“Hello—who are you?”
The question sent Claire lurching up in bed, tearing her from disturbing dreams filled with threatening shadows and silver-eyed creatures that both terrified and tempted her.
Through the tangle of hair shielding her face, she eyed the young woman standing at the foot of the bed—a Krispy Kreme box balanced on one palm, one chocolate glazed doughnut in the other hand. She was small, slim, almost girlish in appearance except for the keen, world-wise green eyes beneath high arching eyebrows.
“Kit,” Gideon groaned next to her, his muscled arm warm and solid beside hers.
Kit took a dainty bite, casually surveying her brother in bed with Claire. “I thought you liked brunettes, Gid.”
“Christ,” he cursed, adjusting the covers around his waist. “Just walk right in.”
His sister paused to take another bite. Her tone faintly accusing, she cocked her head and gave him a coy look as she reminded him, “You gave me a key.”
The smell of chocolate made Claire’s stomach rumble.
“Hungry?” The blonde clamped her doughnut between pearly white teeth and poked through the contents of the box with her free hand. Stepping forward, she sat on the edge of the bed and extended a doughnut to Claire as if she visited her brother in bed with strange women all the time.
Pushing back the hair from her face, Claire reached for the offering, but Kit’s sudden scream made her jerk back. Falling back on the bed, she looked around, half expecting to see a giant rat or snake slither across the floor.
Gideon cursed beside her.
A chocolate doughnut smacked Claire in the face, snapping her head back in surprise.
“Kit!” Gideon scolded as Claire wiped the sticky chocolate from her face.
“Are you crazy?” His sister charged, flinging the box of doughnuts on the floor, sending them tumbling in all directions. “You’re in bed with a lycan!”
“She’s only infected. She hasn’t fed yet.”
“Yet,” she snarled, the baby-smooth lines of her face tightening.
“Kit,” Gideon said, sitting up. “You’re going to have to trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
“How could you forget?” she demanded, her voice thick with emotion, green eyes so like Gideon’s sparkling with fury.
“I’ll never forget,” he returned. “How could I? Maybe I want to give Claire the chance Mom never had.”
“Right.” She snorted, her gaze cynical. Her gaze turned on Claire then, and the full blast of venom there could be felt as keenly as a slap to the face. “Claire. Since when do you care about anything or anyone except killing a lycan?”
Shaking her head fiercely, she stormed out of the room. Her feet pounded down the stairs. A door slammed, the sound reverberating through the old house’s thick walls.
They sat side by side for several moments, tension humming thickly on the air.
Claire turned to look at him and her mouth watered at the sight of his lean, sinewy chest. The morning light streaming through the window only highlighted the perfection of his body. She thought only movie stars had bodies like that. No man she knew did. Brian had been pasty and pale, with legs and arms skinnier than hers. Gideon’s arms were tanned bands of muscle.
Averting her eyes, she murmured, “That didn’t go over well, did it?”
He dragged a hand through his shaggy, sun-kissed locks. “Not too bad actually. She didn’t go for my gun and try to shoot you herself. Guess we’re lucky it wasn’t Cooper again this morning,” he grumbled.
Claire could only nod, finding little positive about the encounter. Kit had seen only a monster when she looked at her. A monster that needed destroying. “Will she tell Cooper?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, he considered her question. “Kit’s loyal. And Cooper pisses her off. Has ever since she was a kid. We lost our father and Kit didn’t want him for a substitute. Resented what she thought was him trying.”
“That’s enough to keep her from running to him? She was pretty upset.”
“Yeah. And Kit has always wanted to be an agent, but Coop won’t consider it. Another reason she resents him.”
“Maybe she’ll decide to take me out herself, then.”
“I can handle Kit.” He patted her knee through the thin sheets.
The touch did anything but reassure her. Her skin sizzled from the contact. He must have realized what he had done because his hand stilled, molding to the curve of her knee. Her breath caught, trapped in her chest as their eyes locked. Last night flooded back. And with it came the hunger.
