Wolf Hunter. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
avoid it. Silver light would suck the wolf right out of its nesting place and make that wolf prowl.
Bad news.
She chanced another glace at Cameron, so bloody perfect from head to boot. Though her acting skills were decent, she doubted they’d get her through this. Already, her breath was ragged and forced, and her pulse soared. She hadn’t slept or eaten since her return from the park the night before. Her injured thigh, bandaged tightly beneath her jeans, throbbed like a son-of-a-gun.
She was about to lose it, and had to get away from him soon.
Trembling hands made her drop a glass, which earned her a frown from her father. She smiled back at Sam and shrugged, knowing she couldn’t afford to draw more attention to herself. On this night, both Cameron Mitchell and Sam Stark played at being one of the boys.
The energy in the room was high, and escalating. The cops in attendance were well on their way to becoming sodden. Hunters eagerly awaited the midnight hour so they could get their kicks. And Cameron Mitchell wasn’t as human as he looked.
Abby scanned the doorway, where moonlight streamed across the threshold. More light seeped through slats in the shuttered windows. These things were catnip for wolves, and also a kind of perpetual poison. And it seemed obvious, by the swiftness of her own reactions, that she wasn’t immune from either thing—that bloated moon, or the creature across the room that now stared back at her as if he’d seen a ghost.
Yes, it’s me. So what?
She’d been made, found, identified. Turmoil churned inside her, souring her surroundings. With this incredible Were’s presence breaking through what defenses she had left, the only viable option she had was to scurry away and hide. And he wasn’t going to allow that. His eyes made that quite clear.
Setting her cleaning cloth down, Abby met those eyes. A rush of adrenaline pounded through her. Leftover sparks that had never fully died out sent waves of inexcusable lust for him coursing through body parts he had already conquered as the intensity of the inexplicable connection to him resurrected within her.
Her breasts strained at her shirt, taut and aching. Her panties moistened with the desire to again have him inside her.
Turning from the sight of him, breaking eye contact, Abby stepped toward the hatch in the bar, ignoring a patron calling her name. When she looked back, he was beside her, having moved too quickly with nonhuman reflexes.
“Abby,” he said in a casual voice that took her by surprise. “Nice name.”
Gold eyes, darker indoors but no less bright or piercing, waited for her to again find them. Tightness closed around Abby’s heart. Her throat went dry.
How, she thought fleetingly, hadn’t anyone else noticed his unusual eyes?
“I’m sorry.” Her gaze dropped to the mouth that had simultaneously tortured and pleasured her. “Do I know you?”
“Maybe not. But it’s still a nice name.”
Damn him. The memory of his lips nipping at hers threatened to get the best of her, as did the recall of his first thrust into her accepting, malleable body. In the forefront of her mind sat an acknowledgment of his appetite for passion that had seriously moved things inside her.
Abby moaned softly.
“I’ve been looking for you.” His tone had turned unbearably intimate.
“All of your life?” she countered wryly, her pulse banging in time with some distant, inaudible beat.
“You never told me your name.”
“You never asked.”
“Or where you live.”
“So now you know.”
Seconds of silence passed, loaded with tension.
“I searched for you all day, covering most of the bars on the west side.”
She had mentioned working in a bar. Thankfully, he hadn’t noticed the logo on her shirt. Did that mean fate had brought him here, or just plain old bad luck that a downed cop’s friends had chosen this place to honor their comrade?
Abby waved at the crowd. “I hear kudos are due for your nocturnal heroics.”
He didn’t reply. He wasn’t the type to brag.
Abby lowered her voice. “You found the guys following us?”
“Ah, so you do know me.”
She gave him a serious look.
He nodded. “I did find them.”
“They didn’t hurt you?”
“I’ve covered up the battle scars. Another cop wasn’t so lucky.”
She said with a sorry attempt to modulate her tone, hoping her aggravating breathlessness wouldn’t show, “Why did you search for me when the deal was to move on?”
“I didn’t know we had a deal.”
“Then you terribly underestimated me.”
Abby had the feeling he wasn’t saying half of what went through his mind. Then again, neither did she. She was two for two on the danger scale, and quickly upping the ante.
“Would you like to talk, Abby?”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“Abby,” he said again, as if tasting the name.
Though she felt a throb begin at the base of her spine in anticipation of what he might say next, Cameron Mitchell didn’t follow with anything important. In fact, he allowed her a few seconds to get a grip on herself instead of the edge of the bar.
Abby tried to center herself. Grinding her teeth together to keep from shouting, she pressed both hands over her hips to smooth not only her shirt but also the twitching body beneath it—reactions that were a complete giveaway as to his effect on her.
“Well, here I am,” she said. “What now?”
“We talk in private. That’s a start.”
“You’re a hero, and these guys want to be with you tonight.”
A hero and a gentleman. An irresistible combination.
“You’re resistant,” he observed.
“I’m trying to ignore you, and you’re not making it easy.”
He said nothing and continued to study her.
“There were two of you out there?” She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue before biting down with her teeth on the lower one.
“Three, in the end, when other cops arrived,” he said.
“And you were doing your job by watching the park. It actually was a real job?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “for what happened. That other cop was a friend of yours?”
“I consider all of them friends.”
Abby acknowledged that response with an inclination of her head, and waved at the door. “You’ll be back out there tonight?”
Moonlight is what you’ll need. Your secret is out.
“I’m out there nearly every night,” he confessed. “Working overtime has become a habit on nights when I can’t sleep.”
“But not in uniform. You didn’t wear one last night, and you’re not wearing one now.”
“I’m on my own time.”
“Patrolling that park to look for bad guys, alone, increases the odds of getting hurt,” she pointed out.
“Maybe.