of genuine amusement. Part of him was amazed. He hadn’t laughed like that since the explosion.
“I’m glad you find me humorous,” she finally said, her voice an interesting combination of frosty and hurt. “It was a serious question.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Crossing his arms, he tilted his head in her direction. She intrigued him, with all her apparent contradictions.
“What do you mean?”
“You know you’re not crazy. Therefore, your question was completely rhetorical. Though I do promise if you have real questions, ones that actually pertain to my work, I’ll do my best to answer them.”
She muttered something that sounded like a curse, and then he heard the scraping sound of her pushing back her chair. Murmuring her apologies in a falsely sincere voice, she hurried off without another word to him, her high heels clicking on the floors.
Rubbing his chin, he listened to her go. Damn. Despite his best efforts—and what he considered success in keeping himself reined in—he’d still managed to anger Princess Alisa, cutting short his already inadequate time to work with her.
For maybe the fifteenth time, he wished he’d been able to locate another subject. He’d certainly searched hard enough. But every single time he’d thought he actually might have found someone, when he’d checked them out he’d found their story to be false.
In that regard, he’d spoken the truth to the princess. Not changing often enough meant madness for shifters, whether full or Halfling. Every single time.
Until now. He had verification from her parents, her teachers, her friends and her doctors. Princess Alisa was the lone exception known in the entire world. And for that reason alone, she was vital to his research.
But working with her wasn’t going to be easy. Not with the way his wolf reacted to her. If not for the possible magnitude of the reward to his kind once he was proven right, he knew damn good and well that he’d already have decided this was too much trouble and hightailed it out of this tiny European country and back home to Boulder, Colorado, to work on something else. Hounds knew he had plenty of interesting projects on the back burner.
Yet none of them were vital. Not like this. Why, if he were to discover a way for any shifter to maintain their human form longer than a few weeks, then a Pack astronaut could actually go to the space station. Or on a ship out to sea without having to be confined to a tiny cabin to shift in misery and unhappiness. A wolf that couldn’t hunt and roam wasn’t pleasant to deal with. To say the least.
Rolling his shoulders, he smiled ruefully. No matter how unpleasant the chore might be, he must figure out a way to work with Princess Alisa and to make it as painless as possible. For both of them.
The doctor was a bore. Eyeing him, shaggy black head bent over his machine, she couldn’t figure out what it was about him that was different. But he was. He infuriated her, enraged her, and made her wolf restless and uneasy.
He also made her feel alive.
Which made no sense. Alisa had always had an analytical mind. Though she’d had her share of crushes when she was younger and affairs through college, without exception she’d been able to dispassionately examine every single one. She’d known why she’d been attracted to Damian (sex appeal), or Theo (rakish charm), or Ian (blond good looks combined with a brilliant, acerbic mind). In the past, she’d chosen male companions for their ability to make her laugh, or because they had an interesting hobby (like Christoff with his hang gliding). She’d had no delusions at all why they wanted to be with her—she was the proverbial brass ring, bringing with her a title and riches, despite her dismaying lack of beauty.
Dr. Streib cared little for either the money or the title.
So despite being aware of her attraction to Dr. Braden Streib, she was fully cognizant of the exact reasons why she shouldn’t be even remotely interested in the man.
One, he was not the usual type of man she attracted. He was rough-hewn rather than polished, disheveled rather than neat, his craggy features were compelling enough to warrant a second look, but no more than that.
Second, his personality left much to be desired. He was rude, not charming or deliberately sexy, and apparently the man had absolutely no sense of humor.
He was brilliant, true. But intelligence by itself made a cold bedfellow.
The only good thing she could say—if one were to consider this good—was that her wolf had the hots for his wolf. It was true. Her beast wanted to do the nasty with his.
This alone was reason enough for her to sit up and take notice. In all her relationships, her wolf side had affected bored disinterest at best.
Now, though, for the first time since childhood, her wolf refused to be contained, pacing and whining and snarling. Wanting out.
It grew worse every time she was around him. This afternoon in his laboratory, while verbally taunting him, keeping her wolf contained had required so much effort that she’d finally had to leave the room. Which she’d hated, since doing so felt so much like retreating and Alisa never retreated.
Perhaps she should give in, let her wolf win just once, and suggest that the good doctor and she find a place and shape-shift together. Later, in the normal rush of arousal that always accompanied the change back to human, they could make love with abandon. No strings, no messy emotions, no ties.
Even as the thought flashed into her mind, her long-suffering beast went wild with joy. Definitely something to consider. Taking a deep breath, she did an abrupt about-face and headed back to the lab. Because, after all, Alisa never retreated from a challenge.
Even with the sound of her high heels announcing her return, Braden sensed her presence the instant she stepped into the room, though he didn’t acknowledge her.
“I’m back,” she finally said loudly, as though he’d lost his hearing as well as his sight. Of course, to be fair, he was wearing headphones.
Still, he didn’t immediately answer, grateful for the distraction of his computer program that relayed information from the sensitive sensors on his fingertips to the auditory program playing in his headset.
Though she had no way of knowing, he hadn’t yet turned the audio portion on yet. In fact, he’d been debating the wisdom of even bothering to do so. After all, how many times could he listen to the same information?
“Hello?” Again the heels clicking on the hard floor. Tap, tap, tap as she crossed the room to stand near him. Though he couldn’t see her, even with his limited human olfactory senses he could smell her. Absently he made a mental note to find out what brand of perfume she wore and have it analyzed—the stuff smelled absolutely wonderful. From this day forward, he’d be unable to smell vanilla and peaches without thinking of her.
“Good afternoon,” he said, removing the headphones and forcing a smile all at the same time. “I’m glad you decided to come back. How are you feeling now?”
“Better,” she answered, then took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I left earlier. Nature called.”
Accepting her obvious lie without comment, he gestured toward the area where she could take a seat. “Please, sit. We’ll get started in a moment.”
She didn’t
