by Kyle, Celia
“I’ve just never walked around a neighborhood like this. I feel like someone’s going to call the cops on us or something.”
“Hate to break it to you, but I am a cop.”
“A shifter cop,” she sniffed. “I doubt the humans who live here would appreciate the distinction.”
As they headed off on foot, Ragan kept glancing sidelong at his partner for the day. His instincts were going off like alarm bells. Dragons had a lot of innate abilities that made them natural peacekeepers—like their ability to sense deception from others. Ragan didn’t think of himself as an expert at that, but something was sending his senses into overdrive.
Maybe it was just a side-effect of that very different kind of tension he’d felt on the way over here. The connection he’d sensed between them surprised him, to say the least, but ignoring it would be like ignoring an electrical current running through his body. Still, shifters didn’t usually date outside their own species, much less mate. It happened, but not every day. Surely cross-species attraction could twist a few wires in their brains. Right?
He shrugged it off. They had more pressing matters to focus on, like canvassing for witnesses who might have seen anything out of the ordinary last night.
The first house they approached was about as large as the Bradford house and sat directly across the street. A large gate blocked the drive and their path, but it gave them a peek into the manicured grounds that lay beyond. Ragan pressed a button on the video call box and waited. And waited. And waited.
He glanced down at Elissa and she shrugged. “Sounds like nobody’s home.”
“Or they don’t want to talk to a couple of strangers on foot,” he said with one last glance at the mansion behind the gate. “Fine, let’s move on.”
The next two houses yielded equally frustrating results, even though no gates barred their way. No answer at the first of them, and the second earned them a grunt from the owner that he hadn’t seen anything. Then he slammed the door in their faces.
Ragan’s excitement over fieldwork quickly faded into embarrassment. If Elissa hadn’t been there, it might have lasted longer, but he really wanted to impress her. Maybe an explanation of the process would help.
“I know this isn’t very much fun, but it’s a vital part of any investigation,” he said as they returned to the sidewalk. “Even if we caught the culprit red-handed, courts love eyewitnesses. It’s a necessary evil.”
Elissa remained silent, her jaw flexing and tensing like this was the last place on earth she wanted to be. They walked on to the next house, the hope that they’d find anything of interest quickly fading. He leaned on the doorbell, praying for a miracle.
As footsteps shuffled toward the door, Ragan noticed the place had a faded glamour about it. It seemed as though the owner had decorated it to the nines thirty years ago and never updated it since. His suspicion was confirmed when a tiny elderly woman cracked open the door to peer out at them.
“Can I help you, dears?”
Five minutes later, they were inside the home of Mrs. Witherspoon, a kindly human woman who had to be at least ninety. Ragan sat next to her at the kitchen table while Elissa paced in front of a huge picture window. The old woman’s laptop was open on the table.
“I’m glad you know how to work these things, dear,” she said to Ragan, who was navigating to a folder on her hard drive that held videos from her top-of-the-line security system. “My grandson set up all of this for me ages ago. To tell you the truth, I’ve never even looked at it. Don’t know how.”
“Technology can be a little fast-paced these days,” Ragan murmured absently as he pulled up the feed from last night and started scrolling through it on fast-forward. When something flashed by the screen, he rewound and played it at normal speed, his eyes growing wide. “But not as fast as this.”
Elissa must have caught the excitement in his voice because she hurried over to watch over his shoulder. The video showed a dark, four-door sedan parked on the other side of the street, almost out of frame. It sat there for a long time and looked like any other parked car, but then a figure dressed in all-black approached from the direction of the Bradford house and jumped into the backseat. Within seconds, the car tore off like a shot in the dark.
So much excitement welled up inside Ragan that he started to grow in size. He felt the dragon’s powerful form threatening to burst free if he didn’t keep himself in check. He took a deep breath and regained control of himself, but he couldn’t keep the joy off his face as he turned a grin on Elissa.
“We got ‘em!”
“Good for you, dear,” Mrs. Witherspoon said, clapping her knobby hands in congratulations.
Elissa looked far less thrilled. In fact, if he didn’t know better, she looked almost sick to her stomach. Maybe it was something she’d eaten.
“Wow, that’s, um, great,” she stammered, glancing at the front door. “I, uh, I’ll be in the car.”
Without another word, she hurried outside, Ragan leaning over to watch her ass through the window. Who needed a view of the ocean when you could have a view of that fine rump? A bony finger jammed between his ribs brought him back to reality.
“Right,” he said, quickly downloading the video onto the thumb drive he always carried on his keychain. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Witherspoon.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she said, waving him off as he headed for the door. “Just keep your eyes on your work, son.”
Ragan couldn’t believe his luck. Charlie would be blown away he cracked the case on his first solo canvass job. Hopefully someone else would be equally as impressed.
Chapter Three
Panic clenched its dark fist around Elissa’s stomach as she tried not to run out of the old woman’s house. Her heart hammered so hard she could hear and feel her blood rushing in her ears, drowning out her terrified panting. Even her fingers felt hot and tingly as she dug into her back pocket and fished out her phone.
