Her grin faltered. A pretty pink blush blossomed across her cheeks and down her throat, ending at the very enticing display of cleavage just above the edge of her pale blue angora sweater. “I’m sorry. I don’t, well, I don’t— Never mind.”
She had a polish to her, something about her that made her literally shine in the dingy atmosphere of the bar. Just one look was enough to tell any living male with two eyes in his head that she was too refined to be a regular in a place like this.
He managed to kick his brain into gear long enough to hold out a hand to her. “Tyee—Ty—Grayson. Nice to meet you.” She glanced at his hand but didn’t take it. He tried not to shake as he grabbed one of the plastic cups off the stack just below the edge of the bar and poured the angel sitting next to him a drink. He managed a smile. “Go on. Have a drink. You look like you might need one.”
Her smile reemerged, revealing white, even teeth. “Thanks. You have no idea.”
No, he didn’t. But he wanted to.
Ty mentally pulled himself up short. What the hell? What happened to sticking to himself and soaking out his week with beer? Don’t fight it, a little voice deep down inside him answered back. She’s the one.
That sobered him up quickly.
He’d heard about the Mesmer before—that unexplainable attraction and drive a Were could have to mate with a particular person. It was powerful juju you didn’t want to mess with if you could help it. But then, there was no helping it most of the time. A Mesmer simply happened. You didn’t get the convenience of picking when, who or why.
“What’s your name?”
The blush suffusing her skin intensified. “Jessica. But my friends call me Jess.”
Ty gave her a coaxing grin. “No last name?”
* * *
Jessica Brierly was sorely tempted. A flutter kicked in her stomach. He was all three things she was looking for tonight. He had broad shoulders and an athletic build and the dusky caramel color of his skin was accented by his short but tousled black hair and chocolate-brown eyes—in short, the guy was gorgeous, but he had a provocative, wild edge to him that lured her in even more. Judging from the lack of a wedding band or the pale shadow of one, single. And most importantly, a stranger to the small-town rumor mill of Sinclair.
She’d already asked around and no one seemed to know anything about the man. In a town like Sinclair, that was unusual, bordering on cosmic intervention. She’d had teachers in high school who had taught her parents. Grandparents of her friends who’d known her grandparents. It got insular enough to be claustrophobic at times. She couldn’t date a guy from the immediate area without her family—or more precisely, her three older brothers, Davis, Edgar and Paul—giving her a litany of his attributes and faults, high school hijinks and a list of every girl he’d ever dated. Which was why this stranger was completely perfect for what Jess had in mind—a one-night stand, no strings attached.
His intense gaze bored into her, intimate enough that it made Jess feel like the only woman in the bar—perhaps the only woman on the planet. A shiver raced along her skin. Ty Grayson looked as though he could give her perhaps the wildest night of her life. And right about now, that’s exactly what Jess wanted.
“How about we keep it on a first-name basis for now, and depending on how things go, I give you my last name and a number later?”
A voice she didn’t expect answered. “If you’re offering, I’ll take that number now.” The harsh, thick rasp of it directly behind her made Jess’s skin crawl.
Ty stood up, tall enough to be nearly eye to eye with the guy decked out in a long black leather duster, his dark hair shiny and slicked back, his dark brown eyes piercing on either side of a bladelike nose and unshaven jaw. Jess had never seen this guy around town, either, but the vibe he gave off was nothing like Ty’s. It made her want to shrink within herself.
“This is a private conversation.” Ty’s monotone held an edge of menace to it. His pulse ticked in the vein in his neck, just above the edge of his T-shirt.
Jess had never come to the OON for a reason. All her brothers said the place could be dangerous. And now she saw why. The tension in the air snapped and crackled like an exposed electrical connection, just waiting for something to combust. She pressed her back against the bar, feeling trapped, since the two of them were between her and the exit.
She grabbed hold of Ty’s arm, extremely glad he was there with her when the creeper had showed up. “I think I’m ready to go, Ty.” The tremor in her voice annoyed her, but there was nothing Jess could do about it.
