“Okay. Oh and Jillian said she spoke to you and Layla on the phone today. Thanks for including her.”

He flopped down beside her on the bed and she immediately laid her head on his chest.

“Jillian is a very cool person. She’s going to fit into the mob just fine. That’s what Cade calls my sisters and Nina. She invited us to the restaurant for dinner and drinks tomorrow night so we can talk about the wedding and also get to know each other. I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea with your parents staying there but Jillian said it was okay. She told me she thought your mom might be having some sort of breakdown and your dad had made an appointment with her doctor tomorrow. Are you okay?”

“I think it’s for the best actually and while I hate that he’s sort of talking her around the real reason for the appointment, she’s taking some medications Jillian looked up on the web and thinks might be causing some paranoia. Truthfully? I hope that’s it because I just don’t know what else to think.”

Tegan kissed his chest and sat up. “On your stomach. Oh don’t get that look, I’m not going to top you, I thought I’d give you a massage. Your muscles feel really tight.”

She wanted to laugh at the look of relief on his face, the big baby.

He got settled and she moved to sit straddling his ass as she smoothed her hands over the hard planes of his back just to warm them both up.

She grabbed the bottle of almond oil and poured a small pool into her palm and rubbed her hands together to warm it before beginning to work it into the small of his back.

“Other than the stuff we’ve talked about, tell me what happened today. What was your day like?”

As he went over the details of his very busy day, her hands kneaded his muscles, fingertips pressing into the knots, the heels of her hands smoothing the tension away.

Ministering to him like that made her love him more. Touching him to care for him, to ease his stress, enthralled her. The heat of his skin, the scent of the oil mingling with his own unique smell, the way the muscles of his ass bunched against her pu**y and inner thighs where she sat—all drew her in. The sheer normality of it, the way one lover took care of the other, was so sexy.

His voice rumbled through his sides. He laughed as he described his co-workers and the people he came across, got frustrated briefly when giving details of a case he’d been working on for the last six months and relaxed again as he spoke of his sister.

Ben Stoner was a damned good man. A keeper if there ever was one. Sexy. Smart.

Big and strong. Hotter than the sun in bed. And all hers.

She leaned down and kissed the back of his neck, nuzzling the warmth there, her wolf breathing his scent in deeply, letting it mark her.

“Mmmm, you’re good with your hands. That’s very nice. I love you and I’m sorry about all this crazy. I just want you to be happy. You make me happy, Tegan. I’ve never felt so satisfied, so happy with my life. You do that for me.”

He said the best things. Smiling she hummed her appreciation as she continued to work on his shoulders.

“Tell me about losing him. What was your life like with him and then after?”

She stilled a moment before moving again. “I love you. I’m very happy, I want you to know that. I knew him, grew up with him actually. But he was this totally hyper guy.

Played baseball in high school, got scouted even. But he wanted to go into the army.

That’s how I had so much exposure to him, he idolized Lex.

“I never considered him more than a cute guy who had way more energy than I wanted to deal with. I went to college and decided to join the Enforcer corps so we got to know each other and we became close. An attraction started to bloom between us but I had a boyfriend at the time. Also, werewolves don’t reach sexual maturation until they’re eighteen, which is pretty darned handy so the mate attraction hadn’t really shown itself that strongly. Anyway, I’d had this fight with my boyfriend. I came home and I was crying, it was my twentieth birthday.”

Tegan laughed, remembering the sweetness of that night. “Lucas had joined the army and was home on leave. He saw me and hugged me and I got a load of his scent and it was all mixed with sex and well, we had this intense thing in Cade’s garage. On his Mercedes. And well, you know what it feels like to bond. He was everything to me. We were young and in love. We had a great time together. He wanted to be a ranger. I was freaked but he wanted it so I supported that. It was hell to be separated for so long. He finished ranger school and I bounced between here and Georgia. Then September Eleven happened. Everything changed. He went to Afghanistan and then came back. We toyed with the idea of kids and decided when he got back the next time, we’d try. He was KIA two weeks before he was due home.”

Her voice caught and Ben rolled to the side, facing her as he pulled her to the bed with him. He brushed the hair from her face. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine. You don’t have to say any more.”

Tegan shook her head. She needed to say it all, to let it go. “The first year after Lucas died was awful. I don’t remember all of it. I wouldn’t have made it through the first two or three months if it hadn’t been for Layla. I lived with them for a while. Every morning she brought me food, made me eat it. I sat in a daze and watched my niece and nephew playing and growing up. Knowing I’d never have that with Lucas. Abe, he’s my anchor, he visited when he could. You’ll need to meet him and Collette, his mate. But they had a baby during that first year and it just made things worse. The bond in place saved me from death but seeing him, knowing he wasn’t mine, not the way he belonged to her, knowing I had no one who loved me like that, it just sort of made me numb. To cope, I suppose.