by Amanda Jones
“No, do not report to Mr. Drake. Mr. O’Dwyer will deal with the fallout when he returns to Durham.”
Not out of the woods yet.
“Don’t worry about the billing.” She narrowed her eyes at him, but didn’t pull her hand away. “Mr. O’Dwyer’s going to compensate me off the books for my expenses, so go ahead and destroy the file.”
Thatta girl.
“No, nothing like that. We’ll discuss it later.”
No you won’t.
Now it was his turn to hold a finger against her lips. He shook his head and she cocked up one elegant eyebrow.
“Go ahead and lock up. If any urgent cases come in, you know how to get me. I’ll be on my way home in the morning.” She ended the call and placed her phone on the table.
“Now, Dana, what was this you were saying about being a mutant?”
She yanked her hand, rolled her eyes, and shifted on the sofa so her back was against the armrest. “Like I said—not too many people know this about me.”
“And I don’t plan on spreading it around. What kind of pub-keep would I be if I spread my customers’ business around?”
“A shitty one. Just like I’d be a shitty private detective if I didn’t respect your confidentiality.”
“Please. Tell me, sweetheart.” ’Cause, boy, do I have a doozy of a secret myself. Try to top it.
“I’m pretty bitchy.”
He wasn’t sure he heard her right. The words were comprehensible, but maybe they’d come out in the wrong order. “I’m sorry?”
“It’s a simple matter of fact. I’m naturally surly. Always have been. I’m impatient and people who lack common sense annoy the shit out of me. I don’t tolerate foolishness.”
“Well, that eliminates most men from your acquaintance, I’d imagine.”
“Ding ding ding!” She rolled her eyes. “Anyhow, the last smooth-talking fool I fell for thought I could use a bit of sweetening up. I’m a Carolina girl, right? I’m supposed to be sweet as tea and compliant.”
Now that he couldn’t imagine. That little firecracker? Compliant? Hell, he’d like her less if she were. One of his biggest turn-offs was women who seemed to have become lobotomized from one date to the next—they’d be these voracious vixens one day, and the next, eager to bend over backward for him—to ensnare him with their charms.
Fuck charm.
He wanted genuine personality, even if it happened to be snarky.
“God, family, work, home, everything else, self. That’s supposed to be our priority system. If we bump our needs up a little higher, we get maligned for it.”
“So, he told you he wanted you to be more selfless, or what?”
“No. There was this clinical study. He signed me up and I went for it, because they all lied about what the investigation was. They said it was about workplace stress and they administered this serum that was supposed to keep us calm when under duress. Of course, my job was stressful. I wasn’t the kind of cop who liked to stay behind her desk, so I figured I’d give it a shot.”
“What was the study actually for?”
“Behavioral modification through drug introduction. It was supposed to alter brain chemistry—that’s what I learned after the fact—but instead…” She laughed and shook her head. “It warped chromosomes. We were guinea pigs. No, guinea shrews. That was the codename of the study. Shrew.”
“Ah. As in Taming of the…”
She nodded. “They didn’t even test the formula on lab animals before they administered it to us. They just assumed it’d be safe since it was derived from some other drug. Well, it wasn’t. Nearly killed me. I spent months recuperating—waiting for my body to adapt to the changes.”
Shit. She wasn’t kidding about being a mutant.
“Uh…and what, specifically, were the changes?”
She blew out a ragged breath and held her hands out in front of her face, drawing her fingers into fists and opening them. “I have a doctor—a specialist. We haven’t quite catalogued everything. She examines me every three months to make sure my cells aren’t coming apart, but the major things right now are that my vision is extremely enhanced. I see at higher magnification and also further distances. I’m faster than I was. More stamina. Oh, and my reflexes are ten times faster than they were before. Never try to draw a gun against me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Were there other women in the study?”
“Yes. That’s the reason my agency is Shrew & Company. My staff members were all victims of the study.”
“You all have the same problems?”
She shook her head. “No. It affected each of us bit differently. We all have the same doctor, though, and she’s trying to formulate a theory about why certain things mutated in each of us. It hasn’t been easy because there’s no research on this kind of thing.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate finally being able to unload that on someone, but…you believe me?” Her brow furrowed. It was obvious she was concerned about the state of his mental wellbeing and not her own.
He shrugged. “Of course I do.”
“Why?”
All right, sweetheart. Here we go. He skimmed the pad of one thumb along her jaw as he considered the wording in his mind. She didn’t react outwardly, but when he scented the air, he caught a whiff of her arousal. It was instantaneous. Poor Dana must have been just as hard up as he was. He chuckled as he dropped his hand.
“Remember how I told you I’m on my ass trying to claw my way back up?”
“Yeah?”
“I was being sort of literal. That’s the reason I don’t think what you’re saying is all that fantastical. I know a little something about mutations.”
“Do you?” Funny, she didn’t look like she believed him.
