“Screaming women tend to make me panic.” He grinned. “Okay, not all screaming women.” His gaze flicked to the skull sitting on the pillows. “You having morning-after regrets?”
“Your humor leaves much to be desired, Mr. Jones.” I leveled him with a suspicious look. “If that’s your real name.”
“My real name is Tezozomoc Abraham Elvis Jones.”
I blinked. “I see why you prefer Tez.”
He laughed. He started to cross the room, but I held up my hand. “I’m sure you understand my need for caution, Mr. Jones. I don’t know you, or your purpose. And I only have your word that you—” I couldn’t get over what he was wearing. “The only suitable attire you could find was my robe?”
“I didn’t want to leave you alone. I ditched my clothes in my car, which is still parked by the Thrifty Sip. I didn’t want to dig through your stuff,” he said. “Well, except your panty drawer. I couldn’t resist. Nice undies, Ellie Bee.”
“Mr. Jones!” I struggled to regain my composure. The robe fit atrociously. It didn’t even close at the top; he had too much chest and too many muscles. On me, it swept my ankles; on him, it barely reached his knees. The belt, cinched around his waist, just added to the ridiculousness. I tried to stop staring at his chest. I’m afraid I wasn’t successful. Of course, the natural progression of my line of sight led me straight to his groin. I had excellent recall. He certainly was gifted in that particular area.
“You keep looking at me like that, princess, I might forget my manners.”
I wouldn’t pretend I didn’t know what he meant, and I couldn’t deny that a small part of me wanted to shuck off the covers and lead him into the shower with me. It had been rather a long time since I’d been in a relationship. I was, much to my own shock, thinking of sex. Hot, sweaty, oh-my-God sex. I couldn’t recall ever being seized by pure lust before. It was exhilarating.
“That’s it. I’m coming over there.”
“Don’t you dare!” I glared at him, but he hadn’t moved. He was giving me a smoky look, though, one edged with amusement, so he knew I was flustered and thought it was funny. What was wrong with me? I didn’t even know this man!
“Did you really go through my underwear?” I asked tartly.
“Yep. I even picked out a few of my favorite pairs. I put ’em on top.” He shook his head. “I was a little disappointed with the available colors. No red?”
“I refuse to discuss my lingerie with you. And I do not appreciate your assumption that you’re going to see me in my undergarments. Ever.” I paused and tried to gather my wits. And tone down my . . . well, lust. My gaze meandered along the robe again. Wow. He was really built. “Could you find no other appropriate attire?”
He grinned at me, and my stomach took a peculiar dive. “I love that mouth of yours, princess. Go on. Talk pretty to me.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“Aw. I bet you say that to all the jaguars.”
Would nothing stop his rampant flirting? I had the insane urge to smile at him, but instead I rolled my eyes. I did not want to encourage his bad behavior. Much. “Please go upstairs, Mr. Jones. We’ll talk after I take a shower.”
“You need help scrubbing your back?”
“No,” I said primly. He opened his mouth and I lifted my hand in a stop gesture. “Nor do I need help washing any of my other parts.”
“My morning is really starting to suck.” He sighed at me, then turned and deliberately sashayed away.
I couldn’t quell my laughter.
He flashed another grin at me over his pink-clad shoulder. I tried to think of something else I could offer him to wear, but I wasn’t a sweatpants kind of girl—and I had no men’s clothing. Aside from Tez draping himself toga-style in a tablecloth or sheet, the robe was the best option. I swear, it had nothing to do with the way the material clung to his rather impressive buttocks.
Tez took the stairs two at a time. After I heard the door shut, I went up and locked it. I must admit, at least to myself, that I rather liked Tez. More than I should, given that we had just met—and under the oddest circumstances. However, continued trust was another issue. It had to be earned.
I put in a call to Damian, a lycanthrope who was in charge of town security, and asked him to drop by. Then I took a scalding shower.
