Claiming Her (Keeping Her Series) (4 page)

Lucas turned and smiled
with a lot of sharp teeth at the young wolf.  “As my assistant.  She knows my
methods, my people and yours.  She is the logical choice to work with me on
this.  Especially if you want my full concentration on the job at hand.”

“Very well,” Griffin
said, giving Jacob a warning glare when he would have interrupted.  The alpha stepped
forward until he was in his space.  Lucas looked into his gold wolf eyes, and
felt his own flowing to cat.  “But understand this, there are two things I care
about,” Griffin growled low, “My family and my pack.  I consider Isabella both.”

Lucas breathed in deep,
studying the solid will of steel in the wolf before him, a wolf that was a
strong enough alpha to have not one, but two alpha enforcers, when most pansy
ass alpha wolves would be scared to have one.  Then he nodded his head, his
eyes bleeding back to blue. 

“Yeah,” Lucas
unclenched his jaw enough to say, “Miley has that effect on people.”  The next
words he spoke were nothing less than a vow.  “She
will
be safe in my
care.”  The fact that the sentence had more than one meaning was not lost on
anyone in that room.

The phone rang in the
office and Isabella looked at Rebecca while she answered it, her eyes on
Isabella pacing in front of her desk.  “Rebecca speaking.  Mm-hm.  Yeah, okay. 
Really?”

“What?”  Isabella
asked, freezing in front of Becca’s desk and leaning over.

“Yeah, I’ll let her
know.”

“Let me know what?”

Rebecca hung up the
phone.  “Seems they came to an understanding.  You, my friend, are going to be
assisting with the security transition.  The extremely hot Mr. Gibbs is being
shown to the suite/office you already made ready for him . . . and you will be
working as a go-between for our pack and the Lionsgate pack until he finishes
the security upgrade.”

“Huh?”

“He insisted, and . . .
he’s on his way here to talk to you before he does anything else.  He insisted
about that, too.”

Isabella snapped
straight up and turned to pace some more.  “He insisted. 
He insisted?” 
It
took her about a second to get angry.  “The nerve of the man coming here, after
he
fired
me.  For no good reason, I might add.  Never says word one
about wanting me as anything more than his girl Friday, he shows up here,
claims me without speaking to me about it first, not even a ‘hey sorry I fired
you,’ or ‘I missed you’ or anything at all.  Or how about an ‘oh, by the way,
why did you fake your own death?  Something I should know?’ And then he has the
nerve
to insist we work together again?  When I have reasons for going
into hiding.  Reasons he does not bother to ask for before he shines a light
right at me by claiming me,
without discussing it.
”

She was still going
strong when Lucas walked back into the room and Isabella turned her tirade his
way, pointing a finger in his direction while she stopped her agitated pacing
if not the rant.  “I may be 125 pounds of delicate femininity . . .”

“125,” Becca
interrupted in disbelief, “Huh, good one.”  Isabella flipped her off without
looking and kept talking.

“. . . but I have a
spine of steel and I am not afraid of you . . . or your giant man thighs.  So
rules to this thing:  No discussion of anything not work-related.  No kissing. 
No touching of any kind.  No announcing to anyone that you took a mate.  No
staring at me full of longing and banked passion.”

Becca snorted her
amusement at that, but Isabella gamely carried on.

“No instigating any sex
plays, or leaning over me when you smell really good . . .,” when he started
coming toward her, Isabella started backing up.  The closer he got, the faster
she talked, “and no looking at me with hot slumberous eyes while you prowl
across the room towards me like a big sexy jungle beast.” 

“Way to be strong,”
Becca muttered.  Suddenly, Isabella found her back was to the wall; Lucas was pressing
her there with his hands going to her hips to lift her to his eye level,
completely ignoring Becca’s presence.

He dropped his head
down, and ran his nose over her neck and across her collarbone.  Isabella
swallowed hard, her eyes closing on a breathy gasp, “And none of . . . whatever
you’re doing now.”

“Anything else baby?” he
asked against her neck, trailing up until he was hovering lip to lip, his hair
brushing over her skin, while his low gravelly voice sent desire pooling to her
sex. 

“No talking,” she
whispered, her eyes opening to find his had gone cat on her.  She breathed deep
and she could already taste him on her skin.

“Anymore?”

“Probably . . . I just can’t
think of any more . . . right this minute.”

He rubbed his lips back
and forth across hers.  “If you do think of any more, you lay it out there.” 
He nipped her bottom lip making her whole body tingle.

She pulled that lip
between her teeth and then released it.  “I will,” was barely a breath of
sound.

“And then I’ll tell you
again what I’m telling you now.”  He pressed closer, pushing her into the wall,
moving his big hands to the curve of her ass and then lower, shifting her legs
higher and causing her skirt to ride up.  She could feel the scratch of denim
against her inner thigh.  His hardness like a brand everywhere.  His eyes
blistered her with heat.  “I will touch you when I want and how I want.”  He
pressed those massive thighs in harder, the ridge of his zipper causing
friction in all the right ways.  Isabella couldn’t suppress the gasp that fell
from her lips to his, and he was still talking.  “I don’t give a fuck what
rules that breaks or who I have to kill to make it happen.  You know the man I
am.  You knew this morning when you let me inside.  You want rules.  There is the
only one I’ll abide between us:  Don’t fuckin’ run from me.”  Then his hard
lips took hers and she put up zero fight before opening to the thrust of his
tongue with a needy whimper.  Her hands wrapped around his neck to hold him
tight while he consumed her.

Just as fast, he
dropped her back to the floor, her legs unsteady enough that she wobbled.  She
pressed her palms back against the wall, blinking and breathing heavy while he
walked back out the door the same way he walked in.  With a prowl.

