Chapter 12: Terms of the Truck

Conall didn't ask where we were going.

I told him to drive, and he drove.

I texted Otis, one hour, and turned the phone face down on my knee.

The old logging turnout sat four miles up the mountain road.

It was a gravel shelf with a rusted gate and a view of the valley.

He parked behind a wall of firs and turned the engine off.

The silence rang.

"Terms," I said.

"Yes."

"No promises. Nothing you say in here binds anyone to anything."

"Yes."

"You don't say the word, and you don't say come home."

"I know."

"And I decide."

He swallowed, and his hands came off the wheel and lay open on his thighs.

"Everything," he said. "You decide everything."

I looked at him for a long moment.

"I drank it in front of the whole pack," I said. "You've been wanting to say something about that."

His head turned.

"You told me at the gate," he said. "In front of a hundred and fifty people.

"You said it to me in the same breath you said it to them."

"Is that all of it?"

"You didn't tell me first. After seven years, I learned it with the pack."

"You didn't tell me first at the stone either," I said. "Neither of us got a warning."

He took that.

Then he laughed once, short and rough.

"That's fair."

"I know it's fair."

I slid across the bench seat and put my knee on the other side of his hips.

His breath stopped.

"I've felt nothing from you for three weeks," I said.

"I'd forgotten what it was like to want something and know what it would cost."

"Catriona."

"Keep your hands where they are."

He gripped his own thighs.

I unbuttoned his flannel from the top, one button at a time, and he watched my fingers.

His chest was hot and hard under my palms, and his heart slammed against my hand.

I leaned down and put my mouth on his throat.

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