"All taken care of." Smothering a grin, she grabbed her backpack from the floor where she'd dropped it last night and pulled out a handful of slinky black fabric. He almost sounded like a Lupine with that remark. "Stretch poly-cotton blend. I packed it small, but I could have shoved it in the space of a toothbrush holder and this stuff wouldn't wrinkle." She grabbed a hairbrush from the depths and gestured behind her to where an actual toothbrush sat beside the sink. "I came prepared."
He lifted an eyebrow and stalked toward her. "Did you think I was that easy?"
His hands slid under the edges of her towel, and she shivered. "Not at all. But I knew that I was that easy."
He traced the curve where her waist met her hip, and her towel gave up the struggle. It parted and slithered to the floor. His gaze devoured her, and she found herself wondering if she might be capable of a whole lot more than she'd originally thought. His lips touched her shoulder and she sighed. Capable or no, she'd be more than happy to give it the old college try.
"Wow, you weren't kidding," he murmured as she shivered under his touch, her mind gone blank and cloudy with lust.
"About what?"
"You are easy."
Her eyes flew open to meet his laughing gaze, and she mocked a growl, popping him on the shoulder. "Creep. Get your lousy paws off me. I've got to get ready for work, and I know when I'm not wanted."
She stuck her tongue out at him and heard him laugh. Then his hands grabbed her hips and tugged her back against him.
"Then you know that not wanting is definitely not my problem." He pressed the evidence of that against her bottom. "But we both have to get to work, so you'll just have to wait a few hours to seduce me again, you shameless hussy."
"You loved it."
"Damn straight." She felt his lips press a kiss to the top of her head and his hand give her ass an affectionate pat. "I've got to get moving. There's no telling how long this will take today, but I'll give you a call when I'm on my way back to the city."
Sam nodded and reached up to kiss his cheek. "Okay. I'll see you when you get back."
He smiled and left.
It took her a minute to catch her breath, a minute of standing stock-still and stark naked in the middle of his temporary bedroom before her heart started beating again.
Oh, shit, she was in so, so, so much trouble.
Her legs shook, forcing her to sink down onto the edge of the extremely rumpled bed. Her eyes stared unseeing at the wardrobe while her mind raced to come to grips with the idea that the m word might not have been so far off-base.
Okay, stop and look at this rationally, she told herself. You've thought you were in love before, remember? And it didn't work out. Don't go jumping into something on the basis of a chemical attraction and one night of mind-blowing sex. Things could change. This could wear off. It could go nowhere. In two weeks, you could be back to just annoying each other. This doesn't have to be forever.
When her heart lurched at the thought, she knew. It wasn't just forever; it was Fated.
Her head spun, and the room danced crazily in her field of vision. She lowered herself back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Her breath had gone shallow and shaky, but that had nothing to do with the fact that she'd just run headfirst into the knowledge that somehow, completely unintentionally, Sam Carstairs had managed to find herself a mate.
Ack. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, she thought, while Fate chuckled in the background. Sam knew that one day she'd find her true mate, the one destined for her. She'd witnessed it happen several times over the last few years. It was an epidemic, but she hadn't expected to catch anything just now. Especially not a big, tough human who didn't even blink at what she was and who could hold his own against her in a stubborn contest. What had Fate been thinking?
Sam needed to talk to somebody, she admitted, someone who could understand what she was going through when she didn't quite know if she understood it herself. Her mind went immediately to Missy; then she frowned. Missy would get some of it, since she'd mated outside her race herself, but Missy was in the opposite situation. She was human, and her husband was Lupine. She would get the feeling of culture shock, but she couldn't possibly understand the weirdness of trying to feel feminine around a man you could rip in two if you really had to.
You didn't have any trouble feeling feminine last night, a smart-alecky part of her subconscious whispered.
