He should know. He’d had more than his quota of skanks.

The last thing he would ever do was disrespect his Marissa. It would be like burning down a church, taking a knife to the Mona Lisa, and driving a 918 off a cliff for no reason at all.

So, no, she wasn’t going to clean up the nasty he’d left behind.

Marissa had other fish to fry.

As Butch insisted on paper toweling on his own, she got out of his way and shook her head. She had never understood his quirks about sex, but she accepted them. What else could she do? He wouldn’t talk to her about it—whenever she brought up the subject of him pushing her mouth away anytime he was close to climaxing, he shut her down.

Besides, right now that long-running stuff between the two of them was on her back burner.

That horrifically injured female was barely alive after having been operated on—and Marissa had come home only because there was nothing to do but sit outside that ICU room and wait for word that her organs had failed. Or had started to work on their own. God, the surgery had seemed so complicated when the nurse had explained it to her, but fixing her internal injuries and removing her spleen hadn’t taken more than an hour.

Unfortunately, she had lost too much blood, and even after Havers giving her his vein, her vitals were jumping all around.

When her brother had emerged from the OR, he had looked Marissa right in the eye and told her that he’d done the best he could.

And their own personal issues aside, she believed him.

The sad part to all of it, and indeed, there was almost too much tragedy to bear with this case, was that they still didn’t have a name for the female, and no one had called looking for her—Abalone, the King’s First Adviser, had checked the open e-mail box and audience house’s voice mail at Marissa’s request. There had also been no inquiries at the clinic or Safe Place.

The girl was a figurative ghost … on her way to possibly becoming a literal one.

“Shall we?” Butch drawled as he offered her his arm.

Marissa shook herself back into focus and smiled at her mate. “Yes, please.”

Taking hold of him, she walked by his side out into the foyer and entered the formal dining room. After the privacy they’d just had, all the chatter, laughter and bustling was a different social time zone, and she found herself feeling a little overwhelmed. Talk about filled to capacity. Even though the muraled ceiling was high as a kite, and the floor space bigger than a bowling alley, with the forty-foot-long table down the center crammed with the Brothers, their shellans, and the other fighters and members of the household, there was a joyful congestion ot it all.

Two seats were empty on the far side, and they went around to them, Butch settling her in her chair.

As he sat down next to her, he leaned in and kissed her on the mouth. “Eat fast.”

“You’d better believe it,” she said—even though she wasn’t hungry.

And, she was sad to admit, she wasn’t necessarily in a big hurry to get back to the Pit, either. The truth was, she’d seduced him because she’d known it was the only way to get her mate to move on from worrying about her.

When a plate of filet mignon was set in front of her by a doggen, Marissa moved things around, cutting up meat that she didn’t try, messing the mashed potatoes, scattering bright green peas. And then she took her glass of cabernet sauvignon and sat back, watching the people, listening to the stories.

“…gonna want me to do?”

Focusing in on her mate as he spoke, she watched as he leaned around John Matthew to put the question to Xhex.

The female fighter laughed. “You should fear me.”

“Anyone who doesn’t is an asshat.”

“You say the sweetest things. And I’m in no hurry to call my chit in. It’s a good thing to have a male like you in my debt.”

For no particular reason, Marissa took note of how powerful Xhex’s body was, her shoulders and torso cut with muscle that was set off by the skintight Under Armour shirt she wore tucked into her black leathers. Between her dark hair that was cut short and her gunmetal gray eyes, she was definitely someone to take seriously.

Meanwhile, Marissa was rocking her office-appropriate slacks and English school marm blouse routine.

As Butch offered his palm for a high five, Xhex laid one on him and the clap was loud in the room even with all the background noise.

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Butch said as he sat back in his chair. “Unbelievable.”

“What is?” Marissa asked.

“Xhex was … well, actually, first, I was in an alley … Ah, lemme back up…” He swiped his hand through the air. “Actually, it’s too much to explain. Bottom line, I was cornered with my pants down with two lessers, and Xhex had J.M.’s phone on her when I texted for backup. She came in a flash and—” Butch stopped short and shook his head. “Anyway.”

Marissa waited for him to go on. “Anyway…? What happened?”

Butch cleared his throat and took a sip from the Lagavulin in his glass. “It’s not important. It’s just, you know, stuff.”

“You were in trouble, weren’t you.”

He drew again from his rim. “It all worked out.”

“Thanks to Xhex.”

“You haven’t eaten anything.”

She glanced down at her plate. “Oh, yeah. No, I had a meal before I left Safe Place.”

Both of them fell silent.