“Come on. Come on,” she murmured with impatience as she dialed her father’s number, doing her best to hold onto the phone with trembling hands. The door clapped shut behind her, making her nearly jump right out of her own skin. “Dammit!”
Being cut off from Ragan and the woman and her damnable video only eased her anxiety a tiny fraction. Maybe more distance would help. Hurrying down the pretty, flower-lined path toward Ragan’s SUV, she pressed the phone to her ear and silently begged Cray to pick up.
By the fourth ring, the fist had released her stomach, which promptly sank all the way to her knees. He wasn’t going to answer. Her call would go to voicemail and what the hell was she supposed to say? Hey, Dad, pack your bags…and mine too while you’re at it! No, no message. That would be evidence. Hell, her calling him immediately after discovering the video would be damning enough.
“Morning, sweets,” Cray’s smooth, unperturbed voice crooned in her ear, just as she’d given up hope.
“I can’t believe you did this to me,” she hissed into the phone, checking behind her to make sure Ragan wasn’t hovering over her shoulder, ready to take her into custody.
“Whoa, whoa. Slow down. What am I supposed to have done to you, exactly?”
“Last night, Dad! Or did you already forget dragging your daughter into a situation that made her complicit in a felony?”
Cray sighed heavily. “Can’t I ever just have a normal conversation with my daughter?”
“I don’t want to hear it, Dad! We can have a normal conversation when you start leading a normal life. How about that?”
“Elissa, what’s going on? Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right,” she snapped, scurrying to the far side of the SUV to hide. “Do you know where I am right now?”
Cray sighed again. “Of course I don’t.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t because you never know what’s going on. I’m literally standing in the exact same spot we were parked in last night before I became a wanted fugitive, thanks to you.”
“Why would you go there? Are you out of your mind?”
Elissa groaned and rolled her eyes up to the bright sunny sky, not really seeing it. “Remember that story on Wildridge Security I’m working on? I started trailing one of the specialists today. And guess who just found a crystal-clear video of good ol’ Buddy jumping into the back of my car?”
“Shit!”
“Uh, ya think? I’m supposed to be investigating them and now they’re investigating me, even if they don’t know it quite yet. So, thanks for that, Dad.”
“Hey now, cut me some slack. I had no idea this was going to happen. You wanted intel on your story and I wanted to help.”
“Help? Jeez, don’t do me any more favors. Okay, Dad? Buddy didn’t give me jack and now I’m screwed. We’re all screwed!”
“Elissa, calm down. We can figure this out if—”
Mrs. Witherspoon’s front door opened and a smiling Ragan practically floated out. Despite her current state of mind, she couldn’t help admiring his lithe physique, the way he walked with a little bounce in his step. Ragan was the kind of guy who could make a girl forget all of her troubles. Until he slapped handcuffs on her—and not in the fun way.
“Not now, Dad. Gotta go.”
She clicked off the phone and tried to compose herself before Ragan reached her. When a tiny furrow dug between his eyebrows, she knew she’d failed.
“You okay?” he asked, pressing a button on his key fob and unlocking the doors.
She turned to open the door, more to hide her expression than anything, but he lunged forward and beat her to it. Letting out a laugh that was slightly too loud to be natural, she smiled up at him, praying her face didn’t resemble a beet.
“Sure! I’m good. Great, actually. Lovin’ life and all that.”
His concern turned to amusement. “Okay, good to hear.”
As she brushed past him to climb into her seat, Elissa’s body heated with the combination of hot embarrassment, paralyzing fear, and pure attraction to this charming dragon shifter. She hated that she found him so attractive, especially under the circumstances. How in the world had the wires of her life gotten so tangled up and confused? After watching her father’s antics for most of her life, she’d always tried to be good, working under the theory that it was easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble.
Every instinct she possessed screamed at her to put distance between them—like the entire Pacific Ocean. Yet whenever she looked at Ragan, every part of her body only wanted to get closer to him. Elissa had dated plenty of men, but she’d never once felt the same kind of immediate, irresistible wave of attraction she felt for Ragan. It was intense, almost overriding all of the other emotions ripping through her mind at the moment—a completely new sensation for Elissa.
Of course, she thought as she watched Ragan round the vehicle. Because the first time I get the insta-hots for someone, he happens to be completely, totally, desperately off-limits.
“Ready to roll?” Ragan asked as he buckled his seat belt, grinning at her.
He was so damn happy at what he’d found at Mrs. Witherspoon’s. She wondered how he’d feel once he learned he had the getaway driver sitting right next to him.
“Ready,” she squeaked, clearing her throat in an attempt to sound somewhat normal. “So where to next?”
“Back to Wildridge. Charlie is going to flip his shit over this video.”
“Okay, um, yeah, okay, cool,” she blathered.
Reel it in, Elissa! She needed to change the subject because if he talked about the video one more second, she’d throw herself out of the car and make a run for it. If she didn’t get run over in the process.
“So, uh, tell me about yourself,” she said, pulling out her phone and starting the mic app. “Mind if I record? It’s for the article.”
Ragan glanced at the phone. “Sure, I guess. What do you want to know?”
Everything, she realized. At first, she’d asked with the hopes of distracting him from the video, but she found herself completely fascinated by him. Of course, that’s not what she said.
