His body reacted with a twitch of understanding that was visceral. Tess had tucked that sadness so deep inside of her, he was witnessing only its tip.
“Go to hell,” she said.
She tried to shove him back, but was trapped.
“Promise me what I’ve asked for, and I’ll let you go,” Jonas said.
“I can’t do that. Won’t.”
“Because you’re too proud to admit what happened here, or because you have a stubborn streak?”
Flashes of defiance raced through her blue eyes, but she unwaveringly held his gaze. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t untangle himself from the sensations rushing over him. Lust, greed and hunger were all there, piling up. But there was also something else nagging at his consciousness that was at the moment misty and ill-defined.
Jonas had to force himself to speak. “Time is what I need. Then I’ll be gone and out of your life.”
Her lips parted as though she was going to challenge that statement, but no words came out. Reluctant to lose the eye contact that made him so interested in what lay behind those eyes, Jonas finally dropped his gaze to her mouth.
What would Tess Owens, werewolf hunter, taste like? He wondered if anyone had tried to find out.
If she rarely showed up in town, what were the odds she’d have a lover? Given what she did for a living and the secrets she kept, what kind of normal man could handle her or her choices? This could be the cause of her sadness. Tess was lonely.
Actually, he decided, a wolf would have been the better choice for someone like her, if the world turned on a different axis. If Gwen hadn’t been waiting for him, and if he hadn’t set himself up as his sister’s protector, he might have desired a lot more time with Tess Owens. As the only person in South Dakota who also knew about him, they might have been friends in some parallel universe. They might even have been lovers.
His body liked that idea. Both man and wolf sincerely appreciated the thought.
Tess’s lips moved again, keeping his attention there. He wasn’t allowing her much room to breathe, so either she was trying to take in air or a new protest had gotten lodged in her throat.
“What issues brought you here?” she eventually asked. “What are you escaping from?”
“That’s personal.”
“Maybe you just made it up to play on my sympathy,” she suggested.
Jonas liked the way her mouth moved. He liked the way Tess smelled. Again though—and a tough reminder here—they were, for all intents and purposes and according to Tess, enemies.
“Still waiting,” he said without easing up on the pressure that pinned her to the rock.
“If it’s a promise for me to turn my back, then you’ll wait a very long time,” she returned.
Jonas swore under his breath. Niceness wasn’t getting him anywhere.
“What you need,” he started to say, almost giving in to the impulse to tell her about Lycans and Miami and about his gig as a cop. But there was an interruption in the form of a sound that didn’t belong to the reasonably intimate moment he and Tess were sharing.
And Jonas knew without a doubt what that sound was, and who had made it.
* * *
Tess was screwed and hated to admit it.
She waited for death, knowing there was no one to mourn her and that not one soul would realize she’d been gone for some time.
This was not okay. It sucked. And yet here she was, pressed tightly to the body of a werewolf who had shown her both sides of himself in a matter of minutes and who had drawn the better hand in this game.
Not necessarily the winning hand, though.
She was a fighter, and not fully onboard with giving up. When the bare-chested werewolf, who was way too human at the moment, lifted his head and tore his attention away from her to tune in to a sound she barely heard, Tess stiffened in reaction. Without his eyes on her, she felt colder and even more alone.
Those reactions made no sense.
She saw that he was irritated by whatever he had heard in the distance. After tossing another glance over his shoulder at the moonlit field behind him, his attention returned to her.
His expression registered his disappointment over the timing of this potential interruption in their strange getting-to-know-each-other session. She, on the other hand, wanted to cheer and would have shouted to whoever was out there if the man pressed against her wasn’t a monster masquerading as a man.
When she felt the urge to speak, the wolf in human skin held up a warning finger. Then he did a strange thing. Leaning closer, he brushed his lips over her cheek—a surprising move that sent her insides skittering. One quick, light touch. The cunning bastard smelled like pine.
He didn’t bite her or break her neck. Nor did he shift to his scarier form. After that touch, he backed up and pulled her forward until she stood on her own. Then he nodded to her. His eyes never left hers. It seemed to Tess as though he was attempting to send her a message and willing her to keep her mouth shut.
What had he seen or heard out there?
Who was coming?
Why am I shaking?
Tess had to gather herself if she had any chance here. She closed her eyes and sent more of her senses outward, hoping to discover what had disturbed the Were because she couldn’t afford to be caught like this any more than he could. Hell, she was in possession of a bloody knife and a quiver of silver-tipped arrows. What kind of picture did that paint?
The Were turned. He took a few steps, daring to keep his back to her, leaving her the opening she had waited for. The knife was in her hand before her next big breath. She readied for the attack.
Before she could make that move, he said, “Trust me, Tess. Leave now. Go home. What’s out there isn’t something you’ll want to face tonight.”
And then he took off running.
Tess stared after the Were’s retreating form for a few ticks of her internal clock before following him. In the pit of her stomach, she knew he had been upset by whoever this intruder was and that whatever was out there presented another kind of threat.
Since she had detected nothing in the periphery, she had no idea what that might be. Nor could she imagine what could be more dangerous to her, more lethal, than a Lycan with a jump on the human hunting him.
He ran like the wind, covering ground as if he actually was a wolf with four legs, instead of two. Tess knew she couldn’t catch up. Nevertheless, she wasn’t ready to give up. Not after the strange encounter with this Were that had set the hunter’s rulebook on its ass.
The werewolf had let her go. Not only that, he had tried to reason with her. He had issued a warning, presumably in an attempt to save her some future grief over whatever that other thing out there turned out to be.
His thought had been to help. What kind of werewolf wanted to protect the hunters who came after them? This one had told her he wasn’t one of the bad guys, but again, weren’t they all bad? Every last one of them? Weren’t they, by definition, monsters, or was there something she didn’t know, proving that her education was indeed sorely lacking, as this wolf had warned?
No time to ponder that...
She was geared up and anxious to find out what had made that wolf turn