Alpha's Second Chance_Shifter Nation_Werebears Of The Everglades

by Meg Ripley

  “And how is that?”

  “Because I imagine it will be a whole lot more difficult to brush me off when I’m standing right in front of you,” he said in a husky tone.

  She didn’t have time in her life right now for romantic entanglements—certainly not with a man who was probably used to getting any woman he wanted.

  Then again, that kind of man was more likely to get what he wanted and then move on. A night or two of unadulterated pleasure—and yes, she knew just by looking at him he’d be an expert in that—and then they’d both go their separate ways, him back to his rich, carefree life, and her, back to trying to find some trace of who she was.

  It was the perfect escape—like a weekend getaway, then back to work as usual when it was over.

  “And what if I had no intention of brushing you off, Grant?” she asked, surprising herself with the seductive tone of her voice.

  “I’d say that makes you a woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go after it.”

  She smiled, liking the sound of that. “Alright then, what did you have in mind?”

  “Dinner at Estiatorio Milos. I’ll pick you up at seven?”

  “Better yet, I’ll meet you there.” She didn’t know why she didn’t want him in her apartment. Perhaps because it was the closest thing she had to a refuge; a private place to try to sort through what clues she had to her past.

  She expected him to agree, to say…something, but instead, he swooped in so fast she barely saw it coming. He pulled her against him at the same time his lips came down on hers, and if she hadn’t been determined to stay on her feet, she would have swooned. He was so warm, his skin felt hot against hers, just like his hand had been when she’d clasped it in her own earlier. This time, she imagined him fresh from a hot shower, with his skin radiating out the heat it had absorbed.

  She’d had no idea there could be such thing as an expert in kissing, but this man was. His full lips were firm against hers, but not vicious, and the way his tongue plied against the seam of her lips sent tiny shivers of arousal through her whole body. She parted for him, almost without conscious effort, and then wished she hadn’t when his tongue stopped its path along her lips. But he delved in a second later, his tongue gliding along hers, making her moan quietly at the invasion.

  And then, all of a sudden, he released her. His lips left hers, his hands fell to his sides, and he took a step back, taking the heat of his body with him. She resisted the urge to pull him back. The muscles in his jaw twitched, and it gave her a moment’s satisfaction to see the separation had affected him, too.

  “I’ll see you at seven, Freya,” he spoke huskily and strode out of the room before she could find her voice.

  25

  He’d asked her to dinner? What the hell had he been thinking? But since he’d already accepted he was out of his mind when he’d left his house and started driving toward the museum, it shouldn’t surprise him that he’d done something so foolish.

  The moment he’d stepped through the curtains that sectioned off the exhibit and saw her standing there, he’d been mesmerized. Her long, dark hair was cascading in loose waves down her back; her head was tilted up toward the mammoth’s, as if she were engaged in an unspoken conversation with it—an intimate one given the way she was stroking the beast’s thick fur.

  It should have struck him as odd, but it hadn’t. It somehow seemed she was right at home, the same as it had when she was standing in his office and when he’d seen her asleep in her queen-sized bed.

  It would seem that Freya Cullen appeared right at home no matter the scene, and never had he felt it more than when he’d given in to the irresistible need to touch her.

  To pull her close and feel her soft body against his.

  To kiss the lips that he’d imagined engaged in a dozen naughty tasks since he first saw her.

  On the drive over, he’d convinced himself he only intended to see her, that all he wanted was another glimpse of the woman who he’d seen in Sonya’s hotel room and then had miraculously appeared in his home the very next day. But one look at her, and he knew he’d been fooling himself. Right or wrong, he wanted her for more than just the medallion that was likely in her possession. And since he couldn’t strip her naked right there in the museum—even if he did have a feeling she would have been on board with his intentions—he’d had to contrive another way to get her alone.

  So, dinner it would be. Then he’d drive her home, sink himself deep inside her gorgeous body, and find the medallion once she was fast asleep in blissful slumber. By morning, Freya Cullen would be nothing more than a sweet memory, and the medallion would be back where it belonged.

  But the moment she appeared in front of the restaurant six hours later, he began to question whether one time would be enough.

  She was sex and beauty personified in a knee-length black dress that would have looked conservative if it wasn’t for the slit up one thigh toward her hip and the back that was open all the way down to her waist. Her hair was pinned up, gathered around the crown of her head, and it made him itch to find the pins that would release the suave up-do and send the silky waves tumbling down her bare back.

  She’d left the cab and started toward the front entrance where he stood conversing with the restaurant’s proprietor, but suddenly, he was forced to direct all his attention inward, focusing on keeping the fire in his core reined in while it threatened to blaze outward. She’d had the same effect on him earlier, both in his home and at the museum, and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose control quickly—something that had never happened to him before.

  She came to a stop in front of them, and it didn’t surprise him to see the man next to him looking her up and down like she was the most delectable dessert on the menu. What did surprise him was the surge of violence that rushed through him, and the considerable amount of effort it took to keep from pummeling the man into the next zip code.

