Hunter's Need (20 page)

But warmth didn’t come easily.

“I’m not letting go, Ana,” he whispered. He couldn’t.

 

 

 

 

S
HE came awake, shaking and shuddering and with cold, pressed up against the furnace-like heat of Duke’s body. She wore a pair of pajamas, a tank top and long lounge pants. He’d slid in nude behind her and when she tried to push him away, he’d simply ignored her, pulling her up against him and stroking her back until she fell asleep.

He was still holding her, holding her tight and by all logical reasoning, she shouldn’t be cold. Between her pajamas, the blankets and Duke, there was no way she should be cold. His body temperature was higher than a mortal’s—it was like sleeping with a living, breathing electric blanket, so there was
no
reason to be cold.

But she was.

“Ana?” he whispered, his voice sleepy.

Her teeth chattered too much to respond.

Something slick and icy moved through her stomach as he shifted in the bed behind and braced his weight up on his elbow.

Something was watching them. She could feel it.
Feel
it, pushing in on her, pressing against her shields. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt in her life and it terrified her.

“What’s wrong, princess?” he asked drowsily, dropping a kiss on her shoulder.

“Shhh . . . ” She licked her lips.

“What’s wrong?” he asked again, and this time, his voice was more alert. She felt him tense. Without thinking, she reached out, grabbed his arm when he would have slid out of the bed.

“There’s somebody watching us.”

Duke went still. In the dim light of the room, she saw him frown, then scan the room. It was still early, just a little past six, but already sunlight was streaming in around and under the blinds, enough that she could see the room clearly.

There was nobody in there—but she could feel somebody watching.

“There’s nobody in the apartment, sweetheart. I’d know,” he said softly. “Nobody could get in here without me hearing something.”

Ana shook her head. “Somebody is in . . . oh. Oh, shit.”

She’d known fear before. Had known terror that kept her from sleeping well for nights on end.

But terror didn’t quite touch what she felt as a pair of eyes shimmered into view just inches from her face. Eyes . . . followed by a face, the mouth open in a silent scream.

“
You were supposed to help him!
”

The words echoed around them.

Behind them, Duke hissed out a breath and moved, grabbing Ana off the bed and rolling backward into a smooth feline movement. In the span of a heartbeat, he had them on the other side of the room.

“You . . . you see her?” Ana asked hesitantly.

Duke nodded. “I see her.”

“
You were supposed to help!
” This time, the voice was louder. Plaintive. Screeching inside Ana’s head and scraping against her nerve endings like nails down a chalkboard.

Something pressed in on her shields, hard, harder than before and Ana gasped, instinctively recoiling and slamming extra shields into place. The sensation of being pushed intensified and Ana groaned, pressed her hands to her temples.

“Stop it,” she whispered. Her brain felt like it was being compressed, squeezed by a giant fist. “Stop it!”

“
Why didn’t you help him
?”

“Help who?” Duke demanded.

“Paul,” Ana rasped out, trying to think past the pain in her head. Damn it, she hadn’t thought ghosts could actually
hurt
people. But this one was doing just that. “She wants to know why we didn’t help Paul.”

Abruptly, the pressure on her head eased. A low, keening wail filled the room. It made her hair stand on end, brought tears to her eyes. It was the sound of pain, she realized. The sound of pain, a deep, heart-wrenching anguish that Ana couldn’t even begin to fathom. “
Why didn’t you help him?
”

Shaking her head, Ana whispered thickly, “I don’t know how. I . . . I’m sorry.”

“
I told him you would help us . . .
”

Then there was a sigh.

Then silence.

Ana closed her eyes and took a deep breath, tried to find the words. She would help. She’d find a way. Somehow—

But when she opened her eyes, the room was empty. Save for her and Duke.

They were alone again.

She sucked in a deep breath and sagged. If Duke hadn’t been holding on to her, she would have hit the floor. “Shit,” he muttered, still staring at the spot where the ghost had been. “You ever had a run-in with a ghost before?”

“No.” She rubbed a hand over her chest.