“Oh, yeah, sweetheart.” He leaned in close to her ear, inhaling her scintillating, womanly scent, and squashing his very base desire to sink his teeth into her neck and hold tight. He whispered, “I’m here in this under-furnished cabin away from civilization—letting my kitchen manager flail around and muck things up—because when I visited this dump last month, I was attacked and infected.”
She sucked in some air and swallowed hard, his proximity affecting her quite obviously. “Infected?”
“Yes. By were-animals.”
“Wuh-were-animals?”
“Catamounts, to be precise.”
“What?”
“Mountain lions.”
“And you’re sure?”
“That they were were-animals? Yes. They shifted back to human form after I concussed one with a whiskey bottle and bashed the other with a snow shovel.”
“And you know for certain you’re one, too?”
“Given my newly enhanced hearing and sense of smell, I suspect that’s the case. There’s also the”—he put his nose against her neck and inhaled her sweet scent—“undeniable increase in libido.”
She didn’t bat him away until he dragged his tongue along the ridge of her clavicle.
Still, he could tell by her scent she wasn’t all that repulsed. She probably just figured she should act like it. “With all women, I’m sure,” she said glibly.
“No. You smell quite nice, sweetheart. I’ve wanted to mount you since you climbed onto my porch.”
“Mount me?” Her voice had a hint of an edge now.
Didn’t bother him. Turned him on even more, actually.
“I’d probably use different vocabulary if I were thinking with the human part of my brain.”
“So, what, you’re going to shift during the full moon?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out, sweetheart. It’s why I’m missing the 5K and the busiest day of the year at my pub.”
Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She shook her head and tightened her grip on her knees.
“Say something, sweetheart.”
“I don’t know what to say. People like you aren’t supposed to exist.”
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“And people like you only exist in movies and in comic books. I mean, really? A mutant private eye?”
“Fair enough.”
“I take it you understand now why discretion is important to me. I don’t want to lose my livelihood over this. People fear what they don’t understand.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, and he believed her. Maybe it was the steely glint of her dark eyes.
Or maybe it was the fact she as closer to her gun than he was to his own.
It wasn’t like he could shapeshift on command. Could he?
He must have been pondering it too hard, because Dana reached over and tapped his shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“When are you supposed to go furry?”
“Good question. I don’t actually know. I haven’t exactly been given a primer on this, but I’m assuming the lore is true and it’ll be sometime the night of the full moon.”
“Which is tonight.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know if there was a lead-up and cool-down period or if it would only be tonight.”
“Shouldn’t you have a pack or something?”
He felt his eyes go wide as a scoff escaped his lungs. “Hope not. I’m not much of a joiner.”
“There’s got to be someone you can talk to—that can guide you through this. What about the guys you concussed?”
“No idea who they were. I called 911, but by the time the ambulance and police got here, they’d taken off. I left the hospital and came back to look for tracks, but it’d rained, and there was nothing.”
“How long were you in the hospital?”
“Couple of hours. I knew I was screwed then. Healed too fast. By the time the doctor made it into my stall, he acted like I was wasting his time.”
Her eyes widened.
Yeah, that’s exactly how Patrick had felt, too.
“I have a woman on staff who could probably find a were-group…uh…” Dana’s forehead furrowed, and mouth fell open wordlessly before she closed it. “Uh, were-pack-thing, if one actually exists. She’s good at tracking.”
“If there is one, I’m not sure I want them to know I exist.”
“I could see where that’d be a problem, but why don’t you let her look, anyway? If you know they’re here, you’ll know how to avoid them. And maybe she can find you some resources or see if there’s a protocol for full moon night. A safe house or something.”
“Why would you do that?”
She shifted on her cushion and studied her pants once again.
“Tell me. I know it’s not just because you’re coveting my desk chair.”
“No, although it’s a goddamned sweet chair.” She met his gaze, warily. “You were right earlier—what you said about me solving problems and wanting to know the why about things. I can’t just let things go. There has to be a sense of completion for me, or I can’t drop the case. My granddaddy used to call me his little terrier because I couldn’t let go of things. He was the reason I became a cop. He was a cop, and he said I was smart enough. I believed him.”
“Ah.”
Actually, that news was somewhat reassuring. She’d done it to follow in the footsteps of someone she respected, and not because she had something to prove, although she’d probably proved “it” time and time again.
“Well, sweetheart, I’m not a case. I’m just a man trying to figure out how to get through the next few days.”
She didn’t look convinced.
He chuckled. “How much are you going to bill me for this?”
Finally, she smiled—an actual, honest-to-God smile and not a sneer. They’d been parrying for an hour and that was the first time she’d shown teeth.
“Uh-oh.”
“How about we work it out in trade?”
“Skin trade?”
“Ha ha.” She rolled her eyes and let her grin recede into a smirk. “I was thinking more like you open your pub up to my staff one day. It’d be nice for them to go out and unwind, have some drinks without getting hit on. They’re cranky about that.”
He could imagine. If the Shrew & Company staff were anything like Dana, they could probably start a riot in his pub without even trying. Especially if they were half as gorgeous as her.
