Then she waited while he dialed a number.
Cole tapped his fingertips on the top of the dashboard. The lights from the fast food joint filtered into the car—orangey and bright.
Dana realized she was nervous. She twisted her fingers together in her lap.
“Booth,” said Cole into the phone. He bowed his head, so that he wasn’t looking at her. “Yes, it’s Randall…. I know, I know. You don’t want to have anything to do with me…. Look, it’s important I find Enoch…. If you just… But if I could…” He let out a frustrated sigh and dropped the phone. “He hung up on me.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“It means he’s not going to help.” Cole began dismantling the phone.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Enoch knows people who can trace phones. Booth will give him this number. So, that’s the end of that phone.” Cole tossed the pieces out the window. “Let’s activate something else while we got Wi-Fi, huh?”
Dana handed him another one from her backpack. “Maybe I should have gotten more than ten.”
* * *
Cole said that it didn’t make much sense for them to travel too far if they didn’t know what direction they should go in. Dana understood that.
By that time, it was nearly dawn. Cole found a rest area, and they parked the car there. They shifted into wolves and went off into the nearby trees to curl up and sleep away the daylight. It was more comfortable than sleeping in the car.
When they woke in the afternoon, however, Dana felt dirty and gross. It had been quite a while since she’d showered. She didn’t so much care when she was the wolf, but in human form, she felt disgusting. She laughed about this to Cole, and he decided they should get a hotel room. The way he figured it, they didn’t have anywhere particularly to go, and they were going to have to stay put until they found a lead of some kind. He thought they’d be more comfortable in a hotel.
Dana felt a little bit apprehensive about the idea, mostly because hotels had beds and a sort of implicit expectation of sex.
The thought filled her with a delicious sense of expectation and lust.
But Avery was barely gone, and jumping right into bed with Cole seemed wrong. Sure, she’d already had sex with him, but that didn’t mean she had to keep doing it over and over again.
Doing it over and over again actually sounded nice.
So did a shower.
They got a hotel room.
It wasn’t anything special—they needed a place that would take cash in lieu of credit cards—so the room was nothing to write home about. But there was a shower, and Dana claimed it immediately after they checked in.
She peeled off her clothes, including one of the bras she’d stolen. Her nipples were still tender from her little romp with Cole in the rain. They stiffened at the slightest stimulation, even just removing her bra. She examined them and found that there were small purplish bruises on her aureoles.
Her chest tightened. She felt vaguely frightened by the bruises, but even more excited by it. She wasn’t sure why, but she liked the idea of having been marked by Cole’s teeth. It felt tight between her legs too.
She touched the scar on her belly—Cole’s other mark.
And she felt a familiar tug of guilt. She shouldn’t find things like that exciting. She should be disgusted by them.
There’s something wrong with me, she thought.
And then she got in the shower.
The warm water felt heavenly. While it washed over her, she thought of nothing but how good it felt to get clean.
After, she wrapped herself in towels and went back into the room.
Cole was sitting at the table on the other side, scribbling something on hotel stationery. He looked up at her, and he froze.
“Um, I’ll just get my clothes and change in the bathroom,” said Dana, even though she didn’t really want to do that. Water had condensed on every surface in there, and there was no way her clothes wouldn’t end up wet. She really didn’t want to put on wet clothes.
He stood up. “No, it’s fine. I was going to get in the shower anyway.”
“Okay,” she said.
He came over to her, stopping when he was only inches from her body.
She thought about backing up, but she didn’t. The towel was rubbing against her sore nipples, and it was bothersome and pleasant all at the same time.
“You’re, um…” He ran his finger over her shoulder.
“I’m clean,” she told him, but she noticed her voice had somehow gotten throatier. “You’re not. You shouldn’t touch me. You’ll get me dirty again.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Right. I should leave you pure as the driven snow.”
She reached out to touch his beard. “Are you going to shave?”
He stepped closer. “Unless you don’t want me to.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured.
He moved his finger up her shoulder and over her neck.
Shivers went through her, and her nipples tightened. She shut her eyes.
He stroked her neck. His voice was low. “I really don’t intend to do things you don’t like, Dana. If you don’t actually want me to touch you, to be with you, you should tell me.”
“I do tell you.” She kept her eyes closed.
“Well, tell me now, then,” he said, and he moved his fingers, so that he wasn’t touching her. “Tell me now, and I’ll keep my hands to myself from now on.”
She took several deep breaths, still not opening her eyes.
“Dana?”
She untucked the top of her towel and let it fall away from her body. She opened her eyes.
He sucked in air, his gaze running over her naked skin. He looked her up and down, and then he settled on her breasts. His eyebrows drew together, and he lifted his finger to brush one of the bruises.
Her skin puckered, and her nipple stood straight up, even though he wasn’t actually touching it. She let out a tiny gasp. On impulse, she grabbed his other hand and put it on the scar on her belly. She kissed him.
