He couldn’t help watching her. She held the mug with two hands. Her lashes fluttered closed as she took a long, slow sip. His pulse jumped at her small murmur of approval. She was close, disturbingly so. He almost got up and moved to the nearby chair. Then, again, no harm in enjoying a little closeness, he decided. A harmless activity.
Suddenly, she said, “I’ve come to a decision.”
“About what?”
“About me. I have to fight back, Neil.”
“So I noticed.”
“Not just physically. Mentally.” Her voice was a little shaky when she added, “I’ll just disappear for good if I don’t. I guess I haven’t been myself for too long.”
“Which is understandable. You just lost your brother.”
“I lost myself a long time ago. I’ve been letting life swallow me whole. No more.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“That’s why I’m going to find Nickels.”
“That’s not good.”
“And I need your help,” she went on quickly before he could reason with her. Her blue eyes were wide. Vulnerable. “If you say no…well, I hope you won’t say no. These visions of yours…you must be getting them for a purpose.”
“To keep you out of danger.”
“And the best way to do that,” she said logically, “is to put Nickels behind bars.”
“Leave it to the authorities, Annabeth.”
“I can’t. And neither can you,” she insisted. “You can’t tell them that you knew what was going to happen beforehand. They won’t believe you. I’m a believer, though, whether or not I want to be.”
Neil didn’t like this. Not one bit. Annabeth was reminding him too much of his sister Kate, an earlier victim of the legacy. Kate had gotten so involved in a murder case—which was originally thought to be an accidental death—that she’d almost gotten herself killed.
He didn’t want to see that happen to yet another woman he cared about.
Cared about?
“So what’s your plan?” he asked stiffly. He had to know, had to at least pretend to cooperate if he was going to talk some sense into her. “I can’t program myself to see things.”
“How do you know? Have you ever tried?”
“I’ve never even had any kind of precognition before I met you.”
Which brought him back to her certainty that he’d gotten the visions for a reason, which brought him full circle to his grandmother’s legacy and her behest to put himself out in another’s behalf.
Damn!
Maybe this was what he was supposed to do, Neil realized. Help her find Nickels. The reason he’d suddenly discovered his gift on his thirty-third birthday.
Fate…could he really fight it and win?
“All right,” Neil conceded, “your point is a good one.”
He could cooperate and protect Annabeth, make certain that she didn’t run wild and end up facing death like Kate had. If he were more intimately involved, he could control the situation, Neil decided. Whenever he thought things were getting too dangerous, he could rein in Annabeth.
“But the only time I get this precognitive inspiration is when we’re together,” he continued. “So we need to be together more.”
“That makes sense.”
Neil knew Annabeth wasn’t going to be thrilled with his solution, but he kept his voice neutral, as if it didn’t affect him in the least, when he said, “So you agree—I’ll move my things in here tomorrow.”
“You’ll what?”
“You want my help, then we need to be together,” he said logically.
“This place isn’t big enough for the two of us.”
Knowing she must be thinking of the sleeping arrangements, he said, “I’ve bunked down on hard ground more times than I care to count.” And before she could come up with some other objection, he added, “Besides, if I get more involved, I’ll be in as much danger as you are. I can’t chance bringing that down on Skelly or Roz or three little kids.”
Little kids who were in their terrible twos—which meant that chaos reigned in that particular McKenna household. Moving in with Annabeth would be peaceful by comparison.
But in order for the authorities to have the edge and round up Nickels and his cohort, Wexler needed to know everything that they did.
Except for the precognition thing, of course.
“Besides,” Neil added, hoping this would be the clincher, “I intend to help you out with the rent. A man has his pride.”
Annabeth stiffened but he could tell she was contemplating his offer. He could tell she didn’t like it, but she didn’t outright object, so he figured she was actually thinking about it.
And then suddenly she asked, “So you’ll move in tomorrow?”
Her way of agreeing without saying the words? Neil noticed her voice had been as purposefully neutral as his.
“Right. Tomorrow. But I don’t plan on leaving you alone tonight.”
She gulped hard. “Oh.”
Not that she had anything to worry about from him. He could keep himself in check.
No matter how attractive he found her, he would feel honor-bound in her behalf to remain a gentleman, no matter how tempted he was to do otherwise.
ONLY AFTER TRYING to reach Detective Wexler, who proved unavailable until morning, did Annabeth fully consider the ramifications of taking in Neil as a roommate. At the moment, she was desperate for cash to pay her rent, but could she really take money from Neil? she wondered.
Having her rent paid would ease her mind a bit. And eventually—maybe sooner than later if Lloyd cut another check—she would repay Neil.
A woman had her pride, as well.
He was, after all, agreeing to something even more significant in helping her find Nickels. The idea that somehow, by some bizarre gift, he could ferret out the thief’s lair, shook her. And if they did find him, what then?
And how were they to proceed?
Neil would have to touch her.
Maybe a lot.
Who knew how long it would take—how much touching—before they would get any results.
