Perfect Mate (19 page)

The inside of a small bedroom met her eyes, the door half closed in front of her. Sitting up, she pushed the hair from her face and looked around. The last thing she remembered was being on the trail after they’d emerged from the tunnel. From there it had been a short hop to the outskirts of the woodlands that covered the hills around the hospital. She remembered the wolves around her. Some, like Jack, were in human form, but most of them flitted through the trees in their other form, as silent as shadows.
 

In all of it, bedrooms had not figured heavily. Rustic in design, it had to be one of the old trapper’s cabins. Vacationers were always asking for directions in town, but she hadn’t realized that there were any this far into the hills. Tossing the light blanket back, she shivered as her bare feet hit the cold floor. Murmured conversation from the door in front of her reached her ears, so she headed toward it.
 

Pulling the door open farther revealed a cozy little scene. The wolves were all crammed into the tiny cabin’s main sitting area, jostling for space on the single sofa and all trying to get in front of the radiant heater. Without the door between her and them, the conversation became audible.

“Move over, you flea-bitten mutt.”

“Fuck off, I was here first!”

“If you—”

“Yeah? You and whose army?”

The conversation quickly descended into chaos as the sitting area erupted into a sea of fighting bodies. She winced as the bones popped and cracked, signaling several of the combatants were shifting to take advantage of their alternative forms.
 

Over space on the sofa.

There was a roar, and a large, vaguely humanoid body flew over her head. Lillian ducked as it crashed into the wall behind her. The entire cabin rocked down to its foundations.
 

“Just
what
do you think you’re playing at?”

The wolves froze. Eyes rolled toward her, even in mid-bite or punch. Sometimes both at the same time. Lillian put her hands on her hips and glared at them all as she would misbehaving patients in the common room.
 

“Well? I’m waiting. You…if you
dare
bite him I
will
tan your doggy hide. Are we clear?”

A pair of amber eyes beseeched her. She shook her head.
 

“Oh no, not working. I had a black lab for a pet. You got
nothing
on puppy-dog eyes.”

There was a harrumph and a pair of vicious teeth clicked shut. Silence descended as she looked around the little tableau. With most of the wolves part shifted between human and wolf forms, it was a horror writer’s dream scene. Lillian didn’t bat an eyelash. She was obviously losing it now.
 

“Well? I’m waiting.”

Slowly, they stood, shifting back until there were four shame-faced men looking back at her.
 

“
He
started it.”

“Did
not.
”

"Did too. It’s
my
sofa, I was here first!”

The fight threatened to kick off again, the two men in the middle, Thom and Blake if her memory served her correctly, pushing and shoving at each other again. She sighed. It was like the sandbox all over again.

“Don’t you
dare
piss on the sofa. You can’t mark it like territory,” Blake snarled, taking another dig at Thom.

“
Whoa
! No one’s pis…urinating anywhere. I don’t know whose cabin this is, but it’s not ours. So you’ll use the toilet like adults or I’ll put you all in diapers! And don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t mean it!”
 

She glared at them until the uproar subsided. “I’ve had a hell of a night. I’ve been attacked by a wacko doctor, zombies, and carted over the countryside. I am
not
in a good mood, so don’t piss me off, understand?”
 

“Yes, ma’am.”

She nodded. “Good. Now where’s that boss of yours?”

“You looking for me, doll?”

Jack pushed off from the doorframe and strolled into the cabin. With a signal of his hand, he dismissed the rest of the squad, watching as they filed out of the door behind him. He wanted to be alone with Lillian. Finally.
 

At the sound of his voice, she turned and smiled. The expression took her from merely pretty to breathtaking. His gaze wandered over her, taking in every detail.
 

Fingers of late afternoon sunlight crept through the shuttered windows. They were surrounded by forest, but somehow it had found a way through to her. He smiled. She was a creature of the sun. The thin streams caressed her, making her pale skin glow and turning her dark hair into a warm, rich fall of curls.
 

She was a creature of light. Light to his darkness.
 

He moved toward her, trying for casual. There was nothing casual about his intent, though. She was his, and he intended to have her.
 

He saw the instant she registered the danger she was in. He would never hurt her, ever. It just wasn’t in him. But her body was definitely in danger and, he hoped, her heart. Her breath caught, and her hand stole up to her throat as she took a step backward. He groaned as his wolf sat up and took notice.
 

“Don’t run,” he warned. “If you don’t want this, tell me now. But don’t run, don’t ever run from me. Predators like to chase, sweetheart, and I’m the biggest predator around here.”

She stopped moving. His wolf pouted. There was nothing the thing liked more than a good chase. He was all for it, especially if it ended with the two of them in bed, but that wasn’t the way he wanted to claim his mate for the first time.
 

He took a deep breath, rolling her scent over his tongue. The fear there slammed his control back into place. Fast. She wasn’t an animal, not like him. If he was honest with himself, she was way too good for him. He should let her go.
 

He couldn’t. Not in a million years.
 

She stood her ground as he approached, just like she’d stood her ground with his men. He hadn’t been able to believe his eyes when he’d walked in to find her scolding them like a bunch of kids. Totally unafraid, even though she’d seen exactly what they were.
 

“Good girl,” he whispered as he stopped inches from her. So close he could feel a hint of her curves against his half-naked body. She bit her lip, and the darkness in her eyes nearly undid his control.