Mud caked my skin. It took two good scrubbings to feel clean—and I used half a bottle of shampoo on my hair. By the time I finished up, nearly half an hour had passed. I dressed in a pair of beige pants and a cowl-neck top in dark brown. I blew my hair dry and pushed back the mass of blond curls with a tortoiseshell headband. I put in my diamond earrings and slipped on a pair of beaded mules.
I gently picked up the pillow on which the skull rested and carried it upstairs.
Tez and Damian were in the kitchen.
Tez leaned on the counter near the stove with his arms crossed. A bruise stained his cheek and a cut slivered the skin above his eye. My robe was torn across the shoulders, too.
Damian sat on a barstool by the island. He had a shiner, and a sullen expression. He rubbed his scraped and swollen knuckles.
“What happened?” I put the pillow with its cargo onto the counter closest to Tez. I turned and glared at Tez, then at Damian. I hadn’t heard the ruckus, so it must have been a brief, if brutal, altercation.
“He hit me,” answered Damian. “So, I hit him back, Liebling. His skull is like marble.”
“Tez!” I studied his banged-up face.
“I didn’t know who he was,” he said. He squinted at me. “Still don’t. He says you called him.”
“Of course I did.” I supposed it might’ve helped matters if I’d thought to inform Tez about Damian’s imminent arrival, or had told the werewolf to expect to meet a were-jag. It didn’t occur to me that Damian would arrive so quickly. I really was off my game today.
Well. Enough was enough. I needed to get control of the situation—and myself. I made up two bags of ice, and gave one to Damian. I slapped Tez’s hand out of the way and pushed the bag onto his bruised cheek.
“Ow! Careful, princess.”
I ignored him and focused on pressing the ice pack carefully against his injury. “Damian is the head of security. We must tell him about the skeleton I found and the attack.” I glanced apologetically at Tez. “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you”—I paused to look over my shoulder and smiled at Damian—“or you, about other.”
“You wearing the black ones?” Tez asked, as if he didn’t even hear me.
I gaped at him.
His gaze dropped to my waist and he spent an inordinate amount of time perusing my southern region. “ ’Cause I really liked those.”
“Must you insist on embarrassing me?” I hissed.
“I dunno. Are you really embarrassed?”
I wasn’t. Not much. I was actually both irritated and thrilled that he flirted so outrageously with me and didn’t care who was watching. Then I had another flash of insight: He was letting Damian know of his interest in me. It was the testosterone-filled equivalent of yelling, “Dibs!”
Now I was completely irritated.
“Cotton panties, full-cheek coverage,” I said, plop-ping the ice bag into his hand. “Beige. With an extra-wide waistband.”
“You are a cruel woman.”
I sniffed, and turned toward the lycanthrope. If I didn’t know better, I’d say something like amusement sparkled in Damian’s eyes. But he smiled so rarely and seemed to take everything so seriously that everyone had decided he didn’t have a sense of humor.
“I found a dead body last night,” I said.
Damian’s eyes went wide.
“Bones,” corrected Tez. “Old bones. Buried in the woods.” He reached over and patted the top of the skull. “See? She brought back a souvenir.”
“Oh. That’s different,” said Damian. “You know we find graves every now and again—usually family plots that are unmarked or have lost their headstones. Eva told us that sometime in the 1
920s, the town moved its cemetery to the current location. Not every body made it.”
Tez snorted a laugh.
I slanted him a look.
“What? I like gallows humor.”
Damian frowned, as if he didn’t quite get the joke. I sighed. “I think I should talk to Patsy.” I explained to him about the disembodied voice and the choking incident. He looked concerned, but I’m almost positive it was because he was worried about the security issues of an unknown and violent assailant. Damian was very good at his job, and didn’t let pesky emotion get in the way of performing his duties.
“What about him?” asked Damian.
We both turned to look at Tez.
“I have an invite,” said Tez. He turned around and bared his shoulder, revealing a tattoo: a red heart with double swords piercing it.
“It’s a temporary tattoo,” said Damian, “developed by Brady and Dr. Michaels. It allows prospective residents to pass through the Invisi-shield. After ten days, the tattoo dissolves”—he sent a narrowed looked to Tez—“and so does the invitation.”