Annabeth grew warm just thinking about it. She hadn’t forgotten the kiss, certainly. No matter that she’d told herself to forget, that Neil wasn’t for her. She didn’t need further complications in her life—it was already more complicated than she’d ever imagined it could be. She didn’t need a man. Didn’t need anyone. Except maybe to help her out of this jam.
She’d give Neil that. She couldn’t do it without him. Alone, where would she even start?
Realizing that she’d been in the bathroom for more than fifteen minutes, Annabeth figured that she had delayed the inevitable long enough.
After flushing the toilet and running the sink water for a moment to cover her retreat to calm her nerves, she threw open the door. Neil had slid down on the couch, had propped his boots on the table and had pulled his brimmed hat low on his forehead.
Had he fallen asleep? she wondered.
Tempted to leave him be, to delay the inevitable even more, to curl up in her chair and try to fall asleep, Annabeth knew she was being a coward. Before she could find her courage, he stirred. As if he could sense her staring at him, he flicked back the hat, straightened and turned to meet her gaze.
“Sorry,” he muttered, his eyes slitted. “Guess I’m a little tired. You don’t get to sleep in much when the household has three little kids.”
“I guess not.” Acting as if she didn’t have a hesitation, Annabeth left the doorway. “I would be surprised if you weren’t exhausted.”
She eyed him warily as she took a seat at the other end of the couch, leaving a division between them. He was staring at her openly now, and she imagined that his wolf’s eyes nearly gleamed with yellow light.
“So how do we begin?” she choked out.
“By following our instincts. We could start by holding hands.”
Great. Her palms were sweating. But when he slid closer and held out one of his,
she hesitated only a second before giving over.
The first touch was electric and she started to pull her hand away, but he caught it and held fast.
Annabeth’s eyes widened and her pulse fluttered. He wasn’t hurting her but she felt his power. It was almost as if he kept her still by the force of his will. His gaze bore into her, stirring all her secret places. Her breathing grew shallow and her mouth went dry. Still, he didn’t let go—neither her hand or otherwise.
She waited what seemed like an interminable amount of time before choking out, “Anything?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“How much longer do you suggest we try?”
“I don’t know. I told you this is new to me. Maybe we need to be closer.”
Before she could object that they hadn’t been closer the previous times, he slid next to her.
Annabeth didn’t know what this was doing for him, but she was certainly experiencing quite a reaction.
Her heart skipped a beat and she couldn’t think straight. Though inches still separated them—except for the hand-holding—she imagined the heat of his body was pressed into hers. Now it wasn’t just her palms that were sweating. She felt moist between her breasts and a trickle of wetness followed the curve of her spine.
“How is this working?” she whispered.
“Oh, it’s working.”
“What do you see?”
“Your beautiful blue eyes.”
A thrill shot through her and though she tried to shake it away, she was a bit breathless when she clarified. “I meant in the way of a vision.”
He shook his head. “I reckon I have to move closer.”
Without further warning, Neil inched toward her so that they were sitting hip to hip, knee to knee. He slid an arm around the back of the couch, around her back. His fingers trailed over her far shoulder and down her upper arm.
And suddenly Annabeth was melting inside, trying to hang on to the purpose of this experiment.
She tried to speak but no words would come. Her open mouth seemed to be an invitation, because Neil took it. Literally. He slanted his mouth over her own and softly plundered its warm, wet interior.
Torn between wanting to pull away and indignantly demanding to know if that did it for him and wanting to let the kiss take her where it would, she drifted along in a haze of growing awareness.
Of him. Of her own sex-deprived body. Of how much more touching they could do without their clothes on.
Somehow her breast was in his hand and it seemed that Neil was considering the weight and firmness of the flesh. Then he found her nipple, which grew long and hard between his fingertips.
The time for analysis, for planning, for smart remarks was over.
Driven by pure instinct, Annabeth responded by slipping her hand along the front of his jeans. He adjusted himself so that she could more fully touch him. Even through the thick denim material, she could feel him, hard and long, as ready for sex as she. A warm wetness pooled between her thighs and she squirmed, wanting his hand—him—there.
Imagining him driving himself deep into her and riding her as smoothly as he had his horse earlier, Annabeth moaned. The guttural sound started low in her throat and resonated to every square inch of her aroused body.
Neil groaned, too.
And then, amazingly, set her aside.
Her hand felt abandoned as it lifted from temptation and the buzz in her head lightened.
“We ought to get to bed,” he said, standing suddenly.
More turned on than she’d ever been in her life, Annabeth hazily reviewed the sleeping arrangements. The fact that she had one lone sofa bed kept sticking in her mind. Neil had said that he’d bunked on the ground before, but she suspected that kiss, those intimate touches, had been prelude to a deeper assault on the senses.
But with the physical connection broken, so was the fever that had raged in her only a moment ago. What had she been thinking? Well, of course she hadn’t been thinking, had merely been driven by hormones.
Knowing that letting Neil make love to her would be a mistake, Annabeth readied herself for an argument.
Rising also, she announced, “Um, I need my sleep.”
“So do I.”
