If he did, that would in some ways be best for her, even though she didn’t want to believe it. Given the strength of the connection that had formed between them already, more time together would only make that bond stronger, deeper, and more agonizing to break.
But by Logos, he couldn’t turn away from her now. If there was any way possible to make it back to her side after he found Pathos, then Aragon would return.
“Annette, I—”
She set her finger over his lips. “Talk later,” she whispered. “Just love me again. Now.”
This time he was more than willing to meet her conditions.
Annette swiped at her tears. Any awkwardness she felt over Aragon’s public mating declaration fell beneath her flood of concern for him. From the moment she’d looked into his eyes when he came through the bedroom door, she’d seen a care for her that no man had ever had, an honest, consuming desire. Nor had she ever felt the same driving need for any other man, this hunger she couldn’t control. It was as if he’d awakened her. She’d been wrong in thinking his sharp features were too roughly warlike to be sensual. The look firing his gaze was the sexiest thing she’d ever experienced.
Melded to a warrior.
Awed, humbled, and heartbroken by the fate he could not escape, she fought back her tears and reached for him, needing him more than her next breath. He had to be wrong. Someone as vital and strong as he couldn’t just fade away. Jared had been wrong in thinking he had to sacrifice himself to protect Erin, and Aragon could be mistaken as well.
For the first time in her life, she ignored her better judgment and determined to make every moment count. Starting now. Desperate jerks and awkward pulls sent her sweats to the floor first; his followed in her frantic rush to have every inch of his supple body and hard erection exposed and ready for her touch and tongue. But before she could fall to her knees and taste the fullness of his hot need, he kissed her hard, his tongue devouring her mouth even as his spirit delved into hers. A kaleidoscope of passion swirled around her.
Come with me, he said into her mind. Touch me. Trust me. I long to give you everything. I need you.
“And I need you,” she whispered, then buried her hands into the thick wavy length of his midnight hair to pull him closer. She drank of the dark coffee richness of his eyes that seemed to roast her alive as he watched her respond to his touch.
Grasping her bottom, he slid her up until he could suckle her breasts. She braced her hands on his shoulders, shifting just enough so that he could tease each nipple to needy points that begged for more. When he lowered her to her feet, she didn’t even pause before she went to her knees. She cupped his erection in her hands and brought the wet heat of her mouth to its burgeoning tip, drawing him deep. He groaned and shuddered as his hands threaded into her hair. He seemed to be urging her back up, but she persisted until his breathing was ragged and his body shivered at every stroke of her tongue.
Sweeping her into his arms, Aragon moved to the bed, his mouth devouring hers in his hunger to get inside her. As soon as her bottom hit the edge of the mattress, he had her legs spread as wide as they would go, opening her sex completely. She fell back on her elbows as he lifted her to his mouth. His tongue slid up her weeping flesh, dipping inside her before moving to the hardened knot of her erect feminine need and swirling his hot tongue over it until her hips jerked beyond her ability to control.
Then he stood looking at her a moment as if there was nothing in the universe but her. She thought he’d thrust hotly into her next, but he didn’t. He leaned forward and kissed her with a slow relish that had her panting in need. He lavished the same slow burn of his tongue upon her breasts until she was moaning from the agonizing pleasure. Only then did he slide into her slowly, inching his heated erection in a little at a time before easing back out with excruciating slowness. He had the look of a man in heaven, determined to enjoy every possible second of the pleasure he’d found.
Long past the point at which she thought she could take no more, sure she either had to come or go mad, he thrust himself into her hard and deep and fast, exploding an orgasm through her that shook her entire being. Again and again he drove into her. Each stroke sent her shuddering pleasure higher and higher until she shouted and her body convulsed against his with dizzying force. The power of his resulting orgasm slammed into her mind, grabbing her upon a wave of pleasure that sent her hurtling with him. He clung to her and she clung to him, for in that moment everything disappeared but each other.
Chapter Twelve
T HE PHONE RANG and Annette groaned. She couldn’t move to answer it. She couldn’t think to answer it. Aragon had shifted in the bed until she was cradled against his side. They lay on top of the thick black-and-gold comforter, with the sun from the window streaming warmly over them.
The digital readout on her clock flashed a red twelve at her. For a moment she thought they’d been making love for four hours, until she realized that the clock was flashing from the power outage last night and needed to be reset. She felt as if they’d made love that long, though. The pleasure had been unending, and she was completely drained.
“Sorry, I am unable to answer the phone right now. Please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible.” Her answering machine beeped, and Annette waited for the caller to leave a message.
Nothing came, though she could hear the faint sound of someone breathing until they abruptly hung up. Her eyes shot wide, and an electric charge ripped through her. Had Mr. X just tried to call her? To tell her more about her sister? Heart pounding, Annette rolled from the bed and ran to the hall where her answering machine sat on a small mahogany table. She hit the caller ID button, and her emotions nosedived back to reality. Rob and Celeste Rankin’s number appeared. Celeste must be returning her call. But why hadn’t she left a message? Was she upset that Annette had revealed Celeste’s checkup to Rob? Annette bit her lip.