The imposing biker dude leered at her. “And miss out on all the fun? Oh, no. You get to stay right here, with me.” He reached out to touch her and faster than Jess could blink, Ty grabbed the biker guy’s hand. From the way the tendons in Ty’s big hand stood out in stark relief and the muscles in his arm bulged, Jess could tell he had to be crushing the guy’s hand.
They glared fireballs at one another.
“The lady wants you to leave her alone. And so do I,” Ty growled.
Jess held her breath.
Chapter 2
The vampire blinked, and Ty saw the brief rim of crimson around edges of the brown-colored contacts he wore. They were on the hunt for blood.
Shit.
A sneer curled the vampire’s lip. His fangs hadn’t dropped, but that wouldn’t take long. “I don’t take orders. I give them.”
Ty’s teeth throbbed as an image of tearing into the vampire filled his mind. Tension flashed through his system, amping up every cell as his muscles and bones prepared to transition. He took a deep breath to steady himself and maintain his control, but his body shook with the effort. Wolfing out in the middle of a bar in Sinclair wasn’t an option.
“Wasn’t an order. More like a threat. Plain. Simple. I’ll break more than your hands if you touch her.”
The vampire’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared as he caught Ty’s scent. That’s right. Werewolf here, ready to chew your ass.
Any normal vampire would have realized going one-on-one with a Werewolf was a bad deal, but this vampire was hungry and stupid. In a blur of movement, he wrapped his hands around Ty’s throat, squeezing hard enough to make a burst of white sparks shoot across his vision.
Oh, it’s on. Ty’s reaction was just as swift, just as strong. He growled and kneed the vamp hard enough to drop a linebacker, then punched him with a powerful uppercut. The vamp dropped back, stunned at his attack, a smudge of black vampire ichor staining the edge of his lips like licorice candy.
The vamp growled, dropped his head and charged. Ty sidestepped at the last moment, letting the vampire careen into the bar and put a head-size hole in the wood. It would’ve knocked out any normy. But this guy was a monster just like him. So were his two buddies, who showed up to get in on the action.
The two vampires still standing took opposite sides of Ty so he could keep his eyes on only one of them at a time. A rocket of red-hot pain shot up Ty’s spine as one of them kicked the base of his back where the nerve bundle on a Were was most vulnerable. He grunted and fell to one knee, sucking up pain. Without going wolf, beating back this many vampires on his own was going to hurt. From the startled gasps and outraged cries, Ty knew this had already happened too fast for the onlookers to track. Their movements were probably no more than a blur. He needed to end it before any of the normies got hurt, or worse, died. That was the last kind of attention he needed as the new guy in town.
“Fight!” someone yelled.
The atmosphere inside the bar thickened with anticipation and excitement as people glanced at the commotion and automatically moved toward it, attracted to the action like gawkers to a car accident. He straightened and tried to bite back the pain as the lead vampire pulled his head out of the bar and shook off the splinters. Ty didn’t wait. Why fight fair when the odds we
ren’t in your favor anyway?
He kicked back without warning, catching vampire number two behind him in the chest. It spun backward over a pool table to land in a heap on a table, amid shrieks and toppled beer spraying everywhere. Son of a bitch deserved that and worse after it’d tap-danced on his spine. Payback was a bitch.
The third vampire melted into the crowd as Ty and the leader were instantly surrounded by the crowd pressing in around them with cries of encouragement and money changing hands.
Ty glanced up at the myriad faces, looking for just one—Jess. He wanted to make sure that the third vampire hadn’t taken her while he’d been distracted.
