“And tell them what? There’s no sign of a break in. I know that someone was here, but I can’t prove it.” The hair on her arms stood up.
Apparently she’d stumbled on something with all of her questions, and somebody was very interested in finding out what she’d learned. Unfortunately, so far, she hadn’t learned anything useful – but whoever broke in to her house didn’t know that.
He shook his head. “You can’t spend the night here by yourself. Come home with me.”
A night under the same roof with him? Forget it. She was already struggling with her conflicted feelings and her desire to rip his clothes off. She’d just about used up all of her self control for the evening.
“No,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I’m a wolf.”
“And I’m a bear,” he said, exasperated. “Lots of shifters are bigger than wolves. What if someone like me broke in?”
“I’d call the police. Then I’d shift and run very fast.”
“I’m not leaving until you come with me.”
She put her hands on her hips. “I said no, and I meant it. Thank you for dinner and for checking my house for me, now go home.”
“Stubborn redhead,” he growled.
“Obnoxious bear.”
“I’m sitting outside and waiting for you until you come with me.”
“Go ahead then,” she shrugged.
He turned and huffed out of the house, and got in his car with a slam of the door.
She showered and changed into her pajamas, feeling badly that he was sitting out in his car, but there was no way she was inviting him in. The living room couch was tiny, which meant the only place that he could sleep would be on the bed, and no way, jose. And she’d told him to go home. He could leave at any time.
She went to sleep, tossing and turning.
Then, around midnight, it started to rain in earnest.
Chapter Seven
When thunder cracked through the air, Coral relented. She scrambled out of bed, raced to the front door, and flung it open. Water poured from the sky as if angels had turned on a million spigots all at once. Jagged lines of lightning slashed the night sky. She hollered “Come in already, you big stubborn bear!”
He raced through the yard in the drenching rain, but even in the short dash to her front door, he was soaked.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he smirked, as she slammed the door shut against the gusting downpour.
He stood in her entryway with water dripping in pools on the floor, and began unbuttoning his shirt.
“What are you doing?” Coral squawked in alarm. Not naked. He couldn’t get naked in front of her! How much willpower was one woman supposed to have? Coral couldn’t walk past an innocent chocolate mousse torte without molesting it, and she was supposed to resist a naked Flint McCoy?
“I’m going to give you my clothes to dry,” he said, eyes wide and innocent. “You wouldn’t want me to catch a cold, now, would you?”
“I…I don’t have anything for you to wear!” she protested.
He peeled the shirt off and handed it to her. She tried hard not to look. His body was so perfect, he looked like a super-sized version of a Greek statue. His burly arms could have snapped a redwood like a twig. Each square of the six pack on his abs stood out in perfect relief. He had a dusting of dark brown hair on his chest, and a treasure trail running from his navel down below his pants, which he was unbuttoning.
Coral looked away, holding the dripping wet shirt.
“What, you’ve never seen a naked man before?”
“I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said huffily.
She’d seen naked men before. Not one of them had made her feel the way she was feeling right that moment. She felt as if liquid fire were pooled in her belly and running hot through her veins. She could feel her sex pulsing with each heartbeat, yearning to be filled.
“I know you city shifters don’t tend to get nekkid in front of each other,” he said cheerfully, stripping off his pants and boxers in one swift motion. She could barely see out of the corner of her eye, but what she could see was magnificent. And erect. Damn it. He certainly was proportional. She wondered if he’d fit inside her, quite literally. He might actually be too big. Not that she planned on finding out.
“No, we don’t tend to shift and go dashing through the streets of New York,” she said. “But New York only has like a ten percent population of shifters anyway. We usually go up to places in Connecticut or upstate New York when we want to get our wolf on. It’s kind of a weekend thing. And we have piles of clothing waiting for us in changing rooms when we return.”