Aragon came up behind her and pulled her securely against him. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” She sighed. “I thought that the man who’d called about my sister last night was trying to call again. But it was just my neighbors.”
He stiffened. “The man who was here when we arrived last night?”
He sounded agitated, and she turned to face him. “Rob. But I think it’s his wife trying to call me about a blood test I need her to repeat. He really bothered you, didn’t he?”
“I didn’t like the way he looked at you or the way he upset you. You shouldn’t speak with him again.”
She wanted to ask what about the way Rob looked at her bothered Aragon, but decided to do it later when she wasn’t in a hurry to call Celeste back and when she wasn’t standing naked in the hallway. “We’ll talk about Rob later. I need to call back now and hopefully get Celeste.” She hit the dial button. Aragon crossed his arms and frowned but remained quiet.
The phone rang until the Rankins’ answering machine picked up. Annette opened her mouth to leave a message, then thought better of it. She didn’t want to cause Celeste any more problems. The little she’d accidentally said last night still burned.
Annette hung up. “I’ll have to call back later.” But the gears in Annette’s mind were set in motion now, and there was no stopping them. She couldn’t just sit here, looking at medical records, waiting for trucks to move. She had to do more. But she didn’t want to lose a moment with Aragon, either.
“There are some people from Sno-Med I need to go and see this morning.” Namely Dr. Steven Bryers, the name on the lab coat she’d found at the computer desk last night. And Sharon Wills, Stef’s friend from Sno-Med who had set Stef up with Nick.
“Then I will accompany you on this mission.”
“I’d like that,” she said. “We need to hurry and get dressed. I’ll call Emerald and let them know to contact my cell phone when they hear something. You’ll have to wear the sweats Sam gave you for now. The store won’t open until ten.”
“Mortal clothes are unnecessary.
I like you better like this,” he said, gruffly, then cupped her breasts, giving each of them a sucking, nipple-hardening kiss.
She’d thought she’d had all the sexual stimuli that she could take for the moment, but she was wrong. Everything flared to an instant ready, set, and go. She pulled back from him, groaning at the urge to lie on the floor, spread her legs, and demand that he soothe the ache. Instead, she clamped her hands over her breasts and ran to the bedroom. “That’s one reason we all wear clothes,” she shouted back at him. “Otherwise, all our time would be spent making love.”
He followed her. “Is there something wrong with that?”
She glanced back at him, laughing. No, she thought to herself. Not with you. And she felt a pang of real regret that they couldn’t just do that now, and that there might never be a time when they could.
Dr. Steven Bryers reminded Annette of a praying mantis: sort of greenish in complexion, bug-eyed, tall, and so very thin that his arms seemed as if they kept folding in on each other as he fidgeted nervously in the booth. He sat across the table from her and Aragon, whining in a squeaky voice about how he wasn’t responsible for the fire yesterday, and anybody who said that he had anything to do with it was just trying to frame him.
Annette hadn’t even had a chance to ask her questions yet. The man had started bellyaching the moment he saw Aragon. The first words out of his mouth had been, “Listen, Detective…”
It was only then that Annette realized that the T-shirt Sam had given Aragon had a Police Department emblem on the left breast. Well, she wasn’t about to let his assumption go unused. “We aren’t here about yesterday’s fire, but about the disappearance of a young woman six months ago, and your acquaintance with her.”
His bug eyes bulged. “Wait a minute—I knew the girl. She worked at the same place I did, but I wouldn’t call her an acquaintance. You make it sound as if there was something sordid involved.”
“Then you knew Stefanie Batista?”
“Yes, I just told you that.”
“Did you work on any projects with her?”
His pasty brow furrowed. “Of course not—she wasn’t even in the same department as mine.”
“What do you know about the X-files?”
His pale eyes shot back and forth between her and Aragon. “Was that some sort of joke?”
“No,” Annette replied.
“It was a TV series a number of years ago—”
“Not that X-Files. The ones on your computer in the Infectious Disease Department at Sno-Med.”
“What? I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. There are no files in my department labeled X-files. I know that for sure. I keep a close tab on what everyone in my department does, and I don’t put up with anyone wasting time or company bandwidth on movie star crap. America is sick these days. Ever since JR got shot, they let themselves get caught up in stupid television shows and don’t even know how to live real life anymore.”
Annette blinked. The guy looked like he was climbing onto a familiar soapbox. She didn’t know if he was for real or if he was putting up one hell of a smokescreen, but she sure wasn’t getting any answers. She gave it one more shot.
“Do the numbers 666 mean anything to you?”
“The mark of the beast?” he said with a snort.
“As in the first digits of about a thousand medical file numbers on the computers? Does that ring a bell?”
“Listen, you’re not ringing any bells at all. Don’t know what computer you’ve been on, but it isn’t one from my department. All Sno-Med files begin with the letters of the center they originated with. Any medical file on my computer will read ARC for Arcadia Research Center. What’s this all about?”
“How long have you worked at Sno-Med?”
“About nine months,” he said.
