Either he was a very good actor, or he truly did worry for her safety. Perhaps she should be more worried, but she felt safe with him. Odd when he was a complete stranger, but like her father said, common sense had never been her strong suit.
His gaze held hers, dark and impassive. “It’s safer if you stay in the dark.”
Her inner beast writhed with irritation. She’d been mostly silent during the ride to his condo, but enough was enough. “You owe me the truth. Not only was I someone’s target practice, but you put me out of business for the next couple weeks too.”
“I’ve already said I’m sorry.” He set his beer beside hers and leaned forward to take one of her hands between his. “I never would’ve come to Polished if I’d known they followed me there. Today is the first day they’ve attempted to contact me.”
A short bark of laughter escaped her. “Your idea of communication is whack.”
He grinned. “I suppose it is. Comes with the territory. I’ve been a target for years, so I’ve become used to watching my back. I slipped today and I’m afraid it dragged you into this mess.”
“Don’t you have super shifter senses? How did you not know you were being tailed?”
“Remarkable.” He leaned back and placed an arm over the back of the armchair he occupied. He looked so casual there, dressed in his jeans and sweater, but pure masculinity filled every inch of his large frame and his gaze narrowed into a pinpoint. “What do you know about shifters? And more to the point, how do you know I’m one?”
“I know enough,” she answered. “Most of my clientele are shifters of some variety or another. They talk. I listen. Contrary to popular belief, shifters aren’t as secretive as you probably like to think they are.”
“Hmm.” His knowledgeable gaze slid over her. “You’re unlike any human I know.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I meant it as such.” With a lightning quick movement, he leaned forward and snagged his beer. “You’re going to need to stay here tonight. Is there anyone you should call?”
Beer froth exploded from her mouth. “Excuse me. I’m not staying here.”
“Yes, you are.” He ran the glass rim of the bottle along his bottom lip in a motion that screamed sexuality. “It’s too risky for you to leave.”
Staying in the same room with him much longer was the true risk. It had been too long since she’d had sex, and her beast rolled over and panted at the possibilities that came from spending the night with Jackson.
No. Absolutely not. She wasn’t going down that road. Not with him. Not with anyone actually. She had enough to deal with without throwing sex into the pot.
She shot to her feet, spilling some of the beer on her sweater in the process. “I need to go.”
He remained seated. “Sit down, Ellie. It’s for your safety that you stay with me.”
“I don’t know you. You could be a serial killer, or a rapist, or—”
He picked up a cell phone and extended it to her. “I have a dozen references I could give you. Do you want the governor to vouch for me?”
Her jaw dropped. “You know the governor?” The state had been under investigation for mismanagement. She’d seen it on the news. Was Jackson somehow involved? “Is he the reason someone’s shooting at you?”
Jackson laughed and replaced the phone in the cradle. “No. It’s me they’re after, or rather a product I currently have in development. We took precautions to make sure it wasn’t leaked, but there’s always a bad apple in the bunch.”
“What sort of product?” Curiosity killed the cat. Thankfully she wasn’t feline. She sat and studied his reaction. “What is so important to them that they’re willing to kill you to get it?”
Who were they? But that question could wait.
Jackson hesitated, and she could almost see the wheels turning in his brain, judging and discarding how much to tell her. “They want me alive. Otherwise they lose any chance they have at obtaining what they’re after. If they’d wanted me dead, they would’ve succeeded.”
A latent fear set in and she shivered despite the warm air circulating through the condo. “You still haven’t told me what they’re after.”
He ignored her. “Are you sure you don’t have anyone to call? A boyfriend perhaps.”
She snorted and immediately wished she hadn’t. Beer up the nostrils wasn’t a pleasant sensation. “No boyfriend. No husband either, before you ask.”
“Interesting.” Jackson’s gaze roamed her face. “A girl like you shouldn’t be single.”
It was her turn to arch an eyebrow. “What do you mean by a girl like me?” Did she look like the type who needed a man to survive? Nana would roll over in her grave if so.