He kissed back, but she could feel the confusion, the hesitation, as his lips moved on hers.
“I… I like it,” she breathed against his mouth. “I’m yours.”
He made a little growling sound in the back of his throat, and then he threw her onto the bed. He was on her right away, mouth on hers, fingers still brushing her scar.
She moaned, and she felt claimed and secure. A sense of belonging to him shot through her, and it turned her on. She writhed, clutching at his shirt, putting her hands on the skin of his chest.
His mouth moved down her body, between her breasts, down her torso.
And then his lips were on her scar. He kissed it, ran his tongue over the raised skin.
Shudders went through her.
His hands caressed her hips, and his tongue gently traced the mark he’d left on her.
She gasped. Something about his mouth there… It worked her up, her body growing wet and loose, surrendering to him. His touch always made her surrender, but this time she didn’t even bother to try to fight it. She let him have her—all of her. Her legs fell apart. She was his.
His lips moved lower, traveling over her flesh down to her wet slickness.
And then his tongue was there, between her legs, sweeping her away to vast, untold pleasure.
Her whole body trembled. She groaned.
“Say it again,” Cole whispered against her slippery heat, his breath tickling her most sensitive place. “Tell me you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” she moaned.
He licked her again.
“I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours,” she panted.
And the pleasure began to crescendo.
* * *
Dana ended up back in the shower with Cole to clean up afterward. But it turned out to be too difficult to keep off each other there either. He pushed her face first into the wall and took her again with the shower head blasting over both of
their bodies. After that, she got out to let him finish showering alone.
She went out in the room and sat down on the bed in her towel. They were running out of towels.
Her whole body was tender now. The inside of her thighs a little raw from Cole’s beard. Her breasts even more sore. He’d started gentle, but she’d urged him to further intensity. When the pleasure was riding her, she couldn’t stop.
She lay back on the bed. The covers were mussed, and it smelled like sex.
She thought of Avery.
She felt guilty.
It didn’t even seem real that Avery was dead. She hadn’t seen his body, hadn’t had any chance to say goodbye. But he was dead.
He was dead, and she was giving herself to Cole Randall. She knew it was obscene. She should be grieving for her husband. She shouldn’t even be able to want another man. She should be hurt and destroyed by Avery’s death.
In some ways, she was. She loved Avery—loved him with a deepness that she’d never felt for Cole.
Cole had always been sex and danger to her. He’d never been a person. She’d seen him as a dark shadow that stole into her brain and pushed her to the edge of her passion. He never could have been a husband and father like Avery.
No, Avery was her rock. He kept her steady, and he provided safety and solace. He was good for her. He made her happy. She and Avery had a home together. They were a family.
So, losing him… losing him was like losing her foundation.
Now, she was teetering out into space without a tether.
But it was all so unreal. She couldn’t help but feel as if she’d go back to her apartment in the SF and find Avery waiting for her there.
Not that he’d forgive her after what she’d done, of course.
That was the worst of it, knowing that Avery had died angry with her, and that she’d never been able to tell him how much he meant to her.
She felt the sadness coming for her. It was gathering up like storm clouds, and it was moving across the horizon of her soul, ready to crash into her and drown her.
She turned on the TV instead.
It blared out some old sitcom, something from her childhood that was playing in syndication. She flipped the channel.
News.
…dangerous escaped werewolves. Cole Randall and Dana Gray are at large, having escaped the southwest branch of the SF. Both of these wolves have murdered humans on purpose, and they have the capability to shift into wolf form without the aid of the full moon. They are highly dangerous. If you see them, do not approach, but immediately call the SF.
Dana got up off the bed. Shit. “Cole?” she called.
“What?” he said.
“Come see this.”
Cole wandered out of the bathroom, his face half-slathered in shaving cream, a towel wrapped around his waist.
She pointed at the TV, where there were pictures of the two of them posted on the screen.
He cocked his head to one side. “Well, that sucks.”
“We’re wanted criminals.” She hugged herself.
He rolled his eyes. “If you want to be dramatic about it.”
“This is dramatic.” She dragged her hands over her face.
Cole shrugged and went back into the bathroom.
She followed him. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
He picked up his razor and began dragging it over his cheek. “What do you want me to say?”
“Well, I’d think you’d be at least a little bit worried.”
Cole rinsed the razor in the sink. “How’s being worried going to help us?”
She glared at him.
He squinted in the mirror and applied the razor to his face again. “This doesn’t change anything, Dana. We’re still in the same situation we were before.”
“Shouldn’t we… I don’t know, leave or something? What if the guy who checked us into the hotel recognizes us?” She rubbed her forehead. “Maybe you should have kept the beard. You didn’t have a beard in the picture.”
He turned to her. Half of his face was shaved already. “Too late now.”