“Me, neither. I don’t want to do it again.” He rubbed his chin against her shoulder and cuddled her closer.

She really should pull away. She was still mad at him—well, not mad at him. Disappointed, yes. Hurt, yes. But she was mad at her herself and determined not to get suckered into hoping for anything beyond sex with him. Wouldn’t happen. Best thing to do would be pull away.

But she couldn’t. Just then, she was desperate for his warmth. She was still so damned cold, even though the temperature in the room was slowly rising. So she leaned against him, let his strength and warmth surround her, even as she pretended that he needed the comfort of her body even half as much as she needed his.

“You got any idea who she was?”

Ana nodded. “Her name was Marie.”

“What did she want?”

“Something we can’t do now,” she said, her voice hollow, her chest aching. “She wanted me to help Paul and I didn’t.”

“Paul.” Behind her, his body tensed, but then slowly relaxed. He blew out a breath and asked, “Paul, as in the guy who kil—”

“He didn’t kill her,” Ana said, her voice flat. She tugged against his hold. Screw being cold.

Duke didn’t let go. “How can you be so sure?” he asked, dipping his head to nuzzle her neck.

Ana hunched her shoulder up, trying to edge away. “Stop it—and I just am. He didn’t kill that girl. He’s not a killer.”

“Then what is he?”

Somebody I failed
.

Tears burned her eyes as she thought of the sad, sweet smile he’d give her when she pushed some money, or a sandwich into his hands. The grief she’d seen in his eyes so often.
I’m sorry, Paul.
But she didn’t say that out loud. “A victim,” she said.

Duke shifted behind her, bringing his hands up to cup her hips when she would have pulled away. “Okay.”

Glancing at him over her shoulder, she said, “Just like that? Okay?”

“What else do you expect me to say?”

Ana didn’t know how to answer that. She didn’t expect him to believe her, but she didn’t see him pretending to go along with her, either. She frowned and once more, tugged against his hold and this time, he let her go. Wrapping her arms around her midsection, she paced away from him, circling around the bed and cutting a wide berth around the spot where she’d seen Marie’s soul hovering. She ended up by her dresser and since she was there, and still freezing her ass off, she opened up one of the drawers and tugged out a fleece hoodie. She pulled it on and then glanced up.

A startled yelp escaped her as she saw Duke standing right behind her. “Damn it, don’t do that,” she snapped.

“Do what?”

“Sneak up on me like that.”

A grin tugged at his lips. “Sorry, darlin’. I can try to walk a little louder.”

Ana scowled. “I’ll just put a damn bell on you.”

He leaned in, bracing his arms on her dresser, caging her in. “I’m not much for bells.” He dipped his head and nipped at her lower lip. “But if you want to buy me one on a collar, I might wear it. For you.”

For you
. A fist wrapped around her heart, squeezing, even as her belly went cold.
For you
. Like she was somebody special to him, like he’d make a change for her. Like he’d do something just to make her happy . . . because she mattered.

She wasn’t going to let herself get deluded into thinking or hoping for anything like that, though. She’d let herself indulge in that kind of daydream for a couple of days and having those illusions smashed was painful. She wasn’t doing it again.

“I’ll try to find one in a neutral color . . . your next woman can use it when we’re done.”

“Next woman . . . now, Ana, I said I’d wear one for you. Not one for any other female,” he teased.

She frowned at his reflection in the mirror. Instead of even trying to figure out how to respond to that, she said, “Weren’t we talking about something important?”

“What makes you think this isn’t important?” But the levity in his voice was forced and it wasn’t long before his smile faded. He shoved away from the dresser and started to pace. “I can’t think around you. You do bad things to my head.”

Ana wrapped her arms around herself. Defensively, she said, “I already told you, I’m not blocking.”

“I know that, baby.” He stopped in mid-prowl and turned to face her, a self-deprecating grin on his face. His lids drooped low over his eyes and he added, “Wrong head.”

