by Cynthia Eden
When his friend saw him, Paris raised his brows. “I’m guessing the sexy detective is out now?” He inhaled, his lips curving. “She does smell rather delicious…”
Aidan flashed fang. “Do not even think it.”
“Hey, ease up! I’m not alpha, so it isn’t like her scent screws with my head. At least, not the way it does yours.” He straightened away from the wall. “But I’ve got to know, is it like the stories say? Does it pull you right in? Obsess you? Make you not even able to think of anything else?” His voice lowered dramatically as he continued, “Should I go get you a chair? Do you need to sit down because you aren’t close to her anymore and you just damn well might freaking die if you don’t see her precious face?”
Muttering in disgust, Aidan flipped him off. “I need you to do a job, asshole.” But even as he growled at the guy, there was faint humor in his eyes. Paris was pretty much the only one in the pack who would dare say any shit like that. He and Paris had grown up together. Been through more battles than he could count. He’d saved Paris, Paris had saved him, and Aidan knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Paris would kill—or die—to protect him.
Just as Aidan would do for him.
There was, quite simply, no one he trusted more.
“I am doing a job,” Paris said, sounding a bit offended. “I’m the one who got that dumbass Garrison out of the hospital and into a werewolf safe house so his leg could get proper treatment. You’re welcome, by the way.”
Aidan waited.
“What?” Paris crossed his arms over his chest, and, slowly some of the humor faded from his golden eyes. “What am I missing?”
“It’s something I missed.” He glanced toward his now shut office door. “About her.”
“Well, yeah, if you’d gone to talk with the woman before you approved her promotion to homicide detective, you would’ve known she was some kind of vampire and werewolf honey that would draw you in like mad but—”
“No, something else.” He exhaled slowly. “This doesn’t go beyond us.”
Paris took a few steps closer. Suddenly, he appeared very serious. Unusual for Paris.
“She has—Jane has a scar. It looks like it was made with a soldering pen.” And he’d seen vampires use those pens before. Vamps could heal very fast, from anything but fire. So since tattoo ink wouldn’t last on them—their bodies just flushed it out of their systems—they’d started using fire to mark themselves. Or rather, the fire of a soldering pen. They branded their bodies to show their affiliation with a certain vamp sector. To show their power.
And unless Aidan was wrong… “I think a vampire bastard marked Jane.” And he wanted to destroy the fool.
Paris sucked in a sharp breath.
“She was young when it happened. Probably little more than a kid.” And this is what bothered him the most. “We know her parents were killed when she was eleven.” That had been in the preliminary paperwork on her background investigation—material that had come to him when she’d been vetted for the detective position. “But our intel said it was a botched home invasion.”
“My team got that intel,” Paris said carefully.
“Right. And usually, your team knows their shit.”
“Not this time?”
“They need to go back and dig deeper. No, not they.” He gave a grim nod. “You. Just you. I want you to dig into her past personally. Learn more about the attack on her. She was taken to a hospital afterwards, right? Find the doctors and nurses who took care of her. Get them to tell you exactly what they remember about that night.”
“Long time ago,” Paris muttered. “Humans might not remember anything from back then.”
“Then bring someone to me who was there,” he said as his fingers tightened into fists. “And I will make the person remember.”
Because no one fucking marked Jane. No one.
Paris nodded. He started to turn away, then he stopped. “What did her scar look like?”
“I only saw part of it.” He would be seeing the rest. She would show him.
“But, we need—”
“I need to know who hurt her. And I need them to pay.” Simple. “Tell no one else. Come back to me when you learn more.”
“Understood.”
Aidan turned away and reached for the doorknob. He could feel Paris still watching him, though, so he glanced back over his shoulder. “What?”
“You didn’t answer my questions from before,” Paris murmured as he tilted his head to the right and studied Aidan. “You okay…with her?”
Is it like the stories say? Does it pull you right in? Obsess you? Make you not even able to think of anything else? Should I go get you a chair? Do you need to sit down because you aren’t close to her anymore and you just damn well might freaking die if you don’t see her precious face?
Paris had been mocking, but yeah, he was fucking being pulled in by her. And with his particular past, he had to tread very, very carefully. “Get me answers.” He needed them, fast.
Before they were all in too deep.
He opened the door and headed back into his office. Jane continued to sleep and a faint furrow had appeared between her brows. Aidan made sure to lock the office door and then he went to her just as she—
“Don’t burn me,” Jane whispered. “I won’t tell…”
She whimpered. The cry was high and sharp. It was a child’s cry.
His claws slid from his fingertips. The vampire who’d hurt her would pay.
“Don’t—” Jane cried out.
Carefully, Aidan pressed a kiss to her cheek. “No one will burn you, sweetheart. It won’t happen.” Not on his watch.
Had the vampire tonight been trying to send a message with his fire? Had the flames stirred up memories of Jane’s past?
A home invasion gone wrong…that had been the story in the papers and in all the old police files. Robbers had broken into Jane’s home. She’d escaped, but her parents hadn’t been so lucky.
Her whimpers faded away. Jane. So fierce when she was awake. So strong. And asleep…
I will destroy any threat to her.