“A shifter.” Jackson narrowed his eyes. He leaned forward and laced his fingers together between his splayed knees.
“Excuse me?” Huh?
He studied her as if she were an insect beneath a magnifying glass. “Did you think I wouldn’t know? You’re too calm to be human.”
“Maybe I have a stiff upper lip?”
He smiled. “Or a terrible poker face. What kind of shifter are you? You don’t need to lie to me.”
Surprise muted her. How did he guess? No one ever suspected. “I see your Spidey senses are in full effect now. Too bad they weren’t evident about an hour ago.”
“You can’t distract me.” His mouth thinned into a firm line. “Why are you pretending to be human?”
“I am human.” She stuck to the half of her heritage she was the most loyal to. She’d been raised by her human father and grandmother. Her mother hadn’t had much time to teach her about her shifter ancestry before she died.
Jackson rolled his head to the side. “I didn’t know they were tailing me because I was in a car. My sense of smell gets thrown off by car exhaust. They had to be in a vehicle too, so it was impossible for me to know they were following me in the middle of rush hour. I’m a wolf, not Superman. Now that I’ve shared a bit about me, tell me why you’re hiding your true self.”
“I’m not hiding anything.” The leather crinkled beneath her denim-clad thighs as she shifted position on the couch.
“Don’t lie to me.” He stood and approached her.
She shrank into the cushions as far as she could, not trusting the look he gave. “What are you doing?”
He touched her face and trailed a fingertip across her cheek. An explosion of tingles followed the path he took. She knew she was blushing but couldn’t stop. He studied her. “Soft, but cool to the touch. You’re not a wolf.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m not. This is ridiculous. You’re wasting your time.”
He sniffed the air. “No musk. You’re not feline either. And you don’t have the build of a bear or a fox.”
She huffed with irritation. A vague sense of something resembling heartburn appeared in her esophagus. Oh no. Not now. She gulped and tried to keep her body’s reaction hidden.
Jackson continued to stroke her face. “Tell me. What are you?”
His touch distracted her, almost making her blurt out the truth. She grabbed his wrist. “One hundred percent Homo sapien. Try that on for size.”
“You’re lying.” His cool green eyes clouded. “You’re more than human. Why won’t you tell me?”
She huffed with irritation, and a tiny bit of smoke escaped. She zipped her lips shut and prayed he didn’t notice. Another stream of smoke leaked out of her nostrils. “Goddamn it.”
Jackson’s eyes widened and surprise washed away the clouds in his eyes. “Fuck me. A dragon?”
Sulfur lingered in the air from her brief release of smoke. It was damned annoying that he’d brought on the reaction. No use holding it back now. She exhaled the lungful of smoke she’d held back and let go of his wrist to waft the air with her hand. “Half dragon. I can’t fully shift, so I’m practically human anyway.”
He turned his head to watch the tendrils of smoke floating to th
e ceiling. “Hope it doesn’t set off my fire alarm. But I suppose it’s only fair that my furniture gets ruined by the sprinkler since I was responsible for totaling your shop.”
An evil urge to blow a stream of smoke toward the alarm was quickly discarded. She couldn’t be that mean. Not on purpose.
He turned his attention back to her. Curiosity blossomed across his face. “Can you breathe fire?”
She ran her tongue over her lips and wished she’d brought along a tube of Chapstick. The sulfur tended to dry her lips out. “I can, but not as well as my mother could.”
He moved to sit beside her on the couch. She slid over so their thighs wouldn’t brush. He still managed to encompass her with his overwhelming masculinity. “Why do you hide it?”
Ellie grimaced. How to tell a stranger that her father had never accepted the dragon side of her or her mother? She’d suppressed the urges out of respect to him after her mother had died. He’d been a widower with a thirteen-year-old half shifter for a daughter and no idea on how to deal with her. She’d done her best to keep his life simple, and by doing so she’d lost the connection with her mother’s family. “I was raised human. After my mom died, my father taught me to hide it, to blend in with my friends. We didn’t have the backing of my mother’s family since they live in Ireland, and he knew he couldn’t protect me by himself. It was the safest route.”
