by Michelle Fox
"I love your dress."
She raised her eyebrows. "Hookers would find this outfit trashy."
"Okay. Fine. I don’t love you wearing it in front of my parents," he amended, "but I wouldn’t mind it in the bedroom."
"We are not going into a bedroom," she said, the stern note in her voice directed at both herself as well as Kane. To her chagrin, her knees had gone wobbly with the masterful way he’d taken her in hand. Her wolf pranced under her skin, excited and eager.
"Why do you smell so good?" he murmured against her cheek, his breath hot on her face. "You always smell amazing."
"Let me go," she said, her voice a ragged gasp. For the record, he smelled pretty good to her, too. Not that she would ever admit that. Not in a million years.
"Your scent is so sweet and hot. If I licked you, would you melt in my mouth?" Kane pressed his lips against her neck and flicked his tongue over her skin until she shivered.
"Kane, no." Charlotte arched into him, telling herself it was only because she wanted to get away. It had nothing to do with pressing herself into him until they melted together.
"Why not, Charlotte?" He looked at her, his eyes dark pools.
She shook her head. "You don’t want me, Kane."
He arched an eyebrow. "I don’t?"
"I’m not your type," she huffed at him. "I’ve seen the women you date. They’re all as big as my pinkie with giant fake boobs." Charlotte waved her pinkie finger at him for emphasis, but she didn’t think Kane noticed, not with the way his gaze bored into hers. "Besides, you're not one to stick around. I'm not that kind of girl."
He moved until only one hand locked her wrists above her head, being extra gentle with her injured hand, and then skimmed her cheek with a finger, his touch flowing over her neck, across her collarbone, and down the side of her breast. "What if I’ve decided I want more?"
Her knees went weak as the blood flow in her body rearranged itself, concentrating in her nether regions and the tips of her breasts, which sprang to attention. Damn it. Why did he have to be so hot? "More of what?" she asked.
"Of everything," he said. "I think with you, Charlotte Wills, I would need way more than one night." Then he kissed her, lips pushing into hers, tongue stroking in and out of her mouth, just like…
She turned her head, escaping his lips. "We can’t do this."
He let her go then and stepped away, hurt and disappointment flashing across his face for a fleeting second before he composed himself and hid his feelings behind a neutral expression. It was his cop face, the one that hid who he really was. Charlotte worried her bottom lip and tried to fight the regret she felt. She wanted to say something to make it right between them, but words wouldn’t be enough, and she wasn’t ready to act on the passion burning hot and heavy inside her.
So she ran, instinct pulling her through the darkening shadows of the coming night and through the thin band of forest between his parents’ house and the beach. She hit the sand and sprinted across the shore toward the lights of Glen Vine. The lake churned beside her, hissing with what sounded like disapproval, which just made her run that much faster.
Chapter Sixteen
Kane came after her, of course, calling her name, and she ducked into the woods standing between the beach and the line of houses that ringed the area. Something sharp bit her foot and she stumbled. She dropped down to one knee, gasping with pain, then lurching upright, she kept moving, her ears telling her that Kane hadn’t given up. It was almost full dark now, with just the barest hint of grey, which meant she had to rely more on her ears than her eyes. Werewolf vision was sharp, but dark was still dark.
He can probably track me by scent alone, she thought ruefully. Was there even any point in running? I can’t go back. I want him too much. Gritting her teeth with determination, she pushed her body to go faster.
A root tripped her, slamming her to the ground at the same time something burst with a loud pop in the air above her. Even though she had no idea what the noise was, some latent instinct for danger kept her on the ground. She froze and held her breath, ears straining to hear what the noise had been.
The ground in front of her face suddenly exploded in a spray of dirt, and she jumped to her feet, running into the deepest shadows she could find. Pressing herself against the trunk of a wide oak, she held her breath once more, pretty sure she was dealing with bullets. Again.
Who knew there were so many people just itching to shoot her?
