Page 36 of Fergus

CHAPTERTWELVE

Thea wasthe one to bring a halt to their kissing long minutes later. But she couldn’t bring herself to completely move away from Fergus, instead resting her forehead against his as their ragged breaths intermingled.

Because she had realized in the last few minutes that this man nowownedher. Both body and soul.

And Thea still didn’t completely trust her own emotions or that the two of them had a future together.

Fergus was helping her right now, and she was very grateful for that assistance, but a fierce physical reaction and sex—even of the “singularly the most powerfully intimate experience” kind—did not a relationship make. Thea would do well to remember that before she allowed herself to become even more emotionally involved with Fergus.

It was a little late for that, when she believed she had already fallen in love with him!

But at least she hadn’t told Fergus that. This was going to hurt badly enough when their relationship came to an end, without Thea having to suffer that humiliation.

She pulled away completely when Fergus’s cell phone, which he’d left on one of the worktops while they ate, began to ring.

It had pinged a couple of times to alert him of incoming messages as the two of them kissed, but Fergus had chosen to ignore them.

He was ignoring its ringing now too.

“Shouldn’t you get that?” Thea prompted.

“No,” he bit out tersely. “Seeing people scrolling through social media on their cell phones, or worse, actually answering calls, when they are eating with other people is one of my pet hates,” he explained when Thea raised questioning brows. “It's bloody rude and gives me indigestion.”

“Except when it's Angel,” she reminded.

“Angel is the exception to that rule. She always will be. She’s special, and not just to me, but to the whole family. Besides, we weren’t eating.”

“I was only teasing,” she apologized.

He glared at the cell phone when the caller chose to ring off rather than leave a message.

He turned back to Thea. “Angel and Sapphie, her mother, had a lot of shit to put up with before Magnus met and married them. And I do mean he married both of them, because he adopted Angel as his own on their wedding day.”

“That’s really nice,” Thea admired.

He nodded. “I don’t—” He broke off as his phone began to ring again.

“It could be Nikolai calling you back about the tattoos,” Thea reasoned.

“It probably is,” Fergus acknowledged. “But I don’t want to talk to or see anyone else until I know the two of us are good.” He lifted his hand to once again gently stroke her cheek.

Fergus’s phone went abruptly silent before it started to ring for a third time. “I really think you need to answer that. It seems to be somewhat urgent.” She tensed. “Maybe Declan had a relapse? Or?—”

“It’s Nikolai,” Fergus assured after picking up the phone and looking at the screen for the caller ID.

“Then you should definitely answer it.” She doubted many people ignored a call from the sovietnik of the Russian bratva.

Fergus looked at her. “Are we good?”

“Yes.” For now, at any rate, Thea told herself inwardly. She had no idea what would happen between them once this situation had been settled.

“Fine.” He nodded before taking the call. His expression instantly darkened. “What? No! Nikolai? Arrogant fucker!” He held the cell phone away from him to look at the screen. “Bastard cut me off,” he muttered fiercely as he slammed the phone down on the breakfast bar. “Nikolai is downstairs and wants to come up—” He broke off as they heard the sound of the elevator doors opening out in the hallway. “How the hell did get up here, let alone so quickly…”

The answer to that was obvious when, seconds later, two men, not one, walked into the kitchen.

“I met Nikolai downstairs and invited him to come up in the elevator with me.” Despite his light brown hair and hazel eyes, the younger of the two men, who had just spoken, looked enough like Fergus, facially, for Thea to guess this was Linus, the youngest Wynter brother.

Whoever he was, he obviously had the code and whatever other security was necessary to allow himself and Nikolai Volkov up to Fergus’s apartment.

---