Jackson touched her thigh briefly. The heat of his palm radiated through the denim of her jeans. “Is it true that dragons are sought for scale harvesting?”
Ellie nodded. “In the past, yes. Many still believe dragon scales are magical. Thankfully I’m not much of a target since I can’t shift.”
“So, no scales?”
She shook her head. “My skin hardens, becomes crystalline almost, but I retain my human form. I have wings, but they’re not strong enough to make me fly. They give me the ability to perform longer than average jumps, but the wings are painful when they appear, so I don’t allow it often.”
“And the myth about caves of gold?”
She chuckled. “Myth is exactly right. In the Middle Ages, one greedy dragon who hoarded gold made our lives hell. Contrary to popular belief, dragons don’t amass riches, but it’s impossible to prove the rumor wrong.”
He continued to watch her. “I’ve never met a dragon.”
“Other than my mother, neither have I, so we have that in common.” She turned to face him and drew a knee up onto the cushion between them. “I hope I can trust you to keep my secret. I want to keep my life as human as possible.”
He held up his hand and drew his thumb to the center of his palm. “I won’t expose you. I promise. Even though I don’t understand why you would hide it, I respect your decision.”
“Thank you. You’re the first person to figure it out.” She toyed with a loose thread on the seam of her jeans. “Since you know my secret, tell me yours. It’s only fair.”
He moved his hand away, and already she missed his touch. “My roommate in college created a firewall that was practically impenetrable. A few months back I hired him to work out the kinks, and he developed a security feature that can’t be cracked. I won’t bore you with the technicalities, but needless to say this could revolutionize the cyber world. We’re preparing to launch the new product, but someone wants their hands on the plans before I go public.”
Ellie gaped at him. “Wow. You’re talking viruses and stuff, right?”
“That and more.” Jackson mimicked her position. His knee bumped hers as he moved it onto the cushion. “With our product on the market, cyber attacks and data pilfering are impossible. Identity theft will become nonexistent. Political espionage gets cut off at the source. Understandably several organizations are interested. The ability to completely shield online data is a technology that many people want, and they’ll probably stop at nothing to get it.”
She frowned. “But if it goes on the market, can’t the bad guys copy it?”
He shook his head. “Ty wrote his own programming language. It would be impossible to break the code. Not without Ty himself.”
She held up a hand. “Techie overload. Sorry. Back to the problem at hand. So you think the government is after you? Is that how you know the governor?”
Laughter burst out of him. “Many governments are interested. And no. I met Jack through my charity organization. He attends our fundraising events. I can’t be sure but right now, I believe a terrorist group is after Ty’s firewall. The group focuses their efforts on breaking into political organizations’ databases and uses the information they receive to determine where to strike next. Cyber hacking is very profitable. They’d be fools to allow this product on the market.”
“But won’t it work in reverse? Won’t the bad guys’ information be blocked from us as well?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Very good. Yes is the answer to your question, which is why I’m going to be very selective about who obtains the firewall. Ty is adamant that it’s only used for good.”
“Ty?” she questioned.
“My college roommate. The developer. Speaking of whom, I’ve got to get to him and warn him that someone is following me. It won’t be long until they discover my link to him.”
There were so many technical questions she wanted to ask, but she focused on the minutiae to keep occupied. “Where is Ty now?”
“Alabama. He owns a motorcycle bar near Birmingham.”
Ellie found it hard to reconcile the man before her with having a friend who owned a motorcycle bar. “Did you call him?”
Jackson smiled. It did outrageous things to her belly. Butterflies, hell. More like grenades exploding one by one. “Ty doesn’t do phones. I e-mailed him.”
Ellie tilted her head to one side. “Are you serious?”
