Sedona Suspect

by Lisa Kessler

  Nothing unexpected, but I couldn’t stop imagining him sharing this bed with someone. I closed the drawer, and his voice filled the room.

  “Find anything interesting in there?”

  I spun around. He was leaning against the doorframe, shirtless, his chiseled torso on full display. I chuckled. “You’re pretty quiet for a werewolf.”

  “I have my moments.” He looked past me to the nightstand and back to my face. “Did you need a Tums?”

  I shook my head. “No.” It should’ve ended there, but I couldn’t keep the words inside my mouth. “I thought you’ve been looking for your mate.”

  “I have.” He sobered. “Why?”

  I pointed behind me at the nightstand. “There were condoms in there with the Tums.”

  “I forgot they were in there.” He came farther into the room. “It’s been a long time.”

  None of my business. None of my business. But my mouth had another plan. “I guess I didn’t realize you’d be using full-body touching to search for her.”

  He tipped his head slightly. “Are you jealous?”

  Was I? I shook my head. “No. Just…curious.”

  He stopped close enough that I could reach out and touch him, his tight abs luring me to do just that. It had been a long time for me, too. I crossed my arms so I would keep my hands to myself.

  He shrugged a muscled shoulder. “I’ve had brief relationships and one-night stands, but those kind of lose their shine when I know they’re not the one. Leaves me emptier than before, you know?”

  I did know. “I can’t stay in Sedona. Once we finish the judge and we’re sure shifters are still hidden from view, I need to get out of Arizona.”

  “I know.” He nodded slowly, the heat of his body calling to me. “We already agreed.”

  “That I can’t stay.”

  “That we’d get to know each other until you needed to go.” The hunger in his gaze hypnotized me until I was half tempted to yank the towel free, and the innuendo in his words made it clear he was thinking about getting to know each other intimately.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I…” I let out a shaky breath. This was a level of lust I’d never encountered before. “I should wait for the clothes to finish washing so I can put them in the dryer.”

  He wet his lips, drawing my attention to his sexy mouth. “Suit yourself.” He walked past me into the bathroom without closing the door. “But I can’t keep standing here imagining what’s under that towel or I’m going to bust this zipper.”

  I smiled at his admission and warred with myself while the shower came to life in the other room. From where I stood, I could see his reflection in the mirror as he stripped off his jeans and boxer briefs. He straightened, his back to the mirror, and I pressed my thighs together as I took in his naked back and then slid my gaze lower to his perfect muscular ass.

  He stepped into the shower and turned his face into the water. Steam started to fill the stall, but not before I saw his hand reach lower to grasp his erection. He rested his other hand on the wall next to the showerhead, his muscles tight as he stroked his length. He had to know I could see him, but he kept his head down. The water spilled down his back as he ground his hips into his hand. I’d had sex with men before, but I’d never been so intimate with anyone that I’d watched him masturbate, and knowing he was fantasizing about me had my hand sliding up underneath my towel. I was already wet. I pressed my lips together to keep from moaning as I imagined his rough hand between my thighs.

  Suddenly, I tugged the towel free. I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. I opened the nightstand and grabbed one of the foil packets. When I came into the bathroom, he lifted his head but didn’t move his hand from his shaft.

  His gaze slid up my naked body until his eyes met mine. “It’s about time.”

  I grinned and got into the shower. He caught me in his arms, and I gasped when my breasts pressed against his wet chest. His body was hard and hot, and I wanted to lose myself in him, to forget where I ended and he began.

  His teeth scraped my lower lip as his hands moved down my sides. He splayed his fingers wide, his touch far from gentle, and I wanted him so bad I shivered. His tongue tangled with mine as he growled into the kiss.

  He brought a hand back up to cup my breast and broke the kiss. His breath was hot on my ear. “Tell me…slow and easy or fast and hard?”

  “Hard,” I whispered before I could even think about the question.

