Page 32 of Run, Run Rabbit

“Well, I don’t think you should take the bench. You’re a trial lawyer. You love litigation.”

“I will stop hating this job as soon as I can take something to trial. You know me far too well.”

She smiled at his reflection, blood thrumming in her veins.

“Good, because you need to stay where you are for a while, get bigger experience, outside of civil work. Jackson is going to be stuck in place for what? Four years? Eight years? That’s plenty of time for us to move you into something bigger. We just have to start working on your image. You need to start leaving your trial voice in the courtroom. No more making interns cry.”

“You’re awfully interested in my five-year plan, rabbit. Planning on sticking around that long?”

“Are you planning on marrying me?”

He’d looked up, meeting her eye in the mirror with his quicksilver smile.

“You think you could hack that?”

She wasn’t ready to stop running. She had no desire to tame her inner wolf, no matter how fucking stupid she was over him every single month, no desire to change anything at all, aside from the last few months.Either a broken heart or a spring wedding, and both options sound ghastly. There was only one path that led to keeping him though, and she’d rather follow it with him, and let a bit of her freedom go, than be lost without him again.

“Are you insinuating I couldn’t? Maybe I want to put the Hemming name back above the door at Dormir and Shrike. You don’t think I’m capable of playing nice and smiling for the local paper? You think this town is that fucking hard to maneuver? They think your mom is scary? Wait till they get a load of me.”

He spun, his rolling laughter making her flush in a fury, until he’d leaned a knee on the bed, pushing into her space until he could press his lips to her forehead.

“Let’s not go making plans to firebomb the community center just yet, rabbit. We can talk about tomorrow, tomorrow.”

“Gray . . . ?”

“Tell me what you need, babydoll.”

“Are you going to get tired of me if you’re not chasing?”

His lips were gentle against hers, reminding her that she could’ve never conjured his kiss in her imagination.

“Maybe I’m tired of running, Vanessa. And you can try to run, rabbit, but it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No, it doesn’t.” He gave her the sharpest smile he’d graced her with since the very first day he’d walked in late to her interview. “You belong to me. And I’d like to meet the wolf with the fucking audacity to try and take you from me.”

“Good,” she whispered as he looked himself over in the mirror a final time, leaving her naked on the bed. “And you’re still taking me to Bora Bora, asshole.”

Her eyes followed him as he left the room, the deep rumble of his laughter trailing in his wake. They weren’t magically fixed, she knew, and they would need to have a long talk, an actual discussion about the future and they each fit into the other’s lives and what would happen next . . . But tonight, he'd chased her, and she loved having Grayson Hemming chase her.

“Good,” she repeated softly, falling back on the bed. “I have big plans for us.”

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