His pale green eyes deepened to a darker shade, reminding her of a forest after rain. Her skin grew warm where his hand rested.
His fingers flexed over her knee. “We really should get up.”
She slid down on the bed. He came over her, the smooth expanse of muscled chest irresistible to her hands. Her fingers rounded over his firm shoulders, curling around the bulge of his biceps. He moved his hand from her knee and up over her thigh.
“We should,” she agreed, gasping when he came to the juncture of her thighs. His fingers rubbed her moist folds through the thin cotton sheets, dampening the fabric with her desire.
“Later,” he growled against her mouth, wrenching the sheets free and sinking his member into her with one thrust, filling her completely.
Gideon was still smiling when he stepped from the shower. Not until he wiped the mirror with his towel and stared at his face did the fool grin slip from his face. He swept his wet hair back from his face and stared starkly at himself, wondering just what the hell he was doing grinning like a love-struck fool over a woman under a death sentence.
If Claire was going to have a chance, he had to end this thing between them now. He couldn’t languish away the time in bed with her, no matter how good she made him feel. For the first time in his life he could forget. She made him forget. The ugliness of his parents’ deaths, the long years of killing, the blood. He had killed so much that when he closed his eyes he saw nothing but blood. With Claire, all that vanished. He saw only her. He felt only peace.
But any peace he found would be lost forever if he had to destroy her. Determined to keep her at arm’s length, he sighed and secured the towel about his waist. Opening the bathroom door, he braced himself as though walking into battle. Facing Claire and keeping his hands to himself would require more strength than even he was accustomed to.
He froze at the sight of her. Humming softly, she stretched over the bed, pulling the covers the last of the way up and plumping the pillows. It was a purely domestic scene. The kind of task one’s wife performed. The kind of thing his mother had done.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
She looked up and bestowed a bright smile on him. At his glower, her smile grew hesitant. “Making the bed.”
Turning, he marched into his closet and proceeded to dress.
“Is something wrong? Gideon?” He heard the confusion in her voice and fought back his impulse to reassure her, to take her in his arms and kiss her until he forgot what she was, what he had to save her from becoming.
“Nothing,” he replied, strapping on his holster and gun. “We have a lot of ground to cover today. Let’s get going.”
Chapter Twelve
Dogs are proud creatures and often find it difficult to back down from a challenge.
—Man’s Best Friend:
An Essential Guide to Dogs
W ith his bleary eyes and slurred speech, Lenny’s foster father was undeniably human. A sorry excuse, but human nonetheless. No way could he be the lycan responsible for infecting Lenny. Claire had hoped, at the very least, that he might have some information, some clue to send them in the right direction. The two friends of Lenny’s they had visited earlier that morning—boys she had often seen him talking to at school—had been of no help either.
But the foster father knew even less of Lenny’s habits than his friends had.
“Where’s your wife?” Gideon
demanded, shaking him by the shirtfront when it looked like the guy might pass out.
“She took off with some guy. Weeks ago.”
Gideon let go of his shirt. The man slumped back into the couch, his bloodshot eyes drifting to Claire. The Price Is Right blared loudly behind them from the tiny television. His head swayed side to side as he asked, “You that teacher Lenny always talked about? Miss Whatsit?”
“Miss Morgan, yes.”
“Coulda jammed my fist in that kid’s mouth for all his yapping about you.” He took a swig from a can of beer. Several other crushed cans littered the chipped and stained coffee table. “Miss Morgan this, Miss Morgan that. Had a real hard-on for you. Coulda puked the number of times that kid tossed your name out. Stupid kid,” he mumbled, shaking his head in disgust as he fished the remote control from under a couch cushion.
“Come on, Claire.” Gideon grabbed her hand. “Let’s go.”
But she couldn’t move. His slurred words rooted her to the floor.
“Len thought you were gonna save ’im.” Throwing his arms wide, his voice cracked with harsh laughter. “Take ’im away from all this and turn ’im into a college boy. Well, how’s he doing now, teacher lady?”
