Page 23 of Fierce Claim

“Right.” She puts the items in her suitcase and then pushes everything else back into it too. It looks like the thing is way too full, but she makes it work. Then she pulls a second suitcase from under the bed.

“I thought you were only here for a week?”

She’s got more stuff with her than Caleb and I usually take with us combined. But then, you tend to only stick to the basics when you need to be able to pack up and leave in a matter of minutes...

“Yeah.” She looks around, checking under the bed and in the bathroom. “But it didn’t cost me extra to have a second suitcase and I didn’t know what I might need while I’m here.” She pulls up a shoulder. “I don’t want to get a last-minute job and not have my tools with me.”

Right... Her ‘tools’, her weapons.

Now I’m curious what she likes to ‘work’ with. Her gun looked interesting last night, but I’m curious what else she carries with her when she travels.

“I’ll show you when I unpack.” She laughs when I look up at her awkwardly. “Yes, I saw you staring. Though, some things might not be what you expect.”

“I try not to have expectations.” I go over to the door. “Are you done here?”

“Yes. Let’s go home.” She nods for me to open the door and the moment I do, Jorge lets out a soft sound, something suspiciously like a moan.

“For fuck’s sake... Your pheromones are like a flood. I thought that if I hurried you up, you wouldn’t have the time to get too hot and heavy.” His voice drops as he speaks and his eyes on mine are filled with lust.

“We only kissed, nothing more than that.” I give him a quick kiss, enjoying the way he gets turned on from our pheromones. “Are you ready to go home too, or do you need something else?”

“I want to drop by my place, pack a few more things so I can work from home more easily. Since we’re out the house anyway. Two birds, one stone and all that.” He slides his arm around my waist as he takes one of Riley’s suitcases in his other hand. “If that’s okay with you?”

“Fine with me.” Riley walks behind us. “You’ve seen my place, now I finally get to see yours. You’ve been bragging about it for years, now I get to see if it lives up to your words.” She lets out an easy laugh and I’m once again confused by how Riley and Jorge’s relationship works.

He’s been to her place, but when she needs to change or when she’s with Mathew or me, she pushes him away. This constant back and forth can’t be easy on Jorge, but he also seems to simply accept it as normal.

But then, the things he’s accepted as ‘normal’ from his scent matches in the years he’s known them might have skewed pretty unusual to begin with.

It’s not like our whole pack isn’t built on strange relationships…

11

Riley

Okay, Jorge did not lie when he said that his apartment had a great view. He also didn’t exaggerate when he said that it overlooked a very beautiful and busy square at the front of the building.

What he failed to mention was that you can hear every car driving on the highway that passes right behind the building or the noise from the factories on the other side of the highway.

With so many potential escape routes, it’s probably easy to get out of here alive if you’re ever in trouble, but that’s the best reason I can come up with for him to live here with the money he has…

It’s not exactly run-down, but the area has seen better days, and it doesn’t look like anyone in charge is planning on improving it any time soon. If the crime rate isn’t too high, and doesn’t affect the income of the people in charge too much, neighbourhoods like this are easily ignored.

Especially since it’s going to be a hard sell to get anyone with money to live this close to a highway, so there’s no incentive to demolish this building and build something new and more expensive. It’s better for them to let people with few other options live here instead.

I glance out the kitchen window, looking at the building’s small parking lot below. More than a handful of the cars have started to look more like experimental garden accessories than something you can drive in. They’ve probably not been moved in years.

“No security and while there are some sweet people around, they know to keep their mouths shut.” Jorge laughs as he empties his fridge, throwing most of it into the trash and putting the rest in a box.

I’m not sure I would willingly choose to live in this noise. I’ve only been here a few minutes and it’s already getting on my nerves. I jolt when some assholes on the highway start honking at each other. “You know you can pay for security to look the other way...”

“Or I get the lack of security for free and spend my money on things I do want to it spend on.” He holds up a jar to the light, makes a face and carefully slips it into the trashcan.

He looked nervous when we first came inside, but seems back to his normal laid-back self now. “I got the bedroom sound-proofed when I moved in, and that’s where I spend most of my time here anyway, sleeping. I’m not here much during the day, so it doesn’t bother me too much.”

Vera leans against the doorway, smiling, her eyes bright. “Well, I think it’s pretty neat. But I’ve never lived in an apartment before or in the middle of what looks like the historic part of the city.” She looks around, all curious.

“‘Historic’ is one way to put it.” Jorge laughs as he stands up, stretching. “Some buildings are very old, mostly on the other side of the square, if you go towards the wealthier neighbourhoods. But most of the buildings around here are only a few decades old, at most, they designed them to match the historical style, only of a much worse quality.”

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