“Tell me about your family, for starters.”
His oh-my-god-kiss-me-now lips spread into a broad smile. “Oh, they’re great. Both of my parents are professors at Othercross University. You know it?”
“Sure,” she mumbled, leaving out the part about how she’d been denied entrance because of her father’s rap sheet. She’d ended up slumming it through the human college system, scrambling for scholarship funds to pay for the cheapest state school that would take her.
“My brother, sister and I all attended OCU, one year apart. It was nice having them show me the ropes when I got there.”
“So you’re close?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, chuckling softly at some family memory.
“Must be nice,” she said, trying to keep bitterness out of her tone.
She had no siblings. No one, really, except her father. The idea of having a big, loving family who supported each other was so foreign to her as to be from outer space.
“Yeah, it is. Don’t get me wrong, we can certainly get all up in each other’s business at times, but even when we’re pissed off, we still love each other. Know what I mean?”
It was a throwaway question, more of a statement than anything, but Elissa couldn’t stop herself from muttering an answer. “I wish.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing,” she said with a forced smile. “What did you study at OCU?”
“Computer science, of course, with a focus on cryptanalysis.” At her blank look, he smiled. “Just call it cybersecurity.”
“If I can spell it,” she teased, the tension easing from her shoulders every time he smiled at her.
Ragan glanced at her, a sparkle in his eye. “Call me if you run into any trouble. Day or night.”
Holy shit, he was flirting with her! Resisting the temptation to flirt back proved impossible.
“Be careful what you wish for,” she said, latching on to his gaze like a tractor beam.
“Why?” he asked softly as he reached over and brushed a lock of her dark hair off her cheek. “Because it might come true?”
She tried not to, she really did, but in the end, she pressed her face against his hand. Just a little, but it was enough to get the point across. The slow smile that spread across his face set her heart thundering like a racetrack full of thoroughbreds.
“If you’re lucky,” she replied as he returned his attention to the road. Flirting was well and good, until you plowed head-first into a tree.
Elissa’s hands itched to reach out and touch Ragan, like some kind of intense magnetic force drew her to him. As cliché and stupid as it was, she rested her arm next to his on the console separating them. Inch by inch, she moved it closer to him until their pinkies brushed together. A sharp spiral of heat and need ripped through her body, stunning her for a moment. Then he hooked his pinky around hers and hummed softly as he drove.
He felt it too, the connection between them that defied logic. A dragon and a panther? How crazy would that be? Yet her body, heart, and soul insisted it wasn’t nuts at all. It was perfection.
Then he turned into the parking lot of Wildridge Security and the bubble of happiness burst. Back to the real world, where she was the fugitive he was hunting. And oh, look, there was her car, so obviously the one in the security footage, sitting right there in the front row for everyone to see. Her brain tried to tell her it looked like about ten other cars in the lot, but paranoia won out.
Panic flared again, reminding her she needed to get as far away from Ragan as possible. He’d see the car and immediately recognize it. Then her life as she knew it would be over. And it had barely begun!
She needed to find a way to keep him from noticing it and putting two and two together. That was made all the more difficult when he pulled his rig into the very spot facing hers. Could this day get any weirder?
As he turned off the car, Elissa r
ealized what she had to do. Quickly unclipping her seat belt, she whirled to face him and then lunged across the console, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and kissed him with all of the passion she possessed.
* * *
Ragan’s heart tried to pound its way out of his chest when Elissa locked lips with his. There was no moment of hesitation, no tense pause before melting into her body. He responded instantly and eagerly. After all, his dragon had been urging him on from the moment she’d sauntered into the conference room.
Burying his hands in her silky black hair, he breathed her in and relished the moment. His dragon threatened to shift, the primal emotions just under his skin running so hot and fast he could barely control himself. Thank god she’d made the first move because the electric tension that had filled the car on their drive back to Wildridge had been hard to handle.
So was the thick shaft growing between his thighs.
Sprawled halfway across the console, Elissa didn’t seem to have any qualms about the compromising position. Her hand roamed down his side to his waistband, and the pleasant murmur she uttered into the kiss told him she liked what she found just below it. Nothing could have spurred him on more. He wanted her, and he didn’t care that anyone who walked by could see them.
One hand skimmed down her back to the ass that had enchanted him every time she walked away from him. The luscious softness of her curves made it hard to think clearly, and then her tongue slipped between his lips and all conscious thought ceased. He dove into her mouth, tasting her, drinking her in, and he couldn’t get enough.
What unbelievable luck he had! First he landed his dream job at Wildridge, and now he had his hands full of the most beautiful, amazing, sassy woman he’d ever met. This wasn’t just attraction. Not just. She was as sharp as his fangs and her sense of humor fit his like a glove. Something about her felt so right, like there might be a future between them.
But even as one of his hands moved down her arm and skimmed the side of her breast, he felt that subtle tingle in the back of his mind again. That dragony sixth sense told him she was holding something back. It wasn’t a bad feeling, necessarily, and if he was totally honest, in the big picture of everything he knew about Elissa—which was precious little—it just made him want to pry more.