Claire took a deep, shuddering breath, willing her feet to move, to walk out the door.
“Let’s go. Don’t listen to this jackass.” Gideon tugged on her hand, finally managing to pull her out the door. It slammed behind them, stinging her ears.
Claire barely registered walking, much less climbing into the Jeep. She gazed blindly through the windshield, gnawing her thumbnail to the quick before she realized the Jeep sat parked, motor silent and still.
Glancing at Gideon, she asked, “Why aren’t we moving?”
Gideon gestured to the apartment building with a flick of his wrist. “Don’t let that guy get to you.” A flash of light lit up the sky followed by a rumble of thunder.
She shrugged one shoulder and faced the front again, the leather seat creaking as she settled her weight and leaned her head against the headrest. “He’s right. I didn’t help Lenny.”
“Maybe. But I didn’t see any other teachers in the alley putting their asses on the line for a kid that night.” His voice turned hard and angry as he started the Jeep. “Maybe if you had worried a little less about Lenny and a little more about Claire, you wouldn’t be where you are now.” He gave the gear stick a rough yank. “I think you’ve sacrificed plenty, more than Lenny ever wanted or expected—”
“How do you know what Lenny thought? He probably thought I didn’t—”
“He knew you cared. His last words were of you.”
Her mouth snapped shut. Nothing could have shocked her more. Lenny spoke of her at the end? Pressing a hand to her chest, almost afraid to ask, she whispered, “What did he say?”
She watched Gideon’s jaw tense, the muscles flexing. A loud crack of thunder fractured the silence.
“What did he say?” she repeated over the thunder’s echo, staring at the fast-darkening sky through the windshield.
“He told me to help you.” His gaze flicked to her, then back to the road. “He made me promise to help you.”
“And that’s why you’re doing this?”
Another pause. Then he answered, “No.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why then?”
“I don’t know why,” he explained, his voice impatient.
At that moment, the sky opened up and rain poured down in torrents, angrily pounding against the windshield and beating noisily on the Bikini cover. The windshield wipers worked overtime, fighting the onslaught of water.
They drove on the congested four-lane highway in silence before she dared to announce, “Could we get something to eat?”
She scanned their surroundings. A myriad of restaurants blended together through a veil of rain, indistinct shapes dwarfed by tall gray buildings and taller billboards, but none were what she wanted. “There’s a place called Angelo’s near my apartment, and I could pick a few things up while we’re there.”
Thirty minutes later, a red-checkered vinyl tablecloth separated them. Gideon opened a plastic-coated menu, his hair glistening and slightly wet from the five-foot hurdle to Angelo’s covered portico.
“Everything’s good,” she volunteered, fluffing her own damp locks with her hand.
The waiter soon arrived and Claire placed her three-course order. Gideon didn’t blink an eye, no doubt accustomed to her unending eat-fest.
“Maybe we could go grocery shopping after this and get some things for the house.”
His eyes shot to hers over the rim of his glass, wide and unblinking in his expressionless face. He took his time setting his glass back down on the table before saying quietly, “I don’t think so.”
“It’d be nice if—”
“It’d be nice,” Gideon interrupted, “if you stopped trying to play house with me.”
Heat flooded her face. “I only suggested we buy groceries so we don’t have to keep eating out.”
“You made my bed,” he cut in.
Claire jerked, not foreseeing that complaint. “So.” Thank God he hadn’t caught her inhaling his scent on the sheets and pillows, closing her eyes as love for Gideon washed over her unchecked. She fisted both hands on the tabletop.
At that moment the food arrived. A strained silence fell. Tension crackled on the air. The waiter looked from one to the other uneasily before making a quick escape.
Gideon motioned between the two of them. “This has got to stop.”
“What?”
“This thing between us. It’s distracting me from what I need to be doing…which is focusing on finding the alpha to break your curse.”
“I thought that’s what we’ve been doing.”
