Chase Me (13 page)

“Gabe, there’s exercise, and then there’s just crazy,” Paige mumbled around a wad of grape bubble gum. “Lorin’s already been running twice today, and she was just out clearing brush with Mike and Nathan.”

Burning
off
energy
because
he’d left her hanging last night.
He leaned his hips against the table so Paige wouldn’t see how vigorously his “ancient” body was reacting to the thought of Lorin wearing shorts, a T-shirt, steel-toed boots, and sweat.

Apparently he now found lumberjacks highly erotic.

Gabe carefully rolled up the fragile map, half kicking, half congratulating himself for not joining her last night. Thank the universe for ringing phones. If Elliott hadn’t interrupted them, he would have done something mindless without thinking it through first, and then tortured himself with Monday-morning quarterbacking afterward. He couldn’t be ruled by his dick on this one, even if it shouted, “Yeah, you can, you dumb shit” at the top of its hormone-addled lungs.

She maddened him. Mesmerized him. Challenged him. Made him hard as a diamond-tipped drill bit.

Gabe released a deep breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. He’d thought it through, and… he was going to sleep with Lorin Schlessinger—if she was still talking to him.

Yeah, he was going to do this. Lorin was a jittery mess, the demands of her Valkyrie physiology slowly but surely making themselves known. For his part, Gabe hadn’t had sex since he and Kayla had broken up.

Sleeping with Lorin was, as Elliott would say, a 1 + 1 = 3 solution.

Damn Lukas for planting this fool idea in his head. Now that the seed had been planted, it wove insidious roots. But the alternative? Lorin getting her physical needs met with someone else? Gabe’s fists clenched.
Unthinkable.

The snap of Paige’s gum jolted his brain back to practical matters. Before he and Lorin could sleep together, they had to talk, set some ground rules—if she was still interested. Leaving her hanging last night might well have nipped his foray into sexual harassment in the bud before it even started. Lorin might well have changed her mind—

Rosemary mint. Sea salt. Sun-baked sweat.

Lorin leaned against the frame of the open workroom door. She wore another of her endless supply of fleece zip-up jackets with the clingy black leggings she favored for running, and that definitely favored her back. Her quads subtly flexed as she shifted her weight. He nearly groaned as he imagined them vised around him while he bottomed out in her body.

Her green eyes burned with annoyance, and with a hunger she didn’t bother to hide.

“Paige, let’s call it a day,” he said, not breaking his gaze from Lorin. He could smell her humid need from here. “Thanks for the information. We’ll pick this up again tomorrow.”

Paige scowled at the rolled-up map Gabe held. “I hate missing things.”

“We don’t know that anything’s been missed.”

“What’s going on?” Lorin asked, levering her weight off the doorjamb and sauntering into the workroom.

Sex
on
the
prowl
. Gabe shifted his weight as the zipper of his jeans bit into some damn tender flesh. Was that why every man on the dig favored baggy cargo pants?

“Gabe had some questions about an area of the property that I’m not familiar with,” Paige said as she dropped from the table to the floor. “Maybe you can help.”

“They’re about to start
Harold
and
Kumar
Go
To
White
Castle
in the bunkhouse,” Lorin said.

“Nathan’s turn to pick the movie?” At Lorin’s nod, Paige rolled her eyes. “I think I’ll pass. You two have plans?” She looked back and forth between them and smirked. “Of course you have plans. I’ll just leave you… to it. See you tomorrow!” she called over her shoulder as she left.

Lorin approached the long wooden table that bisected the workroom and leaned against the other side. Gabe’s nostrils quivered with scents: her after-dinner coffee, pinesap, and wild, wet arousal. Saliva pooled in his mouth.

“What did you and Paige find?” she asked.

Shove
it
down.
Gabe cleared his throat and carefully unrolled the map again, pointing to the area he and Paige had been looking at. “I’m curious about this area to the north.”

When Lorin carefully touched the brittle edge of the map, Gabe felt like she’d stroked his very body. The movement was completely unconscious, which made it all the more provocative.

“That’s part of our property, but it hasn’t been assessed in any detail. Our focus for the last decade or so has been the petroglyph cave, and the current site. And”—Lorin shot a quick glance over her shoulder, lowering her voice—“now that the box has been discovered there?” She shrugged. “I don’t see our focus, or frankly our budget, stretching any further afield right now.”

“If that box is what we think it is, you’ll be in a strong position to lobby for more funds.”

“We’d have to go to the Council, go head-to-head with Krispin Woolf.” Lorin’s eyes lit with challenge. “Is that something you’d be willing to do?”

It was an important consideration. Krispin Woolf wasn’t known for temperate reactions, and disagreeing with the WerePack Alpha—
his
alpha—could have long-lasting implications. “I really hate politics,” he muttered.

“But you’re so good at it.”

He wasn’t sure whether her comment was a slur or a compliment. “You’re dressed for running,” he said, shifting away from the table. “Feel like running to the north? Maybe you’ll notice something I haven’t.”

Lorin’s gaze flicked down to his bulging groin, then back to his face. “I would think you might find running a challenge at the moment.”

“I think I can manage.”
She
was
staring
at
his
lips. Jesus.
He cleared his throat again. “Let’s get away from camp for a while. We need to talk.”

“Okay. Need to change?”

His jeans had a stranglehold on his dick. “Yeah. It’ll only take me a minute.”

“Don’t rush on my account.”

The suggestive twist in her voice contradicted her words. There was every reason to rush. “Ladies first,” he said, gesturing toward the door with his hand.

