Even now, almost three thousand miles away and possibly facing banishment from his pack, Jake still tasted Tia on his tongue, still felt the hot, wet pulsation as her clenching pussy grabbed his fingers. Jake’s body tightened with the memory. His nostrils flared.
Then shame won out. His cock quieted. The air whooshed out of his lungs.
Tia’d been damned generous with her body, willing to take each man in the pack without hesitation. Only Jake had fucked things up, shifting from man to wolf in mid-thrust, planning to catch her unaware with his wolven cock.
Figuring in some convoluted corner of his horny brain that if he tied with Tia, if he took her as his mate while in wolven form, she’d be his. She’d bond with him, not Luc, and become Jake’s mate for life. Like it was that simple? Like Tia didn’t have a brain and feelings and wasn’t already head over heels in love with Lucien Stone?
Jake felt like a damned fool. He’d risked everything to tie with the only female Chanku shapeshifter any of them had ever known.
Fortunately, Tia had been faster and Luc’s aim was off, or Jake’s story would have been all she wrote. When Luc had shifted to wolf and gone for Jake’s throat, he’d gotten a mouthful of fur along with his hunk of Jake’s flesh. Otherwise, Jake wouldn’t be standing here at Logan Airport, looking for a cab.
Feeling like a total jerk, remembering.
Nope. He would’ve been dead.
Shannon turned off the shower, rubbed lotion over her arms and legs, then wrapped one fluffy towel around her dripping mass of hair and another around her body. She stepped out of the bathroom in a billowing cloud of steam.
She wasn’t alone. “Richard, I meant it when I asked you to leave.”
The man sitting with his back to her stood up. It wasn’t Richard. No, this man might have his hair cut military short like Richard’s, but there the resemblance ended. Tall and muscular, he filled her bedroom with menace. His eyes were hidden behind expensive dark glasses, his hands encased in black leather gloves. He radiated danger without saying a word.
Tia’s frantic phone call slammed into Shannon’s mind. Was this Tia’s friend? No. Nothing about this man felt right. Shannon took a step back, but strong arms caught her around the waist, lifted her off the ground. A leather clad hand clapped over her mouth. Shannon hadn’t even seen the second man standing beside the bathroom door.
Frantic, she twisted and bucked against his ironlike grip, kicking at jeans-covered shins with her bare feet. Her right hand came free. Shannon raked her fingernails along a sturdy forearm.
“Son of a bitch.”
The man shook her so hard her teeth rattled. Her towel fell off her hair, spilling down over her eyes, blinding her. The towel around her torso slipped and twisted around her body, tangling in the man’s gloved hands.
Shannon tried to take advantage of her attacker’s compromised grip, but the first man grabbed her ankles and quickly taped them together. Still wriggling and twisting for all she was worth, Shannon was dumped unceremoniously on her belly on the rumpled bed. With two large men holding her down, she could barely move. One bound her hands tightly behind her back, almost dislocating her shoulders.
Then he flipped her over, but before she could get a good look, another strip of tape went over her eyes. The last strip covered Shannon’s mouth, leaving barely enough room for her to breathe.
Shannon sucked air through her nose. It wasn’t enough! Panic gave her strength. She bucked and twisted her body as meaty, leather-clad hands grabbed for her. Still wet from her shower, skin slick from lotion, she slipped free of first one set of hands then the other.
She was falling. Sliding off the edge of the bed amid curses and kicks, large hands grabbing at her slippery body with bruising strength, throwing her face down on the bed once more.
Shannon couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see it coming. Had no way to prepare for the knee in the middle of her back and the sharp prick of a needle in her left buttock. Pain blossomed outward from the injection site. She saw stars and flashing lights behind the tape, then felt herself falling, as if from a very high point.
Falling through thick wads of cotton, falling deeper and darker into oblivion.
Jake paid the cabby and got out just down the street from a three story brick apartment building sandwiched in among a row of identical structures. A couple of street lights had burned out, leaving the neighborhood bathed in shadow. He set his leather travel case down and checked the address on the slip of paper barely visible in the low light, then studied his surroundings. Streets in Boston’s North End were notoriously narrow, but this was little more than an alley.
A large black sedan filled the entire lane in front of number twelve. Jake noted its presence, felt a shiver of anticipation along his spine. According to AJ, Ms. Shannon Murphy resided in a two bedroom apartment on the third floor. Jake knew Shannon had been Tia Mason’s roommate for almost ten years, but little else about her. If AJ was right, the woman was quite possibly in danger from the same crooked politician who had gone after Jake’s boss and Tia’s father, Ulrich Mason.
AJ hadn’t told Jake precisely why Mason, and now Ms. Murphy, had been targeted, but he’d dropped one tantalizing bit of information. There was a chance, a very slim chance, Shannon Murphy might carry Chanku genes. Unaware, unawakened, yet potentially Chanku, a shapeshifter just like Tia and the rest of the members of Pack Dynamics.
That alone would have brought Jake to Boston. The fact she could be in danger because she might be Chanku made it imperative he come. Jake smiled grimly into the darkness as a huge weight lifted from his chest. He hadn’t really thought it through before. If Luc had chosen Jake for this assignment, maybe, just maybe, it meant he’d found it in his heart to forgive his longtime friend.
Thank God Ulrich was safe. Jake didn’t know all the details, only that Ulrich had been kidnapped then rescued, all while Jake was racing around the woods of northern California, so fucked up he hadn’t known where to turn. While Jake’s packmates were busy saving their boss’s life, he’d been trying to build up enough courage to go home with his tail tucked between his legs and ask Luc and Tia for forgiveness.
Thank God for AJ’s call. Jake had grabbed this job like a lifeline, a chance to do something for the pack. The more he thought about it, the more Jake wanted to believe this wasn’t an assignment made in retribution, to get him away from Tia. He hoped like hell Luc had decided to give him a chance to atone for his unforgivable behavior.
She might be Chanku.
Or not.
Hell. What a mess.
If only he had a better feel for what Luc really wanted.
Jake shoved the slip of paper into his pocket and pulled the collar of his leather coat up over his ears. He touched the bandage he’d taped over the wound on his throat. The bloody scab looked a lot worse than it felt and he really didn’t want to scare the woman half to death.
He grabbed his bag and started forward, then stopped. Someone was coming down the stairs. Jake slipped back into the shadows and waited.
Two men lugged a large canvas sack between them. It looked like a military duffle bag, filled with something big and obviously heavy. Both men appeared well built, but they grunted with effort as they carried their load to the back of the sedan and set it carefully on the ground.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they had. Or who. Jake quickly stripped his coat off and slipped out of his shoes. He quietly unzipped his pants just enough to slide them down his legs. Cool air raised the hair across his thighs.
One man opened the trunk, then turned to help the other lift the bag. They rolled it into the back and stared into the dark interior for a moment.
Jake’s shirt and boxers landed quietly on the pile beside him.
“You