His green eyes sparked fire. “I suppose we are. When we’re not fucking. Or when I’m not thinking of fucking you.”
She blinked at his coarse words. Unbidden, the image of them sweaty and tangled in his sheets rose in her mind. Body tingling, she traced the rim of her glass. “What are you saying?”
“If I’m not going to put all my energy and attention into helping you break this curse, then I might as well destroy you now.”
Claire sucked in a deep breath and sank back into the leather bench, tossing her napkin on the table. “So you scratched your itch and now you’re wondering why you’re keeping me around anymore, is that?” She swallowed down the hot lump rising in her throat.
“Claire, that’s not—”
“What are you waiting for?” she asked, her voice shockingly calm. “You think I need to be destroyed. Go ahead, then.”
Their gazes clashed in silent battle. Belatedly, she realized that she’d thrown down one hell of a dare.
She waited for him to say something, to refute her taunt by saying that he couldn’t do that. That he didn’t want to, that what he felt for her would never permit him to do such a thing. Instead, he just stared at her with cold eyes.
Even knowing he could offer no such assurances—that it was unfair to expect him to soothe her with false promises—she felt a flash of anger. She had given more than her body to him. It was not just some curse, some animal instinct that drew her to him. Her hunger forgotten, Claire bolted from the table and fled the restaurant.
She heard him call her name, but didn’t stop.
Pushing the door open, she fled into the rain. She hurried along the uneven sidewalk edging the road, enduring the splashing water from passing cars. One stopped. A Jeep. A maroon Jeep. The passenger door flung open. Gideon leaned across the seat, shouting, “Get in!”
“No,” she shouted back and continued walking in stiff strides, hands shielding her face in a feeble effort to ward off the rain. A pointless endeavor. She was already soaked.
With the passenger door swinging open, the Jeep sped ahead and drove up onto the sidewalk, jerking to a stop several feet in front of her and blocking the driveway to her dry cleaner’s. Claire stopped and stared at those red parking li
ghts warily. The driver’s door thrust open and Gideon climbed out. He marched toward her, his lean figure cutting through the rain like a blade, eyes unblinking against the deluge of water sluicing down the hard planes of his face. Hands fisted at his sides, he stopped in front of her. Her head fell back to glare at him.
“Are you getting in?”
She hesitated, staring at the unyielding set of his mouth and reading the determination in his face to have his way, to win. He wouldn’t accept anything less than her total surrender. She knew that. Just as she knew she could not—would not—give in to his bullying. She’d been bullied enough in her life. No more.
She found the will to lift her voice over the pounding rain. “No!”
Gideon had seen this in a movie before. Girl won’t get in the car. Guy demands she does. Girl tells him to go to hell right before guy flings her over his shoulder in a caveman display of dominance. If Claire wanted to play that girl, then he would be more than happy to oblige her and play his part.
Bending, he grabbed her by the knees and flung her over his shoulder. She screeched and pummeled the backs of his thighs with her fists. He was well aware she didn’t hit like a girl—not with the lycan blood coursing through her veins—and that first blow nearly brought him down.
“Let me go!” she demanded over the steady beat of rain.
“Can’t.” Grinning, he adjusted her more comfortably on his shoulder and suffered her punches. “You’d fall on your head and break your neck.”
She jabbed a fist into his back, grinding her knuckles into his spine and nearly upsetting his balance on the slippery sidewalk. He delivered a loud smack to her rear end. “Stop that or we’ll both fall and crack our heads.”
“Well, that wouldn’t kill me, would it?” she retorted.
“Smartass,” he grumbled, dumping her in the passenger seat.
He was half-afraid she would bolt when he left her to walk around to the driver’s side, but she wisely stayed put. Slamming his door shut, he turned to look at her. With her wet hair plastered to her head, she reminded him of a drowned cat. Her chest rose and fell with ragged breaths, her dusky nipples pebble hard through her soaked shirt. His hands itched to take hold of them, to taste them through her wet bra and shirt.
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