  Jealousy? That wasn’t a characteristic of his over a woman he’d known for great lengths of time, never mind one he’d only met a few short hours ago—and who very well might turn out to be a ruthless enemy.

  He shot the man a quelling look, and was mildly appeased when he nodded to Freya and made a quick escape inside.

  “Hello, Freya,” he forced the words past lips that would rather explore her body than speak.

  “An enemy of yours?” she asked teasingly and nodded in the direction of the man who’d just left.

  “No. The restaurant’s proprietor, actually,” he said, and that was all he intended to say on the subject.

  “Yikes. I’d say that had to be one nasty argument over the lobster salad. What did he do? Poison it?”

  “I’m certain he did no such thing,” he bantered back, enjoying her company already despite the desire that bordered on painful.

  She moved toward the door then, and he took advantage of the opportunity to touch her, to place his hand against her bare lower back and turn her away from the door. She looked up at him perplexed.

  “The private entrance is around the side,” he said, and though she smiled back, he could see the worried look in her eyes as her thoughts turned inward. She was worrying over the bill, and he held back a chuckle. He had more money than he could spend in a dozen millennia; there was no way he was going to let her pay for dinner.

  He escorted her around to the side entrance where a private dining room awaited them, but not five minutes into the first course, he knew it had been a mistake. At least in the crowded dining area there would have been distractions, things other than the woman across from him to focus his attention on, but not here.

  Here, she filled up all his senses. He watched her as she talked, fascinated by the perfect shape of her cupid bow lips, and he couldn’t avoid noticing the way her pupils had dilated and the pulse in the delicate column of her neck had sped up. He breathed her in; the food’s aroma paled in comparison.

  The scent of her arousal was driving him fucking wild. Pre
sented with proof that she wanted him, too, there was no way he was going to make it through dinner. He wanted to see her naked on the table. He wanted to taste every inch of her body. And he wanted to drive every hard inch of his cock deep inside her and hear her scream out in ecstasy.

  He was in the midst of contemplating how she’d react if he swiped the table clear and lifted her up on top of it when her phone rang from inside her purse. She apologized and rummaged through the bag in search of the ringing intrusion.

  Seconds later, he knew the night was about to come to an abrupt end. Though she held the phone close to her ear, he could hear the conversation perfectly clear. There had been a break-in at her apartment, the woman on the other end of the line explained. The police had been called and were there now, and damn it, that meant there was a good chance the thieves had absconded with Sonya’s medallion.

  But were they thieves at all, or had the creatures who had killed Sonya followed her medallion to Freya’s apartment?

  “Cat! Is Cat alright?” she asked in a loud whisper as she pushed back from the table and sprang to her feet. The woman reassured her that her feline friend was just fine, but it did little to stem the urgency in her movements.

  “I’ll drive you home, Freya,” he offered as soon as she’d hung up the phone.

  “That’s really not necessary. I’ll call a cab,” she said, typing the digits into her phone, and he got the impression she wasn’t trying to be polite. She genuinely didn’t want him to accompany her and he wondered why. Had he misread her attraction to him? No. The proof still radiated from every pore of her body. It was something else then, though he recognized he was far too wrapped up in her to consider it logically at the moment.

  She let him guide her out the private door they’d come in not long before, and then she took him by surprise, leaning up on her toes and pressing her soft lips against his.

  He nearly lost it, the taste of her lips making him hungry for more; the feeling of her breasts pressed against his chest. And when she fitted herself closer against him and her abdomen pressed against his throbbing cock, he resisted the overwhelming urge to push her up against the wall and fuck her senseless.

  He clenched his fists at his sides, digging into his palms so deep, he drew blood. But when the tip of her tongue slid along the seam of his lips, he knew he was in trouble.

  The fire in his core blazed hotter than it ever had before. He needed to take her. Now.

  He needed to find some way to cool the blaze, and it was the only thing he could think of. But at the same time, if he buried himself in her and couldn’t control the fire’s spread, what kind of danger was he putting her in?

  “Miss? Did you call for a cab?” a man spoke from the car that had pulled up behind them.

  She pulled away and darted for the cab without a word, as if she knew if she stayed there a second longer, she’d be in danger.

  He stood there long after the cab had pulled away, trying to get himself under control. He knew two things for certain at that moment: he wanted Freya Cullen more than he’d ever wanted a woman, and she was absolutely, without a doubt, a bad idea. There was just something about her that wasn’t like any human he’d ever known, something that appealed to him on too many levels, and for the first time in his existence, he had no idea how to control it.

  It wasn’t until several minutes had passed that he trusted himself to move and not pursue her, and as he strode toward his car, he realized that an evening cut short wasn’t the only problem that had arisen from the break-in at her apartment. How was he going to track down the medallion? And how the hell had that thought evaded him until now? The answer to the last question came easily.

  Freya.

  Yes, she was most definitely a bad idea.

  26

  A police officer was waiting for her when Freya started down the hall to her apartment. Her superintendent, Mrs. Abernathy, was there, too, with a sympathetic expression on her kind face and Cat in her frail arms.