“Sleep well, sweetheart,” Aidan said as he pulled a chair closer to the couch. He knew that he wouldn’t be leaving her side. Jane might not get it, but protecting her was his number one priority.
Now, and, he suspected, always.
Chapter Twelve
Jane rolled to her side, stretching slowly. Her arm rose above her head, sliding over the smooth, velvety surface of leather, and her eyes opened.
He wasn’t watching her, a good thing. If she’d opened her eyes and found Aidan staring back at her while she slept, that probably would have scared the shit out of her. Serial killer style.
He was close, though, sitting near her, and Aidan had his laptop open on his lap. She studied him a moment as full wakefulness slid through her. He had a sexy stubble growth lining his hard jaw, his hair was tousled, his gaze narrowed in thought and—
“You didn’t scream.”
He seemed totally focused on the laptop—but now she realized he was actually focused on her.
“You didn’t scream while you slept.”
Jane swallowed. “I didn’t? That’s good.” She sat up, her fingers automatically moving to stroke over her quilt.
“You did say something, though.”
Oh, crap. “What?”
“You asked not to be burned.”
Her fingers stilled.
Deliberately, Aidan shut the laptop and put it on his desk. Then he came back and focused that laser-like stare on her. “Want to talk about that, sweetheart?”
She licked her dry lips.
His gaze fell, followed the movement, and heated.
“Not really,” she said and was surprised that her voice came out so breathy. She hadn’t meant that, had she?
“Too bad.” He leaned toward her. “I want to know who the fuck marked you.”
Marked?
“I’ve been sitting here, trying
to get some pack work done, but I keep thinking about you. How young you must have been when some bastard gave you that mark, when he hurt you.” Fury flashed on his face. “He’s a dead man walking.”
“I-isn’t that what all vampires are?”
He blinked. “Jane…” Aidan growled.
“I don’t remember a lot about that night.” Her words tumbled out. “When I tried to tell the people at the hospital, they said I was delusional. Too much stress.” A child psychiatrist had been called in to talk with her, though she hadn’t realized that was the lady’s job, not back then. The woman had talked to her for hours, telling her that Jane was “trying to make a terrible, terrible tragedy into something that was a nightmare.”
Only it hadn’t been a nightmare. It had been real.
That had been Jane’s first run-in with a shrink, and it hadn’t ended well. Instead of being helped, the woman had sent a kid off to a psych ward.
And she’d told me the only way out was to stop talking about monsters.
“I won’t think you’re delusional.”
No, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. After all, he was a werewolf. “The man who—who burned me was tall. Blond. He had a perfectly normal face.” A good-looking killer. “What I remember most though—I remember his teeth.” She swallowed and confessed, “They were fangs. He was a vampire.” There, I said it. Finally.
Aidan absorbed that revelation in silence. “No wonder you didn’t have a full-on flip out when I told you about monsters.”
“I’ve known about monsters for a long time.” Since one killed my parents. “I just thought it was smarter to stop talking about them, until I had more proof.” That was something else the shrink had told her. If you keep telling these stories, I’ll have to make them lock you up again. You don’t want that, do you, dear?
She’d hated that shrink.
“Tell me about him.”
“I already told you what I know. He was tall with blond hair. And…and he had green eyes.” She remembered his eyes. “I can’t forget him because I keep seeing his face when I close my eyes.”
Aidan glanced away from her. Had he stiffened when she described the vamp? “It will be easy enough to forget the dead,” he said.
“No.” She rose and carefully folded her quilt. “Forgetting them isn’t easy.” Life might be simpler if it were. “And right now, I have a dead woman who needs justice. I have to go out and see just which vamp decided to end Melanie Wagner’s life.”
He rose, too, and blocked her path. “What about the attack on your life last night?”
“Well, I’m sure guessing that attack and the vamp who turned Melanie…I’m thinking they’re related.” Everything had spiraled after she found Melanie on Bourbon Street. “So I start with her, and I work my way back. I’ll find the link to the vampire through her. I’ll get him.”
His gaze became hooded. “Turning him over to your cop friends isn’t an option. Prisons weren’t made to hold vampires.”
“Finding him is priority one. Stopping him from hurting anyone else? That’s number two. Jailing him…” She ran a hand over her face. “I’ll figure that one out along the way.” Jane sidestepped around him.
“I made arrangements for new clothing and shoes to be brought to you.” He gestured toward his desk and she finally took note of the bags there. Fancy bags from stores that she normally avoided because she’d rather spend all of that cash on, like, food. A week’s worth of food—two weeks—equaled one shirt from some of those places. Jane knew that for certain because she’d gone in some of those shops before, just to look.
A woman could always look, right?
“You can use my bathroom, too,” Aidan murmured as he pointed to a door on his right. “Shower is in there. In case you want to freshen up before you go out to question witnesses and fight for the dead. You know, your deal.”
She slanted a narrow-eyed glance his way. Was he making fun of her? Then she thought about the shower and tried to casually smell her shirt. Okay, so she maybe smelled like fire. And probably looked like hell. A shower and a change of clothes wouldn’t be the worst thing ever before she hit the streets. Hesitant, she inched her way toward the bags on his desk. “How did you know my size?”