  He spun me around and pressed me against cool tile. My nipples hardened at the sudden change of temperature. His knee slid between my legs, his erection pulsing against my ass as he took the condom from my hand and growled into my ear, “I need to taste you first.”

  His hands were tight on my hips as he pulled me toward him a few inches further from the wall. My back arched as he bent lower, opening myself to him. I turned my head and trembled with desire when I caught our reflection in the mirror. His hot tongue slid down my spine until goose bumps broke out. His hands moved from my hips to my ass. He parted my cheeks, and I cried out as his tongue licked my core from top to bottom. He groaned and buried his face in me. I was on my tiptoes, legs spread, aching for every touch. His fingers tightened on my ass until it was almost painful, and I didn’t want it to end. His lips and tongue fed on me until I cried out, losing myself to the pleasure he inspired.

  “Don’t stop,” I moaned.

  He smacked my ass, making my breath catch in my throat before he sank two fingers deep inside me.

  “Come for me. I want to taste you,” he groaned into me.

  I shuddered, crying out as stars lit on the edge of my vision. My orgasm left me gasping for air. I trembled against the cool wall as foil crinkled behind me. He pressed against me, his teeth on my shoulder. His lips carried my scent, and the jaguar in my soul growled. I might not have the same instincts as he did, but the animalistic part of me marked him as ours. It was primal and possessive. This was the first time the jaguar had ever reacted to any man, and it unsettled me.

  Just as my brain started to dim my afterglow, his erection pressed at my opening and he growled against my ear. “You’re mine.”

  He thrust into me hard and completely, stretching me wide as his hand slid around my hip to tease my sensitive core. “You have more for me?”

  He rocked his hips up into me, and I scratched my nails down the tile. “Yes,” I gasped.

  And he took it. Working his fingers until I was writhing back into his thrusts. His teeth brushed my earlobe. “Move your hands up.”

  I did, and he brought his other hand up to my breast, pinching my nipple as he pumped into me harder and faster. Just as my orgasm claimed me again, he froze, pressing tight to my back as he exploded inside me.

  We stood leaning against the wall of the shower, wet and wasted, and I felt like I might never stop smiling. He kissed my shoulder and whispered, “Turn around.”

  He slid free of me, and I did as he commanded. He took the condom off and dropped it on the floor of the shower before bending to kiss me. His lips were soft and slow and lingering. When he straightened, he rested his forehead against my mine, and his eyes shone with power only another shifter would recognize. This was his wolf at the surface, one with the man as he whispered, “I give you my heart, my protection, and my life.”

  I kissed him as a tear ran down my cheek. I didn’t deserve any of those things, especially not his heart.

  I’d have to break it in order to keep him safe.

  CHAPTER 12

  Dex

  I massaged her shoulders as I rinsed out my hair. Her purrs as she dropped her head forward had me ready to take her again. Another perk of being a shifter was not needing much recovery time. But I didn’t make a move. I wanted to care for her. I pressed a kiss to her shoulder and turned off the water. Her scent teased me. She smelled so good, like a sanctuary in the storm. With her naked in my arms, the rest of the world didn’t exist.

  The doorbell rang.

 
For a second, I didn’t recognize the noise, as if it wasn’t quite strong enough to break the spell I was under. But Natasha stiffened, turning toward the door. Instead of panic, there was a cold calm in her eyes. The deadly assassin.

  “Do you have any other weapons besides the gun in your nightstand?” she whispered.

  I nodded as I got out of the shower. “There’s a rifle in the garage and a couple boxes of ammunition.”

  She grabbed the bathrobe off the back of the door and wrapped it around herself. My robe was big on her, but I didn’t have time to admire it. She disappeared down the hallway while I yanked on a pair of jeans and went to the door. I raked my hand through my wet hair and frowned.

  I recognized the scent coming through the door. I opened it and stared into General Sloan’s piercing eyes. They were light green, almost silver, and while he could’ve been in his sixties, being a werewolf meant physically he aged very slowly. He had silver hair and the body of a fit fifty-year-old, if that.

