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“Does this store have alcohol?”
Harris turned the key and started the engine. “I’m sure it does.” After a pause, he added, “We don’t have to talk about what happened tonight if you’d prefer that.”
“You mean about what chased us, or what nearly took place in my bedroom?”
“Should I apologize for acting on that last one?”
“No.” Skylar closed her eyes briefly, listening to the familiar nuances in his voice that fanned her inner heat. “It wasn’t your fault.”
The car kicked up a spray of gravel as it moved. Skylar felt Harris’s attention on her.
“I needed a diversion,” she explained.
“From what?”
“The rest of my life.”
“Losing your father?”
“That’s the most recent blow.”
“Then I’m sorry we were interrupted, though it was probably for the best.” Harris sounded earnest.
“Yes. For the best,” Skylar agreed, leaning sideways as the car made a sharp left turn around a stand of pine trees. “It wasn’t really a wolf that made you run out on me, was it?”
Harris glanced in her direction without comment.
They rode in silence after that, which made the bumpy ride more uncomfortable. Eventually it became clear that the man beside her wasn’t going to offer anything resembling a decent explanation for what had happened in or around the cabin tonight. Then again, neither could she.
“You might want to pack your father’s things during the day and stay in town at night,” he suggested some time later.
“Being in town most of the time would be inconvenient.”
Again, Skylar felt the intensity of his silent appraisal.
“As a favor to me, then,” he said.
“Do I owe you one?”
“If not, you might humor me as the local law enforcement.”
Skylar winced. Because of Danny, the words law enforcement had a sour ring to them. In essence, she’d gone from one kind of cop to another without thinking. This was far better than the werewolf dream, though.
“Well, I can’t jump out of a moving car, so I guess tonight’s a done deal,” she said.
“Good.”
As they rounded another dark curve in the road, the soft glitter of distant lights appeared. Skylar supposed her safety would be assured down there among the masses, if safety was really an issue.
It was that rebel part of her—the part that had sent her traipsing up a mountain path after dark and had given her an appreciation for sensuous dreams, gorgeous werewolves and strangers with seductive voices—that told her to ignore this ranger’s plan after tonight and instead find out what the hell was going on.
Her dad had kept secrets, and that hadn’t ended well. The man beside her kept things to himself. She had to know who or what was out there, and whether being followed tonight had anything to do with her father’s death, less than two weeks ago. She had a hunch that it did.
With good old Donovan perseverance and a dash of stubborn determination, she vowed get to the heart of these mysteries if it was the last thing she ever did.
With or without the man next to her...in her bed.
Chapter 7 (#ulink_650d7c21-4b9c-534b-bf97-558d1e688d98)
Gavin read Skylar Donovan easily and checked his concerns. She was only his business up to a point. After that, his feelings for her couldn’t interfere with a task that was too weighty for distractions.
He’d seen the demon. Facing it again, he had survived. And that was one hell of a mystery.
The thing hadn’t attacked. If it had scented him and identified him as a Were—one it had created in a bloody mess of poisoned flesh—surely Skylar Donovan’s presence should also have piqued its interest. All that succulent ivory skin and her sweet, sweet perfume that right now made him want to look at her instead of the road.
The beast couldn’t have missed that.
No beast could have missed it.
Case in point was his own inexplicable longing for her. More than anything, he wanted to stop the car and show her he could maintain some control if he was allowed to have her.
It wasn’t only his vow to protect the public that made him want to see to Skylar’s safety. It was sheer, unadulterated greed. He wanted to save Skylar Donovan for himself.
She was the sum total of everything he’d lost when that beast attacked him, and so much more. She was lace and perfume, defiance and mystery in a slick feminine casing that escalated his need for those things. He’d be damned if he’d allow the monster to harm one hair on her beautiful head.
Despite this newfound possessiveness, he realized that Skylar really wasn’t his to keep. She was human, and he wasn’t. Oil and water didn’t mix. Neither should wolf and human DNA.
He’d kissed Skylar and wanted his mouth on hers now. Her plush lips were all he thought about when they weren’t confronting giant rabid werewolves that by all rights shouldn’t exist.
I shouldn’t exist, either, as I am now. You deserve better, Skylar.
But maybe she’d been sent here from the heavens as the kind of distraction that would keep him sane and grounded?
Don’t look for excuses.
He might be torn apart by the depth of his longing for her, but he had to let this woman go, keep his distance, harness his thoughts and get away from her as soon as possible because his resolve was already weakening where she was concerned, and his energy was needed elsewhere.
The beast had returned. He’d seen it. Instead of taking it down, he’d been seriously unprepared, due in part to Skylar.
“No more kissing.”
Though he muttered this softly and to himself, she heard it.
“Is that a promise?” she said.
Grimacing, rubbing his forehead, Gavin felt conflicted. By being here with Skylar he was allowing the monster to get away. By allowing it to get away, he was helping Skylar Donovan avoid the ugly fate that had befallen him.
“Nothing personal,” he said to her.
“If you say so.”
Lights appeared around them too quickly. Gavin drove the car into the motel parking lot at the edge of town and switched off the engine. They got out of the car without speaking.
She slammed the door.
“Just give them my name.” He pointed to the office.
“Ranger Harris has carte blanche here?”
“It’ll do unless you run up a tab.”
She tilted her head. “You actually have a tab in this place?”
Gavin nodded. “I sometimes need to crash before the long drive home.”
“Then you don’t live close by.”