Her blue eyes were wide as she squeezed past the edge of the crowd. He wasn’t taking any chances. He grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her close, putting her behind him. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“But I—”
Ty didn’t have time to listen. The vampire in the duster came at him once again, fake brown eyes glittering with malice. He swung at Ty, and Ty blocked the blows. They kept coming, fast, hard. Sweat beaded on his skin, trickling into his eyes and making his hair damp. His muscles were growing tired in his human form, slowing his reaction time. One blow evaded his block, cuffing him hard enough in the side of the head to make his ears ring and his vision blur for a moment. The drunken crowd cheered.
Ty shook his head to clear it. He and the vampire circled one another, the superior sneer on the vampire’s face making him more irritated by the moment. Then he glimpsed Jess’s frightened face and a whole new rush of energy filled him from his scalp to his toes. He could do anything, be anything, to protect her.
The vampire lunged forward. Ty thrust the heel of his hand up hard against the vampire’s beak of a nose. The distinctive crunch of bones breaking was followed by a hard grunt as the vampire bent forward and Ty brought his elbow down hard against the vampire’s neck, knocking him out. If there weren’t all these people around, he would have carved the vampire’s fangs out of his mouth as battle trophies, the way his pack had done for centuries. But this wasn’t the time and place for the old ways and sooner rather than later, that vampire and his buddy would wake up. Probably call in reinforcements.
He was alone. No pack, no friends in the town.
There was a slap of high fives and the clink of beer bottles, along with cheers from the crowd. It had all just been another night’s entertainment to them. He stepped over the vampire to get to Jess. Her face was pale.
“Want to get out of here?”
She nodded. Ty wrapped her small hand in his and together they skirted around the prone vampire and headed for the door, keeping a vigilant eye out for vampire number three.
The air was clean and cold outside. Ty’s head cleared, his senses grew sharper. The cool evening breeze, heavy with the salty scent of nearby Puget Sound, ruffled Jess’s hair, sticking honey-colored wisps to her full, rosy lips.
“You okay?” he asked as he gently tucked the strands back behind her ear.
Jess blinked, and stared up at him, a mixture of curiosity and disbelief in her eyes. “What just happened in there?”
He tried to give her a lopsided grin, but it turned into a wince when he found his jaw was tender from the hits the vampire had landed. He rubbed the soreness. The night air chilled the dribble of blood from the cut on his cheek, making it wet and cold, but there was no scent of vampire. The third one must have been smart enough to ditch his buddies. His body ached from the fight, but it would heal fast enough. “A bar fight with strangers.”
“You didn’t know those guys?” she asked, looking around her nervously. “They seemed pretty intent on messing with you.” She grazed the corner of his mouth with her fingertips. “You’re hurt.”
The light touch was enough to send a powerful surge of awareness pounding through him that wiped away any of the ache that remained. Damn. There was no doubt in his mind there was a strong Mesmer forming with this woman.
He gently moved her fingers away from his mouth, keeping them folded in his. Her hands were fine-boned and slender and feminine. “No big deal.”
Her full lips tipped up into a soft smile, making him crave to kiss her. “Tough guy, huh?” She pulled a car remote from her pocket and pushed it, making the lights flash on a silver pickup on the edge of the dirt-and-gravel parking area beside the bar.
“Sounds like you’ve been around a few.”
She opened the driver’s door to the pickup and turned, standing in the gap, staring at him, her head tilted. “A few. But they’re nothing like you.”
Ty closed the gap between them, putting one hand on the door frame, shielding her from view of the parking lot but maintaining space between them. He knew better than to get close enough to be swamped by temptation. The Mesmer might be working on him, but that didn’t mean she’d understand if he came on too strong. Especially not after the fight.
“If you want to head home, I understand. I’ll stay here awhile and make sure those guys don’t follow you home.”
She reached out and grabbed fistfuls of his T-shirt near his collarbones, pulling him close until he was chest to chest with her. The soft swells of her breasts pressed against him, and the minty scent of her hair and the hint of lilac on her skin teased his sensitive sense of smell. Everything within him went silent and still, fixated on the lush curve of her mouth so damn close to his he could feel the warmth of her breath.
