“She wouldn’t be so vulnerable if she knew the truth.” Luc’s soft words practically echoed in the quiet room.
“That’s exactly why I’ve asked you to stay this evening.” Ulrich finished his brandy and set the glass on the mantel. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I know you’re right. I trust you, Luc. If I’ve learned nothing else over the years, I’ve learned you are an honorable man who tells the truth. As for me, I will always see Tianna as a little girl. That’s wrong, and it’s unfair to her but that’s the way it is with fathers and daughters. Someday I hope you have a daughter of your own so you’ll understand what I’m saying. Tianna’s a woman now. I want you to get to know her as a woman, find out her strengths and her weaknesses. See if you think she’ll be able to handle the truth. Help her accept who she is. Luc, I want you to find a way to tell her.”
“You realize what you’re asking, don’t you?”
Ulrich nodded, but at least he was smiling. “I know. Don’t make me come right out and say it. I’m her father and she will always be my little girl. I’m not ready to think of her in a sexual relationship with anyone, including you. I’d rather just pretend it’s not happening. You haven’t seen her for a long time, Luc. She’s beautiful. She’s so much like her mother, it breaks my heart, but she’s an innocent.”
At Luc’s look of surprise, Ulrich smiled. “Hell, I don’t know if she’s a virgin or not. That’s her business and, like I said, she’s a grown woman. I mean she’s innocent of her heritage, of her birthright. She’s twenty-six now. She’s all I’ve got left of her mother and I want her safe.”
“Okay. Let’s get this straight.” Luc poured himself another snifter of brandy and took a long swallow, coughed, and sipped more cautiously the next time. Anger roiled in his gut and he fought the Chanku sense of hackles rising. “You want me to keep your daughter safe. She probably doesn’t remember me, she has never heard of the pack, she doesn’t have a clue that she’s not even a normal human, much less what Chanku is. She thinks you’re a retired cop dabbling in detective work with Pack Dynamics, not the commander of a top-secret government agency, and, on top of that, she doesn’t know that I’m the man who shot and killed her mother while Camille was running around Golden Gate Park in broad daylight as a wolf. Okay. Fine. And you expect me to do this how?”
“Calm down. I know you, Lucien. You’ll think of a way to get through to her. You have to make her trust you. Take your time. Get her comfortable with the idea of Chanku, let her know her connection gently. You can do it.”
“Yeah. Right. Before or after I tell her about her mother?” Luc definitely felt his hackles rise this time, a strange sensation in human form and not nearly as satisfactory.
“Lucien, damnit! Calm down.”
“How does she think her mother died?” Luc sat heavily on the couch. He’d known this day would eventually come. He’d never been able to get the vision of that beautiful little girl sleeping in her father’s arms out of his mind. Someday she would find out exactly what part Lucien Stone had played in her mother’s death.
“She believes the story we fed to the papers, that Camille was the victim of a sexual assault and in her attempt to escape she was shot and killed by her attacker.”
“How the hell did you manage that?” Luc stared at the carpet beneath his feet, reliving the horror of that day almost twenty years ago as if it had occurred this morning. “The entire time after it happened is a blur to me. It wasn’t until years later I realized I’d never even been questioned by my supervisor after I gave my initial report, much less any form of investigative panel. It was as if I’d never been there.”
“As far as public record is concerned, you never saw my wife. I called in some markers, Luc. Leave it at that. You left the force, I retired. We made it all go away. I was a captain with twenty years’ service and times were different then. It was easier to keep things under wraps. Hell, now there’d be half a dozen videos from as many angles showing how Camille died.”
“Those must have been some markers, boss. Tia’s going to hate me when she finds out.”
“Then don’t tell her.” Ulrich stood up, grabbed Luc’s coat, and threw it at him. “I certainly don’t intend to. Go home. Get some sleep. Tomorrow my car will be unavailable and you’re taking me to the airport to pick up my daughter. It will give you a chance to get reacquainted.”
“Still calling in those markers, boss?”
“Do I have to?” Ulrich stared straight at Luc, one alpha wolf challenging another.
Luc shook his head. “You know you don’t. What time?”
“I’ll see you here at ten. Her flight’s due in at SFO just after eleven.”
Chapter 2
The hand cupping Tia’s breast was warm and rough, both palm and fingertips callused. Her nipple rose to a painful, unbelievably sensitive peak, pinched between a blunt thumb and forefinger. Her vagina actually pulsed with each beat of her heart as a moist tongue followed a line from her breastbone to her navel, then dipped inside and swirled. She shivered, caught in that sensual state between sleep and wakefulness, her arousal growing with each gentle caress.
Lapping slowly, surely, the long, slick, and very mobile tongue now swept the crease of her buttocks then delved between her sensitive labia and licked deeply into her pussy. She caught back a cry as the fiery trail swept upward, barely teasing at her clit before sliding once more across her lower belly.
Spreading her legs even wider, slipping lower in her seat, she raised one eyelid to get a better view of her lover.
Time stood still—painfully, irrevocably still.
A wolf stared back at her, amber eyes glowing, tongue still lapping slowly at her belly, his ivory canines curved like sharpened sabers. He looked up and slowly licked his muzzle, wrapping that long, rough tongue almost all the way around.
The scream caught in her throat.
A soothing voice clicked into Tia’s consciousness and shattered the image crouched between her knees.
“We’ve started our descent into San Francisco International Airport and are currently flying at 27,500 feet. If you’re on the left side of the plane you should be able to look out your window and see Half Dome in Yosemite, sticking up like a…”
Tia gasped. Her lungs pumped like a bellows and her skin flushed from hot to cold. She blinked rapidly, noted that the older man next to her still snored, blissfully asleep. Quickly scooting back in her seat, Tia sat upright and smoothed her wrinkled denim skirt. Her breath escaped in a long sigh. For extra measure, she fastened her seat belt, pulled it firmly across her middle, and prayed the moisture between her legs hadn’t soaked through the denim.
Damn the dreams. Until last week, she hadn’t had any this explicit in almost three months. Why now? Tia glanced once more at the man sleeping next to her and flushed, her skin once again going hot and cold all over. What if he’d awakened? What if someone had seen her, sprawled out, legs spread wide, lips parted, and breasts heaving?
She cupped her forehead in the palm of her hand and shuddered. Damn, this had better be the right choice, this move back to San Francisco. Somehow she needed to understand the dreams, the explicit, sensual dreams that had finally broken the link between her and Shannon, Tia’s dearest friend in the world.
Her friend and her lover. She’d been with Shannon for ten years, ever since they were teenagers heading off to boarding school together, their hormones in high gear and their need for one another overwhelming. It had been so good then, so perfect, both emotionally and physically.
Tia sighed. She missed the intensity of their teenage affair,