Running his tongue over the edge of his teeth, he said, “I’m thinking you probably hear this a lot, but you’re too gutsy for your own good, lady.”
She smirked, but didn’t bother to lower the weapon. “Maybe I’ll be more understanding if you just tell me what the big secret is. Why all the urgency for me to leave? Afraid I’ll stumble across something I shouldn’t? Are you guys part of some religious cult?” Her brows lifted with curiosity. “Do you like to run around naked and worship the moon?”
“Something like that,” he offered drily, still struggling against the driving urge to drag her out of the bus and take her to the ground, where he could press her into the soft, damp grass. Without doubt, she was a shock to the system. Instead of sharp angles to match that sharp tongue, the woman possessed a glowing, fresh-faced softness that made her look entirely adorable—and he had to fight back another grin as he imagined what her reaction would be if he expressed that opinion out loud.
Hell, knowing her, she’d probably shoot him the finger again. Either that, or just plain shoot him.
As if reading his mind, she said, “I’ll put a bullet in you if I have to, though I’d rather not. Can’t stand the sight of blood.” She slowly lowered the weapon back to her lap, but kept her finger close to the trigger. “So don’t tempt me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” His tone was even drier than before. “But you still need to get lost.”
“You know, even if you succeed in making me leave—” her breasts swayed with a delicious jiggle beneath the tight green T-shirt as she shifted in her seat to face him “—I’ll only come back.”
She drew in a shaky little breath after making that rather forceful announcement, and for the first time since this bizarre confrontation got started, Eric managed to see past his frustration and lust, down to the exhaustion and worry haunting her gaze. And he didn’t like it. What the hell had this woman gotten herself into? And why the fuck was he getting uptight about it? He damn well knew better!
“Do you have any idea how unsafe it is, what you’re doing, coming to the mountains by yourself?”
She gave a negligent roll of her shoulders, then lifted her free hand to push that thick fall of hair behind her ear. “I came armed. I’m not stupid.”
He flicked a dismissive glance at the gun in her lap, and a rude sound rumbled in the back of his throat. “It’s a nice weapon, but isn’t going to do you much good up here.”
She arched one slim brown brow again. “And why is that?”
“Just trust me on it,” he muttered, wondering if lightning was going to come down and fry him on the spot for the things he was thinking about doing to her. It was one thing for the Runners to take human lovers, seeing as how they were half human themselves—but Eric was in an entirely different situation.
“You can’t stay out here in your car,” he growled, the sudden pronouncement making her jump. “It isn’t safe.”
Carefully recovering her composure, she jerked her chin toward Hendricks and Franks. “Why? I won’t go snooping where I don’t belong. And no one was bothering me before those two showed up.”
The headstrong woman had no idea how lucky that made her, and Eric wanted to keep it that way. “Save your breath and stop arguing, sweetheart. I’m not trying to jerk you around. You really can’t stay here.”
“First of all, I’m not your sweetheart,” she snapped, obviously irritated by his choice of words. “And secondly, if you won’t let me stay in my car, isn’t there someplace in your town where I can get an...inexpensive room for the night?”
It was the hesitant way she’d said inexpensive that finally clued him in, making him wonder if she was sleeping in her car not because she was careless with her safety, but because she simply couldn’t afford to sleep anywhere else. “I’m afraid not,” he rasped, while something painful twisted in his chest. She was clearly in need of rescuing, and it bothered him that he couldn’t be the one to do it. That he was more harm to her than help.
“Hmm,” she murmured, and he could see the wheels spinning again in her head.
“Trust me,” he said gruffly, “the best thing for you to do is to stay down in Wesley. It’s only about an hour from here.”
“Yeah, I know where it is.” She looked away for a moment, chewing on that lush bottom lip, her gaze even more troubled than before when she finally brought it back to his. “You really think I can just go? That I can just give up and leave my sister to the wolves?”
Suspicion narrowed his eyes. “What the hell does that mean?” he demanded, watching her closely. Did she know what he was? What they all were?
“It’s just an expression.” Her voice was sharp, a slight frown settling between her brows. “I know she’s in trouble, and I refuse to let it go and just sit at home wringing my hands, hoping a miracle will happen and some big burly man will step in to rescue her.”
She her cut her gaze away again, but not before he caught the luminous wash of tears glistening in her eyes. Aw, hell. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to take it if she broke down—that he’d rather have her angry than sad—Eric curled his lips and said something guaranteed to piss her off and get her back up. “Some big burly man, huh? I get it now. You’re one of those women who has guy issues, aren’t you?”
She snorted, shooting him a withering look from the corner of her eye. “Not any more than you have women issues.”
“The hell I do,” he drawled, aware that he was taking some kind of perverse pleasure in verbally sparring with her. “I happen to like women just fine.”
Her head tilted slightly to the side as she studied him. “I’m sure you like them when they’re on their backs. Other than that, I doubt you have much use for them.”
Eric gave her a slow, cocky smile and clucked his tongue. “Like I said...issues.”
She opened her mouth, no doubt to make some cutting remark, but then quickly pressed her lips together, choking off whatever she’d been about to say. Judging from the color creeping into her face, he figured she’d probably just realized she was revealing more about herself with this particular interchange than she wanted to, while accusing him of being...what? A guy?