Silence filled the night. Even the mosquitoes stopped whining through the air. A branch cracked and leaves rustled. Charlotte carefully took a sip of air, not wanting to breathe so heavily that she would be heard, and tried to figure out her next move.
Without warning, a hand came out of nowhere and wrapped around her wrist, dragging her out from behind the tree. She pulled against the grip, but it was her bad hand, the one with the broken bone that, while almost healed, still wasn't a hundred percent. Her nose registered a scent that didn't belong to Kane. Whoever had grabbed her smelled like anger and metal.
"Let me go!" She smacked at her captor with her good hand.
"Shh," said a man as he batted her hand away and pressed a cold gun barrel to her temple. "Stay still. I don’t want to miss."
She froze, more out of fear than obedience. Widening her eyes, she strained to see him, but he was just beyond her peripheral vision. "Who are you?" Although with sinking dread, she already knew. There was only one man still looking to kill shifters like her.
"The hunter, and you’re the hunted," he said, proving her right. There was a click as the safety released.
That galvanized her into action. A distant memory of a college self-defense class came to her and she thrust her arm in an upward block as she ducked out from under the gun. Spinning on her heels, she darted off in a random direction, too panicked to make a conscious choice….and ran smack into a sapling tree that both tripped her and slapped her in the face as it recoiled.
Just her luck. She wasn’t just a werewolf, she was a clumsy ass one.
She clutched her eye and kept going, heading in the general direction of the homes in the area. The hunter was on the verge of catching up. She could hear him tearing through the forest behind her, which she knew meant there would be more bullets.
Whipping around a copse of bushes, she caught sight of a house and raced toward it. A shadow appeared in her peripheral vision. The man after her had gained ground. She fought to go faster, to outrun him, but she was too slow. He tackled her and brought her down.
Clawing at his face, she screamed at him, "Get off me!"
In response, he clapped a hand over her mouth. "Shh, Char, it’s me, Kane."
She blinked and then sniffed, inhaling his scent. "Oh, thank goodness," she mumbled behind his hand. Then, pushing his hand off her face, she said, "The hunter’s out there, and he’s coming. We have to run."
Kane helped her up. "I know. I heard the shots." Keeping her hand in his, he pulled her after him. "Here, this way."
"Where are we going?"
"My house. You’ve come almost full circle."
She stopped and resisted him. "We can’t. Your parents…"
"Have guns," he said, yanking her forward. "Come on. We don’t have much time."
She nodded and struggled to match his speed, her shorter legs having to move twice as fast as his. A bullet whined in the air like an oversized and extremely bloodthirsty mosquito. She ducked and yelped as it hit a tree right next to her.
Kane kept her moving, refusing to let her stop. "We’re almost there." He changed their trajectory so they jumped to the side as well as raced forward. The next bullet didn’t even come close.
A second later, they burst through the woods and into his parents’ front yard. Bounding up the porch steps, they rushed into the house, slamming the door behind them. Charlotte dropped to her knees, chest heaving as she fought for air.
"Oh, my God," she gasped.
"Dad, get the guns," Kane shouted, d
isappearing into the house.
"What’s going on?" Wanda walked over to Charlotte and helped her stand. "Come sit over here."
Charlotte resisted as Kane’s mother tried to escort her into the living room. "No, we can’t. There are windows there. He’ll see us."
"Who will see us?" Wanda frowned at her, puzzled.
"The man trying to kill me."
"Someone is trying to kill you?" The furrow in Wanda’s brow deepened.
Charlotte gave a weak smile. "It’s sort of how your son and I got together." She left out the part about how it was the second guy shooting at her in the same week. The goal was to be the worst girlfriend ever, not the girl most likely to get Kane killed….even if the latter was actually true. Kind of.
Kane and his father came into the living room, their hands full of guns. "You know how to shoot?" Kane asked her.
"Yes," Charlotte said, grateful her injured hand wasn't the one she shot with. The pain was almost gone so she assumed the bone had knit back together already, but it was still too tender for a gun's kickback. She accepted the revolver he offered her and checked the chamber to verify it was loaded.