Maybe he could serve them personally. Well, one of them, anyway. Let the staff deal with the rest.
He hoped his expression conveyed his distrust, false though it was. “I dunno about that. How’s your alcohol tolerance?”
Her grin widened again.
“You’re going to fuck my bottom line straight to Hell, aren’t ya?”
“High metabolism is apparently a side effect of being my brand of mutant. At least when it comes to alcohol.”
“How much do you have to drink to get drunk?”
“Why? You want to get me drunk?”
“That’s probably the only way I’ll get you take your clothes off.”
Her jaw dropped.
Score one for Paddy. Looks like she can be shocked after all.
“Filthy perv.”
He raised his shoulders and grinned. “Told you. You smell nice. Not gonna lie. If you come a little closer, I might escalate things to the dry-humping stage.”
“No thanks.” Her voice was flat, but the corners of her lips twitched as if she were trying to suppress a laugh.
She leaned over and picked up her phone. Once she’d dialed, she put it up to her ear and put her back against the armrest again. “Hey, Sarah? I need you to do some tracking tonight.” As she listened to the response Patrick couldn’t hear, she dragged her tongue over her lips and studied her nails.
Plump and moist, he wanted nothing more than to smother those lips with his own, seek out her tongue and wrestle it into compliance. In fact, he found himself putting his knee up on the sofa and stalking close.
She raised an eyebrow when he grabbed one of her legs and drew it up to the sofa, turning her sideways.
“Uh, Sarah, hold on a second,” she said, and covered the phone’s mic with her hand. “Patrick, what are you doing?”
He pulled her other leg up and crawled into the V they made. He wrapped his fingers beneath her thighs and pulled her down so her head rested atop the chair arm. Then, he put his hands on either side of her head and smirked at her daringly.
Her scent changed again, and although her eyes were narrowed and lips pressed tight, her breathing had sped.
“Don’t mind me. Please continue.”
“You’re a little distracting.”
“I won’t touch a thing,” he lied.
She cleared her throat and slowly pressed the phone against her ear. “Uh, anyhow. This is going to sound crazy as shit—probably the craziest thing that’s come across our desks in two years—but I need you to come out here and try to locate a cluster, uh…clump? Herd? Whatever. Mountain lions. Were-mountain lions.”
He could hear her associate’s shrill laughter even with the muffling from Dana’s ear, and chuckled himself as he dipped his body down against hers.
Her eyes widened as his erection made contact with her crotch.
Hello, there.
“Uh…”
He put his finger against her lips and shook his head.
She swallowed.
He drew the hand back.
“Uh…Sarah? Let me have Mr. O’Dwyer send you some information. Check your email in about five minutes.”
He shook his head. “I need more than five minutes.”
“Th-th-thirty minutes?”
He shook his head and took the phone from her. “Hello, Sarah. Dana is helping me with a little problem right now. Why don’t you just start driving west on I-40 and we’ll give you some details when you get closer.”
Sarah, a woman with a husky, accented voice Patrick couldn’t quite place, replied, “How much heat should I pack?”
Dana tried to snatch the phone, but he grabbed her wrist and clucked his tongue at her. “Pack something with a scope just in case. Probably won’t n
eed it, but distance is always good.”
“Okay. Be there around midnight.”
“Take your time, love.” He disconnected.
Dana narrowed her eyes and leaned as far back from him as she could.
It wasn’t far.
“We’re not having sex. I’ve known you for an hour.”
“Oh.” A grin crept across his face as he pressed their bodies nearer, his hardness against her warmth. “How long is the waiting period? Not that I think you’ll be adhering to it.”
She sucked her teeth. “Aren’t you a cocky son of a bitch?”
“Dana, sweetheart, I don’t have to be cocky. You want to be touched. Haven’t been touched in a while, I bet, and you want me to be the one because you trust me.”
Her cheek twitched. There was a dimple somewhere in there!
“I trust you as far as I can throw you,” she said.
He chuckled and grazed his thumb along her jaw, up to that pouty bottom lip. “I bet you were a right cute little liar as a girl with pigtails, and I bet people actually believed you.”
She blinked.
“Well, just like you can see beyond the ordinary, I can smell you lying, Dana. This isn’t a question of if or even when. This is about how.”
Her forehead furrowed. “How?”
“Top or bottom, sweetheart? Your choice.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Is this guy for real?
Certainly seemed like it to Dana, because Patrick’s hands felt like they were everywhere at once. The waistband of her slacks. Her sweater’s hem. Stroking her cheeks. Raking fingers through her hair.
Part of her wanted to swat him away—especially from the hair that’d taken her nearly an hour to style that morning—but the other part said, “Who’s going to know? Why not indulge?”
The truth was, the last truly pleasurable thing she’d done for herself was replacing a bra she’d kept too long. Its underwire stabbed her ribs, and she’d given herself permission to toss it three months ago. That was it.
Her life was basically a string of cases, doctor’s appointments, dutiful attendance of Sunday dinners at her parents’ house, and occasionally talking her staff out of using excessive force on simple jobs.