by Michele Hauf
“Nice try.” Swiping his eyes, Brice sensed a change in the air pressure, heard a hitch in her breathing. His instinct warned that she had inched to her right.
“I don’t need my eyes to track you.” He pointed to where he knew she stood.
The woman stopped moving and quite possibly stopped breathing. Nothing but howling silence filled the space between them. Any second she would hit the floor in a dead faint. Brice forced his eyes to open.
Not that he had any doubts, but the fragile-looking young woman pressed against the wall was definitely not his grandmother. Wild spirals of red hair gave her a sexy bed-head look regardless of the cornered animal glint in her cinnamon eyes.
She wore an old Maico High baseball jersey. Wait. That was his old baseball jersey.
His bed, his clothes. What else had she claimed that belonged to him?
And why?
She was human and likely unaware of the implications of marking a male Wahya’s belongings with her scent.
As if he could smell her anyway.
Still, that this small slip of a woman had claimed his discarded clothes and his abandoned bed sparked a possessive thump in his chest. His gaze prowled the small swell of her breasts and the narrow curve of her hips cloaked beneath his shirt.
She sported the longest legs he’d ever seen on someone so petite. Soft, toned legs that inspired steamy visions of them tangled around his hips as he moved inside her until she shattered in ecstasy, breaking him with her.
The full moon had passed, so his attraction was real. Not something prompted by primitive hormones riddling him to fuck the nearest willing female.
That this one didn’t look so willing was like an ice dump on his stiffening cock.
“You need to leave.” A pink flush rose from her slender throat to color her face. She anchored her arms over her chest, her fingers tightening around her flesh in a vise grip that would leave marks on her porcelain skin if she didn’t relax.
“What I need is a good night’s sleep.” Brice watched her cute little toes curl in the shag of the small white rug in front of his dresser.
The rug was definitely not his. Neither were the feminine touches on the dresser.
A tightness squeezed Brice’s chest. His grandmother had been forced to take in a boarder because he wasn’t around to help out.
“Are you drunk?” Condescension hardened the woman’s delicate features.
“No. Why?” He flexed his foot. The pain stabbing his leg would scale his entire body if he didn’t lie down soon.
“Because you’re in the wrong cabin and you’re naked.” Her voice thinned on the last word.
“You’re only half-right. I am naked.” Although nudity was second nature to Wahyas, Brice pulled the rumpled bed covers over his lap. The tattered comforter’s hideous color scheme caused an unpleasant twitch to crinkle his nose.
Whack!
“What the hell was that for?” He rubbed the sore spot where the can of hair mousse smacked his head. “I covered up.”
“This is a private residence. The resort’s rentals are down the road.” Her voice sounded tight and her words were clipped. “Now, get out, frat boy.”
Boy? She thinks I’m a boy?
“Wait—” He barely had time to block the candle she lobbed at his face. “Hey! Take it easy, lady.”
She stood battle-ready, shoulders squared, feet spread apart, a hardcover book gripped in each hand.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m Brice Walker, for chrissakes!”
Okay, maybe his tone was a little too patronizing, but he didn’t deserve the wallop to the chest from the book she flung at him like a ninja star.
“Freaking perv, get out.” The woman wasn’t simply frightened. She was downright mad.
“I’m not—” he dodged the second book “—a pervert.”
Projectiles of various sizes targeted him with the precision of heat-seeking missiles. Who knew a woman’s hair and beauty products did double duty as a weapons arsenal?
He slid to the floor, using the bed as a shield. “I can explain.”
“Not interested.”
A wolf doll dressed in a tiny Maico High jersey bounced on the floor next to him. Either the woman had been an athlete in school or she had dated one. Since she looked too small and fragile to have played sports, Brice assumed the latter.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he grumbled, holding the stuffed animal to his nose. After a few futile sniffs, he tossed the toy aside and peeked over the mattress.
Her impromptu armament depleted, the woman’s gaze ricocheted around the room. “Just leave and I’ll forget you were here.”
Guilt plagued Brice’s conscience. He knew from experience how helpless she felt being trapped. Tomorrow, after he and Granny talked, Brice would issue the frightened woman profuse apologies for what he was about to do.
In the territory without permission, sleep-deprived and beyond exhaustion, he couldn’t risk anyone else discovering his presence. Tying her to the bed so he could get some sleep seemed like his best option.
An unexpected thrill electrified his body, temporarily numbing Brice’s pain. Another time, another place, he would have had an entirely different motivation for tying her up. He almost smiled.
“Easy, sweetheart.” He stood, hands lifted in mock surrender.
“I am not your sweetheart.”
For some illogical reason, Brice felt the distinct need to disagree. However, the critical way she assessed him down to his bare toes made him think that she found him lacking.
Or not.
Before he could cover himself again, she jerked the ugly comforter off the bed and stashed it behind her.
“Like what you see?” He straightened to his full six-foot-four height.
“Hardly.” She swept a mass of curls from her heart-shaped face. “What I’d like to see is your ass walking out the front door.”
“Not going to happen.” Brice smirked. He liked that the woman had spunk in spades. “Look, darlin’. All I want is a good night’s sleep. Preferably with you next to me, all sweet and cuddly.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen, either.” She stuffed her small feet into a pair of worn sneakers. Her gaze teetered between him and the bedroom door.
His predatory senses sparked. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you.”
“It’s a good thing you aren’t me.” Her chin tilted and one eyebrow arched as if upping his challenge. She snatched the lamp from the nightstand and yanked the plug from the outlet.
If the little spitfire thought dousing the light gave her the advantage, she was oh-so-wrong. In milliseconds, Brice’s eyes adapted to the darkness.
The lamp shattered near his unprotected feet. Shards of glass skittered across the wood floor. She dashed past him and he couldn’t intercept. Not without slicing his soles.
Damn.
The woman was smart. Cunning. Fast.
And the chase was on.
Copyright © 2016 by Kristal Hollis
ISBN-13: 9781488004667
The Vampire’s Protector
Copyright © 2016 by Michele Hauf
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