Chase Me (23 page)

“We didn’t—I couldn’t—”

“You didn’t couldn’t what?” Andi’s grin grew. “Please, continue. This is most enlightening.”

Lorin’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Andi’s information, however she’d obtained it, was spot-on. Last night, Chadden had set the stage for seduction, feeding her succulent, decadent tidbits, so artistically crafted that it almost—
almost—
seemed a shame to eat them. She appreciated the effort; she really did, but as the meal went on, the prospect of actually having sex with him had become so viscerally unappealing that she’d actually made up an excuse to leave the restaurant before he’d served her his signature Chocolate Wild Raspberry Bombe.

“Lorin, I’ve never seen you this scrambled by a relationship. Yeah, I said it—a relationship. I think your emotions are finally involved, and frankly it’s past time.”

Her diaphragm twisted in reaction. “We annoy each other to no end.”

Andi’s eyes danced. “Better annoyance than boring each other stiff.”

“Don’t say ‘stiff’ in my presence, please,” Lorin muttered. Suddenly, she was starving. “Barkeep,” she called to the vamp. “Do you have any raspberry muffins?” At his affirmative nod, she raised two fingers.

“Coming right up.”

Lorin leaned back against the padded chair while Andi deliberated the offerings in the pastry case. A relationship. Maybe Andi was right. Spending time with Gabe was anything but boring. If pressed, she would have to admit that he could be good company—when she wasn’t thinking about how to jump his bones. Truth be told, he more than carried his own weight up at the site, and… damn it, he made her think. Though their work styles were completely different, they built upon each other’s ideas well. His legendary detail orientation definitely translated to lovemaking. She’d never had a lover who tripped her trigger quite so… efficiently.

Her thoughts sputtered to a stop. Backed up. When, exactly, had sex with Gabe become “lovemaking” in her mind? When the hell had
that
happened? It was a mental Freudian slip that even she couldn’t ignore.

He’d hurt her feelings on numerous occasions. How could he hurt her feelings if they weren’t involved in the first place? Was Andi right?

Was it possible that Gabe felt the same way? And what if he didn’t? The very prospect sent nerves tap-dancing in her stomach.

The vamp approached with two plates, placing the one with two steaming muffins down in front of her. Andi had chosen a plump croissant, shiny with butter, with strawberries on the side. Murmuring her thanks, Lorin dug in. Tart raspberries exploded on her taste buds. “Mmm. You’re right about one thing,” she mumbled to Andi around a mouthful of food. “Gabe and I don’t talk enough. If he has a health problem, someone up at the dig should know about it. If not me, someone.”

“It’s not like he’s about to drop, or go spontaneously blind.” Andi narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think.”

The muffins she’d just eaten suddenly tasted like sawdust. She shoved the plate away. “It’s not like we can just pick up and go to a hospital if something goes seriously wrong while we’re up at the site,” she snapped. The nearest hospital catering to their species was in Minneapolis, a good three hundred miles south of the dig. Should he even be driving? “Why the hell don’t we have a helicopter up there?” she fretted. “Not that I know how to fly one, but I could learn—”

“Hey.” Andi put a hand on her shoulder. “Calm down. He’s a smart guy. I’m sure he has his retinologist on speed-dial.”

Lorin made herself relax.
His
beautiful
eyes.
Deep lakes of blue, covered by a thin sheet of ice. How much of their unusual color was due to the cataracts? At least now she knew why he blinked and rubbed his eyes so much while he worked. It wasn’t that he was reaching the end of his rope with her.

Necessarily.

“I heard that he and Kayla Andersen broke up in part because of his family’s poor genetics,” Andi said, watching Gideon Lupinsky racking up weights at the bench press station. “I’m sure she congratulated herself on the close call when the news about his eyes hit the grapevine.”