  “Sloan?” I peered around him. He’d come alone. “What are you doing here?”

  “Tracking a fugitive.” He sucked in a slow breath and met my eyes as he shook his head. “She’s here.” He ground his teeth. “Dammit. Every cop in Arizona is looking for her.”

  I didn’t move to welcome him inside. He was a werewolf, but he wasn’t a member of my pack, and he’d worked with Nero on super soldier research that had ended up killing Jett’s brother. He claimed to be in Sedona to keep the Transparency Collective from exposing shifters to the world, but so far, he hadn’t managed to stop the judge from throwing Natasha in jail the night before the new moon, so he could take that judgment shining in his eyes and fuck off.

  “Are you here to tell me something I don’t know?” I snapped.

  “I’m here to find the assassin your pack broke out of jail. Stop dicking around with me and let me help you.”

  “Haven’t you helped enough?” Natasha spat from behind me.

  When I turned around, she was dressed in her now clean borrowed clothes and her wet hair was already braided.

  “I’m handling it,” Sloan growled.

  “Not fast enough.” I narrowed my eyes. “The judge has taken the super soldier serum, a drug you knew was in development, since the Department of Defense was who funded it. He’s your mess, yet Natasha was the one locked up. If my pack hadn’t intervened when we did, shifters would be all over the news now.”

  Natasha moved to stand beside me. “Are you here with a plan or just to tell me to get out of town?”

  Sloan stiffened, looking down his nose at Natasha as if she were a recruit being inspected. “I came with some information that might help us eliminate the judge.”

  I looked at Natasha, and she gave me a small nod. I faced the general again and opened the door wider. “Come inside.”

  Sloan stepped in, and I closed the door behind him, setting the dead bolt again. I led him into the dining room and pulled out a chair. “Talk.”

  I waited for Sloan to sit before Natasha and I took the chairs across the table from him. Sloan focused on Natasha. “First, I need to state that I wasn’t aware of Antonio Severino’s desire to increase the population of shifters and eventually rule over humans. I never would have pursued contracts with Nero if I had known.”

  I smirked. “But you were happy to throw money at him for research that killed Jax Kendrick, and Jett has never been the same.”

  Sloan met my eyes for a second before lowering his gaze to the table. “There were forces bigger than me pushing it.” He shook his head. “I tried to limit the damage and keep our existence shielded. That’s the best I could do.”

  Natasha rested her hand on my thigh, pulling my attention to her, but her eyes were focused on Sloan. “You said you had information for us?”

  He nodded, his expression all business again. “When the Department of Defense awarded a contract to Evolution Defense to continue Nero’s super soldier research, I was unaware that Dr. Harlow was an emperor of the Transparency Collective. I intercepted some communications between Judge Jones and Senator Hanson regarding the work, and it’s clear they were planning to use the serum to make an army of men to fight shifters once the world knew about us. None of that was within the Department of Defense’s scope.”

  “How does that help us exactly?” I asked, resting my hand on top of Natasha’s.

  “I know you’re both focused on the judge, and I do realize he’s only going to get more unstable after taking the serum.” He looked at each of us and shook his head. “But while killing the judge might stop him from pressing charges against shifters, it could also cause Senator Hanson to start a war against us. We’d be outnumbered and outgunned.” His brows pinched as he lowered his voice. “Our only hope of stopping this is to get enough evidence from the judge to prove the senator has been leading a shadow group that believes monsters are real. We’ve got to find it and leverage it before the senator can declassify the research from Operation Moonlight.”

  I frowned, glancing at Natasha and then back to Sloan. “What’s Operation Moonlight? Jett and his brother participated in something called Codename Wolf.”

  Sloan’s gaze went distant as he looked out the window. “Wolf was an experiment to see if we could alter the brain chemistry of shifter soldiers to enhance psychic abilities. Nero’s scientists believed it would be possible because of our faster healing ability.” He met my eyes, his expression grim. “Moonlight was more primitive.”

  What did that mean? He stood before I could ask.