“What I want is for you to come home with me.” Jess stood on her tiptoes and looked up into his face, the dark fringe of lashes around her eyes making the blue luminous. Her rapid pulse beat against his chest, taking over the rhythm until his matched the pace she set. For a second the world tilted sideways.
Ty’s gaze dropped to the silky, damp edge of her lips and he was lost. He dipped down and kissed her. Her lips were soft and willing, tasting of peppermint. She tasted so damn sweet, hot and spicy all at once. A warm, viscous heat flowed through his veins, coating and drowning out every other sensation until he was hot and hard at the same time.
Ty gripped the edge of the truck’s door frame, nearly denting the sheet metal with his fingertips. But he was determined to keep his hands to himself, even though they itched to touch her. Heat seeped through his shirt, the temperature difference amplified by the chill in the air. The kiss turned deeper, slicker, the tip of her tongue brushing against his. The spicy fragrance of female that spiked the air left no doubt she was aroused. When they broke apart, both of them were breathing hard, their breath creating misty white clouds.
“You sure about this?” He could control his body, but not the rough edge of his voice as he struggled to maintain composure. “I could follow you.”
Jess looked up at him, her dark lashes dropping a fraction, giving her a sultry look. “Hop in.”
He was smart enough not to argue with her, but that didn’t mean that the little voice of human reason in the back of his head wasn’t screaming loudly that this was stupid and rash. He should take his own vehicle so he didn’t get stuck who knew where. He didn’t know a damn thing about her. Couldn’t read her mind and certainly hadn’t asked enough questions. But this is a Mesmer, the wild Were instinct side of him shouted back. No one, Were especially, could blame him for responding so quickly and profoundly to her. And hell, he could always follow his nose and walk back if he needed to.
“Anything you say,” he answered. He waited until she climbed up into the cab, admiring the way the dark denim jeans hugged the curve of her ass, then closed the truck door and walked around the back of the pickup. An uneasy sensation raised the hairs on his skin. He glanced over his shoulder one last time to make sure they weren’t being followed.
* * *
The truck started up with a rumble and Ty climbed inside. Jess glanced at the stretch of his T-shirt against the broad plane of his back and strong shoulders as he pul
led the door shut.
Even roughed up, Ty Grayson was attractive as hell. He seemed even bigger in the confined space of the truck cab, the energy he threw off radiating around him like heat off a woodstove. Her heart was still pounding too hard and too fast in her chest, matching the insistent throb between her legs. Jess pressed her thighs together tightly to stem the ache and pulled out of the parking lot.
She still wasn’t exactly certain what had happened inside the bar. The guys had been moving so fast their punches had become blurred. One minute they were circling one another and the next the creepy guy who’d started talking to her had gone sailing through the air, breaking straight through the front of the wooden bar.
“We can get you cleaned up when we get to my house, if you want.”
“That all depends.”
“On what?”
He flashed a brilliant white smile at her in the dark. “If you’re offering to help.” The seductive, teasing tone in his voice brought to mind an image of them together in a shower. Naked. Skin slick with soap. Her stomach flipped and tightened and Jess gripped the steering wheel a little harder and let out a slow, steady breath to calm the jump in her pulse. The speedometer kicked up a few notches.
His muscular arm, dusted with dark hair, lay along the back edge of the bench seat, placing his large hand close enough for his fingers to gently skim a path up along the back of her neck. A delicious shiver radiated outward. Jess tried to focus on her driving rather than continuously glimpse at how the faded denim clung to his thighs...and other places.
“You know you’re going to be the talk of the town by tomorrow,” she murmured. Not that it would be a good thing, in her case. For a teacher anything that drew criticism or suspicion from parents wasn’t good. But then again, she was off the clock, and an adult. Why couldn’t she just let her hair down for one night?
A slight frown formed a distinct crease between his brows. “Yeah, I’m not sure that’s a good thing.” He stared straight ahead out the window into the dark.
One Night With the Shifter Page 2
