Little Dark Secret (Storm's Soldier Book 2) by Paige Notaro Read Free Book Online Page B

come in. I grabbed forms and started to head out.
    “Hold on,” she said. “You’re not even going to give me a reason for why you showed up so late?”
    “It’s nothing big,” I said.
    Lilly rolled over and whispered up with saucer eyes. “Was it morning sex?”
    “No! Come on.” Then I said it again softly. “It’s nothing like that.”
    “Good. Cause I definitely wouldn’t want to hear about it or anything.”
    “Right.” I crouched in. “That bored at home? Not trying to seal in the baby with a bit more sex?”
    “That’s not how reproduction works.” Lilly rolled back to her monitor. “We’re taking a time out from that stuff until it goes back to being fun.”
    “It shouldn’t take Paul long,” I said, as I headed out. “You’ll be like a completely new woman in a few months.”
    “Ugh, don’t remind me.”
    “Hey, you’re the one who wanted a baby.”
    “You’ll feel it too someday.”
    A new chill raced down my shoulders, as I remembered talking with Calix about kids. How in the hell had that conversation put me in any sort of nesting mood?
    I moved around talking to patients, but my mind linger on the night before. At the very least, confronting Calix had let me see just who I was. I had shared stuff with him that I’d kept hidden from much better men. Men who saved their anger for things deep than skin color, at least.
    Maybe it was all the talk about his messed up family. Or maybe it was because, for once, I hadn’t left the breakup in a screaming match. Calix might have said some messed up stuff, but he said it in ways that made you think there was a point in digging deeper.
    I glanced back at Lilly now and then in between leading patients in and out for exams. Even under the dim hospital lights, she seemed to carry an inner glow. She had infected me. I didn’t want what she had yet, but I wanted it someday. I wanted a guy I could have that with someday.
    Calix might be devoted to family, but he had picked the wrong one to stay loyal to. He had even protected them over me when he stole that bullet. Yeah, he admitted it was a dumb decision, but he had followed through. Maybe I needed someone who wouldn’t put loyalty over doing the right thing.
    It was good that thought was lurking around in my head when the hospital doors whirred open later, and I saw a familiar form come through.
    My eyes roamed the handsome wilderness of his face, drifted to the hard dunes of his body that I already knew so well, and ended back on the crystal lakes of his eyes that I fallen so deep for. A familiar response swelled in my body, a softening that came from habit and instinct.
    Now, I could see it for the nonsense that had drew me to him to begin with. I blew it all out, and rushed up to meet him at the foot of the hall.
    “What the hell are you doing here?” I hissed.
    “I came to talk to you.”
    He stepped closer, his body forming a wall over me. The rest of the room felt far away, and I felt lost in the pine scent he wore. I flushed his scent from my lungs.
    “Are you still a white nationalist?” I said quieter and harsher.
    “That’s what I came to discuss. I didn’t have a chance to explain yesterday.”
    “Yes or no?”
    “I’m trying to explain”
    “I want a yes or a no, Calix? Are you or are you not a white nationalist?”
    “I’m the guy who wants to be with you.”
    His voice was low, and it ran down me like an earthquake. It would take so little to collapse into his grip. To allow myself to succumb to instinct.
    “No!”
    I shoved away from him. A sniffling woman seated next to me raised her head at us.
    That had been louder than I intended. But it had been loud enough for us both to hear.
    Calix’s eyes trembled, tipped inward. He breathed softly through his mouth. It was almost shocking to see the power I had over him.
    I might have rushed to hold him in a weaker moment, but now I could face this. I deserved a man who didn’t have to keep secrets from