaking into his house. If they did, they don’t recall it. Granted, I’m sure there will be rumors spreading now that we’ve purchased women’s clothing in town, but as long as no one makes the connection between Brea and Mitchel before he’s been eliminated, we should be fine.”