Someday, maybe, he’d find someone else. But first, he’d find the demon wolf responsible for scarring his body and when he did, that shape-shifter would pay. Such evil must be eradicated before innocents got hurt. Dale would do so gladly, sending the SOB straight to hell.
Tom slid a steaming burger, with fries piled high, before him. “Here you go, Commander. My treat.”
“Thanks, Tom,” Dale said, surprised.
“No, thank you, sir. If not for you…” Emotion shadowed the man’s face. “What you did to free those kids, sacrificing yourself, hell, we’re all grateful to you. I’ve got five kids and the thought of them enduring what you did…”
The cougar shifter’s spine stiffened. “I’m proud to call you a friend. You’re more than a SEAL. You’re a damn fine officer and gentleman.”
Holy hellfire, the man actually saluted him. Uncomfortable with the praise, Dale nodded. “No thanks necessary.”
A few of the bar’s regulars studied him like a moth pinned to a corkboard. Damn, all he wanted was a burger, not this scrutiny. Dale began to eat.
The brunette next to him spoke. “Come here often?”
Once in a while, against the ladies’ room wall, pushing deep and hard, a woman’s long legs wrapped around his thrusting hips. Dale nodded.
She gave a sultry smile, red lips moist and pursed. The tight blue dress clung to a body that had caught quite a few glances from the bar’s male occupants.
“You’re a SEAL.”
Wonderful. Human frog hog. He swallowed a bite, shrugged.
“My second cousin’s best friend is a navy SEAL.” Now she slid over, her long red nails on his forearm. “I adore you guys. I can’t thank you enough for what you do for our country, to keep us safe. You’re so brave and strong, and I’d love to demonstrate my appreciation.”
Hollow words, spoken by a woman who just wanted to bang a SEAL. Maybe one time he’d accept her offer, follow her home and show her the alternative meaning of hooyah. Not tonight. Tonight he felt every single one of his 420 years.
The woman’s nose wrinkled as she studied his right arm. Dale automatically moved to hide the jagged gash. “That’s a nasty scar. Did you get it in combat?”
No, I got it, and a rash of others, when I was tied up in a basement and tortured by a wolf’s claws. Care to know more?
Appetite turned to dust, Dale slid his plate back. “Thanks, Tom.”
Clear disappointment showed on the woman’s face as he pushed back his stool. She turned to her right, engaged a member of ST 21’s support staff, the vampire enthralled with the woman’s long neck.
Nice night for a quick bite, Dale thought in sour amusement. Like every human here, she would recall only a pleasurable buzz the next day, assume it was alcohol-induced.
As he went to leave, a familiar scent hit him. Not the floral perfume of the human women, nor the heavy cologne of the males pursuing them. Something deeper, richer, more fragrant.
It reminded him of crushed autumn leaves, the burning richness of smoke on a hearth, the musky scent of pure…sex.
Dale whipped his head up, a memory pinging.
Her.
There, across the bar. An ebony-haired woman, a wineglass before her. Eyes blazing with fire and life glanced up. His gaze fell to her right hand.
Each finger was a sharp black talon.
Shock slammed into him. And pain. Distant memories…knives over raw flesh, biting back the screams that rose in his throat. Salt water dripping onto the fresh gouges, searing his skin with her tears.
He’d been tortured and left for dead, and recalled only flashes of memory. But that scent, it wound around him in an erotic ribbon, and pulled tight. His body hardened, blood pulsing to his groin.
Bleeding from a thousand cuts, the pain so deep he couldn’t breathe, and that scent filtering through the agony, turning his cock to steel. Forgetting the pain, wanting nothing more than to roll her beneath him, spread her wide and drive hard into her soft, wet flesh.
He hadn’t been merely tortured, but humiliated and debased, getting turned on, and then feeling something raking cold claws over his warm flesh….
This woman had something to do with those long, dark hours in the basement.
Dale went preternaturally still. The woman stared at him, wide red mouth parted in apparent shock. Then she slipped off the stool and fled.
Not so fast, he thought grimly. Dale raced after her. In the parking lot, against a parked SUV he caught her. Dale grabbed her arms, pinned her against the vehicle. The scent faded, leaving only the exotic smell of expensive perfume. But he hadn’t imagined it. Wasn’t going crazy.
“Who the hell are you?” he roughly demanded.
Fear clouded her gaze. “Not hurt, not hurt,” she whimpered.
Gentling his voice, he loosened his grip. “Who are you? I remember only darkness, pain and your scent.”
The woman wriggled away, lifted a hand to his face. The velvet of her voice stroked across his senses. Sexual energy jumped between them at the mere brush of her fingers. “Strong and courageous is your heart, yet lonely and hurting…so much pain.”
Dale lost all sense. He lowered his head and did what he’d lusted to do all those long, anguished hours in the dark after he’d been turned into a pitiful, whimpering shell of a man.
Crushing her against him, he fisted a hand into her hair and kissed her hard. She responded back with a moan, her tongue tangling with his in a fury of erotic heat.
And then she began to struggle and nipped him on his lip, hard enough to draw blood. Dale jerked away in shock. Son of a…
His mind fogged. Closing his eyes, he fell into a dizzying vortex, where memory was once more a clouded dream. When he opened his eyes, he was alone.
The woman, if there had been a woman, vanished into the shadows. Just like before, he could not recall her, making him wonder if she were a dream.
Or his worst nightmare.
Copyright © 2014 by Bonnie Vanak
ISBN-13: 9781460333501
POSSESSED BY AN IMMORTAL
Copyright © 2014 by Naomi Lester
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