"I’ll take the Glock," Wanda said, holding out her hand. "And someone please tell me what the hell is happening?"
"Some whack job is shooting at us," Kane said. "We need to take him out before he gets us."
"Shouldn’t we call the police?" his dad asked as he loaded a rifle.
"I am the police, Dad. The response time for anyone else is going to be too slow." He waved his hand in an impatient gesture. "Now listen. I’m going to sneak out back and come up behind this guy. Your job," he pointed at all of them, "is to keep him too busy to notice. Got it?"
"How do we do that?" Charlotte asked.
Wanda went into the living room, her mouth a grim line. "By shooting at him." Raising her Glock she pulled the trigger, shattering the picture window. They all ducked.
"What are you doing?" Kane’s dad yelled.
She gave her husband a cool look. "If there’s one thing cancer taught me, it was when you’re fighting for your life, you can’t be afraid to do what needs to be done." Aiming the gun, she squeezed off a shot into the front yard. "And when it comes to my family, I don’t play, dear. You should know that." She pinned Charlotte with a sharp gaze.
Charlotte shifted her weight from foot to foot and tugged at her dress self-consciously. Wanda's disapproval bothered her more than she'd thought it would, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from apologizing for pretty much everything she'd done that night.
Her husband nodded. "Damn straight." Lifting his rifle, he shot into the yard, too.
Not wanting to be left out, Charlotte followed suit, comforted by the fact that, for once, she was the one slinging bullets at people.
But whoever was out there reciprocated, the bullet burying itself in the living room carpet as they all jumped back out of the way.
"Let's make it harder for this idiot," Joe said going over to the front door. He flipped a few switches, turning off all the lights inside the house and then hit more which turned on exterior flood lights that filled the front yard with light so bright, Charlotte blinked. "There. Good luck seeing us through that."
"And to think I complained they were too bright when you installed them," murmured Wanda, shaking her head.
"I told you they would come in handy." Joe smiled at Wanda who bowed her head toward him, the movement almost regal.
"All right, keep shooting. I’ll go as fast as I can and take him out from behind." Kane ran out of the room without waiting for a response, heading for the back door.
"I hope you have enough ammo for this," Charlotte said as she emptied her gun in the general direction of where she thought the shooter was.
"I stockpile it," Joe said. "We’ll get by. I just wish I’d picked up that grenade launcher at the gun show last year." He fished in his pockets and handed Charlotte a box of ammunition.
"I think bullets will work just fine, dear," Wanda said, squinting as she aimed her gun. "If he would just move a bit to the left, I think I could get him."
"I had no idea Kane’s parents were so badass," Charlotte said.
"Lots of people mistake nice for weak. However, the reality is we’re prepared for any emergency out here," Wanda said as she quickly dropped the spent cartridge and loaded a new one into her Glock. "And I’ve been shooting since I was a kid. My daddy taught me how."
"My dad taught me, too," Charlotte said. She bit her lip as she tried to decide where to shoot next. She’d been hitting a lot of trees so far and figured that wasn’t a good way to go. The last thing Kane’s family needed was a bunch of dead trees falling in their yard. If only she could tag this asshole, that would solve a lot of problems.
"Your parents are good people, which is why I can’t understand where that dress you’re wearing came from." Wanda gave her a sharp look.
Heat flushed Charlotte’s cheeks as Kane’s mom called her on the carpet. Still, she lifted her chin and said without any remorse, "Actually, I borrowed it from my mom."
Wanda’s lips thinned and she started to say something, but Charlotte cut her off as she caught a glimpse of Kane slipping through the woods. Her eyes had adjusted to the floodlights by then, and she could make out his shape. "Time to lay down a blanket of bullets, I think. Kane’s close."
Wanda and Joe both peered out their broken living room window and then nodded as one.
"Let’s do this," Wanda said.