Yeah, he liked sex. What man didn’t? Lately, Eric just didn’t like how he felt after he’d finished it—as if there was something better that he couldn’t reach. Something he wanted, but couldn’t get his hands on. Which was exactly how he’d felt an hour ago, muttering a low apology under his breath as he’d rolled off Crissy Cowell’s soft, warm body, extricating himself from her grasping arms as he’d turned his back to her and retrieved his cell phone to take Hendricks’s call.
He’d felt bad about turning away from Crissy to answer the phone, but there was no denying that he’d been thankful for the excuse to remove himself from the Lycan’s clingy post-coital embrace. Never one to cuddle, it wasn’t the first time Eric had felt a piercing sense of relief at freeing himself from a woman’s hold once their passion was spent—though it seemed that recently, no matter how physical the encounter, his body was left burning with a restless hunger for something more.
Not that there was anything wrong with Crissy, a well-respected pack female who owned the local garden center in Shadow Peak. She was nice, pleasurable and more than easy on the eyes. No, the problem was his and his alone.
A shrink would probably tell him he was psychologically punishing himself—perhaps even seeking some kind of screwed-up atonement for the destruction his father had caused, but Eric knew it was more than that. Still, guilt poured through his veins as steadily as his blood these days, until it felt as much a part of him as an organ or a limb—just a constant, sickening acceptance that his life would forever be tainted by his association with Stefan Drake: father, pack Elder...and psychotic son of a bitch.
The weight of the shame he carried in his gut over the horrifying events that unfolded five mont
hs ago had yet to lessen with the passage of time, and the Runners often told him he was working himself into the ground to pay for crimes that weren’t his. But while there were some in the pack who had seemed to accept his innocence, Eric was aware of the accusatory sneers still sent his way...and he knew there were more than a few who blamed him all the same. For some, the sins of the father were often the hardest to forget...or forgive.
And yet, he was certain that this incessant hunger, this craving gnawing away at him from the inside out, had more to do with his future than it did with the past. Always one with a healthy sex drive, Eric had never before questioned his lack of interest in making a commitment to one of the women in his life. After being abandoned by his mother at an early age, he didn’t need to be psychoanalyzed to understand the wounds that had been cut into his emotional fabric—but his commitment issues had never interfered with his enjoyment of the opposite sex. Even now, the problem wasn’t that sex didn’t feel good. Sex was sex, and it sure as hell didn’t feel bad.
It just didn’t feel...right, whatever the hell that meant.
And I sound like I’m losing my bloody mi—
“You know,” the human murmured, interrupting his irritating train of thought...apparently unable to hold back what she’d wanted to say before. “I realize this may come as a surprise to you, but just because you’re a guy who looks like God’s gift to women doesn’t actually mean that you are.”
* * *
The second the words left Chelsea’s mouth, a low, rich vein of laughter jerked from his chest, seeming to catch them both by surprise. Her toes curled inside her socks at the delicious sound, while her face burned with color as she realized what she’d just said.
Wow. I’m so smooth. Why don’t I just shout it to his face that I think he’s hot?
“Come on,” he drawled after his laughter had died down, his mouth kicking up at one corner in the wickedest grin she’d ever seen. “You’re judging me by my looks, and that isn’t fair.”
Maybe not, but Chelsea still wanted to curse at him for flashing her such an irresistible grin, the dimple in his cheek enough to make her groan. Not to mention the high-voltage sexual energy he was blasting at her, making her head spin. Given her lack of a social life, Chelsea knew her family and friends probably thought she was still a virgin, but they were wrong. She’d had sex. Not a lot, mind you, but enough times to know what it was all about. But her experiences had all been with cerebral types who were easily controlled and easily forgotten. She’d never played with a rugged, testosterone-laden male before, and she doubted she’d even know how to if she tried.
Her looks, or lack of them, had always made it easy to avoid charming, oozing-sex-appeal-from-their-pores Neanderthals like this guy, for the simple fact that they ignored her. No, that wasn’t right. They simply didn’t see her, as if she were a ghost. Something they looked right through. Not even a blip on their radar.
But this guy...he noticed. He was staring right at her, that strangely compelling gaze making her feel as if he didn’t want to be looking anywhere else in the world. As if he saw her in a way that no other man ever had, and she resisted the urge to pull her shirt away from her skin, seeking relief from the blistering warmth sizzling inside her, despite the nighttime chill in the air.
And maybe she was just wasting both their time, keeping the argument going because she liked the look of him. Who said she couldn’t start her bus, head down the road a ways, wait for them to leave, then turn around and come right back to find some other nearby place to camp for the night? According to the bleary-eyed girl she’d talked to at the strip club down in Wesley, Perry had only worked at the club for a couple of days before heading up into these mountains to stay with her so-called boyfriend. There was obviously a hell of a lot more to the story, but considering this was her only lead, Chelsea had to go with it.