“And in that time have you noticed anything strange or unusual about the research center?”
“No. I don’t know what you’re fishing for here, but this is the best job I’ve ever had. There is funding out the wazoo for anything I need. Any research that I want to do. Any equipment that I need. For the first time ever I’m experiencing what it really means to be a research scientist in infectious disease. And I’ll be honest with you. The last place I worked burned, and they tried to blame it on me, saying an explosion in my lab caused it. I think they set the explosion to get insurance money.”
“Well, Dr. Bryers, thank you for your time. If we have any more questions, we’ll get back to you.”
He nodded, slid his lanky form from the booth, and moved slowly out of the café. Annette slumped in her seat and drew a deep breath. She was glad as hell that she was a surgeon. It was a simple job, really. She diagnosed a problem, then she went in and solved it. This investigation stuff was for the birds.
“He speaks true,” Aragon said. He’d been silent during the interview, though Annette noted he’d studied Bryers the entire time.
“What do you mean?”
“He is telling you the truth.”
“You read his mind?”
Aragon shook his head. “I could hear his heartbeat and his breathing and feel the tension of his body. Those who lie have no control over those functions, and they immediately change pace when they do.”
“Holy hell, you’re a walking lie detector.” She gave Aragon a big smile. Things were looking up. She could drag Aragon around and question everyone about Stef. For now, Sharon Wills was next, due to meet them at the café in thirty minutes. They had time for more than coffee. Correction. Coffee and hot chocolate. Aragon refused to try any more of her “brew,” as he called it.
“We’ve got thirty minutes. Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Very,” he replied, low and deep, then sent her nearly through the roof when his hand under the table slid up her thigh to brush a finger over her crotch. She jerked to such immediate attention that her knees hit the table leg, her nipples tingled, and her mouth went dry as everything else went wet.
“Aragon!” His name came out as a breathless hiss. “You can’t do that to me in public.”
“Then let’s not be public.” He ran his finger over her crotch again, and Annette thought she’d explode. In her mind she saw them stealing into any dark corner, any restroom, anywhere, just to ease the fire he was fanning. She’d never understood such behavior before, thought that people who did things like that were undisciplined idiots.
Hell, if the booths were higher, the lighting dim, and the room a little more secluded, she’d spread her legs and let him take her to heaven right here.
She shoved a menu in his face. “Food,” she said. “We need food. And look”—she pointed to the back of the menu—“we can have strawberry shortcake for dessert.” That clinched his cooperation. They ate eggs Benedict, had orange juice, and then she hit real trouble when the shortcake arrived. The look Aragon gave her as he sucked the last bit of strawberry off his spoon told her the dessert had only whetted his appetite.
Sharon Wills saved her. If the woman hadn’t appeared when she did, Annette was certain that Aragon would have picked her up and carried her from the restaurant.
It was the first time Annette had seen Stef’s friend dry-eyed, a change that brought her countenance from a fragile, blue-eyed blonde to a Paris Hilton gotta-get-my-hair-and-nails-done-every-day kind of gal, one that found Aragon immensely interesting. She barely took her gaze off him and seemed to be flashing her nails, boobs, and hair all at the same time.
“Thank you for coming,” Annette said, trying to get her attention. “You look different.”
“The new me,” she said. “Life was passing the old me by, and after Stef…I decided it was too short to let that happen. Look, I don’t think talking about Stef is going to do either of us any good,” she replied, finally meeting Annette’s gaze. “I’ve…I’ve been trying to move past it. Went in for the grief therapy that Sno-Med has going on, you know.”
It didn’t look like Sno-Med was doing the girl any favors. “I hav
e a few questions that I think only you can answer. Someone mentioned that Stef was working on a project for Sno-Med when she disappeared. Do you know what it was?”
Sharon smoothed her brow with a long nail, as if worried about a wrinkle forming, and cut her eyes Aragon’s way before replying. “I don’t know for sure. It had something to do with a group study being done, treating something that I don’t remember. She called it Tusk-something.”
Annette leaned forward, eyes narrowing as her mind raced. A group study called Tusk-something? Like Tuskegee? The horribly unjust medical experiment had been a study of the effect of untreated syphilis on black males. The disease, colloquially known as “bad blood,” had been fully curable with antibiotics at the time. But the patients hadn’t been given the cure. Instead they’d been duped by medical bells and whistles into thinking they were getting the treatment they needed. “Stef didn’t say anything else about the project?”
“Not really.” Sharon nodded her head, then flicked her hair back into place, glancing at Aragon again. She couldn’t seem to look away.
“Nothing?” Annette asked, trying to call Sharon’s attention back to the conversation.
“Well, I can’t remember exactly, but I had the impression she was worried about one of her friends being in the project.”
“In the project how?”
“I don’t know anything else.”
Annette gritted her teeth. “What about other people from work? Can you think of anyone who would know about the project?”
The waitress brought Sharon a coffee and Aragon another hot chocolate, saying with a wink that she’d put extra whipped cream on it just for him. Annette had to ask for a refresher for her coffee.
The Lure of the Wolf Page 16