Without so much as looking her way, he started flipping the cushions to the floor.
“Sleep,” she emphasized.
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“That’s my bed.”
“Got that.”
“Where do you intend to sleep?”
He froze before he could release the last of the cushions. “Where do you want me to sleep?”
They locked gazes and his wolf’s eyes practically swallowed her whole. Again, her breathing grew ragged. Temptation flitted through her body, but her mind was her strongest organ, she decided.
She crossed her arms over her chest as though she could stop her breasts from tingling. “You said you’d slept on the ground before.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So pick a spot and stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking at me as if you could eat me.”
One dark eyebrow raised fractionally. “Sounds tempting, Sunshine. Where do you want me to start?” Neil asked as he moved in on her again.
He kept coming until Annabeth slapped a hand in the middle of his chest. Squeezing her thighs together, she choked out, “That’s far enough.”
“I thought I would sleep between you and the door.”
“Pick a spot on the floor!”
“That’s what I meant.”
To her utter embarrassment, after he swung open her bed, Neil began arranging the cushions that he had, of course, thrown between her and the door.
On the floor.
Maybe advanced intimacy was more on her mind than it was on his. Heat flooded her, but this time it wasn’t seductive heat but pure embarrassment.
“Um, a pillow,” she muttered. “You need a pillow. And sheets.”
Thankfully, Annabeth was able to hide her red face for a moment in the closet where she stored her few extra linens. But even touching the pillow and sheets that would cover Neil’s body gave her a goosey feeling that she found hard to ignore.
So by the time they settled down, lights out and silence reigning, she was wondering if she shouldn’t have handled things differently. It had been so long since she’d slept with a man that she was ripe for picking.
Had she been just a bit more seductive…
Listening to Neil’s soft snore a few minutes later, part of her mourned the fact that he hadn’t been tempted enough to take a bite.
Chapter Nine
Dawn crept into Annabeth’s apartment far too soon for Neil. Yet at the first rays of sunlight that crossed his makeshift bed on the floor, he arose.
Aware of the woman sprawled across the sofa bed only a few inches away—so close that he could reach out and touch her if he let himself—he knew that wouldn’t be wise.
Not for him. Nor for her.
Annabeth slept on, sheet covering all of her, including her nose. Her wheat-colored hair spread out across her sky-blue pillowcase, a color that he was certain matched her eyes. When they were open, that was. At the moment, her long golden-brown lashes seemed glued to her cheeks.
His groin heavy with unsated need, he stared at her for too long, remembering what had almost happened between them the night before. He had wanted her more than any woman he’d ever known. He still wanted her.
Wanted to hold her…to kiss her…to make love to her until she forgot about bad karma and hostage situations and vile men who attacked her under the cover of night.
But she wouldn’t forget, he knew. The resolve Annabeth had discovered in herself was strong, and it would be unfair of him to take that from her. She’d lost too much already and now she feared losing herself for good.
Neil didn’t have a clue as to what such self-doubt would be like. He’d always known who he was, where he was head
ed, what goals he needed to accomplish. He’d lived his whole life with purpose.
But Annabeth…as far as he could tell, she’d been spinning her wheels, looking for a foothold somewhere. In something. She needed something to believe in. Someone. Herself.
He couldn’t take that from her.
He would just have to let Annabeth do what she had to, Neil realized. He couldn’t stop her or he would break her, perhaps beyond repair.
But at the same time, he vowed to protect her, to see her safely through this period of self-discovery.
Until Nickels and his partner were caught.
And then he would be out of her life. Mission accomplished. His grandmother’s charge satisfied.
But would he be?
Not wanting to answer that question, Neil decided a temporary retreat was in order.
Moving quietly so as not to wake Annabeth, he grabbed his boots and slipped into the bathroom where he splashed his face with cold water, then used his damp hands to slick down his hair. The shower tempted him, but it could wait. A complete inspection of the area outside couldn’t.
It had come to him during the interminable time when he’d tried to fall asleep that Nickels may have left behind something they could use, some clue.
Having hunted since he was a boy, Neil was an expert tracker. Whatever might be there, Neil would find.
Boots on, he crept through the apartment and out the front door, careful not to wake Annabeth. Once outside, he scanned every inch of the staircase with an eagle eye. He especially covered the area where Nickels had gone over the railing and was eventually rewarded by finding a few ragged threads caught on a splinter. He worked them free and placed them in his shirt pocket.
Nothing else presented itself at the staircase, but Neil followed Nickels’s route into the alley. He noted the resin trash can the thief had knocked into—the lid had flown and stuck halfway open. Neil closed it and kept on. A box on the ground had been kicked halfway into the alley, and a bit farther along, he’d crunched over bottles, leaving shards of broken glass.
From there on, Neil found no visible trace of the bandit, but instinct kept him going. He smelled the man’s trail—not literally, of course, but instinctively. Nearing the end of the alley, however, he stopped. Far enough. Going farther would serve no purpose but to frustrate himself. Nickels had probably left a car there—or perhaps his partner had been waiting for him.
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