Page 23 of A Sinful Trap

Chapter Six

Cam didn’t need a shifter’s senses to tell him what they’d been up to. Guilty looks, swollen lips and lowered zippers were all the clues he needed to make a well-informed guess.

He blinked away the sea of red clouding his vision, putting a lid on the possessiveness and arousal that made him unable to decide if he should drag Bailey off to his bed or go for Davide and show her who the lynx belonged to.

He settled for putting her down and reaching for the waistband of her shorts, making sure she was zipped and buttoned before she could get her bearings and notice his hands were shaking.

“Wait a second,” she exclaimed in belated response to his presumption.

“Cam…” Davide was beside him, his voice low and urgent. “We need to talk in private. There are things you should know.”

“You want to talk now?” He flexed his fists, still wrestling with his instincts. “Are you going to tell me you didn’t hitch a ride with Aaron while I was on a call? That you misunderstood the conversation we had last night, when I explicitly asked you to wait?”

A fleeting expression of guilt couldn’t conceal the defiance that lingered in Davide’s stance, and it baffled him. This man who was the other half of his heart had always been impulsive and mischievous, but he’d never gone against Cam’s wishes. Not when it was this important.

You never had a mate before.

Bailey stepped away from them and straightened the purple halter that clung lovingly to her full breasts. She was beautifully flushed. From embarrassment or her recent climax?

“He was checking me out,” she explained.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Cam ordered through clenched teeth.

“I didn’t mean it that way.” She muttered something under her breath about obstinate men. “He was doing his job. Making sure I didn’t have nefarious designs on you or your company.”

“Was he looking for them in your shorts? Do you think I told him to do that?”

“You tell me.” Now her hands were on her hips, drawing his gaze to the curves Davide had just had in his hands. “He says he does whatever you need him to do. He says he’s yours.”

“He is.” Satisfaction burned through most of his anger. “Which is why he should know better.”

The glimmer of approval in her eyes was encouraging and surprising. She liked that he’d claimed Davide?

“He’s also spent all morning fixing your roof,” she went on, “and used the only break he’s taken all day to help me get this ladder up the stairs so we can find out where the noise is coming from. You should thank him for being willing to go above and beyond. And for actually being good at it. If he hadn’t been, I might be more upset that you didn’t hire Celeste like I suggested.”

Davide stared at her with the same wonder Cam was feeling. Bailey had not only turned the conversation away from what he’d just found them doing, but she was defending Davide. Protecting him despite his indiscriminate behavior. She knew Cam’s business reputation, believed her job was in jeopardy, but that hadn’t stopped her from stepping in to redirect his ire.

She was exceptional.

“You’re right, of course.” He commanded himself to relax. “Davide? Those noises aren’t what we heard last night, but they’re still disturbing. Go see if you can find a reason for them while I speak to Ms. Wagner? You and I will talk later.”

Davide wasn’t happy, but he didn’t argue. They both knew better than to ignore the supernatural, and it would be safer for a shifter to investigate whatever it was than an uninformed human. He gifted Bailey with a small, encouraging smile before bounding up the ladder with a speed and grace that left the innkeeper staring in open-mouthed surprise.

Hisinnkeeper. Who’d been close to being claimed by another less than a day after Cam found her. Her arousal and Davide’s were still thick in the air, doing nothing to tame the desire inside him.

He was starting to believe some of the stories might be true. A night exhausting his willing and energetic lover had barely taken the edge off. If anything, he wanted more. He wanted her.

Only human. Wasn’t that the saying? She was…and he wasn’t.

He’d straddled both worlds more successfully than most, but doing so had made him less trusting of humanity. They were unpredictable creatures with short life spans and an excess of fear. That fear and their survival instincts revealed a deviance and cruelty in them that none of his kind could match. He didn’t believe Bailey was capable of that, but she was human, and Cam’s wasn’t the only life he had to consider with her as his mate.

This morning, he’d made a phone call to an alpha from a small pack of foxes he was on good terms with, confirming what he now suspected. His wolf wouldn’t allow him to avoid her and move on. He’d either have to seduce her into accepting his mark, or put his life in her hands with a ritual only she could perform to release him.

He didn’t want to believe the old fox, because either option required a level of trust they barely had time to earn.

And if she could accept the mark? What about Davide?

He’d obviously decided to take matters into his own hands. Cam wouldn’t know why until he confronted him.

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