Charlotte took cover at one side of the window while Wanda took the other. Joe dropped to the floor and army crawled up to the center of the window, careful to keep his head out of the line of fire.
"Aim into the ground. We don’t want to hit Kane, okay?" Wanda asked.
"Got it," Charlotte agreed.
"Ready, set, fire," Wanda said, thrusting her gun out the window and letting the bullets fly.
Charlotte joined her, careful to make sure her shots went into the grass. As for Joe, he went slower, taking time to try and hit whoever was out there.
"How’s it going? Can you see anything?" Charlotte had to yell in order to be heard over the gunfire.
Wanda quickly peeked out the window and then flattened herself against the wall. "I don’t know. I don’t see anyone. We might be shooting at nobody."
As if the shooter heard them, a quick succession of bullets flew into the living room, ripping apart the logs that made up the wall behind the couch. Charlotte covered her face as bits of wood sprayed the room.
"That’s not nobody," Joe said, looking back at his wife.
"No shit, dear," Wanda said. "Come on, we’ve got to give Kane some cover." Her jaw tight with determination, she went back to shooting.
Chapter Seventeen
Kane ran out the back door, gun clutched tight in one hand, extra ammo jammed into his back pocket. The one day he didn’t carry and look what happened. Also, how did Charlotte have the luck of always being shot at? This marked the second time he’d come to her rescue. He shook his head as he ran. Poor girl should never go anywhere without him. She needed all the help she could get when it came to staying alive.
He slowed his pace when the scent of the shooter first hit his nose, knowing that meant he was close. The guy smelled like gunpowder, hot metal and hate. The emotion poured off him in waves of sour stink. Kane wanted to cover his nose with his hand, but resisted the urge. He wanted both his hands free for when he came face-to-face with this jackass.
Recalling the men the hunter had killed in the back of his cruiser, Kane couldn't help but thirst for revenge. His wolf boiled under his skin, wanting to jump out and fight. This hunter didn't care about anyone's life, human or not, and Kane was more than happy to stop him from ever hurting anyone again.
Walking silently, he circled around the shooter’s scent and slowly crept up behind him. The guy was taller than a basketball player and wide as a football defenseman. Thanks to his dad's flood lights, he could see the hunter's army fati
gues were faded and streaked with dirt. He was so focused on shooting at the house, he didn’t sense Kane behind him.
Raising his hand, Kane leaped for the man and clocked him in the side of his head with the butt of his gun. The hunter went down with a surprised grunt and laid still.
Kane kicked away his gun and frisked the man, finding several knives and another handgun, all of which he threw into the woods. He would come back for them later. Rolling the unconscious man over, Kane took off his own belt and used it to secure the hunter’s hands behind his back.
Feeling like things were safe enough, he yelled out to his parents and Charlotte, "I’ve got him. You can stop shooting now."
One last bullet flew through the air, followed by someone saying, "Oops."
Kane shook his head and, grabbing the hunter by his feet, dragged him into his parents’ front yard. Charlotte came flying out of the house, her hair streaming behind her and her brow furrowed with worry.
"Are you okay?" She hovered close to him, as if she wanted to touch him but was afraid to do so.
He nodded, unable to miss the way her chest heaved in the skin-tight dress she wore. "Yeah. He didn’t even see me coming."
"Is he…dead?" She cast a doubtful look at the guy.
He forced his gaze to look down at the hunter. If he kept staring at Charlotte, he was going to tear that dress off her body and fill his hands with her curves. His wolf still ran high inside him, and the urge to fight was changing into a need to fuck, especially now that Charlotte was right there in front of him. "No. I knocked him out good, though."
His parents came outside and joined them, looking at the shooter with curiosity. "Who the hell is this guy?" asked Joe.
"I don’t know," Kane said. "But I’m going to find out." He dragged the man over to his car and heaved him into the back seat. Looking at Charlotte, he said, "I’m going to take him in and I’d like you to come and give your statement too."