Isabella watched him do
this; then she turned to look at Becca who was doing the same.  Rebecca turned
to meet her stare, eyes a little glassy, face flushed.  They looked at each
other wide-eyed while they both caught their breath.

Rebecca blinked first. 
“Can I just say . . . holy crap!”

Isabella sank to the
ground her back against the wall, until she landed on her ass.  “Yeah.”

Rebecca looked again at
the empty doorway, then at her friend.  “Um . . . remind me again why you got
out of that man’s bed this morning.”

Isabella sighed and
answered with a definite question in her voice.  “It seemed like a good idea at
the time?”

***

Eventually she had to
get up and go face Lucas Gibbs in his borrowed suite/office.  She was not
looking forward to this for a variety of reasons.  Mostly because she was still
tingling from the last meeting and following Lucas Gibbs to a room that close
to a bed was rife with pitfalls.  She knew she was going to have to explain
about her faked death eventually and all the rest.  From his reaction to her
rules, he was not going to put that off until after office hours.  Nor was he
likely to act with any kind of decorum or put this claiming on a need-to-know
basis.  Which meant that all the trouble and work she put into getting away,
faking her death, would all be for nothing.

If Rickarts found out
she was alive, and he would if news spread of her mating to Lucas Gibbs, he
would stop at nothing to get her back.  Even if it meant taking on the Lionsgate
pack.  His wolf would let him do nothing else, and like Ahab with his whale, a
lot of people would pay the price in his quest.  Only it would be worse now,
because with the inclusion of Lionsgate in the mix, even more people she cared
about would be in the line of fire.  All, because she trusted the wrong friend
with a secret, she was better off taking to her grave.  The real one.

She did not bother to
knock on the suite door.  He was expecting her. He probably smelled her when
she was coming up the stairs, or something equally superhero-like. 

“Order us some
breakfast, and get me the files you have on all the employees.  I want to
compare them to what Eli and Logan managed to find.”  Lucas did not look up
from the report he was reading, standing over the mammoth desk in the office
area of the suite.  It was a beautiful suite.  There were three other bedrooms
and two baths, including the master with its own bathroom.  One entire wall was
windows and they were on the top floor of the resort from where you could see
the ocean and miles of beaches.  The balcony door was open and a cool breeze
off the water was bringing with it the scent of salt and sea air.  The master
suite had its own balcony as well, with privacy walls and copious amounts of
tropical greenery and soft lounge chairs.  Isabella had chosen all the
furniture herself with an eye for comfort and size.  Lucas was a big man, so
was his lion.  The furniture had to be able to withstand that, so she made sure
it did.  Not that he was going to notice.  He was a man and a lion male; the
only time they noticed is when they were
un
comfortable.

The man himself was
still in his jeans and t-shirt, which looked strange to her when he was
obviously in dictator mode.  When he was working, he was focused and demanding,
and not easily distracted. 
Well, this feels vaguely familiar.
  “My
secure laptop is with my luggage,” he went on, still reading the file.  “I left
it on the mainland with my pilot.  Have it picked up and then set up my office
and phone lines.”

“Cleo’s here?” 
Isabella started to smile thinking of Lucas’ best pilot, and incidentally, also
his daughter, when Lucas finally looked up, piercing her with a look.

“She is not, and she
has no idea you faked your death and let us all mourn you for two years.”

Isabella cleared her
throat, not about to open that can of worms.  Instead, she stepped forward and
grabbed a pad of paper and a pen off the desk and started a list.  “Anything
else?”

When he didn’t say
anything further, she looked up to see his eyes on the pad of paper in her
hand.  “Lucas?”

He finally looked back
up into her eyes, and she could see his had shuttered closed.  Whatever he had
been thinking, he was not sharing with her. 
Again, familiar.
  “Make
arrangements to have our meals delivered.”

Our meals.  Of course.
 
She sighed but did not bother to argue the point.

“Do you want the
quarters for your men in your suite or down the hall?”

“I want them close, but
not that close,” he said, and Isabella nodded.  She had known that answer
already.  “But, I want them on this floor and any other guests should be shown
alternate locations per our business terms.”

“That has already been
arranged,” Isabella said, still writing.  “Can’t have strangers wandering the
halls.  Your men will kill them.”  She smiled and then grimaced because it was
only partly a joke.  It was more likely the snobby rich shifters who usually
reserved the luxury suites; they’d take one look at the rough and tumble men of
Lionsgate and die of fright.

“You stocked the bar.” 
She looked up at the quiet words.  His eyes on her were still shuttered but his
face had softened.  “My brand of beer, my whiskey.  The sheets I like are on
the bed, and the bathroom is stocked with my brand of shaving cream and
shampoo.”

Isabella opened her
mouth and then closed it, clearing her throat, she tried again.  “Old habits
and all that.”

“After two years?”

“Two or twenty,” she
murmured looking back down at her pad of paper.  “You aren’t that easy to
forget.”

He was so quiet she had
to look up to see he was still standing there, watching her.

She cleared her throat
again.  “Anything else before you take your shower?”

He tilted his head to
the side, and she felt a great deal like a mouse that had caught the attention
of a cat.  “My shower?”

“Well, you aren’t going
to start work without a shower and a change.  Can’t direct the troops looking
less than in charge, especially someone else’s troops on someone else’s
territory.”  When his eyes seemed to sharpen and heat on her, she stepped
hurriedly forward and ripped the paper off the pad, putting it back on the
desk.  “I’ll just get this started, shall I?  I’ll be back before you finish
getting wet . . . um showering, with your luggage.”

“Miley,” he said
quietly while she scurried away to safety.  She turned back around at the door,
her hand on the knob.  “Get your luggage, too.”