She scowled, but it had a point. She hadn't had any doubts last night that Noah was a man and she was a woman and they fit together exactly the way nature had intended. She didn't remember even a moment of worry that he might find her strength unappealing. Given the fact that he'd spent most of the night demonstrating exactly how appealing he found every last inch of her, that shouldn't surprise her. What did surprise her was that she couldn't recall any moments where she'd worried about hurting him, either.
Sam hadn't dated many humans. First, there hadn't been that many that attracted her. Noah was unique that way. But also, in the back of her head there had always been the knowledge that it would be so easy to hurt one. She knew her own strength, had grown up knowing it, and there had always been plenty of pups around to remind her to be gentle. There were some pretty significant differences, though, between playing with pups and playing bed games with a man.
She'd always assumed that holding back at a time when all her instincts wanted to let go would be uncomfortable and awkward, but that hadn't been even close to the case last night. She hadn't held back anything. Sure, she'd been aware of what she was grabbing and how tight she held on, but not out of a sense of obligation. It was as if Noah's touch drained her strength and at the same time left her able to move mountains. She hadn't had to think about not hurting him; it had never been an issue. Her power had been tempered for her. Judging by the soreness in her thighs and deep inside her body, she figured he'd walked away with fewer bruises than she had.
Not that she would have traded a single one.
So much trouble.
Pushing herself off the bed, Sam began to dress automatically. She pulled on the sexy undies that Noah hadn't stayed around long enough to see and slipped on the soft knit skirt and top she'd waved at him earlier. Her bag of tricks also contained stockings, makeup, and a hairbrush, which she used by rote while her mind churned over and over the same information. By the time she walked downstairs and let herself into the office at fifteen minutes before nine, she figured her brain could officially be scooped out and spread on toast.
The door stuck when she tried to shut it behind her. She frowned and turned to see Missy calmly blocking the way.
"Handy of them to have installed a subway stop on the club's third floor," the Luna said, lips pursed against what Sam strongly suggested was a smile.
She felt herself blushing. "Uh—"
"And it looks like it's right next to Noah's room," Missy continued. She entered the office and shut the door behind her before slipping into the armchair in front of Sam's desk. "In fact, from what the maid who was cleaning the room next door to his tells me, it looks like it's right in Noah's room. Fancy that."
If anything, Sam's cheeks got even redder. "Luna," she began respectfully, "I—"
"Oh, hush." Missy grinned, folding her hands on her lap and looking smug. "I hate when you call me that. We're friends. I'm teasing you, not asking you to state your intentions to make an honest man of him."
That was when all the color drained out of Sam's face and she had to lower herself into her own chair like a ninety-year-old with bursitis. "Um, right."
Missy's eyes widened. "Were you planning to make an honest man of him?"
"I don't know what I'm doing."
She heard a pause and wondered if maybe Missy hadn't understood her through the hands she had buried her face in. That did tend to muffle things.
When the Luna finally spoke, it failed to reassure Sam. "That's the first sign."
"The first sign of what?" Sam raised her head enough for a glar
e.
"Falling in love."
"What is?"
"Confusion."
"Confusion is the first sign of falling in love? Then I must have been wild over my high school geometry teacher."
"Don't be a twit," Missy dismissed sweetly. "You know what I meant. And trust me when I tell you I'm speaking from experience here. This kind of confusion means big changes in your future, my dear."
Sam shook her head. "It does not. I'm just… readjusting to the whole relationship thing. It doesn't mean anything more than that."
"Mm. And I suppose that's why you smell like Noah even after what I assume was a reasonably thorough shower?"
Damn it, that was the worst thing about Graham getting his wife pregnant so often. While she was carrying a Lupine pup and for the first few months afterward, while the pup was still nursing and utterly dependent, she got to share in some of the benefits of being Lupine. Including the enhanced sensory perception.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, Sam, honey, trust me when I tell you that you can't brazen this one out," Missy laughed. "The minute Graham walks within five feet of you, he's going to know exactly what happened. That's why I brought you this. I was talking to Richards when you came down the stairs and I smelled you from the dining room doorway."