  He cleared his throat. “We have to take the judge alive. I need to extract as much information on the senator from him as I can.”

  Natasha shook her head. “Taking him alive is too risky. He’s just as strong as we are with the same heightened senses. I can shoot him from a distance. He won’t be able to smell or hear me.”

  A muscle in Sloan’s cheek clenched. “Without the evidence to leverage the senator, we will lose this war. We can’t waltz into the Capitol and assassinate him. This is delicate. When he hears the judge is dead, he’ll declassify Operation Moonlight. The footage contained in those files will start a panic.”

  My dad had told us stories about a pack that had volunteered for service and that it had nearly killed them. They had been from Nevada. Like Sloan…

  I looked up at the general. “Were you a part of Operation Moonlight?”

  “Yes.” His expression was stoic, but there was a fire in his eyes as he nodded. “Help me stop the senator.”

  Natasha sighed, shaking her head again. “This is going to be complicated. The judge is paying two of our jaguar assassins to be his bodyguards. They know the serum is making him reckless, but they’re too scared to cross him.”

  I turned to her. “Can you contact them? Maybe they’d look the other way while we make a grab.”

  She shrugged. “We could try, but I’m pretty sure Gil must’ve put a tracker on my car for the police to find me the other night.”

  Sloan took out a small pad of paper and a pen from his pocket and wrote down an address. I recognized it instantly, and my gut twisted as I looked up at him. “The storage facility.”

  He nodded. “Asher said the pack hasn’t sold it so it’s empty and secure. That’s where you’ll deliver the judge.”

  “The pack owns a storage facility?” Natasha asked.

  “Yeah.” Did the guilt show on my face? I fucking hated that place. Our previous Alpha had locked up the bitten wolves there, all while I had kept working and pretending it wasn’t happening. “Long story, but yeah.”

  Sloan pushed the slip of paper toward me and took a step back. “Let me know when you have him and I’ll meet you there. I’ll get the interrogation room ready.”

  His gaze shifted to Natasha. “I’ll be in touch.” He turned and went to the door. He looked at me over his shoulder as he pulled it open. “Be careful. I’ve been monitoring the police scanner and they’re definitely looking for her.”

  “I kno
w how to disappear,” Natasha replied.

  Something about the way she said it made my wolf growl.

  Once the door closed behind him, Natasha popped up from her chair. “I’m going to need a few things.”

  “Okay.” I tracked her pacing, my gaze locked on her as if she might vanish at any second.

  “I’ve got to change my look, so maybe some dark-auburn hair dye. They’ll be looking for long blond hair. I’ll give you a list of makeup, too.” Her pace didn’t slow from one end of the table to the other, back and forth. “I can’t risk going to the bank until I change things up.”

  “I can run to the drugstore and bring everything back.”

  “If they have a local college shirt, too, that would help. Anything that’ll blend in.”

  I got up and put myself in her path. She stopped in front of me and looked up into my eyes. I lifted my hand to caress her cheek. “It’s going to be okay. Sloan was listening to a police scanner. The bank tellers aren’t going to know the police are looking for you.”

  “Hope not.” She sighed and went to the window. “We need to get over there today. If they start putting my name on the news, it’ll be too late. Oh shit.” She shook her head. “I have to show my ID to get into the box. The police have it…” Her words faded, but there was no meltdown or despair. I had to admit, I loved seeing her thought process in action. “I could make a death certificate and a will. You could claim the box with the key and a death certificate.”

  I walked up behind her and kneaded her shoulders slowly. “I think we have to forget your safe-deposit box for now.”

  She raised a brow. “I need that new identity.”

  “Vance has a friend. We can get you a fake ID, and I’ll buy you a new burner phone. We don’t need the safe-deposit box right now.” I started for the bedroom to grab my cell. “I’ll call him so they can start working on it. Then I can run to the drugstore to get the things on your list. I can get some cash for you, too.”

  She followed me down the hallway. “Are you sure?”

  I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and glanced her way. “About what?”