Khan (15 page)

Khan knew better than that.

“You buy her something you like,
something to replace what you don’t want her to wear…Why aren’t you writing
this down?”

He opened the pad and began scribbling.
He made notes like there was going to be a test later and he didn’t want to
fail. Because he knew if he did, he’d lose her. After another hour, he was on
his way to getting somewhere. He’d even made a list of magazines that Marshall
had suggested. And he had purchased tickets to a concert to a band he’d never
heard of but Marshall had said she listened to.

Khan left the room feeling like he was
going to be able to do this. Now he had to convince her that he wasn’t a douche
canoe and that he really did love her. He found her in their room asleep on the
window seat. She had been crying, and he felt horrible for it.

Picking her up, he put her on the bed.
One of the things that Marshall had told him too was that the bed wasn’t just
for sex. Sometimes it was for holding and talking. Khan didn’t know what to say
to that, but wrote it down. As soon as he stretched out beside Monica, he
understood. He just simply wanted to hold her in his arms. He closed his eyes,
content with the way things were going for them, but knew that he had to get
down to business. His goal was that his brothers would come to him for advice
on wooing the fairer sex. He fell asleep smiling.

~~~

She was alone when she woke. Monica had
known that Khan had come up to lay down with her, and she was ready to tell him
that she wasn’t in the mood for sex. She was, but there was no reason for her
to give in so quickly. But he’d held her, and after a few minutes, she heard
him give a soft snore. He’d fallen asleep. Trying to be angry with him didn’t
work, so she closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep.

But waking alone a few hours later had
set her off again. How dare he? She wasn’t sure how he dared at anything at all,
but still stomped around the room gathering her things. She went into the
bathroom to have a nice soak when she stopped in her tracks. Someone had been
very busy.

There were candles everywhere. On the
counter, around the garden tub, and in the windowsill. She touched the rose
petals that were around each of the scented candles and marveled at how soft
they were. The pink of them matched the candles perfectly. There was also a
bottle of wine in a bucket by the tub and two long-fluted glasses.

“I wanted to surprise you.” She turned
to look at Khan when he spoke. “I was all set to wake you when I realized that
I forgot the corkscrew. But you woke before I came back.”

She nodded, not sure what else to do. She
looked back at the inviting water with the candles that had yet to be lit
floating around and more rose petals. It was beautiful.

“Here, let me light these so you can see
them. The guy as the store said that they burn for hours.” He leaned in the tub
and set them to flame. “They smell like lilac. Do you like them?”

“Yes. They’re one of my favorite
flowers.” She could tell that he was nervous, so she sat down on the toilet
seat and looked up at him. He was so wonderfully handsome.

“I wanted to make it up to you for being
an ass since you met me. I wanted to…I need to make sure you know how much I
love you.”

“I do. None of this is necessary. I
know—”

“But it is. I need this for you.” He
scrubbed his hand over his face. “I’m not doing this right. I wanted to show
you that I’m not a big Neanderthal. I can be, I know, but I’m not always.
Especially when it comes to sex.”

“You’re doing fine.” She looked around
the room as it soured a little for her. “So you did this because you want me to
stay with you because of the sex. That you somehow think that I’m going to—”

He dropped to his knees before her and
took her hands. “No. Never that. I meant that I didn’t want you to think that I
only want sex from you. I want you to hold me, love me, not because you have to
because of a twist of the fates, but because you like me enough to give me a
chance. I love you, Monica.”

When he fumbled on the counter and then
reached into the drawer closest to him, she watched him as he swore. It was
funny to see the unflappable Khan all messed up about something. He finally
seemed to gather whatever it was he needed.

“I wanted to do this after I swept you
off your feet and had you begging me for more, but I can’t wait. Actually, I’m
too terrified to wait any longer.” He got up so that he was only resting on one
knee and kissed her hand. He did look a little afraid, and she leaned into him
and kissed him.

“Whatever it is, we can fix it.” She
kissed him again when he stayed where he was. “I don’t want to live without you
either. So just tell me.”

He nodded. “Monica, will you marry me?”

The ring he put on her finger was beautiful.
She moved her fingers around and let the candlelight catch it, and laughed when
it sparkled around the room. She loved the color and thought the chocolate
diamond matched his eyes perfectly. She looked up at him. “You didn’t have to
do this. I love being your mate. If you’re doing this to show your dad or
because he made you, then you didn’t—”

“No, I did this because I should have. A
long time ago. And Dad helped me pick it out. He wanted the yellow one, but I
thought you’d like this one better.” He looked up at her. “You do, don’t you? I
can take it back and get the yellow one if you want it. Or the white. But—”

She cut him off with her mouth. She
lifted her head, looked into his face, and fell in love with him all over. And
she told him so. When he kissed her again, he pulled her up off the seat and
laughed.

“I guess I could have found a more
romantic place to propose to you, but I didn’t want you to get away before I
asked you.” He kissed her again, this time with a little of the hunger she was
feeling for him. “If you don’t mind, I’d really like to bathe you. I’ve never
done it before and find that I really want to try.”

She watched him strip down, and when he
was naked, she reached for him. He told her no, this was bath time, and not
making love. He told her he had plans for afterward and he didn’t want her to
mess them up. She giggled as she took off her own clothes.

“Okay, this might have to be both. You’re
very beautiful without clothes on. With them too, but I think my favorite is
like you are right now.” He helped her into the tub and settled behind her. “This
is very nice.”

He’d gotten a large sponge, and he’d
