My grizzly snapped his attention to Nadia. The pleading in her eyes, her touch, her scent caused the grip in our hands to loosen. Anaki fell to his knees. He coughed, rubbing his neck, half coughing part laughing.
“Good job, Teddy.” Nadia smiled and reached up for me to pick her up. She wrapped her legs around me as I held her, and she kissed me on the cheek. “What a good big Teddy Bear you are!”
Anaki snorted. “Ha—Teddy Bear.”
“Shut up, Anaki. I saved your life.” Nadia wagged a finger at him.
My mate put her hand in my hair, massaging my head, and then she smiled wider. “Look at these big ears! Oh, look how cute they are!”
Nadia grabbed them with both of her hands and wiggled up my body. I cupped her ass with my hands, squeezing her cheeks. Not that she cared. She was transfixed on them, so I flicked my ears, and she cooed at them.
Fuck.
I wouldn’t mind this so much if Anaki was here, but he was staring at me, his face completely red, trying to hold in his laughter. I was going to get ragged on so bad for this at the bar later, and my mate wouldn’t let me beat anyone’s ass.
“Little bee, I think that’s enough,” I begged.
“But look at them! Can you keep them out all the time? I just wanna bite them. They are so adorable! Nom, nom, nom!”
Anaki rolled onto his side, away from me, his entire body shaking.
I sighed, closed my eyes, and counted to ten.
At least she was not scared of me; she found me attractive, and she wanted me. That was all that mattered in this.
“Little bee, how about you soak in the bath, and I will prepare dinner. Then we can start our movie marathon? Would you like that?”
Please say yes to end this torture.
She slid down my chest, her breasts pinned against me. “I can help with dinner. You never let me help.”
“I need to talk club business with Anaki, and I bought you some girly bath bomb shit that Journey and Delilah said you would like.”
Nadia reluctantly agreed when I led her to the bathroom. I gave her one of my shirts, despite spending a fortune on new clothes for her. Once I set up the bath and gave her a towel, she tugged on my shirt before I left.
“The club business isn’t to beat Anaki up, is it?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
I scoffed. “No.”
She put her hands on her hips.
“Fine, I won’t beat him up. This time.”
Chapter Eighteen
Bear
Anakiwastednotimebadgering me before I could shut the bathroom door. His gossip about the club invaded my ears, even though it was completely unrelated to either of us. Who might be mated to who, what females had strolled into the bar lately, and whose health was waning.
No offense to any of them, but I wasn’t concentrating on any of my brothers right now. I was concentrating on the female who was in the bathroom at this very moment, completely naked.
Usually, I stood outside and waited. Now that I’d seen her naked, I preferred to stand inside the bathroom, but she always made me turn around. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen her nakedness in the darkness of my—our bedroom, but I don’t think she had grasped that I could see in the dark.
My mate was still self-conscious about her body. She was still quite thin despite the calories I gave her. I didn’t want to rush her or put any more stress on her mentally as she healed from her time in that damn prison.
I still hadn’t talked about her parents. I knew that would be a difficult and potentially problematic situation to navigate. I needed to know why her parents worked at the Cunningham estate and if Nadia was working there when her parents were killed. Were they working there as a family? Were they captured and forced to work there?
With Delilah’s hold on Shane, I would think not. Delilah had rules she wouldn’t budge on and to keep families and women out of harm’s way. Shane would do almost anything to make Delilah happy, to make her love him.
