Chapter 22
DEAN
“Who the fuck are you?” The man—fuck, what had Landon said his name was? James? Jack?
No, that wasn’t right . . .
Well, it didn’t matter. Clearly, this was Landon’s ex. The smug condescension in his smirk said everything I needed to hear, but once he wasn’t just dealing with Landon anymore, he’d leaned away from us both and clenched his jaw.
“This is Geoff,” Landon said. He didn’t offer Geoff my name, and that was just fine by me. The fucker wasn’t entitled to any part of Landon’s life anymore.
As I slipped my arm around Landon’s hip all the way, he leaned back against me.
“I thought you would’ve wanted your grandma’s china back, but I see you’ve moved on pretty fast, huh?” Geoff shot at Landon. “Forgotten all about your home already?”
His eyes stayed on me. Green eyes. Empty.
Maybe he wasn’t a predator like me—he smelled like another house cat—but this was clearly the kind of man who liked to fight over the food dish. He wanted to mark his territory.
Me? I wanted to rip his throat out.
“That’s not my home. And Dean has nothing to do with my china,” Landon snapped. “You have no business with it. Where is it? You didn’t bring it with you, so did you leave it back in Boston?”
Geoff held up his hands, rocking back. “I thought we could have a civil conversation, babe—”
Okay, he needed to stop calling my boyfriend “babe”.
“—but this obviously isn’t the time. So I’ll just—”
“Landon?” I cut in.
He turned his amber eyes, wide and trusting, my way. “Yeah?”
“Do you mind if I . . . ?”
I raised a brow and nodded significantly at Geoff.
Landon’s nose flared as he considered it. After a few seconds, he shrugged. “That’s fine. If you want to.”
Did I ever.
Instead of swinging at Geoff or shouting at him, I stepped back, let the panther dance over my skin, and shifted right there in the middle of the hall.
“Fuck,” Geoff yelped, stumbling back.
On four powerful legs, I was too fast for him. He spun to try and get away, but I pounced, knocking him to the ground. My claws dug into his shoulder when I flipped him, and my fangs found his neck.
I didn’t bite down, but I was the one in charge here, and he’d damn well know it.
“The car!” he yelped. “It’s in the car.”
I was lucky it was so damn early. If Landon’s neighbors had heard the scuffle, they hadn’t come out to see what it was. I had about as long as it’d take someone to grab a jacket and stumble out here from bed.
“Grandma’s china?” Landon confirmed from behind my shoulder.
My tail flicked as Geoff nodded. “All of it,” he swore. His heart hammered so loud I could hear it, and the animal inside longed to put him down.
Unfortunately, we dealt with things like humans nowadays.
I changed back, sitting naked on his chest, smirking down at him. “Now that wasn’t so hard? Let’s go get it—”
“Oh, fuck you,” Geoff spat, but the little claws on his fingers weren’t enough to scare a panther like me.
“Fuck me? Oh, you’d be so lucky. No, babydoll, that’s not how this is going to go. If you come back here without an explicit invitation from Landon—”
“Which he’s not getting,” Landon piped up.
I grinned toothily and leaned in close enough to hiss in his face. “Which you won’t be getting, apparently—I will fucking eat you. Do you understand?”
With his jaw clenched tight, Geoff nodded.
Then, there was a creak to our right. The door of apartment 7C opened up on Landon’s neighbor, a petite woman with brown skin and a baby-pink robe wrapped around her.
She frowned at us all—me, sitting naked atop a man in the corridor, and Landon there in his doorway, covering his mouth, the corners of his eyes crinkled as he stifled his laughter.
She glared skeptically, a little pucker between her black eyebrows. “Landon, sweetheart, is everything all right?”
Landon bit his lip against a grin. He was clearly trying not to laugh when he said, “Just fine, Ms. Bedi. We were going to show my ex out. He’s trespassing.”
Ms. Bedi looked at me, perched on Geoff’s chest. Her dark brown eyes scanned my naked silhouette, and I sent her a friendly smile.
She clicked her tongue. “Well, you’d better suit up before you go marching our intruder through the halls with all that hanging out.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Before I could get up and get dressed, she shrugged out of her robe. Standing there in her nightgown, she held it out to me. “Return it when you’re done, sweetie.”
“Thank you.” I shrugged into the powder-pink robe and held out a hand to help Geoff to his feet. He knocked it away.
“You want to stay up here while I take him down?” I asked Landon.
After a swallow and what seemed to be hesitation over whether or not he was allowed to let me handle this, he nodded. Before Geoff could dart away, I grabbed him by the back of the neck and turned him toward the stairwell.
“I’ll be right back,” I called, shoving him forward.
As we made our way downstairs, I didn’t let go of him, even when he shrugged away and tried to duck out of my grip.
“Why would you—why aren’t you sticking to your own kind? You know he’s just a—”
Whatever poison this viper was about to spit, I wasn’t having it. I jerked him around by the back of his neck, and when I pinned him to the wall, I braced him there with my forearm.
“You really are an ornery piece of shit, you know that?”
He just glared at me.
To be fair, I had a good few inches on him.
“First off,” I said, “Landon is my own kind. He is a bright spot in the middle of a lot of bullshit, and I’ve got bad news for you, bud.
You’re the fucking cow pie. Second, he is amazing.
It’s a godsdamned miracle that he had people like you around him and still managed to come out the other side so fucking amazing.
If you can’t see that, you’re duller than I thought you were. ”
He blinked, flushed and furious as he snarled through his teeth at me. “He’s a lap kitten.”
I snorted. “He’s my boyfriend, and the only reason you’re walking out of here today with all your parts intact is that I’m grateful to you.”
He jerked back so hard his head hit the wall. “What?”
“If you weren’t such an incredible asshole, he wouldn’t have come here. So, let’s get that box and you can get on your way, hm?”
When I got back upstairs, Ms. Bedi was still in the hall, rubbing Landon’s arm.
I was glad she’d stayed with him, that he had people who cared for him even when I wasn’t around. As soon as he saw me get off the elevator, he lurched forward. “Everything okay?”
Smiling, I nodded. “Just fine.”
His gaze dropped hungrily to the box in my arms. “And you got it?”
“Yeah. I only saw the top pieces, but they looked okay.”
Gently, he eased the box from my grip, and I let him. As much as I wanted to carry things for him, make his life easier, sometimes, I’d just have to let him make sure everything was all right on his own.
Didn’t mean I couldn’t be there to watch over him.
“You boys have a good morning,” Ms. Bedi said before going back into her apartment. I followed Landon into his, and he set the box on the counter before pulling the pieces out, unwrapping them one by one.
They weren’t broken. No chips, no shattered saucers. All a perfect ivory with an old-fashioned blue pattern.
“I didn’t think I’d get them back,” Landon said, his voice choked and rough with feeling. He looked up at me for a second, his eyes glassy.
Next thing I knew, he’d thrown himself around the kitchen island and into my arms, pressing up on the balls of his feet to kiss me. “Thank you,” he whispered.
I shook my head. “I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did,” he insisted. ”You . . . you took care of him. You took care of me.”
My chest rumbled, and it took me a second to realize I was purring. “Maybe I’m just in the mood to take care of you,” I muttered, bending down for another kiss. “How would you feel about putting the coffee on pause?”
His cheeks had turned that warm, coral pink I loved so much. “We can do that.”
When I dragged him in close, he hopped up. It was the easiest thing in the world to catch him.
The best thing in the world, to carry him back to bed and prove that I had every intention of taking care of his every need.