“Is everything okay?” Holbrook asked when I emerged from the bathroom, my knees still feeling liquid, now as much from lust as the last fading tremors of the change.
The night was quiet beyond the window, a break in the clouds letting the moon shine down through the open curtains. He stood in a shaft of moonlight, bathed in its bright, pure light that made his emerald eyes appear to glow with unfathomable power. There was something oddly intimate about his bare toes peeking out from beneath the hem of his jeans, curling against the carpet. Dark stubble covered the slope of his jaw, and his hair stood up at odd angles from where he had run his fingers through it repeatedly.
“Everything all right?” he asked again, his brows beginning to crease in concern.
In answer I strode across the room towards him with sure, if not entirely steady, strides and grasped his face in both hands, dragging his lips down to mine. He hesitated for the span of a single heartbeat and then melted into me, lifting his hands to fist them in the hair at the nape of my neck, sending prickles of energy marching across my scalp. Time ebbed, meaningless and liquid, as we suckled at each other’s lips, tasting and nipping in tandem.
Releasing his hold on my hair, reassured by the pull of my lips that I wasn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon, he skimmed his fingers down the back of my shoulders, following the curve of my spine to clutch the swell of my ass. A giggle bubbled up in my throat, and breaking our kiss I pulled back enough to see the laughter sparkling in his eyes, creasing the skin at the corners as he smiled in a lopsided, boyish grin.
Grasping the front of his t-shirt I issued a simple demand. “Off. Now.”
Without hesitation he obeyed, whipping off his shirt and casting it aside in one fluid motion that made the muscles across his chest and shoulders ripple. A dusting of dark hair covered his chest, flowing down over the taunt muscles of his stomach, to disappear into his jeans. His fingers were full of quiet tension and need when they grasped my hips, pulling me tight against his body until it was impossible to tell where his skin ended and mine began. Every muscle in my body burned with the combination of his crackling energy and my desire.
From the corner of my eye I thought I saw my hair lifting off my shoulders, dancing with faint crackles of sparkling green energy, but dismissed it as the moonlight casting strange shadows about the room. The heated brush of Holbrook’s lips against mine soon erased all unrelated thoughts from my mind, sweeping me up in a renewed rush of desire that had me urgently pulling him down to the bed.
***
Stretched out across the rumpled sheets, I shivered as the sweat clinging to my skin began to cool, but I made no move to cover myself, my limbs both leaden and light as a feather as I tried to ease the rapid pounding of my heart. With heavy-lidded eyes, I watched the moonlight dance across the ceiling, appearing to ripple like the reflection of water as clouds scudded across the sky. Holbrook lay beside me in a breathless and sweaty tangle of limbs, his fingers curled around mine, refusing to break contact.
“That was…” he began.
“Intense. Yeah,” I finished, trying to blow a sticky curl out of my face, not sure that I had enough energy to run a hand through my hair.
“You ever felt that before?” he asked, his words broken by a wide yawn.
“No. You?”
“No.”
Turning to look at him, catching the gleam of his eyes and the sheen on his brow, I raised an eyebrow in a challenging expression and asked, “Wanna try again?”
Filling the room with laughter as rich and decadent as the scent of warm molasses that rose from his skin, he pulled me tight against him to slide a muscled thigh between my legs, capturing my gasp as he sealed his lips over mine.
I’ll take that as a yes.
Chapter 32
“WHORE!” CAME THE bellow through the window, accompanied by shattering glass that fell around us like slicing little raindrops.
For a single heartbeat I froze in shock, unable to move, and then adrenalin tore through me like wildfire, spurring my limbs into motion. Leaping up from the bed I scrambled across the room, putting as much space between me and the broken window as I could.
“Get down!” Holbrook yelled, moving almost as quickly as I did, pulling his Glock from the holster hanging from the headboard. Instantly I sank down, crouching low with my back pressed against the wall. He didn’t need to tell me twice.
A hand the size of a bear’s paw, covered with dark fur and tipped with wicked looking ebony claws, reached through the window, shredding the curtains. When the first series of loud pops cut through the quiet outside, Samson let out an ear piercing howl of fury that sent tremors down my spine. Inside, the wolf let out a pitiful whine, wanting nothing more than to find a hole to crawl into and hide.
Samson’s hand disappeared from the window when another volley of shots rang out, each one making me jump.