Reaching out, he traced a fingertip softly down her cheek. Her skin was smooth and fragrant. Despite the hard night, he could smell the faint trace of the floral perfume she’d used yesterday. She used strawberry shampoo and wore no hairspray. He smiled. He didn’t like hairspray. It made him sneeze.

She tilted her head, baring her throat as he trailed his fingertips over it. A sensual submission so simple it stole his breath away.
 

“Lillian.” Her name was a prayer and a demand rolled into one as he hauled her into his arms. He couldn’t wait another moment to touch her and make her his.
 

Bending his head, he claimed her lips in the softest of kisses. While everything male in him urged him to crush her to him and take what he wanted, he held it off. He wasn’t an animal. He would do this properly. Like a man.
 

His lips whispered over hers, learning their shape and texture. The sharp bite of fear in her scent faded, leaving something warmer in its wake: the exotic, alluring aroma of her interest.
 

His large hand slid into her hair, curling around the silken locks to cup the back of her head and tilt it for better access to her lips. She shivered against him, a movement that had nothing to do with being cold. He smiled against her lips. She was his. He knew it, and she knew it.
 

Gently, he nibbled on her lower lip. His teeth were human-blunt, but even so, he couldn’t risk breaking the skin and infecting her with the virus that lived within him. The medical bods had tried to explain it to him once. The virus could only take hold if he bit or scratched someone and it got injected directly into the bloodstream. It wouldn’t kill her, but it
would
change her. He wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t take away her humanity like that.
 

She sucked a breath in, her lips parting on a tiny, sexy little noise that went straight to the already hard cock in his pants. He didn’t waste the opportunity, gathering her closer still and dipping his tongue between her parted lips.
 

She tasted like sunshine and long, hot summer nights. Of everything he thought he’d lost when they’d made him what he was. Need and longing hit him hard. All he wanted to do was tear the clothes from her slender frame, tumble her to the floor and take her until she screamed his name.
 

Instead, he drew back and nibbled her lip again. She moaned in pleasure, the sound lost in his mouth and he felt like the most powerful man in the world. Repeating the move, he tried to get her to follow him, teasing her with his tongue until she growled in frustration. Her hands, which had been stroking over his shoulders and back, moved to cup the sides of his face as she kissed him back.
 

“You, sir, are a tease.” Lillian broke away to complain. She looked up into bright, piercing blue eyes and tried to muster a smile. It was a half-hearted attempt. How could she smile when she felt like she’d been run over by a truck at Mach 1 and all she wanted to do was strip his combat pants from his delectable body and screw him until he begged for mercy?

His eyes twinkled with amusement and something else. Something hotter and darker that took her breath away. It drew her like a moth to the flame and, like that moth, she suspected she was going to get burned. Right now, though, she really didn’t care.

She rose on her tiptoes to kiss him again. He held her so tight her breasts were mashed against his broad chest, the beaded pebbles of her nipples caught between them. They ached. Twin pulses of need that arrowed down to the throb building between her thighs.
 

She didn’t know what had come over her. She’d never reacted to a guy like this before. Ever.
 

A suspicion forming in her mind, she pulled away to look up at him. “You haven’t done anything freaky to me, have you? Like, you haven’t got any weird pheromones making me act like a—”
 

She closed her mouth with a click. She had been going to say “slut”. Color rose on her cheeks, burning so hot she could cook eggs.
 

He frowned and searched her eyes for a moment. A small smile curved his lips. He chuckled and shook his head.
 

“No, I don’t have any freaky pheromones, sweetheart. What you’re feeling is there because you
want
to feel it. Natural human reactions, that’s all.”

“Oh, good.” She breathed a sigh of relief and looked up at him, abruptly a little shy.
 

“So…if I said I wanted to drag you into the bedroom back there and…” She swallowed her nerves, gathered her courage and blurted out, “…have sex until both of us were exhausted, what would you say?”
 

His nostrils flared as his expression tightened.
 

He shook his head. “I don’t want to have sex with you, Lillian…”
 

A sickening feeling hit her low in the gut.
Oh my God.
Her heart thundered in her chest. Her vision grayed around the edges. Had she got the signals wrong? Had she just propositioned a man who was just kissing her to comfort her? Screw the eggs, her cheeks were hot enough to power a city. She should have kept her mouth shut.

“I want to make love to you. Slowly, completely, until all you think about is me. The pleasure I make you feel.”

She couldn’t speak. His words, the images her over-eager imagination fed her, short-circuited her brain. All she could do was nod dumbly and wrap her arms around his shoulders.
 

He didn’t say anything else, just held her gaze with his. His eyes were forget-me-not blue, not amber. Tension stretched between them like an elastic band. Any moment now, it would snap.

Her hands smoothed over the hard muscles of his back. What would it be like to feel him moving over her, within her…? All that power and strength bent to pleasure instead of the pain these Project people had decreed. She only knew what he’d told her about them, but the phrase “sons of bitches” seemed more than apt.
 

“God, sweetheart, don’t look at me like that,” he groaned, leaning down and stealing another quick, hard kiss before sweeping her up into his arms.
 

“Why not? Like what?”

He shook his head, full lips quirking up. “You know what I mean, little minx,” he said as he carried her through into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind them.

Chapter Sixteen

He carried her easily, even though Lillian knew she was no lightweight. She had too many curves and actually liked to eat rather than pick at her food and complain about the fat on a lettuce leaf. Jack was gorgeous, so why he was interested in her she didn’t know, but she could see it on his face as he looked at her. He made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. For that alone, she’d walk through the fires of Hell.