She walked away from the bathroom and began to pace. “They’re going to find us, Cole. They’re going to find us, and they’re going to lock us up again.”
His voice drifted out of the bathroom. “The SF isn’t at full strength. Most of their muscle is gone since the west coast and the east coast branches were taken out. They’re not going to find us. Calm down.”
But she couldn’t.
* * *
Dana was lost in her own worries for the rest of the evening. Cole brought them back food from a vending machine. He’d wanted to go pick something up from a restaurant, but Dana was too paranoid about it, saying it was better to keep as far away from people as possible.
Cole was trying to make a list of everyone he knew that he could contact about Enoch. He sat in the hotel room, clutching his forehead, muttering to himself, and occasionally scribbling.
Dana alternately paced and lay on the bed, curled up in a little ball. She was worried about staying in one place. The thought of being captured again filled her with terror. Not so much for herself, but for Piper. She didn’t know what was happening to her little girl.
Cole said that Enoch wouldn’t have hurt the children, but that he’d want to make sure that they were all growing up with the kind of werewolf values that Enoch believed in. Cole wasn’t sure if that would mean having the children adopted by various members of his network of wolves or if the kids might all be rounded up in one place. He promised he would find out, that they would find out together, and that they would get Piper back.
And there was no discussion about what would happen after that.
Dana knew she wanted her daughter back, but she was worried. If she was a fugitive from the law, she wasn’t going to be able to take care of her daughter. She couldn’t imagine being on the run like this with Piper. The little girl wouldn’t be able to take it. And the constant danger would drive Dana insane.
No, she had to figure out some way to get herself cleared of these charges.
Maybe she could somehow trade Cole for her freedom. If the SF had Cole Randall, what would they want with her?
But that thought made her feel guilty. Cole was helping her, and she was thinking about betraying him.
Besides, everything was confusing with Cole right now. It had always only been sex with Cole, that was true, but there was something about the sex… She felt utterly possessed by him, half-devoted to him. It was ridiculous to feel that way, especially when they weren’t even mated. Still, she didn’t want him hurt.
Late that night, Cole sent out a series of texts to as many people as he could think of. “Maybe we’ll know something by morning,” he told her. “You should try to get some sleep.”
She crawled into the bed, but Cole sat perched on the edge, looking at something on the android phone.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
He turned to her, looking almost guilty. “Nothing.”
She sat up and snatched the phone from him.
He had installed an app, and he was looking at one of Dana’s social networking sites. The page was plastered with pictures of Piper, and Cole had been scrolling through them.
“Oh,” she said. She handed the phone back to him.
But he turned it off. “Let’s just go to sleep.”
She hesitated.
He pulled aside the covers on the other side of the bed and got under them.
She looked from the phone to Cole. And then she crawled back up to the top of the bed and slipped under the covers.
Cole turned off the light. He rolled over with his back to her.
She lay there, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. “Cole?”
He didn’t say anything.
“It’s, um, it’s okay that you want to look at her,” she said.
“Don’t.” His voice was strangled.
“I mean, it’s natural. It�
�s good. She’s your daughter, so—”
“She’s not really, though, is she?” Cole yanked the covers tighter around himself. “Let’s not do this.”
She closed her eyes, and she lay in the darkness, waiting for sleep to claim her.
Sleep didn’t come. Instead, she thought of Avery again, how Avery was dead. Really dead. Really gone. She was never going to see him again, and the storm clouds of sadness started to rush for her again.
She opened her eyes. “She really is your daughter, Cole.”
Cole sighed in the dark room.
“I’m not lying to you about it.”
“I know that,” he said, his voice quiet. “But I couldn’t ever be a father, Dana. I don’t know how to do it. My father…” He drew a ragged breath. “I really don’t want to talk about this.”
“Cole…” She turned onto her side and pressed her body against his back. “Would you want to be a father?”
“I…”
There was no sound except his breathing, and it sounded uneven.
Abruptly, he rolled over. He put his lips on hers and started kissing her fiercely. “Let’s not. Please?”
His fingers traced patterns over her skin, finding her secret places, and she could hardly remember what they’d even been talking about.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dana’s hands were pinned over her head, Cole’s fingers interlaced with her own.
His face was inches from hers, and they were both breathing heavily, writhing against each other. He drove himself deep into her, and she moved her pelvis in answering thrusts.
She felt close to him—so close, almost too close, as if he was breaking through some barrier she’d put up, battering at it with each stroke of his cock.
There was a banging noise.
At first Dana thought it was her own mind, an auditory hallucination of a battering ram. When she was having sex with Cole, she felt utterly lost, and maybe that meant—
But no. It was real.
The door burst open, wood splintering, screaming on its hinges.
She screamed, her body tensing.
Cole let go of her hands, twisting his body in the direction of the noise.
He was still inside her.
Moon Dance Page 20