Involuntarily, her eyes dropped. It was still dim in the bedroom, but not that dim. He was hard, and as she stared at him, his cock jerked.

He laughed. “You look surprised, Ana. I’ve never been able to think all that clearly around you, don’t you know that by now?”

Out of self-defense, she turned around, staring at the wall in front of her. Plain, boring, white . . . safe. “No, I hadn’t realized that.”

“Then you’re in the minority.”

She heard fabric rustling. She suspected he was getting dressed, but until she heard the rasp of a zipper, she didn’t chance turning back around. He shot her a wide grin and then went to the bed, settled down with his back against the headboard. “So what do you think you were supposed to do, Ana? You’re not a precog. No way of knowing what was coming. Why did that . . . ” His voice trailed off and he rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t believe I’m talking about a ghost. Why did that ghost think you could help?”

Ana shrugged. “Why is it so hard to think about ghosts? Plenty of people would be hard-pressed to believe in big, shapeshifting cats or psychics. Ghosts don’t seem that much a stretch.”

“So you weren’t the slightest bit weirded out?” He slid her a look.

“I didn’t say that.” She huffed out a breath and leaned back against the dresser.

Duke patted the bed next him. “Why don’t you come over here?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“You’re still mad at me.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m not mad at you.”

“You’re mad at something,” he muttered, crossing his arms over his naked chest and pinning her with an unblinking stare. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be standing over there freezing when there’s a nice, warm bed right here.”

“I’m being practical.”

A faint grin curled his lips. “Practical . . . as in you think we’ll get more accomplished if you’re not lying on the bed with me.”

No, practical as in I think it’s best I not get any more tangled up in you.
She didn’t say that, though. Instead, she hedged. “It’s logical reasoning.”

She was holding something back, Duke decided, studying her face. She wasn’t lying. But there was something not quite right, either. He wanted to press, but now wasn’t the time. “Perfectly logical,” he finally agreed. “Okay. You stay there.”

He slid down in the bed farther and rested a hand behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He rested the other hand on his belly, drumming his fingers restlessly. “Help me think this through, Ana. Why would this ghost think you could help Paul?”

“I don’t know.”

He glanced at her. “There has to be something.”

She shrugged and pushed her hair back from her face. Off to her left, golden sunlight was starting to stream through the blinds, falling across her face.

“The first time I talked to him, I felt something. I don’t know what, really.” She touched her tongue to her lips, remembered that flash she’d seen—a woman. For just a split second, she’d thought she’d seen a woman out of the corner of her eye when she talked to Paul that first time. “I’m not sure, but I think maybe I saw her. And I don’t think too many people see her. Maybe that’s why.”

Lifting her shoulders in a shrug, she said, “If that’s not it, then I don’t know. I’ve seen him a few times since then, talked to him. But that first time was the only time I saw her—or maybe saw her.”

“What were you talking to him about?”

“Nothing.” She slid her hands into the pockets of the hoodie, staring off into nothingness. “He asked for money. I gave him what I had. Got fussed at for doing it, too. A friend from work saw me talking to him, saw me give him the money, and she told me to keep my distance.”

“Why? He dangerous?”

“She thought so, I guess. But he wasn’t.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, tugging on it absently. “He’s kind of a local legend. Homeless, wanders the city. Some people seem to think he’s crazy, but I don’t think so. He’s not entirely connected to the here and now, but he’s not crazy.”

“So what do you know about him?”

Ana lifted a shoulder. “Back in the seventies, he was in the air force, lived at the base here. Met Marie, dated her . . . then she disappeared. He was under suspicion for a while, but cleared of any charges. He left for a while, made his way back up here.”

“None of that tells me why people think he’s crazy—or why you disagree.”

She scowled at him.

Duke just barely managed to keep from grinning at her. He’d take that scowl over the blank, cool exterior of the ice princess. “People probably think he’s crazy because he talks to thin air, wanders around town talking to a woman who’s been missing, presumed dead for thirty years. I know he’s not crazy . . . and I suspect he was talking to her ghost, not thin air. I think he could see her.”