by Bianca D'Arc
Quite the opposite. At least with Nick. She’d already suspected he was a special case. She was glad to have her instincts proven correct.
At one point, he got up and made tea for them both. When he came back, he sat much closer on the couch, and she grew warm—and not just from the tea.
When he finished with his tea, he put the mug down on the coffee table then leaned back, placing his arm along the top of the sofa—behind her. Just a little closer, and he’d have that muscular arm around her shoulders. And from there…
Damn. If yearning could make it happen, she’d already be in bed with him by now. But he was clearly being a gentleman and exercising caution. While she appreciated that, she was also growing a bit impatient.
Never one to make the first move on a guy, Sal found herself wanting to do so with Nick. Heck, she more than wanted to. She was going to do it. If he didn’t make a move in the next five minutes, she was going to—
Her thoughts were cut off by the feel of his arm around her shoulders, turning her to face him. She cooperated fully, moving to meet him halfway. The look in his eyes made her breath catch. There was a swirl of energy there that she thought she saw. But maybe she was wrong. She couldn’t be sure.
“Tell me to go to hell if you want,” he whispered, his head dipping closer to hers. “But I’ve been dying to kiss you again.”
“Then, what are you waiting for?” she whispered back, being about as daring as she’d ever been with a man. Nick’s smile was answer enough, and it made her insides melt into a little puddle of need. Then, he moved even closer and his lips met hers.
Magic. That’s what it felt like. Pure, good, clean, powerful magic.
But it couldn’t be. She’d never experienced the good side of magic, but she had heard it existed. Somewhere.
Nick was a bodyguard, not a mage. He was just a man. Not a monster.
And he kissed like a dream.
Kissing Sal was everything Nick had thought it would be…and more. She fit in his arms like she was born to be there. She tasted of sweet nectar and goodness, and she felt soft, feminine and perfect against him. Her passion matched his, and he forgot all the nonsense he’d been telling himself about how she was human and wasn’t as sturdy as shifter women. It was all bunk.
When she grabbed his shirt and demanded more, who was he to argue?
He let her have her way. Her nimble fingers tore at his clothes, seeking skin. And then, her hands were on his chest, smoothing over his pecs and down to his abdomen. His breath hitched as she hit a sensitive spot. All the while, her tongue dueled with his.
She was molten fire in his arms, demanding and passionate in a way he hadn’t expected but was thrilled to discover. She would be a wildcat in bed, if this was any indication. Still, he didn’t push too hard or too fast. He let her have all the control for now. He would revel in learning her preferences and satisfying her every need. He knew his patience now would reap rewards for the rest of their lives together.
Sal had just pushed him down onto his back on the couch when Nick heard the sound of rustling feathers coming from the balcony. His sensitive ears picked up the soft sounds, even beyond the closed glass doors.
Fucking Hastings. It had to be him. Nobody else would dare interrupt what could so clearly be seen through the glass doors.
Hmm. Maybe Hastings was trying to remind him that Sal wouldn’t be pleased to discover she’d been putting on a show for the hawk shifters on duty just beyond the glass. Because, she would find out…eventually.
Damn. She was human. She wouldn’t understand that having sex in view of others wasn’t that big a deal among shifters. She’d probably be embarrassed, and she might take it out on Nick. Scratch that. She would definitely take it out on him.
She’d make him pay because he was the informed one here. He should know better. And more than that—he’d vowed to protect her.
Fuck.
Nick pulled away, trying to figure out what he could say to make her understand. She was clingy, which, in other circumstances, would make him growl with appreciation. Right now, however, it only caused more difficulties for him.
He tried to untangle her arms from his body as gently as he could. When she finally got the message that he was calling a halt, she let go like he was on fire. Damn.
He could read hurt in her shuttered gaze, scent emotional pain and embarrassment. He cursed under his breath.
“Honey, I’m on duty here. This isn’t right. I can’t take advantage of the situation like this. Please understand.” He tried to put all the tenderness he was feeling into his voice, but she still smelled sad and angry. At him? At herself? Either way, he didn’t like it.
He pulled her resisting body into a loose embrace and tried to soothe her. “Please don’t be angry. And don’t take this as some kind of rejection. It’s not. It’s so not.” He chuckled, rubbing her arm gently. “I just can’t do this right now. It’s not that I don’t want to. I most emphatically do. The timing here is just off.” He pulled back to look into her eyes. The tension in her shoulders had eased somewhat, and she seemed to have calmed down a little.
Her cheeks were flushed with a mix of residual passion and probably a bit of embarrassment, but at least she was meeting his gaze. Her expression was still somewhat tight and shuttered, but her eyes met his with a hint of defiance. Good. And bad. He’d have some work to do later, to make this up to her, but for now, she was taking the unintentional rejection as well as possible.
“Like I said, I’m on duty. In fact, I’ve got to report to Linelli in about…” He made a show of checking his watch. “Damn. I should’ve called him five minutes ago.” As if on cue, his phone rang. “And I bet that’s him wondering why I’m slacking off.”
Finally, a spark of humor edged out the hurt in her gaze. “You’d better answer that before he sends in the Marines.”