Still frowning, Sam held out her hand to accept a small amber bottle. "What is this?"
"Well, perfume wouldn't do you any good. Graham would take one whiff and know you must be hiding something. So I brought one of Tess's scented-oil blends. Thank heavens she knows how to put together something that smells nice to both Lupines and non-Lupines. Put some on. Graham will smell something different, but hopefully it will mask the Noah smell enough that he'll put it down to Noah having spent the last week in this room."
Sam sighed and unscrewed the bottle cap. "I really still smell like him?"
"Honey, you reek." Missy smiled to soften the statement. "Not in a bad way, though. I like Noah. He smells pretty good, even to an old married woman like me."
"An old married woman like you should know better than to go around smelling other men."
The words flew out before Sam could stop them. Once they registered, she raised her eyes to Missy and sighed. "Oh, damn."
The Luna laughed. "Don't worry about it. It comes to us all, eventually. Remember the little incident I had with Lucy what's-her-name the first time you and Annie introduced me to her? All she had to do was say Graham's name and I was ready to scratch her eyes out. And I knew very well she'd actually slept with him at some point. I think you can rest assured that I've never known Noah quite that well."
Sam shook her head as she applied the oil and refastened the cap. "This is really not a good time for me to be finding a mate, Missy."
"And I will give you an 'amen' there, because you are preaching to the choir, sister." Missy's lips twitched with wry humor. "I think if you did a little survey around here, you'd find that not one of us was ready for that. Fate tends to make it happen anyway."
"Yeah, well, I think Fate needs to take a little vacation."
"Trust me, that particular bitch is never off-duty." Missy looked around the room and raised an eyebrow. "'So where is your hunka-hunka burnin' love today?"
Sam glared back. "Noah, which is the name he prefers to go by, had to go down to New Jersey for some work thing. He'll be back this evening."
"Well, when you see him, give him a big ol' kiss for me. I need to go give Junior his second breakfast before he decides to get nasty." She paused in the doorway and sent Sam a smirking grin. "I'll send Richards in with a pot of coffee for you. If you need some linament, you'll have to put that request in yourself."
Sam threw an eraser at her, but it bounced harmlessly off the back of the door.
So much for finding someone sympathetic to talk this through with. If all Sam's friends, most of whom were mated themselves by this point, were going to treat her crisis so casually, she'd be better off without them.
Sighing, she turned her chair to face her monitor and powered up her PC.
And hoped Richards would hurry with that coffee.
When Noah entered the diner at five minutes before twelve, he bypassed the counter and took the back corner booth. He slid into the seat with his back to the wall and fixed his eye on the door to wait.
He wasn't feeling patient.
He'd spent the morning since leaving Sam naked and rumpled in his room quietly fuming. He'd known from the beginning that this assignment was bad news, but he was just starting to understand how monumentally screwed up things had gotten. A few phone calls to numbers he wasn't supposed to know had put him in touch with people he wasn't supposed to talk to. One of them had let him know that one of the reasons the general was so determined to rash this mission and get his information had to do with the other noses currently sniffing around the same research Noah had been sent to uncover. Apparently, the North Koreans, Chinese, Iranians, and several well-known terrorist organizations all had a particular interest in this area. Rumors had even suggested that someone had put out a few feelers on the possibility of putting the research information out on the open market. Noah hoped like hell it hadn't been Annie, for her sake as well as Sam's. No way would he be able to protect her if that was true. Even if he wanted to. But the idea of anyone selling that kind of information to groups with a malevolent intent did not inspire his chivalrous nature.
Needless to say, by the time Carter slid into the booth opposite him, Noah's expression had scared the waitress so bad, she'd never come back to bring him the iced tea he'd ordered.