washed her back, then her legs. She tried teasing him into making love to her
in the tub, but he kept turning her down. When he washed her hair, she made
sure she brushed against his hard cock as many times as she could until he set
her away from him.

“You, my dear, aren’t playing fair. You
will behave or I won’t give you the rest of your gifts.” She sat very still for
all of three seconds and lunged at him. “Are you going to make me spank you?”

She moved forward in the tub. He’d gone
to so much trouble for her she didn’t want to spoil it for him and tell him she
would indeed like for him to spank her. Instead, she kissed him. Gently, but
with as much love as she could put in it. When she pulled back, she could see
that his eyes had darkened. Lust was there, as well as love. She smiled at him
and stood up; water ran down her body.

“Take me to bed, Khan. Please?”

Khan hated to leave her again, but
Walker had said he needed a run and asked him…no, had begged him to go with
him. He had been stomping around the house for hours before hand, and when
Caitlynne had asked Khan as well to go with him, he finally had.

They’d gone to the very back of the
property. Neither of them wanted to be caught with their pants down or as a
panther, so this was the best place to be. By the time they’d driven the Jeep
out on the pretense of checking out the land, Walker was looking less stressed.
Khan didn’t want to pry, but he was wondering what had made him so pissy. It
wasn’t until they were running that his brother reached for him.

“She has to go on an extended trip.”
It took Khan a
second or two to wonder who when Walker continued.
“They want Caitlynne to
go to California for a month to see to some training out there that isn’t
yielding the numbers they had hoped it would.”

“When does she have to leave?”
Khan leapt over
a log and stopped by a large walnut tree to wait on Walker.
“Are you going
with her?”

“No, I can’t. Damn it all to hell. I
have to be here in the event Warren needs me.”
Walker stood
beside him for several seconds before he took off again.
“The man is
healthier than I am.”

Khan doubted that and said so.
“You
took this job, as did she, knowing this might happen. You yourself said that it
was best for her not to be put in a kitchen where there were sharp items if you
even suggested that she be a nice little housewife.”

Walker growled and Khan laughed. The two
of them ran for another twenty minutes before they came to a lake. As they
leaned into the water and began lapping at the coolness of it, Walker spoke
again.

“She is having a great pregnancy and
hasn’t really needed anything from me at all.”

Khan didn’t comment, knowing just how
his brother felt about not really being needed.

“She said that she thinks it’s a boy. Mom
said that there hasn’t been a girl born in this family in nearly eight
generations. That’s a lot of boys.”

Khan thought it was longer, but knew
that a little girl would probably be very welcome in this family.
Overprotected, yes, but well loved. As any child would be.

“This morning when I got up, I was going
to make breakfast for Monica and myself and bring it up to the bedroom. But
when I rolled out of bed as quietly as I could, she was gone. She’d already
gotten up and shooed the cook out of the kitchen so she could make it for me. She’s
getting much better at cooking. I was really disappointed, myself, in her not
needing me.”
He glanced at his brother as he continued.
“But, her being gone for a month
without me? I’m not sure I’d be in any better mood than you. Of course, you do
have your own plane. No reason you can’t fly out there for a day, then come
back.”

Walker’s head shot up so quickly that
Khan felt his heart leap in his chest. He looked around the area, sure there
was a threat. And when his brother attacked him, Khan knew that they both were
dead. But Walker only stood over him with his huge fucking paws planted on his
chest, then leaned down and licked his face.

“Get off me, you overgrown idiot. What
the fuck it wrong with you? I thought we were both dead cats.”
Walker rolled
off him and sat down.
“You want to explain what the fuck that was all about?”

“You’re right.”

Khan told him he was always right, but
what this time?

“You’re right. I can go and visit her
anytime I want. She may not be able to get away as much as I’d like to see her,
but I can go and be with her when I need to be. So, thank you.”

Khan stood up and growled low at his
brother.
“Next time, a simple handshake will do. You lick me like that again
and I’ll break your jaw. And you’re welcome.”

This time, when they moved through the
forest, it was much more relaxed. They spoke about all kinds of things, mostly
their mates and how glad they were that they put up with them. Then they talked
about Barr and what his next move might be.

“Caitlynne said it’s hard to tell with a
man like him. She told me that he’s been in and out of institutions for nearly
all his life. He was first put in a home when he was five when his sister had
been found dead in her crib.”

Khan stumbled and stopped moving.
“Did
he kill her? Crib implies that she was tiny, less than a year old.”

“She was four months old. The report
that Caitlynne was able to find said that he was in a catatonic state when his
parents came in the nursery to check on her. Apparently, they were concerned
that she’d not cried at all through the night, but had whimpered once. When
they entered the room, I guess it was carnage. Someone, they said, had broken
into the house and had murdered the baby, and little Tony had witnessed it.”

Khan heard his brother’s words, but he
also heard more.
“But she doesn’t believe it. And neither do you.”

Walker shook his head.
“The autopsy
report said her head was crushed, and the bruising around her throat and on her
chest was consistent with small hands. When she asked me to look at the report
and pictures, even I could see that the hands were tiny, about the size of a
five-year-old. He had…Christ, Khan, he’d beaten her with a plastic bat that was
found later and then had stood on her little chest at some point. Her death was
ruled strangulation.”

“And he wasn’t charged.”

Walker shook his head.

“His parents covered that murder up like
they had the others. The women he had targeted and decided for whatever reason
that they were what he wanted. Christ.”
They were walking back to the Jeep when
Khan suddenly stopped and looked around.
“He’ll get her, won’t he? He’ll
somehow get Monica and hurt her like he did the others.”