this guy’s raw, undulating maleness stem from the kick of some mystical ancient virus in his bloodstream, or had he always been a heartthrob?
“I know about the park,” she said.
She hadn’t really looked closely at his face. It was bad enough that the bronzed skin beneath his chin, exposed between open buttons, beckoned to her with the lure of the forbidden.
Would his flesh be smooth, so close to becoming a wolf? Abby cursed the urge to press her fingers there to find out—an action that would probably add one more body count to those unfavorable statistics he’d just mentioned.
Keep strong.
Resist the craziness.
Never get close.
“Then you do know this park is probably the last place a woman should visit, alone and at night,” he said quietly.
“Only women?”
“Anyone.”
“Am I alone?”
“That seems to be the case.”
Abby gestured at him with a wave of one hand. “You don’t count?”
Sarcasm didn’t make her feel better about her predicament. The Were’s eyes remained on her in an uncomfortably intense way, giving Abby the impression that he could see through her clothes and down through her skin to the place where the sparks of her crazy curiosity about him glittered.
She hoped to God he couldn’t see that.
Stomach tightening into a ball of uncertainty, and with her body temp soaring to a disgusting degree, she waited for what might come next, facing the Were, whose specialized internal furnace would soon fuel a werewolf’s shape-shift.
“You do know that bad things sometimes hide in the night?” he cautioned with no threatening move in her direction.
“Are you one of those bad things?”
“I could be. How would you know?”
“Well, then, I guess I’d better go before you have a chance to provide the answer.”
“That might be a good idea,” he agreed.
Movement, though, was impossible. Turning her back to this guy would be a bad idea, no matter how friendly his approach had been. Big reminder: though he looked like a human, and talked like one, he wasn’t.
Feeling the weight of the cell phone in her pocket, Abby tried to remember that Weres weren’t the only treacherous faction in town. Her father, Sam Stark, was as deadly as any werewolf and quite possibly twice as lethal, since Sam had no tolerance for anomalies like this one, and his hatred was usually backed by an element of surprise.
She wondered what color this guy’s pelt would be. Bronze, like his hair? Golden, like the rest of him? With moonlight reflected in each strand of his sleek, slightly mussed mane, whatever color of wolf he turned out to be would amount to tons of cash for the Stark accounts if the team found him. He’d bring a small fortune and it shouldn’t be any concern of hers. This wolf and others like him hurt people when the moon was full.
How close to the surface is your wolf tonight? she wanted to ask. Are you a killer?
Any of those things spoken aloud would let him know she had pegged him for a hybrid, taking things from bad to worse in a hurry. The team’s plan had always been to drive Weres like this one into the open, into the moonlight that betrayed what they were, and strike fast, strike hard. No mercy.
But this wasn’t a killing night. Tonight her job had been only to locate some Weres. See who was around.
“And I found you,” she whispered as her interest in the gorgeous Were reached broiling status internally, as if her mind and body were engaged in a war of ethics, while the big fellow on the edge of the light continued to prove how good his acting skills were.
It was a standoff. Checkmate.
Who would make the first move?
Daringly, Abby let her gaze drift upward to his face before immediately wishing she hadn’t. His features were chiseled, with high cheekbones and a full mouth. He had a strong jaw and arched brows. She refused to meet his wide-set eyes.
Daring to speak again in a voice husky with strain, she said, “What are you waiting for?”
After a long pause, he replied, “Why don’t I walk you home?”
Abby shook her head. “Don’t think so, but thanks all the same.”
“There could be others out here, much worse than me.”
“Really? Much worse?”
“I can assure you of that.”
“Then why are you out here?” she asked.
“I like to walk and think.”
“In the dark?”
“Yes.”
“Here?”
He shrugged.
“Maybe you’re some kind of danger junkie,” she suggested.
“It’s a possibility. What about you? Is danger your drug of choice, or were you trying to get somewhere and got lost?”
Unclenching her hands, Abby then fisted them again, rattled by the stilted repartee. The heat, both hers and his, had become suffocating. He had a gaze like a frigging laser beam that wouldn’t let up or miss much. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question was whether this guy would try to hurt her, or not.
Why don’t you make your move?
“Danger isn’t really my thing,” she said.
“Yet here you are, in a place that attracts it.”
“Not for long.”
Listening hard, Abby separated the layers of city noises. Cars paraded down the boulevards in the distance. The faint buzz of insects reached her from the trees to her right.
The air was filled with the smells of dry, sun-drenched pavement and the bitter odor of crushed grass and leaves. Above those things something else, some other scent, surfed the night air. She tagged it as the not-so-sweet odor of the unseen.
Her scalp pricked. Her racing heart gave an extra thump. This Were’s wolf was close to the surface and getting stronger. Whatever lay inside him that she had easily connected to wasn’t going to go away with a bit of conversation.
Something else bothered her, needled at her. If this guy was an Alpha, he’d have a pack close by.
Her odds in favorably dealing with the situation plummeted. At the same time, her morbid fascination for the wolfman