"Your face is gonna freeze like that," the soldier said, pulling off his sunglasses and hooking them in the collar of his T-shirt. "Of course, in your case, I don't guess it matters much. It's not like it could get much worse."
"I'm not in the mood, Hoss. You're supposed to be bringing me a present."
Carter ignored him and turned to catch the eye of their waitress. She still didn't look happy about serving their table, but when Carter flashed her his crooked, blindingly white smile her eyes widened. She hurried over. Minus Noah's iced tea.
"Hey, sugar," Carter drawled. His sugary southern accent always seemed to come out around women, and they always sucked it up like hummingbirds. "Can we get us a couple of iced teas? And I'd surely love if you'd bring me the biggest burger your kitchen can manage."
"Absolutely." The waitress sounded breathless, a condition that hadn't afflicted her when she'd brought Noah his menu and run away with his drink order. She didn't even look up when she collected the menus and said, "And you?"
"Reuben." Noah tried to soften the bark in his voice to keep from scaring her before he got his food. She did manage to flash Carter a flirtatious smile, though, so he couldn't have traumatized her too badly. He waited until she'd made it back to the counter before he held out a hand. "Where's my file?"
"In the drawer marked 'Pains in the Ever-lovin' Ass,' unless I miss my guess." Carter ignored the hand and ladled sugar into his tea. "If you're asking about the file on the lab coat, we'll get to that. But I've got other info for you first."
"What?"
"Command is sending in a B-team. They're setting them up in a safe house about fifteen blocks up."
Noah's jaw set. "Annoying, but not surprising. What aren't you telling me about it?"
"I'm telling you what they told me."
The pronouns finally registered. "You're not leading the team?"
"I'm not even on the team. None of us are. This crew is imported. Sent up from New Jersey, of all places." He managed to make it sound like one of the lower pits of hell. "Never heard of a single one of them, but the general talks about 'em as if they were the next best thing to the Second Coming. Been through 'advanced paranormal training' or some shit like that."
And the badness just kept piling up. One of these minutes, Noah was going to find himself drowning in it. "Spook squad 2.0."
"Apparently."
They
both sat back while the waitress delivered their food. As soon as she left, Noah leaned forward again. "You got an address on that house?"
"Sure, It's not even a secret. It's in the file. General wanted you to know about it, quote, 'in case of need.' If you want my opinion, he just wants you to know he's got someone looking over your shoulder."
"Yeah, I share that opinion." He watched Carter drown his fries in ketchup and frowned. "You got anything else on them?"
Carter grinned. "Naw, but I can tell you that in a remarkable example of coincidence, one of your own team members has a good friend in an apartment across the street from the house. Jammer's got himself a great view of their comings and goings. You know, just by coincidence."
The thought of their communications officer keeping watch on Noah's watchers was the first decent news he had heard in days. "And can I assume, since he's currently on leave, that Jammer's location is not something the general knows a lot about?"
"I think that would be a safe assumption. If one were going to make one."
"I owe you, Hoss."
"Oh, I put it on your tab, Boom. Don't you worry."
He picked up his burger and met Noah's gaze, his expression suddenly intent and serious. "How bad is it?"
"It's starting to look like a royal cluster fuck. In more ways than one."
"Need some lube?"
Noah shook his head. "For now I got it covered. But do you still have that pager I told you to get rid of?"
"Of course."
"Good. If things get rough, I might send for takeout."
Carter grinned again, this time straight on and savage. "Twenty-four hours, boss. We deliver."
"Good. It won't be through the cell. In my experience, 'secure' only means 'secure to outside tampering.'"
"Pay phone's better. Random ones, at least three to six blocks away."
"I'm the one who taught you that trick."
"Yeah, but I perfected it. In fact, I picked out three of them for you. Locations are on a note inside the file."
That got Noah's attention. "A, B, and C?" On his team, standard procedure included have a Plan B, just in case something went wrong. An "oh, shit!" option. Plan C was the final backup. The "aw, fuck!" last resort.
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