The Invisi-shield was a creation of technological genius and old-world magic. All the residents’ DNA codes were programmed within it, which allowed us to go in and out without problems. Anyone who didn’t belong in Broken Heart couldn’t get through the shield and would set off the alarms.
“You didn’t come to the checkpoint,” accused Damian. “Who sent you the tattoo?”
“Alpha Calphon,” said Tez, referring to the leader of the were-cats. He shrugged. “Believe me, I was just as surprised as anyone to find out there was a whole town full of paranormal beings in the middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma. I wanted to check out things for myself.”
“Before you revealed yourself?” I asked. “You’re not anywhere near the were-cat commune. It’s on the far side of town, well past the main living areas of the other residents.”
He tapped the side of his nose. “I followed this . . . straight to you.”
Well, what did that mean? His gaze was dark and intense, and I felt branded by the heat of those hazel eyes. Mine, he seemed to say.
How ridiculous.
I pressed a hand against my stomach to still the feeling of butterflies taking wing there. He made me crazy, that were-jaguar.
He gave me the once-over. “What exactly are you, princess?”
“Vampire,” I said.
“Really?” He studied my mouth, probably to see my fangs, which only appeared when I fed. Or got really angry. I pressed my lips together and glared at him.
He grinned. “Didn’t figure vampires were real.”
“But shifters are normal?” I asked, amazed he knew so little about the paranormal world. How could he believe shifting into a jaguar was stranger than meeting someone undead?
“Always been a shifter,” he said. “Never met anyone else like me.”
“And what are you?” asked Damian. “You do not smell like the other cats.”
“He’s a jaguar,” I said. Oddly, I sounded rather proud, as though his other form were mine to gloat about.
“That’s impossible.” Damian stood and wrapped his fingers around my wrist. I got the impression he planned to yank me behind him and do something silly. Like hit Tez again.
Tez leaned against the counter, looking unaccountably masculine in my pink satin robe, and pressed the ice bag to his cheek. His expression was inscrutable.
“Damian—”
“No, Elizabeth. He’s a liar.” Damian pulled me, but I resisted. I glanced at him, surprised at the fury in his gaze. “Jaguar shifters are extinct.”
Chapter 3
“I saw him in his jaguar form.”I gently removed myself from Damian’s protective grip. “He saved my life, and I will not think ill of him”—I slanted a glance at Tez, who was smirking—“unless he gives me reason to do so.”
His smirk widened into a grin.
“I’ll believe him when I see him shift,” said Damian.
“You first, cupcake,” drawled Tez.
Damian’s eyes narrowed. He stepped past me with clenched fists. I gripped his shoulder and hauled him back. Having vampiric strength was certainly advantageous when dealing with an angry werewolf.
“Enough, boys,” I said. “Damian, I think it would be wise for us both to talk to Patsy. Would you make those arrangements? Perhaps take a look at the woods to see if you can determine who might’ve attacked me?”
Damian looked as though he wanted to protest, but his duty to the safety of Broken Heart, and me, won out over his animal instincts. “Yes, Liebling. I’ll call Patsy and update her as well.” He nodded good-bye to me, launched one last fulminating glare at Tez, and left.
Whew.
“I’m starving,” said Tez. “You gonna feed me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Why am I in charge of your . . . your . . .” I waved my hand around, agitated by his cave-man attitude. “Gustatory pleasures?”
Tez dropped the bag of ice into the sink, then sauntered toward me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the look in his eyes. It seemed just as fulminating as Damian’s, but in a much more sexually combustible way.
“What was that you said again?” he asked. “About my pleasures?”
Once again, he was scrambling my good sense. He was the biggest flirt I’d ever met, and everything about the man was designed to make a woman crazed with lust. I’d had far too many inappropriate thoughts about him already.
He managed to back me against the kitchen island, a smile playing on his lips as his gaze sparkled with a mixture of humor and desire. Oh. My.
I needed to retrieve control of the situation. “I’ll drop you off at the Old Sass Café while I attend to my own breakfast.”
“And what do you eat?” His gaze suggested he had a menu in mind, though I doubted it consisted of the carotid artery.