“Close enough when I haven’t been up for several nights in a row. Way too far away otherwise.”
Skylar Donovan walked around the car and right up to where he stood. “You’re going back out there, aren’t you?”
“I’m on duty for another hour or so.”
He worked hard to keep his hands to himself, unsure of why he was so attracted to Skylar that he’d want to push the limits of his self-control, or delay his highly charged personal vendetta.
This leggy blonde was just so blessed tempting, the choice seemed tough. It was as if she’d gotten under his skin and nestled there alongside the wolf.
“Does that mean you have to be alone?” she asked.
“Tonight it does.”
“Why? Why would you take that chance and go back out there when you know we were followed?”
“It’s what I do, Skylar. It’s something I have to face and take care of without risking harm to others.”
Skylar. He liked her unusual name and liked saying it. Outside of her evident ornery streak, he liked everything about Skylar Donovan that he’d seen so far. Maybe he even liked that stubborn streak.
She might be small, yet she was no shy flower. She was too courageous for her own good, though. She had walked up that mountain alone tonight without being sure of finding him.
Somehow, at that moment, she seemed a lot more than just temptation in tight blue jeans. The delicious scent that had lured him to her in the first place wafted around her like a corona. Golden hair caressed her shoulders in uncombed waves highlighted by shafts of moonlight escaping the cloud cover. The same moonlight that made his forehead dampen with the strain of withholding his wild side.
“So you admit we were followed and have no idea who it might have been?” she asked.
He shrugged to hide the evidence of another unruly spike in his heart rate that pulsed upward and into his jaw. Hell, he wanted to get under her skin, seize the moment and take some long-overdue R&R while he could. Surely that was fair after what he’d been through?
When she’d left the cabin, after what had almost taken place in her bedroom, Skylar had tugged on her shirt—the same shirt he’d removed in a fit of passion—without properly stretching it into place. Narrow sections of bare skin showed above the waistband of her jeans—smooth, pale and terribly seductive.
No way.
Can’t have you.
I’ve got to go back out there.
All true warnings, but Gavin’s body argued adamantly against them, and against reason. Having sampled her, tasted her, felt her beneath his hands, his body repeatedly returned to those sensations as though she’d been imprinted on him. After looking into her big green eyes and finding a shared connection, Skylar Donovan truly did feel like part of his future.
This wasn’t right, of course, or normal. She was just a woman he had stumbled upon who’d ended up striking his fancy. Her open-mindedness in terms of sex and lust and freely meeting her own needs had sealed the deal. That was all. He hadn’t met anyone like her in a long time.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” She ran her hands over the warm hood of the Jeep the way he imagined her running them over him, and his body responded with a ripple of lustful tension.
With his pulse erratic and a new pressure in his chest, Gavin said, “In the morning I’ll be back to take you home.”
“Okay. Until then.”
When she turned from him, Gavin briefly shut his eyes to block the sight, attempting to keep his distance, keep himself from pulling her back and making a complete fool of himself.
He watched her walk away. Her hips swayed in the fitted jeans he hadn’t been lucky enough to get off her. The taut, slender back that had arched passionately during their kiss emphasized a small waist he’d like to encircle with his hands.
Rebuking himself for staring at her like this, Gavin didn’t stop looking. He’d sent her away, and she’d obliged. Her allure might be strong, but he couldn’t let it rival the moon’s—the moon at that same moment sending out signals that he intercepted as clearly as if the giant orb contained a telepathic intelligence.
Tomorrow night he’d change into something that would scare Skylar to death. All thoughts of closeness and intimacy would be a thing of the past if she were to witness his transformation.
In this new reality, however, Skylar had become as potentially dangerous to him as the moon that ruled his shape. She’d become both a distraction and a necessity in no time flat. He had to let her go and didn’t want to.
Really didn’t want to.
“Definitely no kissing,” Gavin said aloud to bolster his willpower.
Over her shoulder, Skylar Donovan smiled. “Don’t be too sure about that, Harris. I’m here for a few more days.”
Gavin took two steps backward, and then two more, his heart beating out a protest about getting into the car. His fingers curled against his palms. His muscles rippled and twitched. As absurd as it seemed given that he had known this woman for only one day...leaving Skylar Donovan was just about the hardest thing he had ever done.
* * *
Skylar heard the car drive out of the parking lot, and her determination to remain independent faltered. In spite of everything she’d been through, she felt forlorn and alone.
Still, she had to admit that Harris’s behavior bordered on chivalrous. He was willing to foot the bill tonight at this motel in order to see to her safety, which meant he did believe there might be trouble out there in the dark.
“A civilized ending to a strange night?”
Resigned to her current fate, Skylar gave the motel a wary once-over. It was a standard two-story, U-shaped design from the fifties. The building wrapped around the parking lot on three sides, with all the rooms and doors front-facing, and two sets of stairs leading to the second-floor balcony. Most of the windows were dark. A small blue neon sign pointed to the reception area.
Skylar went inside.
A middle-aged woman with short blond hair, wearing a red fleece vest, greeted her from behind a counter and raised an eyebrow when Skylar mentioned Harris’s name. Gratefully, that woman kept what she might have been thinking about a woman showing up in this place on his dime, to herself.
Handing over a key, this receptionist said, “Room twenty-one. That’s his favorite,” as if being in his favorite room mattered. She then produced an ice bucket and a glass, and looked past Skylar for the missing luggage.
“Will you need anything else?”