She’d tried asking some locals in Wesley for assistance, thinking they could point her in the right direction, but none had been able to help. They knew of some private settlements in the mountains, but couldn’t tell her where they were...or anything about the people who lived there. The whole situation was eerily unsettling, but she couldn’t turn back now. She had to keep searching every small town she stumbled across up here until she found Perry, whether these guys liked it or not.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t start with another part of the mountain and work her way back here—hopefully avoiding the gorgeous jackass watching her with those unusual eyes.
“Fine,” she said, blowing out a rough breath of air. “Have it your way.”
Surprise lifted his dark brows. “You’ll leave?”
She allowed her own mouth to curl in a cocky smirk. “Yeah, I’ll leave. But not before telling you how ridiculous you look with that red lipstick smeared all over the corner of your mouth. I hope she was a brunette. A blonde could never have pulled off that color.”
He quickly lifted his hand, wiped at his mouth, then glared at the red smear on his fingertips. “Son of a bitch,” he growled, scrubbing harder at his face. “Hendricks should have told me.”
“It’s all gone now,” she murmured, taking pity on him. “You’re clear.”
He grunted something foul under his breath, then stepped closer and placed one hand over the window ledge, curving his long fingers over the door frame, as if he could keep her in place with that simple touch. “Where will you go?”
“That’s none of your business,” she said quietly, staring at those dark fingers, imagining them on her body...against her skin. Shaking herself, she set the gun on the passenger’s seat, then turned the key in the ignition...but nothing happened. Just a sad, pathetic wail of sound from the engine, followed by a rapid clicking noise. Gritting her teeth, she turned the key again...and again, but with the same results.
Shit.
Without looking at him, Chelsea lowered her head to the steering wheel and prayed for patience. Nothing, not a single goddamn thing, had gone her way from the moment she’d started this miserable search. Why? She was trying so hard to do what was right, damn it—trying to help her sister...to get her out of what could potentially be a dangerous situation, especially after the girl at the club had said that Perry wasn’t looking too good. So why this? Why was karma, fate or whatever the hell it was that controlled her destiny giving her a kick in the ass with every step she took?
It wasn’t like her to be whiney, but she’d lost her sense of optimism so long ago, Chelsea no longer even knew what it felt like. Now all she had was this grinding, sickening feeling in her gut, and a bad case of nerves. Not to mention the sudden addition of ill-founded lust for the gorgeous jerk trying to get rid of her.
Talk about crappy timing.
Forcing herself to lift her head, she gave the dark-haired stranger a closed, expressionless look. “I don’t suppose you could give me a jump start?”
He shook his head, looking as frustrated as she felt. “The problem isn’t your battery.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that clicking sound means it’s your starter.”
“Shit,” she said for the second time, only this time out loud.
He muttered something rough under his breath again, then jerked his chin toward his truck. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride down to Wesley.”
She wanted to say, “Are you crazy? What kind of idiot do you think I am, getting into a car with some guy I don’t even know?”
But the words stuck in her throat. Her options were more than a little limited here. The idea of staying in the woods had been scary enough when the opportunity for retreat had been available, but to be stuck out here in a broken-down car didn’t strike her as smart, even though she had a gun. Then again, neither did driving off with Mr. Tall, Dark and Deadly Gorgeous. But if he was going to hurt her, he could have already done it. Right? The other two men, who we
re still waiting over by his truck, clearly submitted to his authority, as if he were some kind of superior they deferred to. She had the feeling that if he’d attacked, they’d have done nothing to stop him.
Which meant...what? Was she actually trying to talk herself into taking him up on his offer? She didn’t have enough money for a motel room, but she’d figure something out. She always did, one way or another.
As if sensing her disquieting inner conflict, he wiped the scowl off his face and let go of her door, that warm, male scent pulsing off him the most interesting thing she’d ever smelled. “It’s okay,” he said in a low voice. “I won’t hurt you. Just a ride into town, to a motel, and then I’ll have your bus delivered to you in the morning.”
“How can I get it fixed if I leave it here?” Not that she had the money to get it fixed, but he didn’t need to know that. “Can’t we just tow it behind us?”
“I’m going to call some mechanics I know and have them work on it here,” he explained as if it was the simplest thing in the world to do. “They’ll have it in running order by morning.”
Wrapping her arms around her middle, she asked, “Why would you do that?”
“Consider it a fair exchange for the fact that I’m kicking you out of here,” he offered with a strained smile. He clearly wasn’t any happier about the situation than she was, and yet, he seemed determined to help her.
She didn’t agree or disagree. She simply said, “It isn’t smart.”
A deep, almost silent rumble of laughter vibrated in his chest, and he arched one of those damn black brows again. “Neither was camping out in your car in the woods all alone.”
“But at least I had a good reason for that.”
He could have argued that she had a good reason for taking him up on his offer, as well. But he didn’t. He just stared at her, the silver metallic of his eyes mesmerizing, like the liquid swirl of mercury in a vial—making her feel as if he could see right past her sarcastic bravado, down to the real woman huddling inside her skin. The one who was scared and tired and pushed to the edge of her limits. His cool air of command made Chelsea want to slap him, just as badly as she wanted to press her lips against that hard, utterly masculine mouth and find out if he tasted even half as good as he looked and smelled.
Dark Wolf Rising Page 3