“I’m a vampire. I drink blood.”
“Huh. Not sure how I feel about you gnawing necks. Especially another guy’s.” He stood mere inches from me. He wore his hair short on the sides, and spiked on the top. It was almost militaristic, but the look fit him perfectly. He was too sexy. I felt my pulse stutter, which was ridiculous because I had no pulse.
“We hardly know each other,” I said. “So, your opinion about my dining options is irrelevant.” His gaze darkened even more, and he leaned forward. I licked my lips. I liked the way he was looking at me, and I liked the way I felt. In this moment, I was the only woman in the world; and this man, this gorgeous man, wanted only me. So, as Tez had asked earlier, I decided to talk pretty to him. “Yes. Your opinion simply doesn’t count. Neither does your inexplicable ire about the gender of my donors.”
“Jesus. That vocabulary of yours makes me hot.” His gaze went unnaturally still—a rather eerie reminder of how his jaguar self looked right before it pounced. “But that snotty tone of yours is what really gets me hard.”
My stomach dropped to my toes, and I swear I could feel the pounding of my undead heart. It was nonsense, of course, but I almost felt alive around Tez. He didn’t appear to care very much about manners or politically correct behavior. Of course, the citizens of Broken Heart weren’t the type to beat around the bush. I’d grown to like the direct way most people talked to each other; it was far better than dancing around expected behaviors in polite company. It seemed that Tez would fit in just fine in our little town. Tez’s particular brand of directness was . . . well, rather a turn-on (there, I said it). I swallowed the knot—or was that my heart?—in my throat. “You’re very earthy.”
He grinned again, but the gesture was more a feral parting of his lips, and a show of a lot of white teeth. Yet another predatory move that unnerved me. I wasn’t used to such intense attention, especially not from a man. “Say that thing about gusta-whatever.”
I couldn’t resist playing the game, even if I wasn’t sure about the rules. I looked at him through my lashes. “You mean . . . gustatory pleasures?”
He leaned down and sucked on my lower lip.
I was stunned by his action, and found myself too flabbergasted to protest such an intimate gesture. He swept a thumb over my swollen lip. “You taste like cinnamon.”
“It’s my gloss.” Oh, excellent comeback, Elizabeth. I stifled a groan of embarrassment. Obviously I was ill-prepared for flirting. I needed one of those “For Dummies” guides—then again, I didn’t think there was a book available that would teach me how to deal with Tez.
“Hmm. I like it.” He leaned in to smell my hair. “You gonna introduce me to your meal?”
His closeness discombobulated me. He was doing it on purpose, to keep me off guard. “What would be the point?”
“To see if he’s better looking than me.”
Hah. An opening I could use.
“He’s utterly gorgeous,” I said with a dreamy sigh. Well! Maybe I could play the coquette. “Sometimes, I sit on his lap, wrap my arms around those big, broad shoulders, and just . . . lick.” I looked at Tez, and smiled. “We should go now, so I can suck on his delicious neck.”
“I might have to kill this guy,” said Tez, his eyes glinting with humor. He leaned down and tugged my earlobe between his teeth. I felt his tongue trace the inner shell of my ear, which made me tingle all the way to my toes. Then he whispered, “You really are a cruel woman.”
I pushed him, and, to my relief, he backed up a couple of steps. “Just remember that,” I said primly.
“Oh, I will,” he said, baring that feral grin. “I like it down and dirty. Rough. Hard. Mean.” His toothy grin widened. “I think you’re the perfect woman for me.”
I drove Tez to his car, parked at the Thrifty Sip. The convenience store had been abandoned for a long time, and due to an accidental dragon fire, it was now just a burned-out shell. I gave Tez directions to the Old Sass Café and agreed to meet him there in a half an hour. He had no problem shedding the robe and redressing right there next to his car.
I’d already seen him naked, and I very much enjoyed staring at his impressive form. The problem, of course, was resisting the urge to touch all those muscles. Not to mention the things my mouth wanted to do him.
Cross Your Heart: A Broken Heart Novel Page 4