A joke. Praise be, the Mother of All. His girl recovered quickly. That was a good trait in a mate. Especially his mate, because Nick didn’t have the most stable of professions and often had to stop on a dime and change direction.
“I’m sorry, honey. You don’t know how sorry.” He stood from the couch and headed to the marble-topped island that separated the kitchen area from the living room. He’d left his laptop and phone there. He picked up the phone and hit the go button, identifying himself in a terse tone. “Balam.”
“I stashed my stuff behind the big planter at the far end of your patio. Sorry for the interruption, but I heard your explanation and figured a timely phone call would help.” Hastings’ voice was both amused and smug over the line.
The bastard had shifted to human out of sight from the balcony doors. “Thanks, boss,” Nick placed a slight emphasis on the last word that wouldn’t be lost on the hawk shifter.
Sure enough, Hastings chuckled. “I like the sound of that. The great and powerful Nick Balam working for me instead of the other way around.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Nick practically growled as he watched Sal beat a strategic retreat from the living room, back toward her bedroom. “But thanks all the same for the reminder. She would have been even angrier with me when she found out you and your people were watching us.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. A few of my guys have mated with humans, and they just have different ideas about what’s acceptable behavior and what isn’t,” Hastings commiserated.
“How’s it going out there?” Nick asked, hoping for a change of topic.
“Well, I have some news. Which is why I came in for a landing in the first place. Your perp—or at least, someone who fits all the parameters for your perp—has been spotted in the area. A young colleague of mine noticed someone on the ground who looked like he was following a scent trail. Sniffing very obviously, pausing in odd fits and starts. She came to get me to confirm, but when we returned to the spot where she’d left him, he was gone.”
“Where?” Nick asked sharply.
“About a mile away from here, as the hawk
flies,” Hastings replied just as rapidly.
“Not good.” Nick growled. He couldn’t help it. His inner cat didn’t like the fact that the feral wolf might have found their trail so fast.
“I figured you’d want to know right away. This just happened about ten minutes ago.”
“So, he could be closer by now,” Nick thought aloud.
“Yeah, but you’re in the penthouse, and wolves can’t climb for shit,” Hastings added. “We’ve got all the entrances and exits covered—including the unconventional ones like this balcony. I think you’ll be okay for tonight, but we should probably make plans to capitalize on this. If we can lure him out of hiding—and he seems damned good at hiding, by the way, because I couldn’t find anything to indicate where he’d disappeared to—then maybe we can trap him before anything else happens.”
Nick liked the sound of that. They could be proactive rather than reactive, and hopefully keep Sal out of the line of fire completely.
“Do you need me to coordinate?” Nick asked the hawk shifter.
“Frankly, Master Sergeant, since everybody on duty right now is from my crew, you’d only get in the way.” Hastings was an honest son of a bitch, Nick would give him that. Nick appreciated the candor, and his already good opinion of Hastings rose another notch.
“Understood, Captain.” Nick knew full well his function on this op. He was here as the last line of defense, to keep Sal safe.
If, somehow, the perp got past all those shifters Hastings had set in strategic places—and his air cover—then Nick would have his hands full. Primarily, he was there to herd the client into doing what they wanted her to do. He was also the final barrier between the feral shifter and Sal.
“You keep your eyes on your lady, and your hands to yourself for now,” Hastings went on, giving unsolicited advice which Nick could have done without. “Or you’ll have us all singing out here.”
“Singing?” Nick couldn’t resist a hint like that. What were those featherheads up to now?
“Well, she is a movie star, and you are the bodyguard. My young friend was doing a really good Whitney Houston impersonation a few hours ago when she heard about this whole setup.” Then, Hastings launched into song, with a somewhat credible baritone version of that famous song. “I-eee-Iii will all-lll-lll-wa-ys loooove yooooouuuu—”
Nick hung up on him.
It didn’t help that he could hear Hastings laughing on the balcony through the barrier of the glass door. Silly bird.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sal felt a bit foolish when she was finally alone in the bedroom. She’d all but jumped Nick, and the poor guy was working. On duty. She had probably even gotten him in trouble with his boss.
“Stupid, Sal. Really stupid,” she told herself, cringing when she thought about the look on his face as he tried to pry her away from him.
She’d been clinging to him like ivy. Needy in a way she never been before. What was it about Nick Balam that attracted her so strongly? He was handsome, to be sure, but she’d been exposed to some incredibly handsome men in recent years as an actress. She’d even done love scenes with some of them and felt nothing at all beyond a mild disgust with one guy, in particular, who was a slobbery kisser.
Nick, though, he pushed all her on buttons. He was considerate, kind, built like a Mack truck, and probably deadly, as well. That should probably had scared her off, but the opposite was true. He drew her in like a magnet, strong, sure and lethal to her peace of mind.
And now, she’d made an utter fool of herself. How was she going to face him again?
She decided to take a long shower. She did her best thinking in the shower, and perhaps she could wash away some of her embarrassment and humiliation. Cleansing water was always good for the soul.