  “I’m so sorry, dear,” she said. “I don’t know how they got in the building. I didn’t hear a thing, though I suppose that isn’t surprising, is it? I don’t hear too well these days. But Mrs. Holden—in the apartment below you—she called to tell me there was an awful ruckus going on above her.”

  The kind, old woman continued to enlighten her of all that transpired over the past half hour. If it were any other tenant that had called her, she would have looked into it herself, but Mrs. Holden wasn’t prone to complaining. Not once, in fact, in the whole twelve years she’d been there, so Mrs. Abernathy called the police right away.

  Eventually, the officer cleared his throat and interrupted, and she couldn’t blame the man—Mrs. Abernathy had been known to talk incessantly on more than one occasion. She hurried through his questions, anxious to assess the damage inside. The officer filled her in on what information they had—that it appeared the assailant had come in through an unlocked balcony window, and hers was the only apartment in the building that had been damaged.

  She thought nothing of it at first, just a random act of thievery, until he recommended that she stay elsewhere for the night—just to feel more at ease. The thing was, she had nowhere else to go. Freya couldn’t remember having anyone, no friend or family member had shown up at her door in the past three months and the people at work were casual acquaintances at best.

  So, she would stay there. She could waste her money on a hotel room, but she refused to be driven from her home. It was the only thing that she knew with any certainty had been there before her memory had vanished. At least, she presumed it had been since she had seven months remaining on a twelve-month lease.

  She thanked the officer for the suggestion and told him she’d be just fine. He seemed hesitant, but left a moment later with a parting reminder to lock her doors and windows.

  And then she stepped into her apartment.

  There were broken dishes strewn all over the floors; every drawer and cupboard had been emptied, the contents tossed randomly throughout every room. Lamps had been knocked over, curtains had been ripped off the walls and her television was lying face down on the carpet. The only place of refuge she’d known was in shambles. Someone had broken into the only home she could remember and destroyed it.

  She waited for the well of emotion to spring forth—anger, sadness, a sense of violation that came with her privacy being invaded. She could feel them in the pit of her stomach, but there they stayed, and instead what she felt more than anything was a calmness, a clear understanding of what needed to be done.

  She stepped carefully through the chaos of broken china and glass, and surveyed her surroundings, looking for what was missing.

  Nothing.

  She’d made it through the kitchen and the living room, but she couldn’t think of a single thing that was missing. It was all there, if in a few more pieces than before. Into the bedroom, she checked the jewelry box that had been sitting on the chest of drawers. It was on the floor, the contents strewn on the carpet, but the few pieces of jewelry that had been there before were still there now.

  Only one other possibility sprung to mind, and she opened the closet, tossing out the few items that remained in the small space. She crouched down and crawled to the back where she’d discovered a hidden box behind a false wall when she’d rummaged through the apartment three months ago. The false wall was still neatly closed, so she pushed on it gently, disengaging the simple magnetic strip that held it in place, and found the box there. It looked as if it hadn’t been touched, and when she opened it, they were still there—the medallion she’d hidden and the necklace that had been nestled there already.

  She was quickly coming to suspect that since nothing else had been taken, the intruders hadn’t found what they’d been looking for. The expensive-looking necklace had been tucked away in its hiding place for the past three months without incident, so it seemed an unlikely target.

  That left only one logical conclusion: the intruders had been
after the medallion. It was what worried her when she’d realized she’d taken it with her from the hotel, and it seemed her worry had been well-founded.

  Returning the box to its hiding spot, she closed the false wall and got to work, cleaning up all the broken, ripped and torn contents of her apartment, all the while contemplating what to do next. She could chuck the medallion off the Grand Canyon and be done with it, but if they suspected she still had it, they’d be back. She could somehow arrange a meeting to hand it over, but something in the back of her mind told her she couldn’t allow it to fall into the wrong hands.

  By two-thirty in the morning, she was no closer to an answer than when she’d started, but she had cleaned up all the mess, a stack of garbage bags at the front door filled with all the items that couldn’t be salvaged. At least cleaning days would be easier, she thought wryly, glancing around at the near-bare cupboards and empty shelves.

  She padded down the hallway to her bedroom, exhausted and desperate for a few hours’ sleep before the workday began. The intruders had been kind enough to leave her mattress, though it had been ripped and torn in so many places that the metal springs protruded from both sides of it here and there. She was so tired, though, she figured she could fall asleep just about anywhere at the moment.

  She laid down on the lumpy mattress, careful not to flop back too hard against the rogue springs, but it wasn’t the mess in her apartment or the medallion at the forefront of her mind when she closed her eyes.

  It was Grant.

  An image of him had sprung to mind, dressed impeccably in a three-piece suit—a suit that she’d imagined tearing off him at least a dozen times during their brief dinner. She’d been loath to leave him, so much that she’d almost accepted his offer to drive her to her apartment. Part of her hadn’t cared about the break-in, or the medallion, or the fact that she’d had no intention of welcoming him into the privacy of her home. She’d resisted the temptation, though, and wasn’t sure now if she was grateful or if she regretted it. She wouldn’t be lying in bed alone then, her body throbbing with unsated desire if she’d sacrificed her silly privacy.