“Bitch.” She hadn’t known Gabe and Kayla’s relationship was quite
that
serious. The last time she’d seen Kayla had been in the hallway outside the VIP room at Underbelly, the night of Scarlett Fontaine’s homecoming show last fall. Physically, Kayla Andersen was everything Lorin wasn’t: small, girly, blonde, and delicate—everywhere except her bustline, of course. She designed handbags, for Freyja’s sake. What had she and Gabe possibly found to talk about?

They probably hadn’t talked all that much.

“Lorin.” Andi waved a hand in front of her face to regain her attention. “Whether you’re sleeping together right now or not, whether you’re denying your emotions are involved or not, I’m glad Gabe’s with you right now. Gwen worries about him being all broody and solitary up there in the northwoods.”

Lorin snorted. “With the crew there, solitary is damn tough to come by.”

“So, for real. Are things completely over between you and Rafe?”

Lorin knew that whatever she said next would hit the grapevine quickly, and then spread like wildfire.
Sorry, Rafe
. “Rafe and I aren’t sleeping with each other anymore.” He’d been the one to break off their sexual relationship too, and she still didn’t know why.

First Rafe, then Gabe. It was enough to give her a complex.

Damn it, why had Gabe kept something so important from her? She needed to see him. Yell at him. Hug him. Both, simultaneously. The stool screeched against the floor as she shoved to her feet.

Andi cocked her head and gestured to Lorin’s gym bag. “Is that your phone again?”

“Probably.” Lorin reached into the bag, extracted the annoying device, and quickly looked at the display. A text from Nathan lit the small screen:
Dude. Where are you? Check in.
She scrolled. “Hmm.” Four text messages and a video from Nathan. A text and a voice mail from Mike, and a voice mail from Paige, all within the past two hours. “I’d better get these.”

“A fate worse than death,” Andi deadpanned as she stood and hugged her good-bye. “Go give him hell,” she whispered.

Andi knew her too well. “Count on it.”

As Lorin left, she saw Andi slam what was left of her smoothie, toss her shoulders back, and then approach Gabe’s guarded older brother—undoubtedly to dish out a little hell of her own.

***

Gabe took a deep breath and held it.
Don’t drop it, don’t drop it, don’t drop it…
Moving slowly and carefully, he transferred the minute metallic scraping he’d finally taken to the SamplPak and quickly sealed it.

Then he released his breath.

Finally.
After an hour of dithering, he’d finally—

The lab door crashed open behind him. “Gabe! You—”

He jerked, rapping his head on the corner of the monitor suspended over the table on a boom. The scraping tool dropped to the table with a clatter as he closed his eyes and clutched the top of his head.

Lorin dropped a gym bag and hurried to his side. “Are you okay? Let me see.” She pulled his head down to examine his crown, pushing his nose right into her chest.

The initial, white-hot pain was already subsiding. The tips of her fingers stroking against his nerve-rich skull felt like heaven. Trying not to rest his cheek against her breast, he inhaled rosemary mint shampoo, floor wax, clean sweat, and… wolf.

“I don’t see any blood.”

He backed away several crucial feet, straightening his glasses. “I’m okay, you just startled me.”

Now that he could see her, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, highlighting her killer cheekbones and jawline. The clingy red workout clothes exposed yards of bare arms and legs, and hugged every dangerous curve. Dark patches of sweat on the midriff-baring top drew his attention back to her cleavage. She had an angry-looking floor burn on her stomach.

She’d walked through the halls of Sebastiani Labs looking like… that? The outfit had all the subtlety of a matador waving a red flag at a bull. He pointed to her stomach. “What happened?”

“Dove for a ball,” she said absently. “Never mind that. Are you sure you’re okay?”

He nodded.

“How is it going?” She indicated the table he’d been working at when she arrived, where the box glowed under bright lights.

That color. How to describe it? It was silver, fluid-looking, like the mercury in an old-time thermometer, with the slightest hint of green. Where had the metal been mined? It was unlike any alloy he’d seen. If this was Noah Pritchard’s fabled command box, its composition might give them their first real data about the incubus homeworld. Then again, Pritchard could just as easily have obtained it at the intergalactic equivalent of Walmart.