“I’m no lady.” She sauntered out in front of him. “Don’t forget the lights.”

He about-faced and slapped at the switch. Damn it, she had him as addled as a juvenile getting his first sniff of tail. Time to get his brain back in the driver’s seat, at least for a while. He’d change, get them away from camp, and they’d have the conversation they needed to have. Then he’d—

“Hi, guys.” Mike and Gretchen stood in the building’s entryway, hand in hand. “Ready to lock up for the night? We’re done with cleanup.”

Hell. He hadn’t even thought about locking up, or that there might still be people in the dining area next door.

“Hi there,” Lorin replied. “Are you going to the bunkhouse to watch the movie?”

“Nathan’s choice, right?” Mike glanced at Gretchen. “
Harold
and
Kumar
. Want to go to Tubby’s instead?”

“Sure.” The young siren’s single-word response was an erotic novel.

Gabe reached for the vulnerable slice of skin at the small of Lorin’s back. She stilled at his touch. “Have fun,” he said.

Mike eyed them both and grinned knowingly. “You too.”

The younger couple walked away still holding hands, their shoulders brushing as they strolled down the tree-lined road leading away from the site. When Lorin cleared her throat and stepped away, Gabe was almost relieved. She was nervous too.

Crossing the compound, they finally reached Gabe’s bright blue tent. “I’ll just be a second,” he said as he unzipped the door.

“Hurry.” Lorin wasn’t a siren, but the demand in her voice hit him like a roundhouse kick.

Gabe shouldered into the tent’s back room and assessed his workout clothes. What could he wear that wouldn’t get him laughed off the site before he and Lorin got to someplace more private? Something that could be stripped off quickly in the event that she was as hungry for him as he was for her?

It wasn’t possible, but a man could dream.

He picked up a clean jock and just as quickly dropped it back onto the pile. He wasn’t even going to try to wrestle his unruly anatomy into the blasted thing. Grabbing a pair of compression shorts instead, Gabe stripped out of his boots and jeans and worked the clingy fabric up over his legs and his raging erection, layering a pair of faded maroon sweatpants over them. The T-shirt and fleece jacket he was already wearing would work just fine.

His thoughts raced as he laced his running shoes. Should he bring a blanket? Give her something soft to lie on while he lost himself in her? Somehow, such premeditated thoughts seemed way too presumptuous—even though every cell in his body was certain they’d have sex before they returned to the compound.

The hair on his legs stood on end, scraping against the soft cotton. He was going to have sex. With Lorin Schlessinger. Out there in the woods. Probably not what Gideon had in mind when he’d urged Gabe to end his sex drought.

Reaching into the dark corner of his duffel bag, he snatched a condom out of the box he’d almost left at home, tucking the small packet into his jacket pocket. Then he cursed and grabbed three more.

“Hurry up. It’s getting dark.”

He exhaled into his hand to check his breath. Not minty fresh, but…

“Gabe. Are you knitting a new pair of socks in there?”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Striding to the tent’s flapping door, he almost tripped when he saw Lorin, legs straddled and bent over at the waist, touching her palms to the ground as she warmed up. Zipping the tent door closed, he turned away and did a few perfunctory stretches of his own. If he let himself stare at her flexing ass, he’d dive on her like a slavering beast—privacy be damned. “Come on, let’s get going.”

“Okay. Sure we need to talk first?” She jogged backwards, putting too much space between them. “I’ll still respect you in the morning, you know.”

He made himself match her tone. “That would imply that you respect me now, and we both know
that
isn’t true.”

A tiny smile tilted the corners of her mouth—not confirming or denying his words.

The woman drove him nuts.

What did she expect from this, from him? Just a quick, medicinal roll in the pine needles to bleed off some of her excess energy?

Did she really expect so little?

Probably.
Her last lover, Rafe Sebastiani, had been a gorgeous, hedonistic sex demon, and he… wasn’t. Never before had he been so conscious of the weight of the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, or how long it had been since he’d been to the gym.

“It’s just sex, Gabe.” Her smoky alto voice sounded slightly annoyed. “Do we need to negotiate a bloody contract first?”

His lizard brain slithered into fantasy mode, with Lorin wearing a tight pencil skirt and stilettos, nibbling on a pen, as she stated the number of orgasms she expected per sexual encounter, and the penalties that would accrue if she didn’t receive them. “Details are important,” he said.

Was that rough, growly voice his?

Her breath hitched; her pupils dilated. “You
are
very detail-oriented.”

The heat in her voice was going to strip him bare.

“
Can you talk and run at the same time? In the name of efficiency?” She shot him a final challenging glance, pivoted, and took off like a gazelle, disappearing into the tunnel of pines.

Testosterone and adrenaline raged like class-five rapids.

Chase. Taste. Take.

He sprinted after her, more alive than he’d felt in ages.

***

Lorin’s feet pounded down the deer trail leading to the shattered rise that had caught Gabe’s attention. Squirrels rustled in the underbrush, scurrying to safety as she approached. An owl hooted a complaint from a nearby pine. The sound of her own breath, whooshing in and out of her lungs, sounded unnaturally loud in dusk’s dim hush.

Where
was
Gabe?
Freyja help her, what would she do about this knee-knocking need if he changed his mind again?

Behind her, branches cracked. A muttered curse.
Ah, finally.
She lifted her forearm to protect her face from the slap of low-hanging branches as she picked up the pace, her muscles warming, flexing, flowing. The rise was just ahead. She was more than ready for—