A half hour later, she felt refreshed. Still a bit embarrassed, but the water had helped wash away the mortification and soothed her emotions. It was late enough that she could justify putting on her pajamas and curling up in bed with the remainder of her homework. One last script to read, and then, she could hand the whole box back to her agent with her choices.
The rest would be in her agent’s hands to see if deals could be struck for the right timing, the right pay and all the other stuff that went along with it. Sal didn’t concern herself with that part of the business. All that mattered was working and making steady money. Supporting herself and her mother’s needs had been her only goal for a long, long time.
Now, of course, she had other considerations. Paying for security and making enough to maintain the expected lifestyle. Sure, she wasn’t going to live the most ostentatious high life. That really wasn’t her style. But it had been impressed upon her that there were now appearances to maintain.
Sal thought it was all very silly, but her agent had been adamant. He’d gotten her this far. She assumed he knew what he was talking about. Still, she wasn’t going to waste money on truly frivolous things. Sal was cautious by nature and would remain so, even if she had just hit the lottery career-wise.
She hadn’t said goodnight to Nick, which was rude, but she just couldn’t face him at the moment. Not after the way they’d parted. Maybe, by morning, her courage would return, but for right now, she was taking the coward’s way out and hiding in her room.
Besides, they both had work to do. She thumped the pillow on which she had rested the heavy script and made it stand up better so she could read more comfortably. She just had to get through this one and she could forget all her troubles in sleep.
The next thing Sal knew, she was rousing from a disturbed sleep. The bedside light was still on, but the clock read 3:57 a.m. Something had woken her. The script fell to the floor as she sat up in bed, and she realized she must have fallen asleep while reading it.
She was reaching over the side of the bed for it when all hell broke loose. A crash from above knocked the square air vent downward, into the room, with a resounding bang, and a man… No, a creature jumped down from overhead. He must’ve been in the ventilation shaft. Could things that big really fit in an air duct?
She had no sooner had this incongruous thought when the bedroom door burst open to reveal Nick in all his fighting fury. He was in a ready stance. She recognized the posture from one of the movies she had done early in her career that was heavy on martial arts fighting scenes. She hadn’t had to fight, but she’d picked up a few things watching the other actors and specialist instructors who had been brought on set to add realism.
The creature was hairy and had to be over seven feet tall. Nick was well over six feet himself, but this dog-looking thing was even bigger, with nasty teeth and a tapered shape to his jaw that made it look almost like a snout. The closest description she could come up with was that he looked like a creature out of one of those old werewolf horror movies. But werewolves didn’t actually exist. Did they?
The werewolf thing had been looking straight at her with swirling yellow glowing eyes. She’d seen the swirl of magic before in her mother’s eyes. For a moment, Sal thought maybe her past had caught up with her, but there was no way. Her mother wasn’t a werewolf. She’d never changed shape or became hairy. She was a person. Always a person, even when the mad glowing eyes took her over.
This had to be something else, then. But what?
She looked at Nick, but his expression didn’t reveal any surprise at all. He just looked pissed. Angry. He seemed to recognize what he faced, which didn’t make any sense to her. How could Nick have seen this kind of thing before?
She knew he was a man of many secrets, but this… This was something…supernatural.
The two males were caught in that moment out of time when all these thoughts raced through her mind. The creature had been looking at her when it bounded out of the ceiling, but now, its focus was totally on Nick in the doorway.
She recognized what was about to happen. They were going to face off, and she was caught right in the middle. Damn. Sal had to figure a way to get out of the way and maybe help, if she could.
Her gun was in her bag, across the room. She had been so discombobulated when she went to bed that she hadn’t taken precautions. Fat lot of good that gun did her now, when she couldn’t get to it.
All of a sudden, the staring contest ended. The beast leapt for Nick, and he…he changed.
Oh, my stars. He changed. Growing bigger and taller, furrier but not like the other one. Nick’s face transformed to something flatter than the snout the other creature sported. And his furry bits were spotted, like a leopard or something.
His clothes shredded as his muscles ripped through the flimsy cloth. It hung off him in strips but didn’t seem to hinder his movements at all. She looked at Nick’s opponent and realized he too, had strips of cloth around his middle, hanging to about mid-knee as if he’d been wearing pants that hadn’t been able to withstand the change from human to…whatever this was.
Sal curled up against the headboard of the bed, trying to make herself as small as possible while the titans clashed in the space between her bed and the doorway. If she could just scoot around them, she might be able to get out of the room.
And then, what? She had no idea, but anything had to be better than being stuck in an enclosed space with a violent fight going on between two massive creatures that were not part of the world she knew.
She would think she was having a nightmare, but this was all too real. No need to pinch herself. She knew she was awake…and seeing things that just didn’t make sense.
Although… She remembered seeing something a few weeks ago. That kid in the parking lot had turned into a cat. She’d thought, at the time, that somebody might have spiked the single drink she had allowed herself at the party. She had to have been seeing things, right?
But the kid had sprouted fur and spots a lot like Nick’s before he’d gone all the way to big cat form. He’d been a lot smaller than Nick, of course. He was only a teenager, after all. But what if Nick and the kid were the same?