He’d spent the hours since Lorin’s departure testing the metal’s optical properties, its ability to conduct heat and electricity, its possible malleability and ductility—but the test he’d been about to perform just as she’d walked in wasn’t one that anyone would find in a scientific journal or text. Now that he’d taken the scraping, exposing fresh metallic molecules, the clock was ticking. He couldn’t lose this opportunity. “One more test today, and I have to do it now. Can you step back a little? I need to clear my…” He indicated his nose.

“Sorry. I imagine I’m pretty ripe. I didn’t shower before I left the health club.” As Lorin walked towards the door she’d just come in through, he stared at the muscles and curves shifting under the clingy fabric. “Hurry, though,” she said, stopping at the door and turning so she could watch. “I have news from up north.”

Gabe fought his attention away from her ass. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah.” A slight furrow creased her brow. “I think.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Hurry. Do what you need to do, then I’ll give you an update.”

He walked to the worktable and pushed the monitor up and out of his way. Placing his gloved fingertip at the edge of the scraping, he took off his glasses, setting them down next to the box where he would be able to easily find them.

As the world blurred away, his sense of smell shoved to the forefront. Quickly, before he picked up Lorin’s scent again, he lowered his head to the area of the box where he’d taken the scraping and inhaled deeply.

Nothing. How odd. No telltale sharpness, no metallic sting. Lowering his head, he touched the tip of his tongue to the minute scar. Still nothing. What the hell…? He’d never encountered a metal that didn’t have either a scent or a taste.

He drew his tongue the full length of the scraping.

Behind him, Lorin gasped. The pace of her breathing had picked up, soft huffs of excitement he’d tried to erase from his memory but failed. He slowly inhaled. No more tests were possible, because the light salt of her arousal crowded out everything else.

He registered movement—a shift of shadows, a change in the quality of the light. As she approached, aspects of her appearance gradually came into sharper focus but were still covered by a milky film: her tanned arms, legs, and stomach, darker than the snow-white wall behind her. Her breasts and lower torso were a dangerous bright red.

His nose tingled. His teeth itched. His wolf was dangerously close to the surface.

“Gabe.” Lorin leaned her face closer to his, her features blurry but familiar. She thrummed her thumbs up his cheekbones, stroking over his temples where his glasses typically rested. He slid his hands around her bare torso, resting them at the small of her back, and leaned into her touch with a rumble of pleasure. The light turned to shadow as she brought their lips together.

He sank gratefully into the kiss, which tasted, delightfully, of oranges. What delusional thought process had ever made him believe he could walk away from her? From this? Who had he been kidding? If Lorin wanted sex, he’d give it to her—as much and as often as she could handle—and deal with the emotional fallout later. He must be at least competent at meeting her needs if she was coming back for more. Gabe lifted a hand and tugged on her ponytail, baring her neck to his mouth. He’d sleep with her as long as he could keep her interest, and be damn thankful for—

A throat cleared theatrically from the door.

“Mom. Hi.”

Lorin stepped away from Gabe—but not before giving his lower lip a final, teasing nip that made him feel… claimed somehow.

If he wasn’t absolutely mortified, he’d sit up and howl. Caught necking at work by Lorin’s mother. The Valkyrie First. His—he gulped—boss. As Lorin greeted her mother, Gabe tugged his lab coat over his groin.

“Hello, Gabriel.” As Alka kissed him on both cheeks, Gabe tried not to wrinkle his nose. Something she wore smelled like bad taxidermy. “Where are your glasses, dear?”

Suddenly his glasses were in his hand. “Thanks,” he murmured to Lorin. He slipped them on, resting a hand on the table as his eyes fought to adjust.

“Did you get Nathan’s messages?” Alka asked. “He called me when he couldn’t reach either of you.”

Lorin mouthed a curse. “Yes, I picked them up after Andi and I finished playing racquetball. I was just about to update Gabe.”