Cipher

“No.” She slumped back against his chest and turned until her lips brushed his throat. “Giddy.”

Her skin was hot against his, her heart pounding. “Not just from the head rush, I hope.”

She bit him with a playful growl. “Not even a little.”

Just to be sure, he pulled back and met her gaze. “You’re not still mad, are you?”

A tiny furrow appeared between her eyebrows. “No,” she said after a moment’s pause. “I’m not mad.

This time. If you do it again…”

“I won’t. Next time—” A single deep breath eased some of the tightness in his chest. “Next time, I promise I’ll talk to you.”

“And I get to pick my own damn bodyguards.”

Maybe she didn’t like hanging out with Miguel anymore—or maybe Anna was getting under her skin.

“Was there a problem tonight?”

“No. But there’s a difference between spending time with friends and my friends having to spend time with me because I can’t be left alone.” She tilted her head. “Do you understand? If this is real, and necessary…it can’t just be people we know. I don’t want to be a personal obligation. I want to be a professional job.”

“Okay.” It would entail searches and interviews, but surely Jackson knew people who did that sort of thing. “For what it’s worth, it sort of is Anna’s job. Not with you, obviously, but in general. Maybe we could hire her for the time being, if it’s not too weird.”

“Anna’s okay. And I can hang out with you and Julio.” She wrinkled her nose. “And Miguel, if he’s a suitable deterrent to the cranky shapeshifters of the world. The Mendoza name, I guess?”

“That’s part of it.” She probably wouldn’t believe the rumors circulating about him, the whispers that the ritual magic that had awakened his wolf had left him half-feral and dangerous as hell.

“It’s fine, until we can find someone permanent. I just don’t want my friends stuck babysitting me forever.” Her eyes grew serious. “I’m going to put up with it. Because if someone’s around…maybe that’s deterrent enough, and no one will get hurt.”

There it was, the very real worry that she would have to use her abilities to hurt, to wound. “Better to head off trouble before it starts,” he agreed.

Kat eased away and started straightening her clothing. “Next time I poke you into fulfilling my dark fantasies, I’m going to strip first. You ripped my snarky T-shirt.”

“Just go ahead and tie me to a chair.” Intuition and instinct drove the words. He could easily break any bonds, but that would be part of the draw for Kat. She would like that, having his strength barely leashed and him not quite at her mercy.

Her sudden thoughtful expression proved him right. Abandoning the shirt, she swung a leg over his thighs, straddling his lap as she braced both hands on his shoulders. She smiled, as wicked as her eyes were curious. “Tie you to a chair, huh?”

“If I let you.” The words were a bluff. He’d let her because he didn’t have it in him to deny her anything she wanted, and he’d love it—because it was her.

Chapter Sixteen

Julio’s loft wasn’t so different from Andrew’s, with the glaring exception that Julio had an excuse for the place to be completely undecorated. Unlike Andrew, Julio had only moved to the warehouse recently, after Alec had funded the renovations and Andrew had finished the plans for them.

Kat dabbed the paintbrush into the corner and squinted her nose at the beige color. “You could have gone with something more interesting, you know. If I owned my apartment, I’d paint it purple and blue or something.”

Julio made a face. “I don’t think I’m really the purple type.”

Laughing, Kat rocked up on her toes to smooth the brush over the last bare spot. “Red? Red’s manly, isn’t it?”

He stepped back and considered the wall with a tilt of his head. “Green might not be so bad. Something dark.”

Meddling was bad, but sometimes Kat couldn’t resist. “You could ask Sera. She’s good at decorating.

Before she moved in, all I had on my walls were posters I hung up with thumbtacks.”

“Probably not the greatest idea ever.” He grinned and laid his paint roller aside. “Your roommate avoids me like the proverbial plague. I figure she’s got her reasons.”

“Well, yeah.” Kat waved the paintbrush at him. “You’re all hot and growly, and she’s on the wagon.

Sera wants to be independent, and you’re the top-shelf liquor of dominant shapeshifters.”

“Uh-huh. That, or she doesn’t want her father to murder me in my sleep.”

A valid concern. Sera’s father had been a trauma surgeon and a mercenary before settling down to run New Orleans’ supernatural clinic. But of all the years Kat had known Franklin, her clearest memory was his hands coaxing hers away from Andrew’s torn body as she sobbed and Andrew bled and bled-She pushed away memory with rigid self-control and turned back to the wall. Andrew was whole.

Andrew was hers, finally, and some day she’d stop having the nightmares where he bled to death and she never got to say goodbye. “Franklin is a scary man,” she managed. Too little, too late, but the best she could do.

Julio remained silent for a moment before snatching away her paintbrush. “Enough work. Time for fun.

What do you want to do? And don’t say play cards, because you cheat, and don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“I don’t cheat,” Kat retorted, grateful for the chance to laugh. “You just suck. How can a precog be that bad at poker?”

He huffed. “As if I’d be so self-serving with my visions. I’m here for the good of mankind, you know.”

It was a joke, but it was Julio, and she knew that somewhere underneath the smiles and the teasing, he was just like Andrew. A hero, the kind who’d laugh about it and claim it wasn’t true, but who’d quietly do the things that needed doing. Whatever it took to keep the people around him safe.

Julio probably wouldn’t be any more comfortable with the praise of the truth than Andrew was, so Kat let him have the joke. “Yeah, yeah. You’re God’s gift to something, all right. How long have we got until Andrew’s done with shapeshifter politics for the day, anyway?”

“Hours. He promised he’d pick up some of the stuff I’ve been handling.”

“Huh.” She’d avoided Andrew—and, by extension, Julio—so adeptly for the last year that she barely knew the scope of what the two of them did every day. “If I buy you a beer or three, will you tell me exactly what a council member does?” And how I can start helping?

He didn’t consider it for long. “Hell, yeah. I’ll drive.”

It didn’t take long to clean up the brushes and paint supplies, but Kat made good use of the time, pestering him with questions about the day-to-day running of the wolves’ territory. She was still going as they stepped out onto the sidewalk, wiggling her way toward finding some place she could fit. “What about the changed wolves? I know Alec used to look after them, but is there a formal support system now?”

“Not quite.” His keys jingled as he dug them out of his jeans pocket. “There have been plenty of inquiries, though. People putting out feelers about Andrew, seeing if he’d be up to the task.”

She’d suffered through Derek’s transformation with him, unwilling to abandon the cousin who’d been unwilling to abandon her. Andrew hadn’t been able to accept her help, but Miguel had, and she’d watched him struggle with the same problems. She’d struggled with him, with an understanding only empathy could provide.

Excitement sparked inside her for the first time, the sort of excitement she’d never felt with her endless job searches. “I could help with that,” she offered hesitantly. “I mean, help Andrew. I know I’m not a wolf, but I can feel the things they feel. I can know who needs help, and when.”

“I guess you could, huh?” He locked the outside door behind them. “Talk to him about it.”

“I need to talk to you, too. And Alec.” She waited until Julio turned, so she could meet his eyes. “I want to be a part of it. Not Andrew’s girlfriend or Alec’s secretary. I want to help people who went through what Derek and