“I touched you. I know your body.”
That was so cocky. And, oddly, sexy. Maybe it was the way his voice had dipped when he said he knew her body. Kind of made her feel a little melty. She scooped up the bags. “I’ll try them on, after I shower. And I’ll definitely be paying you back for everything.”
“More bags are coming.”
She gaped at him.
“The fire took your belongings. I’m giving them back to you.”
Insurance would cover that, right? “I’ll pay you—”
A muscle flexed along his jaw. “You have trouble with gifts.”
“I have trouble with strings.”
“I don’t see strings.” He lifted his hands. Big, powerful hands. He looked at them, then her. “I just see you.”
His gaze had heated and that melting she felt was getting worse. He wanted her, she knew it, and she wanted him. She could admit that. The guy wasn’t some heartless jerk—he was so much more and he was getting to her. Sinking beneath her guard and she was nervous.
Afraid.
His nostrils flared a bit. “You don’t have to be.”
She backed toward his bathroom, holding the bags tightly. “I don’t have to be what?”
“Afraid. Not of me.”
The door was just inches away. “What makes you think I’m afraid?”
“Because I can smell your fear. I can smell when you’re happy. When you’re mad. When you’re…turned on.”
So embarrassing. Her cheeks burned. She was hitting on fear, anger, and arousal right then, all at the same time. And the wolf would know it. “Guess I don’t get any secrets, huh? Hardly seems fair.”
“When you want to know how I feel, just ask.” He paused a beat. “Like right now, I want you.”
Her gaze jerked to his.
“I stayed next to you for three hours. I thought about how fucking furious I was that someone had hurt you.”
Her heart was beating faster.
“And I thought about how much I’d like to take all of your pain away. How I’d like to only give you pleasure.” His eyes were so bright. “Wouldn’t you like that pleasure, sweetheart?”
She opened the bathroom door and pretty much fled inside. Her shaking hands dropped the bags and then those hands slapped against the sink. A big, marble-top sink. Get a grip, woman. Jane stared at herself in the mirror. She had to stop letting the wolf get to her.
But his voice rolled through her head.
How I’d like to only give you pleasure.
Jane stripped. She tossed her ashy smelling clothes to the floor and then hurried toward the shower. She yanked the faucet and had water streaming out—from two different locations in the shower. A very massive shower. Easily big enough for two…
Wouldn’t you like that pleasure, sweetheart?
She hadn’t been with a lover in a very long time. Her job had been her goal—she’d busted ass to move up the ranks, and so, yeah, okay, maybe she sucked at the dating scene. Small talk and flirtations weren’t her thing. Busting perps and solving crimes—that was what she lived for. Trying to interact with someone on a romantic level, oh, jeez, but that was beyond her scope.
She got too nervous. She found men who wanted commitment—and she wasn’t ready for that—or she found men who only wanted fast hook-ups, and she didn’t want that, either.
She wanted…
I don’t know what I want.
Jane stepped into the shower. Steam rose around her.
You’re a liar, Jane. A sly voice seemed to whisper to her. You know exactly what you want. And he does, too. He just told you…he can smell what you feel.
The water slid over her skin. Her eyes closed. Then she just whispered… “Aidan.”
Could he hear he
r? Was werewolf hearing that good, that strong? That he could hear her over the pounding of the water? Through the door?
“Aidan, I want you.”
The door banged open, hard enough to have her head snapping up. She saw him through the glass door of the shower. He stood in the doorway, his eyes locked on hers.
“Don’t fucking tease, sweetheart. Teasing a werewolf is a very bad idea.”
The big, bad beast had heard her whisper.
I won’t back down this time.
She opened the shower door. Cold air slid against her skin, making her nipples harden.
One of his hands grabbed the sink and clenched around its edge. “Mary Jane…”
“Sometimes,” she confessed as she stared at him, totally nude and vulnerable as she bared her darkest truth, “what I fear most is myself.” Trusting the wrong man. Not going for what she wanted. Letting life pass her by.
The dead are all I know.
She lifted her hand toward him. “I don’t remember ever wanting someone the way I want you.”
With his eyes on her, he took a step forward. One, another. His feet were bare as he approached her. Then, stopping right in front of the open shower, he stripped off his shirt and dropped it onto the tiled floor. His hands went to his jeans and the button at the top. He unhooked the button and slid down the zipper. Her gaze fell and when those jeans dropped—
Aidan doesn’t believe in wearing underwear. Check. I’ll remember that.
His hand reached for hers.
“Will it hurt?” Jane blurted.
His gaze widened.
“Being with—with a werewolf. I mean, are you different from a man?” No, no, she was screwing this up and sounding like a complete idiot. He looked like a man. A man with a seriously big dick. Big and long and wide and she really wanted to touch that long length, but…what if werewolves had sex differently? What if there was biting involved or, hell, something else? She wasn’t a biter.
“I’m very different from any man you’ve ever been with before.” His voice roughened. “And I don’t want to ever hear about those fucking bastards again, okay?”