was the hesitant way she’d said inexpensive that finally clued him in, making him wonder if she was sleeping in her car not because she was careless with her safety, but because she simply couldn’t afford to sleep anywhere else. “I’m afraid not,” he rasped, while something painful twisted in his chest. She was clearly in need of rescuing, and it bothered him that he couldn’t be the one to do it. That he was more harm to her than help.
“Hmm,” she murmured, and he could see the wheels spinning again in her head.
“Trust me,” he said gruffly, “the best thing for you to do is to stay down in Wesley. It’s only about an hour from here.”
“Yeah, I know where it is.” She looked away for a moment, chewing on that lush bottom lip, her gaze even more troubled than before when she finally brought it back to his. “You really think I can just go? That I can just give up and leave my sister to the wolves?”
Suspicion narrowed his eyes. “What the hell does that mean?” he demanded, watching her closely. Did she know what he was? What they all were?
“It’s just an expression.” Her voice was sharp, a slight frown settling between her brows. “I know she’s in trouble, and I refuse to let it go and just sit at home wringing my hands, hoping a miracle will happen and some big burly man will step in to rescue her.”
She her cut her gaze away again, but not before he caught the luminous wash of tears glistening in her eyes. Aw, hell. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to take it if she broke down—that he’d rather have her angry than sad—Eric curled his lips and said something guaranteed to piss her off and get her back up. “Some big burly man, huh? I get it now. You’re one of those women who has guy issues, aren’t you?”
She snorted, shooting him a withering look from the corner of her eye. “Not any more than you have women issues.”
“The hell I do,” he drawled, aware that he was taking some kind of perverse pleasure in verbally sparring with her. “I happen to like women just fine.”
Her head tilted slightly to the side as she studied him. “I’m sure you like them when they’re on their backs. Other than that, I doubt you have much use for them.”
Eric gave her a slow, cocky smile and clucked his tongue. “Like I said…issues.”
She opened her mouth, no doubt to make some cutting remark, but then quickly pressed her lips together, choking off whatever she’d been about to say. Judging from the color creeping into her face, he figured she’d probably just realized she was revealing more about herself with this particular interchange than she wanted to, while accusing him of being…what? A guy?
Yeah, he liked sex. What man didn’t? Lately, Eric just didn’t like how he felt after he’d finished it—as if there was something better that he couldn’t reach. Something he wanted, but couldn’t get his hands on. Which was exactly how he’d felt an hour ago, muttering a low apology under his breath as he’d rolled off Crissy Cowell’s soft, warm body, extricating himself from her grasping arms as he’d turned his back to her and retrieved his cell phone to take Hendricks’s call.
He’d felt bad about turning away from Crissy to answer the phone, but there was no denying that he’d been thankful for the excuse to remove himself from the Lycan’s clingy post-coital embrace. Never one to cuddle, it wasn’t the first time Eric had felt a piercing sense of relief at freeing himself from a woman’s hold once their passion was spent—though it seemed that recently, no matter how physical the encounter, his body was left burning with a restless hunger for something more.
Not that there was anything wrong with Crissy, a well-respected pack female who owned the local garden center in Shadow Peak. She was nice, pleasurable and more than easy on the eyes. No, the problem was his and his alone.
A shrink would probably tell him he was psychologically punishing himself—perhaps even seeking some kind of screwed-up atonement for the destruction his father had caused, but Eric knew it was more than that. Still, guilt poured through his veins as steadily as his blood these days, until it felt as much a part of him as an organ or a limb—just a constant, sickening acceptance that his life would forever be tainted by his association with Stefan Drake: father, pack Elder…and psychotic son of a bitch.
The weight of the shame he carried in his gut over the horrifying events that unfolded five months ago had yet to lessen with the passage of time, and the Runners often told him he was working himself into the ground to pay for crimes that weren’t his. But while there were some in the pack who had seemed to accept his innocence, Eric was aware of the accusatory sneers still sent his way…and he knew there were more than a few who blamed him all the same. For some, the sins of the father were often the hardest to forget…or forgive.
And yet, he was certain that this incessant hunger, this craving gnawing away at him from the inside out, had more to do with his future than it did with the past. Always one with a healthy sex drive, Eric had never before questioned his lack of interest in making a commitment to one of the women in his life. After being abandoned by his mother at an early age, he didn’t need to be psychoanalyzed to understand the wounds that had been cut into his emotional fabric—but his commitment issues had never interfered with his enjoyment of the opposite sex. Even now, the problem wasn’t that sex didn’t feel good. Sex was sex, and it sure as hell didn’t feel bad.
It just didn’t feel…right, whatever the hell that meant.
And I sound like I’m losing my bloody mi—
“You know,” the human murmured, interrupting his irritating train of thought…apparently unable to hold back what she’d wanted to say before. “I realize this may come as a surprise to you, but just because you’re a guy who looks like God’s gift to women doesn’t actually mean that you are.”
The second the words left Chelsea’s mouth, a low, rich vein of laughter jerked from his chest, seeming to catch them both by surprise. Her toes curled inside her socks at the delicious sound, while her face burned with color as she realized what she’d just said.
Wow. I’m so smooth. Why don’t I just shout it to his face that I think he’s hot?
“Come on,” he drawled after his laughter had died down, his mouth kicking up at one corner in the wickedest grin she’d ever seen. “You’re judging me by my looks, and that isn’t fair.”
Maybe not, but Chelsea still wanted to curse at him for flashing her such an irresistible grin, the dimple in his cheek enough to make her groan. Not to mention the high-voltage sexual energy he was blasting at her, making her head spin. Given her lack of a social life, Chelsea knew her family and friends probably thought she was still a virgin, but they were wrong. She’d had sex. Not a lot, mind you, but enough times to know what it was all about. But her experiences had all been with cerebral types who were easily controlled and easily forgotten. She’d never played with a rugged, testosterone-laden male before, and she doubted she’d even know how to if she tried.
Her looks, or lack of them, had always made it easy to avoid charming, oozing-sex-appeal-from-their-pores Neanderthals like this guy, for the simple fact that they ignored her. No, that wasn’t right. They simply didn’t see her, as if she were a ghost. Something they looked right through. Not even a blip on their radar.
But this guy…he noticed. He was staring right at her, that strangely compelling gaze making her feel as if he didn’t want to be looking anywhere else in the world. As if he saw her in a way that