“Completely. You’d have to meet Ty to understand. He makes me write in a code no one but his brother and I understand.”
She chuckled. “A biker who e-mails in code and develops world-class technology. Sounds intriguing.”
Jackson nudged her with his knee. “But back to the point of all this. You’re staying here until it’s safe for you to go home.”
“Jackson! I can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
She threw up her hands. “I don’t know you. I have my own life. Take your pick.”
“You won’t be safe if you go home. It’ll be my fault if something happens to you, and I can’t allow that to happen.”
She rolled her eyes. “They don’t know me.”
“You think they can’t trace you to Polished? That is child’s play, Ellie. They’ll find you and they’ll use you to get to me. I’ve been gathering data on your location for months. It’s possible they think my interest in you may extend further than business. I can’t risk it.”
Oh, if only he was interested. She’d be a happy, happy girl. Singing-Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-and-shit kind of happy.
“So what if they do find me?” she scoffed. “I can take care of myself.”
“Maybe there’s another reason I want you to stay,” he said in a honey-smooth voice.
Her private areas began marching to the beat of her pulse, completely onboard with any activity that rated the seductive quality to his words. “Which is?”
“To convince you to sell me your bullet-ridden building.”
Her pulse halted, and her privates closed up shop. “I won’t sell. My location is prime.” How could she explain the effort she’d put in to make her shop a success? Homage to Nana aside, she loved the area and she’d never get a deal quite like the one she’d gotten with her building.
He leaned in close, near enough for her to see the individual lashes attached to his eyelids. “Name your price.”
She took a deep breath. He overwhelmed her. His scent, the touch of his hand on her knee, his warmth. His unbelievably erotic voice. Everything about him served to weaken her resolve. She wanted him, damn it, and she didn’t want to. It muddled her mind, made her weak. Anot
her puff of sulfur-scented air escaped her lips.
“What do you plan to do with my building?” Images of an upscale boutique or research facility danced through her head.
He lowered his gaze. “I’m co-owner of The Grub Burger franchise, and your location is the perfect site for a new restaurant.”
She shot to her feet. “The Grub Burger? Are you kidding me? You want to take my beautiful salon and turn it into a grease-infested, cholesterol-laden fast food joint?”
He grabbed her hand. “Sit down, Ellie. You eat at The Grub Burger. I saw the bags.”
“Not the point at all.” She tugged her hand away.
He grinned. “Then what is the point?”
“You don’t get to order me around, and I’m not selling Polished to you. You come in with your sexy green eyes and think I’ll sign on the dotted line because I’m a silly female. Is that it? Well I’ve got news for you, Mr. Richie Rich. I’m not selling.”
“Sit down, Ellie. You’re overreacting.”
“Stop telling me what to do!” Her volume reached a shout, but she didn’t care. Surely his expensive condo had soundproof walls. She shook her index finger at him and smoke poured out of her lips. “Is this a joke? Did you think it was funny to make me think… It doesn’t matter what I thought. What matters is you realize that I’m serious when I say I’m not selling.”
“OK.” Another grin teased the edges of his lips.
“And furthermore. Wait… What?” She came to a halt and stared at him.
He held up his hands. “You’re not selling. I accept your terms.”
“You do?”
He smiled and lowered his hands to his lap. “Contrary to popular belief, I can take no for an answer. You’re beautiful when you’re angry, by the way.”
Anger melted in the wake of his compliment. “You’re blind. I’m having the bad hair day to end all bad hair days, and that even encompasses my mullet phase. My hips and ass probably add fifty pounds to my weight, and my smile is crooked.”
He watched her. Amusement made his eyes dance. “You had a mullet?”
She plopped her hands on her ample hips and nodded. “Tenth grade. The decision’s haunted me my entire life.” She noticed that he didn’t mention her weight or smile. Hopefully the day would come where she wasn’t self-conscious, but it wouldn’t be that day. “Thank you for what you said though.”
Shift Happens Page 3
